Thanksgiving food
Nov. 24th, 2005 02:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
magidEvery year I vary it a bit, depending on what looks good and what I'm interested in making. This year's menu:
And for more detail, this is where I get to natter on about the food.
Last night I started cooking with the more pareve things on the menu. First was the cornbread, for my first attempt at a cornbread stuffing. I read a bunch of recipes online, but none of them caught my fancy, so I went with what felt right, which meant making cornbread with kernels of corn in it and hot peppers. Except that the hot peppers had aged out of usefulness, so I tossed in some cayenne instead.
While that baked, I had time to prep the desserts. I'd decided that though I like pie, I wanted something related-but-not-pie as a dessert option, which is how I chose apple crisp. I chopped up a baker's dozen of apples (three or four different kinds) and a quince, having read somewhere or other about how people always used to have a bit of quince in the apple pie. This is the first time I've used quince; the texture is hard, like a solid apple, but a bit grainy, like a pear, and very very dry, like neither. I added cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, then made a crumb topping with white wheat flour, brown sugar, pareve margarine, and the same spices. When the cornbread came out, the crisp went in, and I started on the pies.
I like pumpkin pie, but I dislike the smell of raw pumpkin. And fresh pumpkin is more likely to be stringy, too. Which is why I went with my favorite, buttercup squash, instead. It has a good texture and flavor, without extra moisture. I'd already cooked two of them, so all I had to do was mix in soy milk, eggs, maple syrup, some ginger and cinnamon, then put them in the pie crust (the frozen kind; it's what my mom uses). Then they joined the apple crisp in the oven.
The baby artichokes were easy, just trim and boil. I like the small ones because of the higher ratio of edibility and lower ratio of work, compared to full-sized ones. Plus they're a more useful size as a vegetable side, rather than an appetizer.
Time for the rest of the cornbread-sausage stuffing: I sauteed onions, garlic, and red and yellow bell peppers along with three spicy beef and veal sausages (the kind that look rather like hot dogs; I have limited options for sausages, and these are tasty. I did debate using ground meat (likely turkey) and seasoning it, so it would be more distributed, but opted for known flavor instead.). Once those were well acquainted, I added most of the cornbread, crumbled up, letting the vegetable juices moisten the bread. That's now in a bag in the fridge, waiting for oven time. I might add an egg or two to it, if it looks like it needs more liquid and/or binding.
At some point I julienned a cabbage, salted it, and left it draining (under a weight) in my sink. It's supposed to be salted for an hour or two; I forgot about it for far longer. Oops. I rinsed it off thoroughly, then made the dressing (rice vinegar, ginger, cayenne in lieu of hot pepper flakes, and sugar), swished it around in a Ziploc, and added the wilted cabbage. I've been trying to remember to turn the bag over every so often, so it gets equally marinated.
This morning I roasted some chestnuts, thinking I'd serve them, or put them in something. I'd forgotten how much a pain they are to peel, so they're now put aside, awaiting inspiration.
I made the sage stuffing, sauteeing the usual trio of onions, mushrooms, and celery, then adding sage and multi-grain bread crumbs I'd frozen. It pleases me that the challah it came from was made for Sukkot. A couple of eggs, more sage, then it was time to stuff the bird. This is a small turkey (10.5 pounds) that I'd gotten on Sunday; I didn't expect there still to be chunks of ice inside the wrapper! It wasn't frozen solid, so I shouldn't complain (though I still wish I'd known Trader Joe's had fresh ones. I know it's crazy, but I'm trying to figure out some way to use one of their birds after all. Like roasting one tomorrow. Which is insane, and I must stop. Any time now.). Instead of packing the rest of the stuffing around the bird, I put it in a casserole, mixing in some walnuts. I like walnuts in stuffing (raisins, too, but so many people dislike raisins), but some leftover turkey is going to end up at Z's, where there's a major nut allergy, so I'm trying to be careful to avoid cross-contamination. And once I moved the turkey around, the casserole even fit in the oven. Yay! What I forgot while doing this was I'd debated using the extra room in the roaster for either sweet potato or butternut squash chunks, despite there already being an orange vegetable (in dessert, but hey), because, well, the space was there. I still have time to act on that, I suppose.
Next up were the cranberries. I simmered the Key limes for the chutney for two minutes, then while they cooled I made the cran-orange relish. It's the recipe on the bag, though this time I think one of the citruses wasn't an orange. The most frustrating part is trying to clean out the chute thing on the food processor, which doesn't seem to come apart. Dumb designer, whoever it was. Once that was put into (yet another Ziploc) bag, I had the pot ready for chutney.
(An aside: this year, I'm finding the two soup pots (one pareve, one meat) are the pots I keep using over and over, with the cast-iron skillet barely touched. Larger quantities, maybe?)
