Kids Dish

Currently in the freezer I have a 9” x 13” tray of eggplant parmesan, three two-adult and a toddler servings of baked ziti, half a tray of black bean sausage and cheese enchiladas, half a dozen cranberry muffins, about a week’s worth of blueberry pancakes, chocolate chip cookie dough, and a quarter of a chocolate zucchini cake.

I have an unspecified amount of chicken stock in the fridge. I need to skim the fat from the top and decide exactly what I what to do with it. I’ll leave some out for risotto for tomorrow night’s dinner, but the rest is going to soup I’ll make and freeze for later. Also in the fridge, I have about four cups of shredded chicken, a by-product of the chicken stock. Two cups will probably go to another pasta dish- probably baked rotini with goat cheese, sun-dried tomatoes and spinach. The other two cups might go towards more enchiladas. Or maybe I’ll just use it for chicken noodle soup so I don’t have to buy any more tortillas. It’s a tough call.

The good news is that I’m feeling prepared. I no longer fear that we’ll be forced to eat pizza and cheesesteaks for weeks after the baby is born. I still have three cups of zucchini to make bread or muffins with, a small 2 lb roast and two whole chickens I should cook in the next week or two to make more room in the freezer for meals.

I placed a fairly large meat order for May that included a 10 lb value pack of ground beef so we’ll have no shortage of ground beef for burgers as well as steaks, and a couple of whole chickens for when we run out of frozen dinners. My CSA starts in early June which means plenty of veggies.

Little by little I’m emptying my extra freezer of the fruits (and vegetables)of last year’s CSA share and the meat we ordered over the summer. I no longer have a deep, chest freezer in the basement. We sadly had to sell it after realizing it was costing us more than $30 a month in electric bills. We just have a regular sized refrigerator in the garage with a regular sized freezer. Our kitchen fridge is a side-by-side model, which I hate, so having the extra freezer space is a necessity. Without it there would be no frozen Trader Joe’s pizzas on hand, whole chickens, and a place to store freezer meals for when the new baby comes next month.

I don’t know when I’m going to be motivated enough to start cooking, or what exactly I’m going to cook. The meat pickings are slim right now, so I may have to stick to mostly pasta based meals, which is fine since they freeze well anyway. I do have a few whole chickens, so I can make some chicken dishes too. I think I’ll make lasagna, a dish of chicken enchiladas, eggplant parmesan, a baked ziti, and a chicken potpie. Other than the potpie, the other dishes can be cooked in advance then frozen in individual or smaller sized portions. That way we won’t have to defrost a lasagna then be stuck eating it for days in a row.

I’ll probably make a few batches of muffins using the last of the grated zucchini and the sour cherries so I’ll have quick one-handed breakfasts. Pancakes also freeze well. If I keep making full-sized batches of pancakes over the next few weekends I’ll be able to build up a nice stash so I can pop them in the toaster oven and feed Sam without too much trouble.

What else do you make and freeze?

I am not usually a fan of pork roasts. I’ve only ever had them with my in-laws, and honestly the majority of the roasts I’ve had their have been cooked for an hour or two too long, making excessive quantities of gravy a necessity. But for some reason I bought a pork roast from my pastured meats buying club on a whim. I think I imagined that I’d make pulled pork for sandwiches from it, but after the roast sat in my freezer for a few months and I looked up some recipes I realized that the boneless pork butt roast was too small, I don’t have a smoker, and it’s not the perfect cut of meat anyway. So it was back to Mr. Google for some recipe ideas.

An Epicurious recipe for Garlic-Roasted Pork Shoulder looked sublime, but it called for a bone-in pork shoulder which I just didn’t have. A recipe from Tyler Florence at the Food Network for Roasted Pork Shoulder seemed to be similar, but for some reason it just didn’t look quite right. So I split the difference. I prepared the roast using the method from the Epicurious recipe and cooked it according to the Tyler Florence recipe. It was superb.

The recipe calls for several hours of marination so I let it sit overnight, but popped it in the oven a bit too late the next day. We ended up eating a quick dinner of pasta and veggies while the roast cooked. When I removed it from the oven, the skin was brown and crisp. I was sorry we’d eaten. The following day I sliced the meat and reheated it in a gravy made from pan juices. My in-laws joined us for dinner and the meat was so tender, so flavorful, they assumed they were eating beef, not pork, until I told them otherwise. My father-in-law who claims to hate garlic ate several servings, not even noticing the garlic paste clinging to the meat.

