This, fellow cooks, is serious. Whip out your aprons, roll up your sleeves, and prepare to launch Sidesgiving!

As a proud Virginian, let me take a moment to mention that the first Thanksgiving was in Virginia in 1619, which President Kennedy mentioned in his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1963.

Now, so many folks end up complaining that the turkey is, well, dry. But plates are always loaded with the goodies that go with the bird, so let’s just focus on them.

All the accompaniments offer not just a delicious array of flavors and textures, but a variety of the season’s bounty. Think of the colors of fall and you are well on your way to creating a beautiful plate.

We can start with an easy centerpiece; purchase a clear hurricane vase and fill it with mini pumpkins and tiny gourds—voilà, pretty décor for your tablescape. Use varying heights of glass and scatter along the table.

On to the soup, using canned pumpkin and warming spices to serve up a scrumptious pumpkin soup. Serve with an intriguing double pumpkin cornbread topped with pumpkin seeds and slivered red onion.

For the salad, I like a mixture of greens, including radicchio and Belgian endive, in a tangy cranberry vinaigrette. The different shades of green with the red make a tempting presentation.

Sweet potatoes are a must, but let’s not go with marshmallows this year. Try a more sophisticated dish of candied sweet potatoes with bourbon and apple cider. Everyone loves the stuffing—or as we call it in the South, dressing—and a chestnut-cranberry challah stuffing is always a crowd pleaser. For a different take on cranberry sauce, make your own by baking it in the oven! This technique allows the berries to stay whole and is as yummy as it is easy.

Dessert, in my opinion, is actually the point of the meal, so let’s make two! Everyone will want pumpkin spice latte cookies, perfect with after dinner tea or coffee, and of course it uses one of my favorite baking hacks, a cake mix as the base. And we can use a different cake mix to serve up a gorgeous cranberry upside-down Bundt cake—accept all compliments gracefully.

Since Thanksgiving is about abundance, I offer a bonus vegetarian entrée: a date, couscous and cranberry acorn squash bowl. It’s surprisingly simple and since it can be served at room temperature, it frees up oven space too.

Lastly, for late-night snacking, I serve a Thank Goodness It’s Over bruschetta, fast to prepare and a very satisfying nosh as you reflect on how grateful you are to have offered such a tempting meal to those you love, how grateful you are for being surrounded by people who make your world glow. Maybe the fire is just embers now; finish off the wine or cider and remember from Whom these blessings flow.

From our home to yours, wishes for a wonderful Sidesgiving!

Candied Sweet Potatoes With Bourbon and Cider

Serve 8. Adapted from Anthony Bourdain and Laurie Woolever’s Foodandwine.com recipe.

(Source is from a food magazine; I don’t know which one.)

Ingredients:

• 5 tablespoons unsalted vegan butter
• 3 pounds sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1 ½ inch pieces
• ¾ cup packed dark brown sugar
• ¼ cup apple cider
• 3 tablespoons bourbon
• kosher salt

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400 F. Spray a Pyrex or ceramic 9×13-inch baking dish with cooking spray.
2. In a large saucepan of boiling, salted water, blanch sweet potatoes 10 minutes; drain well. Spread them in the prepared baking dish in an even layer.
3. In a small saucepan, melt the vegan butter with the brown sugar, then stir in the cider and bourbon, season with salt to taste, and bring to a boil. Cook over moderately high heat, stirring, 2 minutes.
4. Pour mixture over the sweet potatoes and mix gently to coat.
5. Bake until potatoes are tender and sauce is syrupy, 35-40 minutes.
6. You can prepare this recipe up until baking and refrigerate, covered, overnight. Uncover and bring to room temperature before baking.

Cranberry Compote

Makes 5 cups. Recipe adapted from GourmetMarket.com

Ingredients:

• 24 ounces fresh cranberries
• Finely grated zest of 1 orange and 1 lemon
• 4 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
• scant 2 cups sugar
• ½ cup orange juice

Directions:

Up to 1 week ahead:

1. Heat oven to 350 F. Pick through cranberries to remove stems and bad berries.
2. Combine cranberries, both citrus zests, shallots and sugar in a bowl and mix well.
3. Turn in to 3-quart Pyrex baking dish and drizzle the orange juice over the cranberries. Bake, stirring occasionally, about 30 minutes, until a few berries have popped open and sugar is dissolved.
4. Remove from oven and cool thoroughly; cover and refrigerate.

To serve:

Remove the cranberry compote from the refrigerator early in the day to bring to room temperature.

Dorene Richman has taught cooking classes, written recipe columns, and was the recipe testing coordinator for the original award-winning “Kosher Palette” cookbook. She is a passionate cook and baker for whom cooking is therapy, as well as being a pescatarian, so no meat recipes are featured. For the rest of the above recipes, she can be reached at [email protected]