Winter in Segovia: Thanksgiving Recipes

With November here, Halloween has come and gone, and all the other end-of the year holidays are just around the corner! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, New Years, or nothing at all, November can be a bit of a lull in between Halloween and our long-awaited Winter Break- along with all the celebrations which come with it. 

Of course, if you’re from the US, you still have Thanksgiving to look forward to! Away from home, it may be a source of nostalgia for some, but I think that makes it the perfect opportunity to get together and celebrate with our friends in our home away from home. No matter where you’re from, who wouldn’t want to get together for a nice meal with friends? Whether you’re sharing the holiday with your friends, or trying your hand at it for the first time, Thanksgiving (ignoring some of the more problematic historical implications) can be a great opportunity to take a break from coursework, practice your skills in the kitchen, and eat a delicious home-cooked meal with friends!

So, seeing as there are so many restrictions coming into place this weekend, here are a few typical Thanksgiving recipes for you to try, perfect for 4-6 people and all made with ingredients easily found in Sego.

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→ Vegetarian Thanksgiving Stuffing

yield: about 6 servings

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Ingredients: 

• 8 slices of bread (½ a pound)
• ½ a large onion
• 1 carrot
• 4 cloves of garlic
• 1 tablespoon of white wine
• 1 tablespoon of water
• ½ a cup of butter
• 1 ¼ cups of vegetable broth
  • If you’re not vegetarian, you could also use chicken broth instead
• 1 large egg
• ⅓ a cup of parsley (perejil)
• 1 ½ tablespoons of rosemary (romero)
• 1 tablespoon of thyme (tomillo)
• Salt and pepper to taste
• Optional: 
  • Shredded cheese
  • 1 lime

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Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 130℃ (about 250℉)
2. Take your bread and chop into small cubes (about 2.5 cm // 1 in), spreading it out in a large baking sheet.
3. Place it in the oven in order to begin dehydrating it. We’ll leave the bread in until the pieces are crisp and golden-brown, without any softness. 
4. In the meantime, mince your garlic into small pieces, putting it into a saucepan on low heat. Add a tablespoon of white wine, a tablespoon of water, and a squeeze of lime if you’d like. 
5. Let the sauce reduce a bit, stirring constantly on medium heat. Be careful not to let the garlic burn though, or the sauce will be very bitter. 

• As a Puerto Rican, I have a unique mesh of Puerto Rican cuisine alongside typical American holidays and foods. Needless to say, our tables are full on Thanksgiving, but they look nothing like the ones you’ll see in the states. So, I added a small Boricua twist to the stuffing by cooking the garlic similarly to the way we would back home in our salsa al ajillo!

6. Once the garlic’s cooked, set it aside on a bowl large enough to fit all of the ingredients (including our bread)
7. Chop the onion into small pieces (though not as small as the garlic) and set them on the saucepan on low-med heat, letting them cook until they’re semi-translucent, but not brown. Stir occasionally. 
8. Peel the carrot the whole way through, coming up with thin ribbons you’ll then chop into small pieces.
9. Mix the carrots in with the onions and add ⅓ a cup of the butter into the saucepan, letting it melt in the veggies. Stir occasionally, letting them cook until the veggies are soft and they become a bit golden brown.

10. By now the bread should be dehydrated and crunchy, so take it out of the oven carefully and place it in the bowl with the garlic.
11. Increase the heat of your oven to 170 (350). 
12. Once the veggies and butter are cooked, pour them into the bowl with bread and garlic. 
13. Take the parsley, rosemary, thyme and pour them into the bowl as well. 

• You may add some salt and pepper to taste, though this may be unnecessary (especially if using salted butter.)

14. Toss all of the ingredients until they’re mixed together.
15. Now, add ½ a cup of the vegetable, mixing again
16. In a small bowl, take the egg and the rest of the vegetable broth, whisking them together and then pouring it into the large bowl with the rest of the ingredients. 

17. Toss and stir until everything is combined, transferring everything into an oven-safe dish.

• While this isn’t customary, since I wasn’t planning on eating the stuffing with anything else, I poured a little bit of shredded cheese over it before baking. Enough for it to melt down and get a bit of a crunch, but not so much that it weighed down the stuffing. 

18. Cover the dish in tin foil and put it in the oven, baking it for 25 minutes. 
19. Once 25 minutes have passed, remove the foil and bake it for another 15 minutes, or until you’ve achieved an ideal level of crunchiness. 
20. Now just serve and enjoy! 

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→ Baked Mashed Potatoes

yield: about 4 servings

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Ingredients:

• 4 potatoes
• 400 ml of milk
• 2 tablespoons of butter 
• 2 cups of cheese
• 1 tablespoon of parsley (perejil)
• ½ a tablespoon of garlic powder
• 2 tablespoons of chives (cebollinos)

• ½ a tablespoon of cilantro
• Salt and pepper to taste

* For a vegan alternative, skip the bacon, use margarine instead of butter, your choice of unsweetened vegan-friendly milk, and 4 cloves of fresh garlic instead of the powder, sauteeing it for a few minutes in 1 tablespoon of olive oil and 1 tablespoon of water for extra flavor. If you have vegan cheese, feel free to top the dish with it and bake, but if not they’ll be perfectly yummy mashed potatoes regardless!