I have a cranberry weakness. They're wonderful, tart and pectinated, and I'm just nuts enough that I want to have a bag of cranberries in my freezer at all times. Ideally, I'd figure out where to put a stand-alone freezer, to feed my addiction, but since I haven't done that yet, I also try to can a number of cranberry things in season, one of which is chutney, using a recipe given me by a former orker. It's not as hard-core spicy as some chutneys, and has lots of other fruits in it, too: apples, pears, limes, raisins... except that I'd forgotten about the raisins, which are currently in my office. Dang. And I don't have any apricot jam, so I substituted orange marmalade (good stuff, with lots of peel). And the recipe calls for real limes, not Key limes, which are tiny in comparison, so I guessed, and substituted three Key limes for each big one (I like the limes a lot). And added a bit more brown sugar to make up for the lack of raisins. The recipe says to simmer for 20 minutes, but I like it to cook longer, so it was much later that I canned one pint pre-walnut-adding (nut allergic person again), four pints and two half-pints after adding walnuts, and have some in a bowl for today. (I suspect I'll end up opening some jar later today or tomorrow, in any case.)
There were a lot of limes left, and they'd already been blanched. What to do with them? And then I realized that I had citrus from this Boston Organics delivery, and the one two weeks before that, and some tangerines my mom had brought to brunch. Lots of citrus, and I haven't been much in an eat-citrus mood. So I juiced them all. A couple dozen spheres later, I've got a fairly full pitcher of very orange-colored juice, which includes the juice of grapefruit, two kinds of oranges, tangelos, tangerines, and Key limes. Yum. And now all I have left from yesterday's delivery are the bananas, yams, and a butternut squash, none of which will have to be fit into the fridge.
Still to do: bake the cornbread stuffing.
Assemble the green salad (spinach, arugula, scallion, sliced apple, black olives, and a garlic vinaigrette).
Get the pot ready for turkey soup (cut up onions and sweet potatoes, add a couple of stalks of celery).
Set the table.
Carve the turkey.
Start the soup once the frame has been liberated.
Eat.
And if all goes to plan, I have most of my Shabbat food made, too. The turkey soup will need to be deboned tomorrow, and sage dumplings added, but that's easy enough, and is most of dinner for one. Lunch will be shared with friends, and we've already figured out which bits are made by whom: I'm to bring turkey, cranberry something, and artichokes. Possibly some dessert, too.
If I factor in having house guests next week, can I justify making another turkey to make sure there's enough for Shabbat lunch? Hm....
- turkey
- sage stuffing
- cornbread-sausage stuffing
- baby artichokes
- Asian slaw
- cranberry-orange relish
- cranberry chutney
- green salad
- citrus juice
- maple-buttercup pie
- apple crisp
- tea, nuts
And for more detail, this is where I get to natter on about the food.
Last night I started cooking with the more pareve things on the menu. First was the cornbread, for my first attempt at a cornbread stuffing. I read a bunch of recipes online, but none of them caught my fancy, so I went with what felt right, which meant making cornbread with kernels of corn in it and hot peppers. Except that the hot peppers had aged out of usefulness, so I tossed in some cayenne instead.
While that baked, I had time to prep the desserts. I'd decided that though I like pie, I wanted something related-but-not-pie as a dessert option, which is how I chose apple crisp. I chopped up a baker's dozen of apples (three or four different kinds) and a quince, having read somewhere or other about how people always used to have a bit of quince in the apple pie. This is the first time I've used quince; the texture is hard, like a solid apple, but a bit grainy, like a pear, and very very dry, like neither. I added cinnamon, nutmeg, and allspice, then made a crumb topping with white wheat flour, brown sugar, pareve margarine, and the same spices. When the cornbread came out, the crisp went in, and I started on the pies.
I like pumpkin pie, but I dislike the smell of raw pumpkin. And fresh pumpkin is more likely to be stringy, too. Which is why I went with my favorite, buttercup squash, instead. It has a good texture and flavor, without extra moisture. I'd already cooked two of them, so all I had to do was mix in soy milk, eggs, maple syrup, some ginger and cinnamon, then put them in the pie crust (the frozen kind; it's what my mom uses). Then they joined the apple crisp in the oven.
The baby artichokes were easy, just trim and boil. I like the small ones because of the higher ratio of edibility and lower ratio of work, compared to full-sized ones. Plus they're a more useful size as a vegetable side, rather than an appetizer.
Time for the rest of the cornbread-sausage stuffing: I sauteed onions, garlic, and red and yellow bell peppers along with three spicy beef and veal sausages (the kind that look rather like hot dogs; I have limited options for sausages, and these are tasty. I did debate using ground meat (likely turkey) and seasoning it, so it would be more distributed, but opted for known flavor instead.). Once those were well acquainted, I added most of the cornbread, crumbled up, letting the vegetable juices moisten the bread. That's now in a bag in the fridge, waiting for oven time. I might add an egg or two to it, if it looks like it needs more liquid and/or binding.
