Thanksgiving Goodies

Appetizers

pancetta wrapped dates w/ pomegranate glaze - we stuffed these with pecans and parmagiana reggiana. I couldn't detect the pecans, so wasted calories there, but the parm cheese was wonderfully nutty. I liked it better than bleu cheese. The glaze was simply pomegranate juice with a little balsamic, boiled down until thickened.

spiced squash & pear soup w/ roasted pears & fennel & pumpkin seeds - this was the Dorie recipe from earlier in the month. I sauteed extra pears and fennel and it made the soup much more enjoyable. It needed the extra texture, I thought.

hummus w/ pita - Thea's specialty and as usual, a big hit.

chinese-style cured salmon - this was from Barbara Tropp's classic, China Moon Cookbook. I wasn't sure how this would go over. First, I didn't care for the smell of the peppercorns. Second, most of my family don't eat raw fish, though they do love lox and gravalax. It was really my daughter pushing for this one because she loved Dorie's "salmon in a jar". I was concerned it would be spicy and she wouldn't like it either. So anxious and fretting, I sliced it and platted it, along with orange pickled carrot coins, pickled ginger and pickled daikon, all from China Moon. It was a hit.

Forward to Saturday - I thought it had been too long to eat the leftover fish raw, so I roasted it for about 15 minutes at 425. I served it on top of mesclun tossed with cilantro, jasmine rice, stir-fried kohlrabi w/ China Moon orange chili oil, and the pickled vegetables. It was so good! I wish I took a picture.

Dinner
turkey
mashed potatoes & cider gravy
bread stuffing - my daughter was a huge help, cutting up the 2 1/2 challah from Whole Foods.
brussels sprouts w/ chestnuts & lemon - roasted until browned and tossed with chopped lemon peel, chestnuts, and a bit of lemon juice. They were just alright. I made sprouts the previous week and got them really crispy, as suggested by Kelly at Langwater Farm. These needed a little longer in a hotter oven.
Winter squash stuffed w/ swiss, cream, bread & bacon; dorie's pumpkin stuffed with everything good. Red courie squash was the best. The carnival s squash was a little less seedy and creamy.
Cranberry-glazed sweet potatoes - this was so good I can't wait to make it again.

Desserts
mocha mousse with Sichuan peppercorns
tres leches cake - liz
apple pie w/ginger, lemon whole wheat crust - I've been eating this for breakfast every day and finally finished today. Obviously most of it wasn't eaten, but that's ok, more for me!
pecan pie - jill
Vegan pumpkin pie tarts - recommended by my co-worker friend. I baked these in mini-filo tart shells and topped with a little maple sugar and chopped, toasted pecans. I had to re-crisp them up before serving.

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Chinese style cured salmon

Sizuan peppercorns are rather stinky, but I'm hoping like with the 5 spice chicken made last year, I didn't like the smell but the finished product was a while different beast.

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braised cardamom-curry lamb - French Fridays w/ Dorie

Another one done on the quick. Yesterday I stopped at the market on my way home to get the lamb. Boneless leg of lamb happened to be on sale so I picked up a 2 lb. package. Next to it were beautiful looking lamb chops, but they were about $3.00 / lb. more expensive, so I passed on them, also figuring the lamb would be nice and tender as it was going to cook for quite a while.

I got home and rushed to get the prep work done as soon as possible. I had about 1/2 hour before we needed to run out to the parent-teacher conference and I didn't want to leave too much for when we got home, since that was going to infringe on my relaxation time. Can't have that! So I got the onions and garlic cooking with the curry and cardamom and wow, what a fantastic aroma. Then on to clean and cut up the potatoes and then apples. Unfortunately I only had Macintosh apples, not the recommended firm/tart kind. More on that later. Basically all but the meat was done, so this really isn't a difficult dish to make. 

Now, after the conference and putting sleepy child to bed, I got going on the meat. I learned a good lesson. The chops may have been $3 more a pound, but I had to discard at least 1/2 lb. of fat from the leg of lamb roast, and it took me a good 1/2 hour to trim it. I put everything in my slow cooker bowl, seasoned it, covered it and put it in the fridge until morning.

Morning - before leaving for work, I put it in the slow cooker and read how to convert a normal recipe. If conventional time is 50 minutes to 3 hours, cooking time on low should be 8 to 16 hours. I set it for 8 hours. The meat was cooked perfectly, as were the potatoes. The apples disappeared and I was able to find a couple pieces of fig, but we were all crunching every so often on the seeds. It also didn't look very appealing. I'm going to be interested to see what other FFWD attempts look like. I'm guessing much better! It did taste good though. The curry I used had a little bite to it, and as I mentioned, the lamb tasted very good and it wasn't at all greasy. All that work did pay off. What I missed were the vegetables. It needed more texture for me. I think, if I make this again, I'd put in carrots and/or sweet potatoes.