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Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 170℃ (350℉) and set a large pot of water to boil, adding a pinch of salt.
2. As the water heats up, peel the potatoes and cut them into smaller chunks so they’ll cook through faster
3. Once the water’s boiling, put the potatoes in the pot and cover it with a lid, paying attention to make sure the water doesn’t boil over the sides due to the starch. 

• If this happens, lower the intensity of the stove and stir a little until the foam goes down.

4. Boil the potatoes until they’re tender enough to pass a fork through them with little resistance, but still retain their shape (10-12 minutes). 
5. In the meantime, chop up the bacon into small cubes and cook it on a saucepan at medium-high heat until it’s golden and crunchy. 

• (If you go to carrefour you can buy a pack of pre-cut bacon ;). Feel free to use one or both of the half-packets in your dish! Personally I like using one.) 

6. Now, heat up the milk and butter in a small saucepan until the butter melts.
7. Once the potatoes are fully cooked, drain the water from the pot. 
8. With a potato masher, mash the potatoes, pouring in the mixture of milk and butter gradually until they’re smooth and creamy. 

• The texture of the potatoes is up to you, so if you like them more chunky or dense, add less milk and butter. Conversely, for more of a pureed texture, add more.

9. Mix in the parsley, garlic, most of the bacon (leaving a bit aside) and ⅔ a cup of cheese to the mashed potatoes until it’s melted into them. 
10. Take an oven-safe skillet or mold, pour the mashed potatoes into it, and cover them with the remaining cheese and bacon.
11. Place them in the oven, leaving them in until the cheese has melted over them (7-10 minutes). If you want a bit of a golden crunch to the cheese, leave them in a little longer. 
12. Lastly, sprinkle the chives and cilantro over the potatoes and serve! 

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→ Cinnamon Apple Mug Cake

yield: 1 serving

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Ingredients:

Apple layer: 

• ⅓ a red apple,
• ¼ tablespoon of flour
• 1 ½ tablespoons of brown sugar
• Cinnamon

Cake Batter:

• ¼ a cup of milk
• 2 tablespoons of white granulated sugar
• 2 tablespoons of butter
  • If the butter is unsalted, include a pinch of salt
• ½ tablespoons of brown sugar
• ½ tablespoon of vanilla 
  • If you have pure vanilla extract, use half as much, but in Sego what you’ll typically have is more of a syrupy “Aroma de Vainilla”, so we can use a little more.
• Cinnamon
• Optional:
  • White chocolate
  • Nuts
  • Whipped cream

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Directions: 

1. Combine all the dry ingredients for the cake batter in a small bowl, setting it aside.
2. Microwave the butter in the mug you’ll be using until it’s completely melted.
3. Pour the melted butter into the dry ingredients for the cake batter, along with the milk and vanilla

• Swirl the butter inside the mug to keep the cake from sticking to the edges too much before pouring it into the batter

4. Peel and chop the apple into small cubes.
5. Transfer the apple chunks into the mug, along with the flour, brown sugar, and some cinnamon to taste
6. Mix them together until there’s no dry flower at the bottom of the mug and microwave it until the apples are soft and the sugar and cinnamon have become a caramelized layer around the apples
7. Scoop a small amount of apples out, setting them in a separate bowl,a dn put the mug aside.
8. Mix the cake batter until there are no clumps of sugar or flour left.
9. In this step you may add any nuts, chunks of white chocolate, or extra cinnamon to the cake batter if you want.
10. Pour the cake batter into the mug, but don’t mix it with the apples at the bottom.
11. Microwave the mug cake for 45 seconds to a minute, or until the cake is solid and you can nudge the edges of it with a spoon without any liquid batter spilling through or coming undone. It should have a dense, sponge-like texture. 
12. Top it with the apples you had set aside and some whipped cream or cinnamon if you’d like, though I’d suggest letting it cool a little before doing so, lest the whipped cream immediately melt into the cake. 
13. Enjoy your sweet, quick treat! 

That concludes the Thanksgiving recipes I prepared for you guys! I hope you enjoy trying some of them out and adding your own twist! In the colder weather, these can be a nice and cozy meal to enjoy alone or with friends! Remember that to adjust serving sizes, you can either halve or double the ingredients as many times as you need, just remember to stick to proportions that match the recipes! This isn’t as important for the stuffing or potatoes seeing as a lot of the added ingredients can be adjusted to taste or preference, but for the mug cake the ingredients have to be exactly proportional, if not the texture and flavors will be way off. 

If you make any of these, let us know by tagging us on instagram @ieustork and let us know below if you have any questions! Buen provecho and Happy Thanksgiving from everyone here at The Stork!