My Thanksgiving contributions

Per Mom's request:
*Apple pie
*Roasted cauliflower  Note: this is much better with full fat feta and cumin seeds rather than ground cumin)
*Raw kale salad.  I made this with two bunches dinosaur/lacinato kale and one bunch red Russian kale, omitting brussels sprouts for no other reason than that none of the ones at the store looked fresh enough to be tasty raw.  Also omitted the cheese, which I did not miss at all, and did a 1:1 lemon juice and almond oil ratio in the dressing (I believe they called for 1:2 or 1:3.)

Raw kale salad.  Just like the pilgrim raw-foodists used to eat.

Turkey 2011

Our turkey came to our humble table from Ayrshire Farm in Upperville, VA. I brined it in a ziploc bag, having boiled 1 1/2 c maple syrup, 1 c kosher salt, 1 c sugar, 3 bay leaves, 8 cloves, 1 t. crushed juniper berries, 1 t cracked pepper, 1 T allspice berries, sprigs of thyme from the windowbox, sprigs of sage, and 8 c. water for 3 minutes and added 8 c ice. A day later we took it out of the bag and brought it to room temperature. At that point Robin bailed to go to Manassas to get F&D off the train and Andrew took over, stuffing it with a meticulously diced mix of Seattle bread, onions, celery, savory, parsley, sage and a few other things and cooking it at 325 for 3 hours, basting with the brine and with vegetable stock. He observed that the skin crisped quite quickly (maybe due to the lack of body fat) and needed moisture to avoid overcooking.) Meanwhile Reeves made a gravy. The reaction at the table was "wow," as in an Andrew Zimmer wow. The sides were Suzanne's cauliflower/yogurt/feta/pomegranate dish and her raw kale salad, which I hope she posts, M's triumphant mac 'n cheese, cranberry/ginger/orange relish, Suzanne's beautiful latticed apple pie, Megan's excellent Pumpkin Praline Pie on a Pedestal, the chocolate turkey from Lexington (bashed by Marcella), and 3 cookie offerings: the cuccidati, chocolate bark with peppermint, and apricot/almond florentines. And a lot of wine. We put someone's Iphone on speakerphone in the middle of the table and called Jody and probably sounded too exuberant. But we missed her.

Made a stock overnight. There was minimal fat in this bird.

Cuccidati and their Saturated Fat-Free Cousins

Gail makes these at Christmas. I proposed that Suzanne and I make them. Predictably, Suzanne did most of the work while I served as sous-chef.

Aren't these lovely? Not ours. Copied from the web.

Now isn't this cat cute? Not ours either, but we do seem to have a gallery of pictures of a certain cat in here, so I thought no one would censor this guy. Dan, of course, is a Cat of Rectitude. This one seems to have more in common with the Honeybadger, mentioned in a post of Suzanne's, below.

The honeybadger: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r7wHMg5Yjg

Anyway, all of the cuccidati got the same filling: Pulse 1 c figs and 1/4 c raisins. Stir in 3.4 c. mild honey, 1.4 c brandy, 1 1/2 t. finely grated fresh orange zest and 1 t. finely grated fresh lemon zest (Rob did a fine job on that), 1 T. ground cinnamon, 1/4 t. cloves (Rob may have forgotten that part b/c she found four cloves at loose ends in the spice grinder the next day), 1/4 t. grated nutmeg, and 3/4 c toasted almonds and 3/4 c toasted pecans, all coarsely chopt. (I suppose one could use coarse language while chopping them.) Let that chill for 8 hours. Sure. Plan ahead next time.

For the dough for the non-fat-free branch of the family, whisk or process 4 c flour, 1 c. + 2 T. sugar, 1 T. baking powder, and 1 t. salt. Add 2 lightly beaten eggs, 1/2 c. whole milk, 1 1/2 t. vanilla, and 1 t. finely grated fresh orange or lemon zest. Stir until you can gather it into a blob. Halve the blob and gather each half into a ball, then flatten each half into a rough 6 x 4 inch rectangle. This can fit into a plastic bag. Chill 8 hours. Now boys and girls, here's a tip: keep your flour in the freezer. Really speeds up the chilling process.

Another tip: This recipe quite elegantly matches the quantities of the dough and the filling. Those of us who are tempted to take pinches on the sly must purloin equally from the filling and the dough.

For the abstemious cousins, omit the milk and substitute 1/2 c eggbeaters and 1/2 c roasted almond oil. Whiz the liquids with that little bastard that sent me to the emergency room a few weeks back.