I served it with Jasmine rice cooked with carrots and leftover kale.

20 minute duck - FFWD

Sunday turned into a very French day for us. We had the squash soup as well as the put-off 20 minute duck. Most of the week, Shara was saying, "duck, gross!" but who ate the most? My little carnivore. It was very simple to cook and a great way to prepare duck because all the fat rendered off and it was cooked perfectly. Alan didn't like something with the sauce, but couldn't put his finger on it. I loved the whole thing. I served it with rice and simple Brussels sprouts.

spiced squash, fennel, and pear soup - French Friday's w/ Dorie

Cheese Squash

After missing making the duck in time to post on the FFWD site, I made sure to get this one done early. Sunday turned out to be a perfect day for it. My daughter and I were going to go for a hike to search for a geocache, but she decided she's rather go out and play with her neighborhood friends. I took a look at the next "assignment" and couldn't believe that the squash Dorie recommends using just happened to be sitting on my front steps. What were the chances a Long Island Cheese Squash happened to be the heirloom squash I took from the CSA a few weeks back?  I took the squash, carved off the top (with a saw from pumpkin carving) and scraped out the seeds and "guts". I roasted the cleaned squash, thinking I'd use it as the bowl to serve the soup.

I still needed the pears and fennel so took a trip to the farm. Unfortunately they didn't have any fennel this late in the season, but I did get some cute little Bosc pears. I actually had put fennel fronds and stems in the freezer, from a bulb this summer. I figured the stems would be ok for this. So I followed the recipe, sauteing the onions, fennel, ginger, etc. The squash didn't roast up as I thought it would. As you can see from the picture, the skin of a cheese squash is no where near as thick as a pumpkin. But it made it fairly easy to scoop out the flesh and add it to the other vegetables.

roasted Cheese Squash

I also started throwing out the water/juice from the cavity, but then realized I should add it to the soup. I put in about a cup of the juice, along with chicken broth.

We toasted the seeds, tossed with some curry powder. They were tasty and seemed to go with the cumin in the soup. I was really surprised to see cumin in the list of ingredients and am not sure I liked it. The other problem I had with the soup is the flavor was so dependent on the sweetness of the pears, fennel and squash, if any one of these weren't perfect, the flavor wouldn't hold up. I really don't think the vegetables I had were strong enough to give enough flavor to the soup. Obviously having a fennel bulb would have made all the difference, I'm sure. It wasn't bad, and was actually enjoyable, but it was too mellow for my taste, even with the lemon and pumpkin seeds. I froze what was left and am going to serve it at Thanksgiving. What I think I may do is saute or roast more pears and fennel to mix in. What may be neat is to puree the pears & fennel and swirl it in before serving.

 

twenty-minute honey-glazed duck breasts - French Fridays w/ Dorie

OMG this recipe was perfect for a Friday after a long work week. I was excited for such a simple, elegant meal. This morning I cleaned the Brussels sprouts from the first Winter CSA share. I thought I'd make some couscous with craisins and nuts and if I was really motivated and had time, mash up a little sweet potato, also from the CSA. I first thought I'd go get the duck during the day, but didn't have a chance to leave work. Then I thought I'd get to B.J.'s on my way home. Then I realized I was going to bring Alan to pick up his bike and before I even left work for the day said, nope, I'll make it Savory Saturday instead. So I'll stop by a Whole Foods and get a good duck breast, rather than a frozen one I'm sure I'd have ended up with. And since it's such a simple dish, maybe I'll end up doing more interesting sides. I can now take a look at what the other FFWD members and get inspiration, ideas, and motivation!

This week was not like me, other than one meal. It didn't fully succeed, but I liked the concept and now know how to make it better next time. I sauteed garlic and added in sweet potato cubes that were pre-steamed in the microwave, leftover Brussels sprouts, chopped, and then torn kale on top. I covered it to cook the kale, then mixed it all up with salt & pepper. My idea was to make hash and eggs. So once the kale was cooked, I made 3 wells, added some butter in each and then a couple of eggs. I did this in my big cast iron pan and then realized the cover I put over it wouldn't make a seal so I fiddled too long and finally figured out I needed to add some water to make steam to cook the eggs. Well by then the eggs were hard, but everything tasted pretty good. I will make this again because I had visions of the yolks running over the vegetables and making a rich sauce. And it's perfect for a weekday.

