A Tropical Thanksgiving

A TROPICAL THANKSGIVING

Many of us love to follow long established family traditions by never varying our holiday menu.  I always yearned to try new recipes. I learned how to do this without compromising "the family tradition" by incorporating the new recipes into the traditional menu that my family loved.  It was not a matter of "let's eat this instead of that" but more like "Mom, if you want to try it ok, but don't forget to cook the usual".

Through the years, our holiday menu would grow and grow and if I decided one year to arbitrarily banish a certain dish from the list, the cries of "Oh, no!   You forgot to make the oyster pie (really delicious!) or whatever, this year!" were heard loud and clear!

I have always been thankful that I was blessed with children that were quite adventuresome in their tastes and would eat almost anything put in front of them!

Since moving to Hawaii I have loved to experiment with local produce and products and adapt some of my own and other more traditional recipes, making them a bit more "local style" or take "local style" recipes and tweak them just a bit to adapt to a more traditional taste!

Here is one of my favorites that I would like to share with you.

Happy Thanksgiving!

TROPICAL STUFFING OR DRESSING  
This innovative stuffing recipe was adapted from one found on the Internet. Serves 12 - 14

1 loaf (16 oz.) bread
1 can (15 oz.) pineapple chunks in juice, drained
1 cup chopped celery
1 small onion, diced
1 can (8 oz.) sliced water chestnuts, drained
1/2 cup coarsely ground macadamia nuts, toasted
1/2 cup golden raisins
1 1/2 teaspoon sage
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/8 teaspoon pepper
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups poultry stock or broth

Cut bread into 1 inch cubes. Place in a large bowl. Add pineapple, celery, onion, water chestnuts, macnuts and raisins. Set aside. In a small bowl, stir seasonings with stock. Pour stock evenly over dry ingredients and mix
until all dry ingredients are wet.

To stuff a turkey: Fill main turkey cavity and neck cavity with stuffing. Bake remaining dressing in a dish as outlined below.  If you prefer not to use as stuffing, use a larger oven pan or baking dish and follow the rest of the instructions as shown below.  You will need to adjust time and check for doneness if using a larger pan.

To bake dressing in pan: Preheat oven to 350oF.   Butter a 15 x 10 inch baking dish. Transfer dressing to prepared dish. Cover with buttered foil and bake until heated through, about 45 minutes. Uncover and bake until top is golden brown, about 15 minutes.

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(c) Sonia Martinez - Come Join the Feast! column in the Hawaii Tribune-Herald of Hilo - November 26, 2002