Gourmet: Home Cooking
For Love and Comfort
Becky Nichols prepares a bountiful meal for the holiday.
By Joelle Pearson
Photos by Megan Beneski
Becky Nichols raps her fist solidly on a powdery pink cabinet displaying snickerdoodles and almond cookies. A vintage display case like this must have taken some dedicated scouting to find.
“No, no,” she laughs. “I built this. I’m not the type to wait for someone else to do it for me. I’d rather just make it myself.”
Deft and determined, Nichols is the owner of bountiful bakeries, with locations in Westlake and Bee Cave. The endeavor has been very successful. Now, it works hand in hand with Nichols’ nonprofit, The Loving Libbie Memorial Foundation, which provides support for children living with cancer in the Austin and surrounding areas.
You don’t have to attend culinary school to create blissful confections. Nichols is proof. Formerly, she worked as tile setter, then in office support, then in restaurants and, eventually, for her own catering business, which she suspended after her late daughter, Libbie, was born and diagnosed with a rare form of leukemia. After Libbie passed, she channeled her grief in to Bountiful, a place she feels embodies her daughter’s spirit.
“Bountiful was created to be a comfort to me,” Nichols says. “I didn’t know it would become that for others, too. … I feel very fortunate.”
About the Holiday Feast
If you’re short on time, bountiful offers full turkey dinners at Thanksgiving and Christmas for those who do not claim cooking as a forte.
“We’re all pretty mean cooks here, and these recipes came from our homes,” Nichols explains.
Her staff is almost exclusively women, some of whom have been with her since week one. The holidays mean family, and family is comfort. For her, holiday foods, relationships and memories are woven together tightly, and she uses her foods to parlay that warmth.
The dishes are simple, more like staples and less like signatures. “We don’t have any truffle oil here,” Nichols laughs. However, the staples in bountiful’s turkey dinners are perfected versions of what most people crave during the holidays: cornbread stuffing, golden gravy, mashed potatoes, casseroles and pies. Though pre-cooked holiday meals are neither novel nor scarce, Nichols finds that every year, the demand for hers keeps rising.
“The intention in which the food is made is absolutely the most important ingredient in any recipe, bar none. I think in other places, there are people who love the food, but,” Nichols leans in to whisper, “I think we do it better.”
After sampling a complex-looking “magic bar” from her cabinet, a smooth marriage of soft chocolate chips and buttery graham with finishing hints of coconut that left me awestruck, this writer attests, you will feel the love.
Bountiful’s patrons help spread these comforts. From the beginning, the bakery has donated many turkey dinners to the patients and families of patients being treated at the Dell Children’s Blood and Cancer Center who might not otherwise get a holiday turkey dinner. The number grows each year. Nichols never turns a family away.
“The answer is always yes,” she says. “As long as we’ve got the production going, it’s yes. We’re in there literally elbow to elbow making all of it possible.”
Unlike many pre-cooked holiday meals, bountiful’s aren’t a gamble. They’re a gift to yourself and your family, and an investment in the community.
Bountiful Holiday Menu
Available from Trip to Bountiful. Serves six to eight, with enough turkey for leftovers.
Traditional Roasted Turkey
Grandma Josie’s Cornbread Dressing
Giblet Gravy
Parker House Rolls
Cranberry-Orange Sauce
Pumpkin Pie
Pick Two:
Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Longhorn Potatoes
Scalloped Sweet and Red Potatoes
Baked Macaroni and Cheese
Green Bean Casserole
Broccoli Rice Casserole
All dishes can be purchased ala carte. There are 19 different kinds of pie available.
Perfect Holiday Turkey
10 to 14-pound turkey, thawed
1/8 cup vegetable oil
1 teaspoon black pepper
5 stalks celery, cleaned and cut into 3 to 4-inch lengths
1 medium yellow onion, cut into large chunks
1 stick salted butter
Giblets and neck for giblet gravy later
Brine
2 quarts warm water
4 quarts cold water
1 cup kosher salt
3 to 5 -gallon empty bucket
Sturdy new kitchen-size trash bag and twist tie
Directions
First, line bucket with a sturdy new trash bag. This will allow you to cover turkey airtight later. Pour 2 quarts very warm water in bag. Pour kosher salt into warm water. Stir briskly until all salt has dissolved. Add the remaining 4 quarts of cold water and stir to mix.
Insert thawed turkey into lined bucket filled with brine. Close top of trash bag with a twist tie and try to remove all air before fastening. Leave in brine 12 to 24 hours. If bucket doesn’t fit in your refrigerator, you can set bucket in an ice chest big enough to hold it with the lid closed. once you put the bucket in the chest, simply place ice around it and close lid.
If you buy your turkey frozen, thaw it in your refrigerator for two to three days. make sure to remove neck and giblets from breast and backside cavities when it has thawed and before you brine.
After your turkey has brined for the allotted time, remove from brine and rinse in cool water in sink. Place in your roasting pan and pat entire turkey dry with paper towels.
Remove plastic or metal piece that binds the drumsticks together if there is one. Tuck wings under body so they don’t stick out. Preheat oven to 425 degrees.
Rub the vegetable oil over the whole dried turkey making sure to get every inch of him! This is what will help give him a nice golden color in the end.
Sprinkle pepper evenly over whole bird.
Then stuff the celery, onion giblets and butter into the breast cavity of the bird.
Cook your turkey at 425 degrees for 30 minutes, then turn down to 325 degrees and cook an additional one and a half to two hours or until thermometer inserted into thigh reaches 180 degrees.
I like to baste the turkey with the juices after about an hour of cooking and continue periodically until the turkey is done. When the turkey is finished cooking, pull out of the oven and let it rest about 15 minutes before your startcarving. This will help the juices stay in the turkey!
Remove the celery, onion and giblets from the bird and discard. I save the giblets for gravy later. Make sure to save the juices that are in the pan from the bird. Around my house we call that gold and it makes the best gravy ever! but that’s a whole ’nother recipe!
Longhorn Mashed Potatoes
A little sweet, a little savory, a little Longhorn burnt orange!
8 medium red potatoes, cleaned, peeled and diced
2 medium sweet potatoes, cleaned, peeled and diced
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup whipping cream
1/2 stick salted butter
Directions
In a 6-quart stock pot, put in prepared red potatoes, sweet potatoes and salt. Fill with enough water to cover potatoes. Boil until potatoes are fork tender.
Place potatoes back in pot and add cream and butter. Whip with an electric hand mixer until creamy. Salt to taste. Drain water from potatoes in a colander.
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