This month's recipe comes to us from the pages of Southern Living Magazine's November Issue, now available.

Prep: 25 min., Cook: 45 min., Stand: 10 min.

2 cups peeled, diced Yukon gold potatoes (about 2 lb.)
2 tablespoons butter
1 (10-oz.) package frozen diced onion, red and green bell pepper, and celery
1 cup chopped yellow onion
2 cups milk
1 (12-oz.) can evaporated milk
1 (11-oz.) can yellow-and-white whole kernel corn, drained
1 (10 3/4-oz.) can cream of mushroom soup with roasted garlic
1/2 cup thinly sliced green onions
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 to 2 tsp. hot sauce
Salt and pepper to taste
Garnish: thinly sliced green onions

Bring potatoes and water to cover to a boil in a Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Cook potatoes 10 to 15 minutes or until tender. Drain and place in a large bowl.

Melt butter in Dutch oven over medium-high heat. Stir in frozen vegetables and chopped yellow onion; sauté onion mixture 6 to 8 minutes or until tender.

Add 2 cups milk, next 6 ingredients, and potatoes. Reduce heat to medium, and bring to a boil; reduce heat to low, and simmer, stirring occasionally, 15 minutes or until thoroughly heated. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Let stand 10 minutes before serving. Garnish, if desired.

Note: For testing purposes only, we used McKenzie's Seasoning Blend for diced onion, red and green bell pepper, and celery and Campbell's Cream of Mushroom with Roasted Garlic Soup.

Corn-and-Potato Seafood Chowder: Prepare recipe as directed through Step 2. Omit 2 cups milk in Step 3, and add 1 lb. fresh crabmeat, drained, and 2 (6 1/2-oz.) cans minced clams, undrained, with evaporated milk, next 5 ingredients, and potatoes. Proceed with recipe as directed.

Yield: Makes 6 to 8 servings (about 8 cups)

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In 1621 the Plymouth Colonists and the Wampanoag Indians shared an autumn harvest feast which is now known as the first Thanksgiving.

What was actually on the menu?

Historians aren't completely certain about the full bounty, but it's safe to say the pilgrims weren't gobbling up pumpkin pie or playing with their mashed potatoes. The only two items that historians know for sure were on the menu are venison and wild fowl, which are mentioned in primary sources.

Foods That May Have Been on the Menu

Seafood: Cod, Eel, Clams, Lobster
Wild Fowl: Wild Turkey, Goose, Duck, Crane, Swan, Partridge, Eagles
Meat: Venison, Seal
Grain: Wheat Flour, Indian Corn
Vegetables: Pumpkin, Peas, Beans, Onions, Lettuce, Radishes, Carrots
Fruit: Plums, Grapes
Nuts: Walnuts, Chestnuts, Acorns
Herbs and Seasonings: Olive Oil, Liverwort, Leeks, Dried Currants, Parsnips

The pilgrims didn't use forks; they ate with spoons, knives, and their fingers. They wiped their hands on large cloth napkins which they also used to pick up hot morsels of food. Salt would have been on the table at the harvest feast, and people would have sprinkled it on their food. Pepper, however, was something that they used for cooking but wasn't available on the table.

In the seventeenth century, a person's social standing determined what he or she ate. The best food was placed next to the most important people. People didn't tend to sample everything that was on the table (as we do today), they just ate what was closest to them.

Our modern Thanksgiving repast is centered around the turkey, but that certainly wasn't the case at the pilgrims's feasts. Their meals included many different meats. Vegetable dishes, one of the main components of our modern celebration, didn't really play a large part in the feast mentality of the seventeenth century. Depending on the time of year, many vegetables weren't available to the colonists. The food that was eaten at the harvest feast would have seemed fatty by 1990's standards, but it was probably more healthy for the pilgrims than it would be for people today. The colonists were more active and needed more protein. Heart attack was the least of their worries. They were more concerned about the plague and pox.

People tend to think of English food as bland, but, in fact, the pilgrims used many spices, including cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, pepper, and dried fruit, in sauces for meats. In the seventeenth century, cooks did not use proportions or talk about teaspoons and tablespoons. Instead, they just improvised. The best way to cook things in the seventeenth century was to roast them. Among the pilgrims, someone was assigned to sit for hours at a time and turn the spit to make sure the meat was evenly done.

Source: Kathleen Curtin, Food Historian at Plimoth Plantation. Photo Courtesy of Plimouth Plantation, Inc., Plymouth, Mass.

Use paper efficiently. Make two-sided copies when printing or copying. Print documents only when needed and in the quantities required to help prevent waste and save energy.

Recycled used paper. Install collection bins for paper. Consider using recycled paper when possible.

Look for the Energy Star symbol. Upgrading old products to newer more efficient models that have the Energy Star symbol will save energy. Newer model printers may print faster and have lower a cost per page saving you time and money.

Use Remanufactured Toner Cartridges and return used cartridges for recycling. The average laser toner cartridge requires 4 quarts of petroleum to manufacture just the plastic outer casing. Recycling and using recycled cartridges saves not just energy but valuable land fill space. Purchasing recycled toner cartridges can also save you as much as 50% of the cost of the original equipment manufacturers product. OSS offers free prepaid return boxes/envelopes for your toner cartridges! Call for yours today.

Replace stand alone machines with multifunction systems. Evaluate your work requirements. A copier, two printers and a fax machine consume as much as 1070kWh of energy each year. But if one multifunction machine can handle the workload it will use only about 800kWh annually. The average multifunction machine saves as much as 30% of the energy used by the equipment it replaces. If your old equipment isn't Energy Star compliant then those savings could be doubled!

Electronic document storage and sending capabilities are underused. Consider promoting the utilization of electronic storage systems to replace your hard copy documents. Many documents produced can be stored and easily shared electronically using scanning features and software built into the newer machines on the market today. By using e-mail to send documents instead of a fax machine you save toll charges and additional paper usage. Most companies now prefer to receive their documentation via e-mail and statements, invoices and most other forms of office communications can be done via e-mail.

Meet our Staff! Each month we will introduce you to one of our associates. This month our Featured Employee is Mrs. Kathy Brackett. Kathy is a Warehouse Inventory & Returns Specialist and has been at OSS for over 17 years. She enjoys the beach, working in the yard and sports. Kathy enjoys time spent with her grandson and she and her husband are Harley-Davidson enthusiasts. Her favorite actor is Sam Elliott. Thanks Kathy for being a part of the OSS family of professionals who work hard each day to give the best personal service possible to our customers!