Official "Frank DeCaro Show" Must-Make Thanksgiving Recipe #5

Frank’s Pumpkin Cheesecake

Crust:

1 cup graham cracker crumbs

¼ cup soft butter

Filling:

1¼ lbs cream cheese

10 oz. Sour Cream

1 lb. dark brown sugar

2 Tablespoons flour

2 tsps. vanilla

6 eggs

1 tsp. nutmeg

½ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

3 Tablespoons  milk

1 cup canned pumpkin

Butter a 10-inch spring form pan. Double wrap bottom and sides of pan with aluminum foil to keep water out. Mix crumbs and butter well. Press into bottom of pan.

In a large bowl, beat cream cheese, sour cream, brown sugar, flour and vanilla together. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Add nutmeg, salt and cinnamon. Mix well. Add milk and mix well. Add pumpkin and mix well. Pour into spring form pan. Place spring from pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill roasting pan with an inch or two of warm water, so the water comes up to the middle of the wrapped spring form pan. Bake cheesecake for 1¼ hours at 350 degrees. Let cool.

Note: I like to make this cheesecake late the night before I serve it. After about an hour of cooking time, I turn the oven off and leave the cheesecake in the oven with the door slightly ajar overnight. This prevents cracking. Early the next morning, I take the cake out of its water bath, remove the foil, and put the cake, covered in fresh foil, in the refrigerator.

Official "Frank DeCaro Show" Must-Make Thanksgiving Recipe #4

Doria’s Oyster Casserole

2 quarts oysters, drained and rinsed thoroughly

4 tablespoons butter

3 whole scallions, chopped

1/2 pound sliced mushrooms, sliced (I use baby bellas)

1/4 cup flour

1 cup heavy cream

1/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese

1/2 cup bread crumbs (I buy a good loaf of sourdough and tear it into pieces, no more than an inch across.  Keep it bite sized.  I hate store-bought bread crumbs and if you use them in this recipe, you only have yourself to blame.)

White wine

Salt and pepper

Melt about 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet, splash of white wine.

Add the scallions and sauté until they are soft and the wine is reduced.

Add the mushrooms and oysters and sauté for about 5 minutes.  If there is too much liquid, you may have to pour it off, or turn up the heat and reduce it. 

In a separate pan, melt about 2 tablespoons of  butter.

Stir in the flour.

Make sure the flour mix is smooth and then add the cream, and stir until it's thick.

Add the cheese.

Stir the cheese mixture into the oyster mixture.

Add salt and pepper to taste.

Pour the mixture into a greased casserole dish (the one I use is 8 by 11).

Make sure the oysters are evenly distributed about the dish.

Top with the bread crumbs.

Bake until browned and bubbling—about 20 minutes.  I aim for an oven set at about 350...but it's Thanksgiving and there are usually a million other dishes baking at once.  Just keep checking on it and when it looks done, it is.

The consistency of the flour, cheese, oyster mixture will always be more liquid than solid. 

Official "Frank DeCaro Show" Must-Make Thanksgiving Recipe #3

Nana Cupcake’s Turkey Stuffing

• 1 cup  cooked rice
• 1½ lb chopped meat
• 1 large onion
• 2 cloves chopped garlic
• 2 tbsp Italian cheese – Locatelli Romano
• ½ tsp chopped parsley
• 1 cup Italian seasoned bread crumbs
• 4 – 5 eggs
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2 tbsp olive oil

Use large frying pan

Sautee chopped onion in olive oil. Add chopped meat and brown.

Turn off flame.

Add rice, garlic, cheese, parsley salt & pepper

Add beaten eggs

Mix well together with wooden spoon.

Slowly add bread crumbs to a medium consistency.

Over low flame, cook slowly while constantly stirring until eggs are cooked.

Add stuffing to turkey or use in greased casserole and bake for ½ hr at

350 degrees until slightly brown on top.

Official "Frank DeCaro Show" Must-Make Thanksgiving Recipe #2

Mama Cupcake’s Sunday Gravy and Meatballs

(Even though it’s Thanksgiving – We ALWAYS start our dinner with macaroni or lasagna.)

Gravy 

• 1 28oz can crushed tomatoes
• 1 29oz can tomato sauce
• 1 8oz can tomato paste
• 1 med onion
• 2 cloves garlic
• 1 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• ¼ cup red wine
• 1 tbsp  white sugar
• ½ tsp salt – black pepper to taste
• ¼ cup olive oil

In 6 qt Dutch Oven: Over medium flame:

• Crushed Tomatoes

• Add Tomato sauce with I can water (measured in same can)

In Large Frying Pan: (To  be used later to fry meatballs)

• Sautee/Brown Chopped onion and garlic in olive oil. Remove from oil with slotted spoon and add to tomatoes. Put pan and left over oil aside.

