Thanksgiving is nothing without the side dishes and Ina Garten has all the vegetable side recipes small-scale Thanksgiving might require. The meal plan she’s sharing post-by-post on Instagram starts with Haricots Verts with Hazelnuts and Dill. The haricots verts (aka French string beans) are blanched and sauteed in butter before being topped with roasted hazelnuts and fragrant dill (per Food Network). Sounds like things are off to a good start, right?
Next, Ina moves on to a little sweet heat with Chipotle Smashed Sweet Potatoes. In her post, Garten says, “It’s a classic but with a chipotle and maple twist.” Aside from maple syrup and canned chipotle peppers, the only other ingredients in this simple recipe are sweet potatoes, milk, cream, butter, salt, and pepper; roast the potatoes until tender, then just mash them together with the remaining ingredients.
So — let’s recap. Something green? Check. Sweet potatoes? Check. Regular potatoes? Yep! Just because it’s a Micro Thanksgiving, that doesn’t mean Ina’s about to shortchange anyone on starch. Her lineup includes a Potato-Fennel Gratin which her site says is just thinly sliced potatoes mixed with sauteed onion and fennel, baked in a sauce of cream and Gruyere cheese. Ina notes in her post that this dish can be made ahead of time and baked before dinner. As the Barefoot Contessa says, “How easy is that?”