Halloween Fun

Last weekend we had a fun foodie art project. My daughter and I made disgusting fingers cookies.

They may have looked disgusting, but they tasted good. I took some advice from the reviews and used the following: 1/2 tsp of salt, 3/4 tsp. baking powder, 1/4 tsp of cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of cardamom.

Refrigerate dough about an hour, then cut slices off the dough disc to make square "fingers" then lightly rolled it into a rounded finger. - this was great advice because we didn't have to handle it much at all. We stuck the almonds on with jam before baking, then took white chocolate and colored with red food coloring paste. It didn't get dark enough so I added a bit of dark chocolate too. We brought a basket of these trick-or-treating with us, to give out to the grown-ups that had to stay home and give out the candy. It's a fun surprise. 

Schweddy Balls

Yesterday at the market, my daughter and I had a very fun time. Too much fun, which lead to bringing home too much ice cream. Normally I only have Edy's Light, or similar, but I love Edy's. She talked me into getting Ben and Jerry's. She was introduced to it in Vermont on our vacation last summer, then had it again at her bubbe's and yesterday saw it at the market and said, "oh mommy, can we get a pint? This is the flavor I had at bubbe's! It's Vermont's finest!" I took a few minutes and noticed they also had the coveted and very difficult to find "Schweddy Balls" so I caved. I told her we couldn't get both the Ben & Jerry's and her ice cream sandwiches, because when it comes down to it, she will forget about it and not eat much, and I'll be the one to finish it anyway! So we now have 1 1/2 pints of Ben & Jerry's and 2 containers of Edy's in the house. As well as 1/4 (maybe a little less) of Crescent Ridge Eggnog Ice Cream from a dinner party last weekend. Let's take bets on how long it will all last!

As for the Schweddy Balls, meh. The lightly rum flavored vanilla base is very good, but the balls don't work for me. I suppose some of the fun is not knowing if you're getting a crunch or a chewy one, but either way, they're just ok. I will have to control myself with the vanilla caramel fudge pint. Now, that flavor is delicious!

As for the controversy, there's nothing said in the skit that should even sound off-color, unless the listener has a "dirty" mind. My daughter could listen to the skit and not get it at all and wonder why everyone is laughing. If you get it, then you must be aware of the reference. If you're offended, so be it. I don't think SNL was thinking of this as humor to elevate our thinking to higher levels of understanding. Those who are familiar with, and love, NPR, probably have the biggest laugh because we get how silly this really is - on many levels, and the million mom's just adds a level for me. Bottom line being about taste (and I'm talking about the one in my mouth, from the ice cream (ha ha)) of course, I'd like the rum balls to be creamier and if they want a crunch, maybe chocolate covered toffee?

Pumpkin stuffed w/ everything in the refrigerator - French Fridays w/ Dorie

From last Thanksgiving

This was the first recipe I made from the book. In fact, this recipe was the reason I bought the book, after hearing an interview with dorie on npr. I took license with this recipe since I've made it 2x before. For last year's Thanksgiving, I made in two Kabocha squashes with leftover baguette from Iggy's, 1/2 and 1/2, scallions, Gruyere, very good bacon, onions, and pretty much according to the recipe. It's like a quiche Lorraine in a pumpkin.

This time I thought I'd experiment and put in 2 stalks of kale (obviously just the leaf part), leftover onions, olives & anchovies from last week's pissiladaire, stale, wheat baguette from Iggy's, bacon, Parmesan, and chicken broth. Had it been cooked an extra hour, it would have been great. But I did it for the 2 hours recommended and it wasn't near enough. I think because the kale needed a lot more time to cook, but my pumpkin wasn't nice and creamy yet either. It was a sugar pumpkin, but very yellow inside. The flavor was good, but again, about an hour more cooking and it would have been where it should be. I'll finish off the baking tonight and update with the results.

What I didn't mention is that I was almost in tears because I was really hungry, tired and wanted a good dinner. Had also not picked up ice cream for myself because I was being strong and knew a nice meal would be waiting for me. Once I had a little food in me, and a little wine, my spirits picked up and I realized it wasn't the most horrible thing I've eaten and was actually ok, just not how yummy I know it can be.

Stuffing - how's this all going to fit?

But it did!

Not wrinkly enough and too soupy - not done yet.

