Classic side-dish recipes to treasure for post-Harvey Thanksgiving

Photo: Julie Soefer

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Grandmother's Favorite Dressing made using a recipe from the Houston Chronicle's archives. Styled by Carla Buerkle.

Photo: Julie Soefer

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Green Beans Oregano made using a recipe from the Houston Chronicle's archives. Styled by Carla Buerkle.

Photo: Julie Soefer

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Cherry Brandy Mincemeat Mold made using a recipe from the Houston Chronicle's archives. Styled by Carla Buerkle.

Photo: Julie Soefer

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Ann Criswell's Pumpkin Cheesecake made using a recipe from the Houston Chronicle's archives. Styled by Carla Buerkle.

Photo: Julie Soefer

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One-Hour Rolls made using a recipe from the Houston Chronicle's archives. Styled by Carla Buerkle.

Photo: Julie Soefer

Lisa Kudchadker DeViney keeps thinking about her grandmother's Thanksgiving recipes. Written on index cards, they were placed in an envelope tucked inside her copy of "The Joy of Cooking."

Where that cookbook is now, she's not sure. After DeViney's Meyerland home flooded during Hurricane Harvey, friends helped her family - she and husband Darrick have three children - pack up what they could. Some belongings went into a storage facility, others were packed in boxes and sent home with friends who agreed to hold on to them until the DeVineys are able to move back in. That might be three more months from now.

"I have no clue if they survived," DeViney said of the treasured recipes for Thanksgiving staples such as cornbread dressing, cranberry relish and giblet gravy. "We'll find out when we unpack."

DeViney is one of thousands of people throughout Greater Houston who won't be able to enjoy their traditional Thanksgiving routines because their homes were damaged and their kitchens ruined. The floodwaters washed away cookbooks, recipes and, for many, generations of memories invested in handwritten instructions for pulling together the most important meal of the year.

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The loss of cherished recipes is a raw reminder of Harvey's destruction.

"It just doesn't feel like the holidays, to be honest," said Danna Lynde, whose Memorial home took on 6½ feet of water in the post-Harvey flooding. That water sat for two weeks.

"It's gone. All gone," she said. "I lost all my favorite knives, my cookbooks, my blender and coffee makers, and stuff like my grandmother's rolling pin. I'm crushed over it. I also had several of her pie pans. They're gone."

So, too, are the handwritten recipes from both of Lynde's grandmothers. "My mom said she may have one copy. Everyone's trying to find copies for me," she said.

Ann Criswell understands and sympathizes with those who lost family recipes. She's a great believer in the living recipe. Which is why, as the Houston Chronicle's food editor from 1966 to 2000, Criswell packed the newspaper's food section with recipes, especially at Thanksgiving, when heirloom recipes were the most requested.

"I am a real traditionalist about Thanksgiving," said the now-retired Criswell. "As food editor, we repeated recipes every year along with an hour-by-hour schedule worked out by my husband because readers asked for those recipes. If anyone cooks, especially newlyweds, it's usually at Thanksgiving. I don't recall anyone ever asking for kale salad, starfruit soufflé or any other current 'celebrity' food. Readers seemed to be more adventurous at Christmas, but at Thanksgiving it was turkey and dressing, that ubiquitous green bean casserole, mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, yeast rolls and pumpkin and/or pecan pie."

Those classic recipes - Criswell's most requested Thanksgiving Day favorites - are especially welcome this year as a traditional taste of home in a post-Harvey city.

Lynde is trying to put a positive spin on her predicament of cooking without her recipes in an unfamiliar kitchen in a rental townhouse. "I know that we're blessed, but I'd be lying if I told you I wasn't missing my familiarity and comfort," she said. "We'll be fine and we'll be together, but it's strange - that comfort is gone."

DeViney, meanwhile, is hoping that "Joy of Cooking" is in a box somewhere that her friends packed. This year her family's Thanksgiving dinner will probably take place at Luby's or Cracker Barrel, she said.

"But we're all going to be together. Twenty years from now my kids will have a good story to tell."

***

Grandmother's Favorite Dressing

Makes 11 to 12 cups

Note: This recipe is a combination of Ann Criswell's great-grandmother and Lady Bird Johnson's recipes for cornbread dressing - a Texas classic.

1 quart each: day-old bread crumbs, crumbled cornbread and crumbled biscuits

1 cup chopped onion

1 cup chopped celery

¼ cup chopped green onions (white and green parts)

¼ cup finely chopped fresh parsley

1½ teaspoons sage

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

2 to 4 cups (or more if needed) defatted turkey or chicken broth

½ cup melted butter or margarine

2 eggs, slightly beaten

Instructions: In a large bowl, combine bread crumbs, cornbread, biscuits, onion, celery, parsley, sage, salt and pepper. Toss well. Add broth, butter and eggs. Mix well but toss lightly. Mixture should be extra moist, just this side of soupy.

