Not a TWD: Instead, I do some experimenting for Thanksgiving

The only recipe I didn't complete for the month of November was the Chocolate Caramel Chestnut Cake. It looked lovely in the book, but the recipe had a few more steps than I was willing to deal with. This week's host is Britin, who chose the holiday bundt cake I made two weeks ago. Confused? Sorry. We'll be back on track next week.

I have been assigned a side dish and rolls for dinner on Thursday. I went to the source of all things good when it comes to side dishes and let Alton Brown guide me. I chose his green bean casserole, and I gave it a test run last night. There is nary a can in sight in his version. Yes, I know that millions have used this recipe for years. However, I like to cook from scratch as much as possible. Alton's recipe is similar. You make a creamy sauce, add the beans, and then top with crunchy onions. The crunchy onions did give me a bit of trouble. And I grabbed the wrong can of chicken stock and it wasn't low sodium. Regardless of those two little bumps, I really like this one. I'm going to double it and bring it on Thursday.

This is Alton's photo. Had I taken a photo, you would have seen mine looking just as yummy.

I tried making rolls. For some reason, the bread gods are frowning on me this week. I found this recipe. It sounded really good, easy, and versatile. I followed the instructions and instead of dough I got... glop. I added some flour to make it more dough like. It never rose. I baked some anyway to see if they might rise in the oven. Nope. I threw it all away.

Today I tried David Lebovitz's recipe for dinner rolls. This one was in the food processor. Easy! It took F O R E V E R for it to rise. So I stuck that one in the fridge to do an overnight proof/rise. I'll bake them off in the morning and see how they turn out. I did do a test on my yeast. Since neither dough really rose, perhaps my yeast was no good. Nope. It did just fine in a bowl of warm water with a teaspoon of sugar added.

Ah well. I'll keep looking, and hopefully I'll get something good before Thursday. Have a wonderful holiday, all. Enjoy good food. Watch some football if you are so inclined. And (if all is right with the world) celebrate with some good people.

Happy Thanksgiving!