Preheat oven to 350. Roll out each rectangle of dough into 12" x 14" rectangles, and cut each rectangle into 3 lengthwise strips. A few rolling strategies: chill each blob in a 1 gal. plastic bag and roll it out to fit the innards of the sealed bag. If you can spread it any more (and those lithe fat-free guys were admittedly more supple), you can then cut open the bag (leaving the bottom seam intact), flop the square down on the sheet, remove the bag, and use it atop the dough to spread it further. Spread the filling down the middle of each strip, then close it up and pinch it shut. Roll the logs over so that the seams are on the bottom. Cut the logs into 1 1/2" slices, leaving the slices dough side down on a buttered (or for the fat-free folks, otherwise stick-free) cookie sheet. Bake until golden around edges for 16 - 20 min. If you forget to slice them, they take longer to cook, but they turn out ok anyway.

Sweet Potato Soup from the yogurt lid

From the Dannon peel-off foil:
Dice large onion and saute with cumin, ground or whole. Add 3 peeled and cubed sweet potatoes. I'd microwaved mine to facilitate the peeling. Add 1 1/2 quart vegetable broth, bring to a boil and simmer for 25 min. Puree solids with 1 1/2 cups yogurt and return to pot to mix with broth. Add chopt parsley or cilantro. Recipe suggests adding a sprinkle of pumpkin seeds. I didn't have any, but something salty and crunchy could be nice.

Soyrizo dip

M. and I used to LOVE the jalapeno poppers they served at Terrace F. Club.  In fact, I loved that there was always a tray of deep-fried something at the end of the buffet line.  Mozz sticks, fries, fried mushrooms... perhaps this is why both of us lost weight after college.

Last week, M. wanted to get a pint of hot peppers for our CSA (you get to pick 4 for ours.)  The farmer, Joan, is awesome.  When she saw Michael looking at the different types of peppers, she came up and started dumping pint after pint into our bag--jalapenos and two type of habaneros!  They're easy to freeze--just snap off the top.  But, of course, we wanted to use some of them fresh!

These two stories intersect (this is going somewhere, I promise!) tonight when I made jalapeno poppers.  One Straw Farm's jalapenos are REALLY hot so making poppers out of them was a mistake.  The filling, though, was incredible as a dip.  So I will share that.  In fact, I am considering squeezing the filling out of the poppers and using the cooked jalapenos separately in different dishes.  I ate only one and have been trying to freeze away the burning with cube after cube of ice.  Cooking fail.

Without further ado:

Spicy soyrizo dip:
Heat 1/2T EVOO in a saute pan over medium heat.
Saute 1/4 sweet onion and ~4oz/1/4 package soyrizo (sold at Walmart.)  Start with them on different parts of the pan, breaking up the soyrizo with a wooden spoon.  Once the onions have softened, mix the two together and cook for another minute or so.
Meanwhile, stir together ~4oz cream cheese, ~3oz cheese (I used a mix of mozz, cheddar, and parm left over from pizza night), and 2 cloves garlic (minced) in a bowl.
Stir in the onion and soyrizo when done.

We enjoyed this with tortilla chips.  It would probably also be delicious in jalapeno poppers, if you had normal jalapenos available, or in chiles rellenos.  Or stirred into scrambled eggs.

Cold Red Cabbage Salad

I LOVE the warm cabbage salad I made last weekend, but it's quite an undertaking.  So, later in the week, I opted to make something simpler with the remaining 1/2 cabbage.  I have always thought that red cabbage was too bitter/tough to eat alone, but turns out I am very wrong.  M. even preferred this salad to the more complicated warm one.  And it has such a beautiful color!  We had it with the remaining pumpkin soup.  Very healthy.

Shred 1/2 red cabbage and 2 carrots, peeled, in a food processor
Stir in a large handful of raisins, some sunflower seeds, some roasted pumpkin seeds, and ~2 oz crumbled feta.
Dress with 2T lemon juice and 2T hazelnut oil.
Serves 4

You could vary this a lot depending on what ingredients you have on hand.  I could see it with apples, parsley, raw beets, radishes... let me know what you try!

Food as dish

Today I present to you one of the prettiest meals I've made in a long time.  Note that I did not say tastiest--it was fine, but not omg this is incredible.  Also, pumpkin is stringy.  You don't notice this when it's pureed.

After completely selling it short, I will say that this dish would make the perfect centerpiece for a fall vegetarian feast.  You know, to avoid depressing people on Thanksgiving by not allowing a big hunk of meat to hold court on the side board, or frightening them by replacing said hunk with that most mysterious of beasts, the tofurkey. 

I was inspired to make this dish by a beautiful picture in Bon Appetit.  Their soup seemed pretty uninspired, so I made up my own.... which tasted sorta boring.  You need some oomph to balance out the somewhat bland, moist squash.  SO instead of writing down the soup that I actually made inside of the pumpkin, I will record a soup that I made with the leftover pumpkin, which was awesome. 

