Sunday Night Supper: Mini-Thanksgiving

At first, it was just roasted chicken and mashed potatoes. But then we added some Brussels sprouts. And some roasted butternut squash with sage and thyme. Lo and behold — we had a mini-Thanksgiving on our hands:

Best part? We did the whole meal in just a little over an hour. Think about it. If you’re having 6 people or less for Thanksgiving — this is all you really have to do.

The only thing that took longer than an hour was brining the chickens. We started that about four hours before. Then as we were preheating the oven to 450, I took them out of the brine and squeezed the juice of a lemon over most of the skin, then threw the two halves in the cavity. I stuck some rosemary and thyme in there, too, and put a few stalks under the wings and legs. I started the chix breast down in a roasting pan with a V-rack. I set the timer for 20 minutes.

Once those suckers were in the oven, we put some pre-diced pancetta in a braising pan with some water. (Fabulous invention, by the way, this pancetta. I could never cube it so small myself.) As the water heats up, it starts the pancetta cooking and releasing some of the pork fat into the pan. While that’s going, cut the Brussels in half. Once there’s a nice amount of fat and most of the water has evaporated, I put the brussels sprouts in. I covered the pan and let them steam a bit, then one they were a little cooked and all the water was gone, I put them cut side down to caramelize in the pan.

Meanwhile, I put some butter in a pan to melt and then peeled and diced a butternut squash into 1-inch chunks. You can also buy squash already peeled and diced if you want to save even more time. I put the diced squash in a big bowl, and I roughly chopped some sage and thyme.

About now, the 20 minute timer went off, so I flipped the two birds (ha ha) onto their sides. I set the timer for another 20 minutes.

By the time I was done dicing the squash and chopping the herbs, the butter was getting nice and brown. I sprinkled some salt and brown sugar on the squash, gave it a toss with the herbs, then added the butter and gave it another toss. I emptied the bowl onto a sheet pan and put it underneath the chicken.

About half an hour later, after I tossed it a couple of times, it looked like this:

So now it’s been about 45 minutes. I put some Yukon Gold potatoes in a pan and covered them with water. I brought it to a boil. By the time the water was boiling, it was about time to flip the birds again. I turned them to their other sides.

By now, it’s cocktail time and my guests have arrived. Hello guests!

We shook up some Satan’s Whiskers for the kids. For hors d’oeuvres, we had some nuts, olives and Lisa’s goat cheese with fig jam:

While we were enjoying our drinks, I flipped the birds one last time so they were now breast up. I turned the oven down to 350 and stuck a thermometer in the thigh set to 160. The potatoes had been boiling for about 15 minutes by now, and they were soft but not completely fork-tender, so I shut the water off. They would continue to cook. In the little pan where I had melted the butter, I warmed some milk.

When the thermometer went off, I took the birdies out to rest on the cutting board.

Yum. While they were resting, I warmed up the Brussels sprouts and then squash. I drained the potatoes, threw in some butter and mashed them with a masher. I splashed some milk in there.