Pleasants Holiday Cooking Essentials Guide

If you’ve been looking at your calendar, you know what’s coming soon. The holiday season is heralded in as a time of celebration and feasting. That means it’s time for cooking… and lot’s of it. Thankfully, with Pleasant’s Holiday Cooking Essentials Guide, we give you some holiday cooking essentials that you’ll want to make sure you have for this year’s festivities.

Delicious Apple Cider

Nothing quite captures the nostalgic coziness of the chilly months as much as cider does. Here at Pleasant’s, we carry Amish Wedding Foods’ Apple Cider from Troyer’s Country Market including Blackberry, Peach, and Apple Cinnamon flavors. The taste of cider is a delectable beverage on its own but you don’t have to stop there. Heat some apple cider on the stove to make for a drink that will warm you down to your toes.

Old-Fashioned Jams and Butters

Amish Wedding Foods also offers great-tasting jams and butters perfect for the holidays. The Christmas Jam (arriving soon) brings strawberries and cranberries into delicious combination. The fruit butters come in a wide variety of seasonal offerings including Pumpkin and Sweet Potato Butter. Plus, you’re going to want to try the Pecan Pumpkin Butter made with ripe pumpkin, premium pecans, and classic spices give this spread its prize-winning flavor. Taste for yourself why these jams and butters are essential to your holiday cooking.

Cast Iron Cooking Wares

A definite essential to holiday cooking is having the right cookwares on hand for the dishes you want to make. Cast iron can be a great way to go as it cooks more evenly than its aluminum competition. And you can use oven-safe cast iron for a variety of dishes from casseroles and cornbread to desserts. Our favorite brand is Lodge Cast Iron with a whole lineup of sizes and shapes to choose from.

It’s All About the Bird

Frequently referred to as Turkey Day, Thanksgiving means that it is time for you to show off your skills. Turkey is not only popular for its designated annual holiday, it also takes center stage to every other celebration during this time of year. To help, you’ll want to try Zatarain’s Cajun Injector Creole Butter, Lemon Butter Garlic, or Creole Garlic injectable marinades.

While some side dishes can slip below the radar if casually done, the turkey is the main event. Having the proper tools for the job are essential for getting this bird just right.

Cooking a Great Turkey

Whether your visiting friends and family are licking their lips at the thought of a plate of juicy turkey or dreading the choking dryness of a poorly-cooked bird may well depend on whether you decide to cook, fry, or smoke your turkey.

Getting a turkey fryer is well-known to produce a better tasting turkey than the traditional cooking method. You can avoid the only downside of the potential health risks of oil high in all the wrong fats by coupling this fryer with the Wildlife Seasonings Frying Oil, which is high in monounsaturates and low in polysaturates, to ensure the healthiest, best-tasting bird this Thanksgiving.

Another way to take your turkey up a notch is with the Big Green Egg. Whether you’re looking to bake, smoke, or roast your turkey, Big Green Egg is always a crowd-pleasing option that infuses good flavor.

We hope this list makes your holiday cooking easier and more enjoyable. We know how stressful this season can be, but we want to help anyway we can. Any of our staff at our locations are here to help answer your questions and help kick off the holidays with helpful tips.