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pissaladiere - French Fridays w/ Dorie

When I first saw this recipe in the book, I didn't fully read it because I remembered seeing pissaladiere from one of my mother's Bon Appetites, long ago, and it just didn't appeal to me. Or maybe it wasn't worth the bother? I don't know but something didn't work for me. Maybe if someone had given me a taste, or made it a FFWD assignment, I would have changed my mind. Oh, guess I did!

This morning I made the dough and became skeptical. It wasn't the right texture and certainly not firm enough, but I put in the recommended flour and double-checked the rest of the measurements. I know dough changes as it "matures" so didn't want, or have time, to make any adjustments. I put it in the refrigerator because I had to go to work. When I got home, I took out the dough and put it in a warm place to come to temperature and rise. As instructed, while that was happening I made the onion topping.

The recipe is super easy, but it does take a lot of time. I loved the topping and as soon as I put in the mashed anchovies, the smell was heavenly. So back to the dough. I don't know if I just needed to put in more flour or because I used 1/2 cup whole wheat, but this was very, super-soft. I did end up using more flour to knead it a little and it improved a bit but the thought of rolling it out was making me rather nervous. I decided to put down parchment, poured out the dough, and cover it with plastic wrap. I then used a rolling pin to roll it out thin. It did get thin, but then I panicked as I started to peel off the plastic wrap. But no fear. After I got the sticky edge off, the rest pulled off easily.

Then I put on the onion mixture and then my daughter took a video, I think, while I decorated it with the anchovies and olives. Then as I put it in the oven, I remembered I wasn't supposed to put on the anchovies and olives until after it baked. Oh well, it was already close to 7 PM and this needed to get cooked! So in it went and and wow, what a great smell.

I still don't think the dough was as it should be, but it did taste very good. It was a little salty, maybe too salty with the extra anchovies. I will leave them off next time and just use the onions and probably the olives, but fewer. I wonder if anyone else used Parmesan cheese? I feel like it was asking for it but maybe that would add too much salt as well. I hadn't put in any extra, though the recipe called for it, but I was liberal with the black pepper.

More food photos from Monterey

Crêpes of Brittany! - spinach & caramelized onions

JuJuBee - sort of like an apple but not juicy and sweet, but has a pit like a date - apparently good for the digestion

ornamental eggplant - very neat. Looked like tomatoes.

One of a plethora of fresh figs - about 5 varieties in the container. This kind was the best. Can anyone identify?

Dine Around

Before I got to the conference, I registered for a dine around. This is organized by the conference and there are several restaurants and topics to choose from. I selected the topic about serving your community and the restaurant was Montrio Bistro. As the rest of the people who were there, we selected for the restaurant, more than the topic. Good choice for all of us. The company and the food were well worth pulling me out of my mood to be anti-social. I happened to talk quite a lot to very interesting people, mostly 2 smart and fun women from Wisconsin (who didn't even work together, but knew each other) and one former school media specialist, now turned asst. director for a public library in CT. There were other people at the table, but we were on one end and our conversations didn't mix too much.

For dinner, I started with an interesting cocktail - Corazon Valiente; mezcal (a smoky liquor made from the agave plant), blackberry-plum shrub, lemon and agave nectar. It was pretty strong, but once I had a few sips, really nice and refreshing.

I didn't want a full entree, plus I wasn't in the mood for meat, so I selected an absolutely wonderful salad of poached pear, warm nut? crusted goat cheese, and mixed field greens with candied pecans.

I also tried another appetizer - the baby artichoke - smoked bacon risotto with spinach and parmesan. It was very good, but I seriously enjoyed the salad the most. Of course I couldn't skip dessert, so had the Chocolate Ganache cake. This would have been a fairly standard dessert, though perfectly creamy/fudgy and not very sweet, had they not served it with a small scoop of coffee ice cream and drizzle of caramel mousse and stout caramel. Looks alone probably made this taste fabulous.

Abalonetti Seafood Trattoria - grilled eggplant, roasted fennel, roasted peppers, marinated artichoke hearts, olives, a whole roasted bulb of garlic!, marinated calamari, mushrooms, garlic spinach, feta cheese, on lettuce. I was in heaven. Ate it outside, looking at the water, (flocks of birds flying overhead were a bit much), but it was the perfect lunch/dinner for me!

Pics for french friday

Blini and pumpkin totam from langwater farms.