BA suggests using a "Cinderella, Blue Jarredahl, or Cheese" pumpkin.  You can find any of these varietals at your local bodega.  False.  I approached a large, bearded gentleman at the market standing in front of a truck full of various and sundry squashes to ask what he would recommend (/see if any of these breeds were real.)  He suggested the Long-Island Cheese.  As I was paying ($7 for a squash?? for serious?), I asked him why it was called a cheese.  "Because it tastes like cheddar!!" he bellowed, and started laughing.  I still don't get why it's funny, unless he meant C.H.E.D.D.A.R., which is just funny in principle.

Thar she blows:

Now, how does this become food?

First, we must prepare the pumpkin!
Cut open the top around the stem, as though preparing a Jack-O'-Lantern.  Remember to cut into the pumpkin at a bias in order to prevent the top from falling into the pumpkin later on.
Then, scoop all of the pulp and seeds out of the inside.  Rinse and save the seeds for roasting.

Step 2: fill the insides with soup.  And not the yucky bland soup in BA (white bread crumbs?  Seriously?)

Pumpkin filled with ingredients for a bland soup:

I suggest filling it instead with the following concoction, based on "Spicy White Bean and Sweet Potato Stew with Collards" from this jawesome book.
 Preheat the oven to 350.
Saute 1 chopt sweet onion until soft (~5 min) in 2T butter.
Add 2 sliced garlic cloves, 1 chopt red habanero (milder than green) or other hot chili, and 1t grated fresh ginger.
Cook for 1 or so min until it starts to smell really good.
Add in 1 14.5 oz can diced tomatoes (w/ juice... just pour that whole can on in there) and ~3c navy or other white beans
Sprinkle on 1t brown sugar, 1/2t allspice, 1/4t coriander, a little salt, and a little white pepper (be careful, a little goes a long way).
Let simmer for a little while.
Smear the inside of the pumpkin with 2T or 1/4 stick softened butter (please don't tell Dad)
Fill the pumpkin with the vegetable mixture and 3c veggie stock (make sure to leave a few inches at the top--you don't want to be sloshed with hot stock as you take this from the oven)
**Note: if all this soup won't fit inside your pumpkin, save it--the pumpkin flesh to soup ratio is pretty high, so you can just mix it with leftover pumpkin later int he week.
While the pumpkin is cooking, cut some collard greens into thin strips (after removing the stems) and simmer for ~5 min if they're fresh, longer if they're nasty.

Step 3: Cook your masterpiece
Replace the lid on the pumpkin.
Place in a casserole dish.
Roast for 1 hour.
Remove lid, place in dish next to the pumpkin proper.
Roast for another hour or so, or until the flesh pierces easily (make sure not to pierce the skin of the pumpkin while you're checking.)
Once the pumpkin is out of the oven, stir in the cooked collards.

All doneskies:

Step 4: Serve it
Place the lid back on the pumpkin and bring the whole casserole dish to the table.
Serve with a ladle: first pour soup into a bowl, then scoop out a big hunk of pumpkin to put in there, too.

I served it with fresh bread and warm red cabbage salad.

I ended up with a whole lot of pumpkin left after we finished the soup.  I was able to scoop it from its rind and freeze it.  It awaits further adventures in the freezer (stay tuned for pumpkin risotto!)

If you make this, tell me how it turns out!  What did you do for the soup part, and was it tasty?  Did you find a pumpkin varietal that has less stringy flesh?  My dream is for a pumpkin that is actually a butternut squash shaped like a pumpkin, for butternut is the king of squash.


Well, since I've already made this load really slowly with so many pictures (insert old-timey dial-up sounds here), I may as well show you what Dapper Dan's been up to.  He has entered every box and bag he can find, but was not satisfied.  He has now entered the last container frontier... an ENVELOPE:

Oh Dan, what WILL you do next?

Ethiopian food

I made Ethernopian food for the first time last night.  I made yellow split peas and collard greens. The collards were tasty, but not all that interesting. I loved the split peas, though.  There's just enough flavor--bright notes of ginger tempered by warm turmeric.  Plus, when you cook it for the full hour suggested in the recipe, it gets very soft.  Perfect winter comfort food.  Healthy, too--vegan and calls for only minimal oil. 

I stuck with both recipes pretty faithfully.  Cut the oil from 4T to 2T for the collards and did not steam them before putting them in the skillet.  Considered swapping out the water for veggie stock in the peas but ended up forgetting.  Served it all over rice b/c I was too lazy to try and make Injera.