Dine & Cook | Alternative food journalism

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If you're bored or just plain uninspired this Thanksgiving, why not go international?

"Instead of Turkey, I would try Peking style duck," Cooking Channel star Ching-He Huang wrote to tell us.  Ching was born in Taiwan and is the Cooking Channel's newest expert on Chinese cuisine, she also has a new cookbook out titled "Ching's Everyday Easy Chinese."

"I say 'style' because it's hard to make the proper version unless you have a wood fired oven," Ching explains.  "[Mine] can be done in a conventional oven."

Ching suggests serving with the duck steamed wheatflour pancakes, plum sauce, and/or steamed Chinese vegetables (such as choi sum, pak choy, gail lan, tender stem broccoli).  To complete the international theme Ching offered up one more suggestion:

"Serve [the duck] with roast taro, potatoes and sweet potatoes for an Asian twist. The plum sauce could be used instead of the cranberry sauce or you could do both!"

For those who aren't ready to abandon the turkey but would still like to mix things up this holiday Ching suggests keeping it simple, for example making a mixed vegetable stir fry.  This can also be a rough time of year for vegetarians, a time filled with rolls, mashed potatoes and green bean casseroles.  But that doesn't have to be the case says Ching.

"There are so many options especially when it comes to Chinese food - for [example] my Mu shu chicken recipe, you can substitute the chicken for soya chicken or marinated tofu cubes or veggie sausages diced really small, there's Buddha's stir fried mixed assorted vegetables, braised aubergine with spicy tofu, egg and asparagus fried rice, soy sesame green beans, Chinese vegetable curry with potatoes-- the possibilities are endless."

Food traditions and holidays go hand in hand-- obviously this uniquely American holiday isn't celebrated in China but that doesn't mean food doesn't play a major part in celebrations.

"Spring rolls, dumplings, rice dumplings wrapped in bamboo leaves, anything that involved rolling or stuffing," reflected Ching on how her family prepared for a holiday.  "My grandmother used to put us to work when it was Chinese New Year, or a special occasion like Dragon Boat Festival and would get us to make hundreds of dumplings. It was such a labor of love, we all earned our share and certainly worked up an appetite!"