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buckwheat blini with smoked salmon and crème fraîche - French Fridays w/ Dorie

My daughter has been asking me for quite a while when we can have the lox again. She's talking about the salmon in a jar we made last month. I thought the blini would be just the excuse to make the salmon again and it was. As usual, I took shortcuts, not out of laziness exactly, but more because of limited time. The salmon still turned out wonderfully. I coated it Tuesday night in the salt & sugar. It rested for the night and then in the morning I rinsed it and covered it with olive oil, peppercorns & coriander seed. I didn't have any onions (no onions in the house??!!) so didn't add any vegetables. In the morning is also when I mixed up the batter for the blini. I did cut the recipe in half because it seemed like an awful lot for just the three of us. I left it covered on the counter all day since it was a fairly cool day.

Wednesday after work I pick up the CSA order and this week we got daikon. Knowing we needed vegetables, I thought the daikon would lend the spiciness missing from the onions. I made daikon and carrot ribbons, mixed them with black pepper & lemon juice, and put them on top of mesclun. On the plate I added the sliced salmon and blini. I had my doubts that this would have enough taste and be satisfying, but it was really the salmon that brought it all together. I didn't have any creamy topping. It probably could have used it to round out the flavor, but we truly enjoyed the flavors and textures.

So the blini, which is the main focus of this meal, was very good. Again I didn't really do these properly because I didn't have the buckwheat flour and substituted whole wheat instead. These had great flavor and I will get the proper flour for the next time I make these. I may also make them as traditional pancakes because they were very flavorful, light and fluffy on the inside, and a bit crispy on the outside.

olive-olive cornish hens - French Fridays w/ Dorie

We were out of town last week, but on Monday I caught up and made the hens. The prep was easy enough, though not something truly enjoyed, since I'm not a fan of playing with poultry of any kind. I also made the homemade tapenade, but, as Dorie suggested, used 1/2 of the oven-dried tomatoes from this summer, along with the olives. It gave the hens a very nice, fruity/salty taste. The cooking method is excellent. Dorie is right, these were done in about 1/2 an hour and I let them rest about 15 minutes and they were juicy and perfectly cooked. I probably will not make Cornish hens again, but will use this recipe with normal chicken breasts. We had them with potatoes mashed w/ cauliflower, olive oil and parmesan cheese, roasted vegetables, and leftover red cabbage from my MILs.

Last night I broiled the tapenade on Italian bread.

Great salad idea

Autumn harvest salad: fennel-roasted apples, grapes, blue cheese and toasted hazelnuts — food & style

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Cake

Update, the cake turned out great! Chocolate cake, caramel, caramel butter cream, candied bacon.

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Weekly CSA Share

• 1 head lettuce or one bag mesculn mix - salad
• 1 bunch radishes - ?? still have from last week!
• 1 bunch beets or carrots - maple glazed
• 1 bag spinach - sauteed w/ garlic & white beans
• 1 acorn or delicata squash - the farm's favorite is the delicata, but we found the acorn to be tastier w/ the best texture. Last week I cubed them, put a little apple juice in the pan and roasted at 400 for 40 min. Loved it!
• 1 head kohlrabi - ??
• 1 head cauliflower - au gratin (Dorie recipe that my mom adores and I haven't tried yet)
• 1 1/2 lbs potatoes - mashed
• 1 bunch kale or collard greens - sauteed w/ garlic & white beans

The real question is what I have left over from last week and when we're going to eat it. We only have 2 meals left at home until Sunday! We still have peppers, radishes, cabbage, romanesco, and fennel. Tonight I'm making chicken with double fennel and a stir-fry with romanesco. We'll skip this week's FFWD, which is cornish game hens, and maybe I'll make the spicy peanut noodles w/ cabbage from last week's Langwater newsletter.

Cake Experiments

Tonight Shara and I baked our favorite chocolate layer cake. This was her first time cracking an egg and most of it got in the bowl. At the last minute I grabbed a bowl and said, "Wait! put it in this!" and the yolk and about 1/2 the white made it in. I was surprised the yolk remained intact since the shell was pretty much shmushed. But that was fine since the only reason we were adding another egg was because the first one looked too small and pale. During all the commotion with trying to find tasks to keep Shara busy and cleaning up the trail, I forgot the pinch of salt and adding some coffee in place of water. I still think it will taste fine because we're going to make this cake fit for Alan.

What would that entail? Bacon, lots of bacon. So, chocolate cake layered with salted buttermilk caramel & topped with candied bacon. The caramel is an adaptation from Bon Appetit. I'm going to replace the heavy cream and crème fraîche with buttermilk. I'll also make some caramel to mix with the bacon and lay out to harden. I think it would be neat to pulverize the caramelized bacon, but probably won't have time for that. I'll see.