Dressing can be stuffed in turkey or poured into a large, buttered baking dish. Place in 350-degree oven for about 30 minutes or until golden brown on top.

Green Beans Oregano

Makes 10 to 12 servings

6 cups fresh green beans (frozen may be substituted)

6 to 8 slices crisply cooked low-sodium bacon

2 (10¾-ounce) cans condensed cream of mushroom soup

2 (3-ounce) cans sliced mushrooms, drained

½ envelope onion soup mix

¼ to ½ teaspoon crushed oregano

Instructions: Cook beans in unsalted water until crisp-tender. Drain. Save 2 or 3 slices bacon for garnish; crumble remaining 4 or 5 slices. In a large bowl, mix beans with crumbled bacon, condensed soup, mushrooms, soup mix and oregano. Refrigerate overnight to allow flavors to blend (very important). Bake in a 3-quart casserole dish in preheated 350-degree oven 30 to 40 minutes.

Cherry Brandy Mincemeat Mold

Makes 10 to 12 servings

2 3-ounce packages cherry-flavored gelatin

2 cups boiling water

1½ cups ice-cold water

¼ cup brandy or kirsch (clear cherry brandy)

½ cup chopped pecans

2 cups ready-to-use mincemeat

Whipped cream (optional)

Instructions: Dissolve gelatin in boiling water. Stir in cold water and brandy. Measure ½ cup gelatin and pour into a 6-cup mold. Chill until firm. Chill remaining gelatin until syrupy and slightly thickened. Fold pecans and mincemeat into slightly thickened gelatin. Spoon into mold on top of firm gelatin. Chill until firm. Unmold and garnish with whipped cream.

Note: In testing the recipe for 2017, we used rum instead of brandy and cranberry-flavored gelatin instead of cherry.

One-Hour Rolls

Makes about 2 dozen

2 cakes compressed yeast or 2 envelopes active dry yeast

¼ cup warm water (85 degrees for compressed yeast, 110 degrees for dry yeast)

1½ cups buttermilk, heated to lukewarm

¼cup sugar

½ cup melted shortening or oil

1 teaspoon salt

4½ cups enriched all-purpose flour

½ teaspoon baking soda

Butter

Instructions: Dissolve yeast in warm water in small bowl. In a medium bowl, combine buttermilk, sugar, shortening and salt. Sift flour and soda into a large bowl. Pour yeast mixture into buttermilk mixture, then add to flour. Mix well. Let stand 10 minutes.

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Roll out dough and cut into desired shapes. Melt some butter in bottom of a baking pan. Place rolls in pan, turning each over to butter the top. Let stand 30 minutes. Bake 10 to 12 minutes. Serve warm from the oven.

Ann Criswell's Pumpkin Cheesecake

Makes 10 to 12 slices

Crust (recipe follows)

4 (8-ounce) packages cream cheese, softened (can use reduced-fat)

¼ cup firmly packed brown sugar

3 eggs

2 tablespoons flour

1 (30-ounce) can pumpkin pie mix (see note)

¼ cup chopped pecans or walnuts

Maple syrup

Pecans and whipped cream (or mixture of whipped topping and nonfat vanilla yogurt) for garnish

Instructions: Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Make crust. Unwrap cheese and place in a microwave-safe dish. Soften cheese in microwave at medium (50 percent) power 2 minutes. Beat cheese in large bowl until fluffy. Gradually add sugar. Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Gradually add flour and pumpkin pie mix. Blend well and stir in pecans. Pour into crust.

Bake 1 hour and 45 minutes, or until center feels firm when touched. Cool in pan on wire rack. Carefully run a sharp knife around edges to loosen sides so cheesecake will not crack on top. Brush top with maple syrup or pour as much as desired on top of the cheesecake. Chill completely. Remove sides of pan. When ready to serve, garnish with pecans and whipped cream.

Note: To substitute canned pumpkin for pumpkin pie mix, use 1 (16-ounce) can pumpkin, increase sugar to 1½ cups, use 5 eggs, use ¼ cup flour and add 2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice.

Crust

¾ cup graham cracker crumbs

3 tablespoons melted butter or margarine

1 teaspoon cinnamon

2 tablespoons firmly packed brown sugar

3 tablespoons chopped pecans or walnuts (optional)

Instructions: Grease a 9-inch springform pan or coat with nonstick cooking spray. Combine crumbs, butter, cinnamon, sugar and pecans. Line bottom and partly up sides of pan; refrigerate until ready to add filling.

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