Meatballs (Makes about 8 -10 )

• 1lb beef chopped meat
• 2 eggs
• ½ cup Italian seasoned Bread Crumbs
• ¼ cup Lucatelli Romano Italian Cheese
• ¼ cup whole milk
• 1 small finely chopped onion
• 1 clove chopped garlic
• salt and black pepper to taste

Mix all ingredients by hand.  Mixture should not be too loose or too firm. Add breadcrumbs or water to adjust. Shape meatballs and fry in olive oil till brown. Don’t cook all the way through. (This lets the tomatoes soak into the meat while simmering in the gravy.) Pat with paper towel before adding to tomatoes. After meat is done, once cooled, pour out most of olive oil left in frying pan. Add tomato paste and one can of water measured in same can to frying pan. Stir and bring to a light boil. (This adds more of the leftover flavoring from the meat to tomatoes.)  Add paste to gravy. Add wine and sugar to gravy. Let simmer over medium to low heat for  1 to 1 ½ hrs, stirring every 15 min until any oil rises to top. Skim oil before serving over favorite macaroni! J

Official "Frank DeCaro Show" Must-Make Thanksgiving Recipe #1

Fannie Flagg’s Corn Casserole

1 17-ounce can cream-style corn

1 11-ounce can of whole kernel corn, drained

1 8-ounce carton of sour cream

2 eggs, beaten

½ cup butter, melted and cooled

1 8½-ounce box corn muffin mix

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Combine first five ingredients, mixing well. Stir in corn muffin mix. Pour into a greased 12- x 8- x 2-inch baking dish and bake for 45 minutes. Yields 9 to 12 servings.

Frank DeCaro Show Press Release (November 2010)

“THE FRANK DECARO SHOW” SHAKES UP MORNINGS ON SIRIUS XM

Radio and TV personality serves up “Bicoastal Brunch Time Fun;”

 Big-name guests and hilarious banter on the nation’s only 24-hour LGBT station.

NEW YORK, NY (November 2010) – “The Frank DeCaro Show,” broadcast live from New York and Los Angeles from 11 am to 2 pm EST every weekday on SIRIUS XM Satellite Radio, mixes showbiz shenanigans and pop culture malarkey for three-hours of coast-to-cast hilarity on OutQ, America’s LGBT radio station.

Showcasing the outrageous personality and rapid-fire silliness of host Frank DeCaro – a former New York Times columnist best known for his six-and-a-half years as the flamboyant movie critic on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – the “Frank” show is the daily chat-fest that’s “a little light in the woofers.” Now approaching its seventh anniversary, it continues to attract an astounding assortment of quirky guests and has gathered a legion of ardent fans among Sirius XM’s more than 20 million subscribers.

DeCaro and sidekick Doria Biddle, the “Kevin Bacon of lesbian Los Angeles,” who co-hosts from Hollywood, have welcomed such diverse celebrities as Steve Carell, Betty White, Seth Rogen, Tom Ford, Portia De Rossi, Rick Springfield, Denis O’Hare, Marlo Thomas, Clive Owen, Yoko Ono, Nathan Fillion, Martha Plimpton, Lucy Lawless, Cloris Leachman, Lea Michelle, Harry Hamlin, Meredith Baxter, Julie Andrews, Harry Shearer, Dita Von Teese, Susie Essman, Lewis Black, Lily Tomlin, Joan Rivers, Rosie O’Donnell, Samuel L. Jackson,  Bette Midler, Bryan Ferry, Olivia Newton-John, Kevin Bacon, Tracey Ullman, Neil Patrick Harris, Martha Stewart, Kristin Chenoweth, Rainn Wilson, Charo, Jud Apatow, Emmylou Harris, Jerry Springer, Andy Richter, Alan Cumming, Michael C. Hall, John Waters, and five of the original Munchkins.

The show’s popular “Dial-An-Icon” segment has showcased such pop culture personages as Kim Novak, Rita Moreno, Lynda Carter, Nancy Sinatra, Joan Collins, David Cassidy, Tippi Hedren, Valerie Harper, Penny Marshall, Cindy Williams, Barbara Eden, Adam West, Carol Channing, Butch Patrick, George Takei, and the casts of such TV series as “The Golden Girls,” “The Brady Bunch,” “The Facts of Life” and “The Addams Family.”

Author of the critically lauded memoir A Boy Named Phyllis and the fashion biography Unmistakably Mackie, Frank DeCaro has been a columnist for The New York Times and a consulting editor for Martha Stewart Living. On television, DeCaro has appeared on numerous programs including 40 episodes of the game show I’ve Got a Secret. His 2010 video “Betty White Lines” was a YouTube sensation, receiving more than 150,000 hits. Producer and co-host Doria Biddle has written for the popular animated series Rugrats and Recess, and offered her slyly funny commentary on various talking-head shows.

Contact: Hillary Schupf at 212-901-6739 at Sirius, or Hillary.Schupf@SiriusXM.com.

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