We prefer to roll deep when it comes to Thanksgiving menus. Mash and roasted root vegetables? No problem. Two different batches of stuffing? Why not? Seitan meatloaf wrapped in seitan bacon... sure, we've considered it. In fact, it is rare to find an inch of empty space on our table. Which is cool of course, except that coming up with hot, new shit every year starts to get puzzling! We do, however, realize that some people are less obsessive and, yes, gluttonous, than us. And for those people, we give you one dish to rule them all - one that boasts the four cornerstones of an all-American Thanksgiving meal all on the same plate: mash, stuffing, root vegetables and cranberry sauce. We even threw beer in there for good measure.

Mashed potatoes, even done perfectly, is an admitted snoozer. We whipped parsnips with garlic oil and almond butter instead and folded a sage-kissed mirepoix into the mash for the crunch of stuffing. Finally, scoops of this two-headed comfort-food beast got dressed with thick drizzles of a cranberry coulis -- reduced with cherry beer. We used a cheap middle-of -the-road kriek: Kasteel Rouge. It's sweet and clean, and very cherry. If you're feeling spendy, any kriek-style beer would do: think Three Philosophers on the dark end, Rodenbach on the 'sour red' side.

All in all, not a bad substitution for the Hungry Man TV dinner!

2 cups kriek-style beer
1 cup water
1/2 cup agave nectar
2 cups fresh cranberries
1 tsp. sea salt

1. Empty your beer into a medium-sized pot. Add water and agave and stir. Put pot on medium heat until it reaches a rolling boil. Then drop in the cranberries and let cook for about 25 minutes, or until most of the berries have popped and liquid has reduced by an inch.

2. Remove cranberries from the heat and pulse with a blender so you have a thoroughly pur