At some point I julienned a cabbage, salted it, and left it draining (under a weight) in my sink. It's supposed to be salted for an hour or two; I forgot about it for far longer. Oops. I rinsed it off thoroughly, then made the dressing (rice vinegar, ginger, cayenne in lieu of hot pepper flakes, and sugar), swished it around in a Ziploc, and added the wilted cabbage. I've been trying to remember to turn the bag over every so often, so it gets equally marinated.
This morning I roasted some chestnuts, thinking I'd serve them, or put them in something. I'd forgotten how much a pain they are to peel, so they're now put aside, awaiting inspiration.
I made the sage stuffing, sauteeing the usual trio of onions, mushrooms, and celery, then adding sage and multi-grain bread crumbs I'd frozen. It pleases me that the challah it came from was made for Sukkot. A couple of eggs, more sage, then it was time to stuff the bird. This is a small turkey (10.5 pounds) that I'd gotten on Sunday; I didn't expect there still to be chunks of ice inside the wrapper! It wasn't frozen solid, so I shouldn't complain (though I still wish I'd known Trader Joe's had fresh ones. I know it's crazy, but I'm trying to figure out some way to use one of their birds after all. Like roasting one tomorrow. Which is insane, and I must stop. Any time now.). Instead of packing the rest of the stuffing around the bird, I put it in a casserole, mixing in some walnuts. I like walnuts in stuffing (raisins, too, but so many people dislike raisins), but some leftover turkey is going to end up at Z's, where there's a major nut allergy, so I'm trying to be careful to avoid cross-contamination. And once I moved the turkey around, the casserole even fit in the oven. Yay! What I forgot while doing this was I'd debated using the extra room in the roaster for either sweet potato or butternut squash chunks, despite there already being an orange vegetable (in dessert, but hey), because, well, the space was there. I still have time to act on that, I suppose.
Next up were the cranberries. I simmered the Key limes for the chutney for two minutes, then while they cooled I made the cran-orange relish. It's the recipe on the bag, though this time I think one of the citruses wasn't an orange. The most frustrating part is trying to clean out the chute thing on the food processor, which doesn't seem to come apart. Dumb designer, whoever it was. Once that was put into (yet another Ziploc) bag, I had the pot ready for chutney.
(An aside: this year, I'm finding the two soup pots (one pareve, one meat) are the pots I keep using over and over, with the cast-iron skillet barely touched. Larger quantities, maybe?)
I have a cranberry weakness. They're wonderful, tart and pectinated, and I'm just nuts enough that I want to have a bag of cranberries in my freezer at all times. Ideally, I'd figure out where to put a stand-alone freezer, to feed my addiction, but since I haven't done that yet, I also try to can a number of cranberry things in season, one of which is chutney, using a recipe given me by a former orker. It's not as hard-core spicy as some chutneys, and has lots of other fruits in it, too: apples, pears, limes, raisins... except that I'd forgotten about the raisins, which are currently in my office. Dang. And I don't have any apricot jam, so I substituted orange marmalade (good stuff, with lots of peel). And the recipe calls for real limes, not Key limes, which are tiny in comparison, so I guessed, and substituted three Key limes for each big one (I like the limes a lot). And added a bit more brown sugar to make up for the lack of raisins. The recipe says to simmer for 20 minutes, but I like it to cook longer, so it was much later that I canned one pint pre-walnut-adding (nut allergic person again), four pints and two half-pints after adding walnuts, and have some in a bowl for today. (I suspect I'll end up opening some jar later today or tomorrow, in any case.)
There were a lot of limes left, and they'd already been blanched. What to do with them? And then I realized that I had citrus from this Boston Organics delivery, and the one two weeks before that, and some tangerines my mom had brought to brunch. Lots of citrus, and I haven't been much in an eat-citrus mood. So I juiced them all. A couple dozen spheres later, I've got a fairly full pitcher of very orange-colored juice, which includes the juice of grapefruit, two kinds of oranges, tangelos, tangerines, and Key limes. Yum. And now all I have left from yesterday's delivery are the bananas, yams, and a butternut squash, none of which will have to be fit into the fridge.
Still to do: bake the cornbread stuffing.
Assemble the green salad (spinach, arugula, scallion, sliced apple, black olives, and a garlic vinaigrette).
Get the pot ready for turkey soup (cut up onions and sweet potatoes, add a couple of stalks of celery).
Set the table.
Carve the turkey.
Start the soup once the frame has been liberated.
Eat.
And if all goes to plan, I have most of my Shabbat food made, too. The turkey soup will need to be deboned tomorrow, and sage dumplings added, but that's easy enough, and is most of dinner for one. Lunch will be shared with friends, and we've already figured out which bits are made by whom: I'm to bring turkey, cranberry something, and artichokes. Possibly some dessert, too.
If I factor in having house guests next week, can I justify making another turkey to make sure there's enough for Shabbat lunch? Hm....
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Date: 2005-11-26 10:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-11-27 01:42 am (UTC)