If I get my hands on a bone-in pork roast I’ll be sure to follow the New York Times recipe exactly (and eat the meat immediately), but for boneless, the compromise worked well. This cheap cut of meat makes an incredible meal.

Garlic Roasted Boneless Pork Shoulder
adapted from the two recipes linked above

1 head garlic, cloves peeled
2 tablespoons plus 1 teaspoon kosher salt, divided
1 1/2 tablespoons dried oregano
2 tablespoons distilled white vinegar
2 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
1 3-4 pound boneless pork shoulder with skin

Mash garlic to a paste with 2 tablespoons kosher salt using a mortar and pestle or side of a large heavy knife, then stir in oregano, vinegar, lemon juice, and 1 tablespoon pepper.

Pat pork dry. Using a small sharp knife, cut a wide pocket at large end of roast to separate skin from fat, leaving skin attached at sides and stopping before roast narrows to bone.

Make 1-inch-deep slits in pork under skin and on all meaty sides, twisting knife slightly to widen openings, then push some of garlic mixture into slits with your fingers. Rub any remaining garlic mixture over roast (not skin). Wipe skin clean, then rub with remaining teaspoon kosher salt (to help it crisp). Transfer pork to a glass or ceramic shallow dish and marinate, covered and chilled, at least 8 hours.

Put pork, skin side up, on a rack in a flameproof roasting pan, discarding marinade, and bring to room temperature, about 1 hour. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Roast the pork for 3 hours, uncovered, until the skin is crispy-brown. Let the meat rest on a cutting board for 10 minutes before slicing. Meanwhile, pour pan juices through a sieve into a fat separator or bowl and discard fat. Add 3/4 cup water to roasting pan and deglaze by boiling over medium-high heat (straddle 2 burners if necessary), scraping up brown bits, 1 minute, then add to pan juices along with enough water to bring total to 1 1/2 cups. Serve meat with pan juices.

On a whim I picked up a bunch of leeks from the produce stand last week and now I don’t know what to do with them. I planned on making a nice, hearty, wintery leek and potato soup but then I used all of my potatoes to make a last minute Shepherd’s Pie. Ordinarily I’d just use the leeks in recipes that call for onions, but I’ve still got half of a five pound bag of organic onions in the pantry that look like they’re getting ready to sprout so I’ve been erring on the side of using them first.

Last week my mom came to visit and we took Sam to the bookstore to play with the trains. My mom went to the cafe to get some coffees for us and returned with a few stratas as well. Ordinarily I’m not a fan of most egg dishes, especially when I’m pregnant, but the strata, made with spinach, artichoke hearts and roasted peppers was delicious. Sam liked it too.

Back to the leeks. I’ve also got half a dozen eggs from local, pastured chickens in the fridge. I’ve been using them for cooking and baking as needed, but I keep reading that high quality eggs should be showcased in dishes that are egg focused. Again, I don’t love eggs, but perhaps this recipe for a Leek and Swiss Chard Tart that uses frozen puff pastry could help change my mind. I’m a sucker for anything in puff pastry. If I finely chopped the handful of baby carrots I have remaining from the five pound bag I bought (please someone remind me that I need to stay far, far away from five pound bags of anything perishable) I could add some color and texture and save some more veggies from the compost bin.

Double posted from Farm to Philly

One of the unfortunate side effects of pregnancy for me is an aversion to most vegetable matter. Ordinarily I cook several vegetable heavy meatless meals a week, but since learning I was pregnant in September we’ve mostly eaten take out pizza, meals involving ground beef, and cheesy pasta dishes. This does not bother my husband at all. My taste for vegetables eventually returned, but my desire to buy and prepare food other than pizza and cookies has been lackluster at best. I used to go out of my way to shop at the farmer’s market in Ardmore every week. Now I’m feeling ambitious if I manage to stop in to the Marketplace at East Falls on our way to the zoo or Smith Playhouse. Our refrigerator has never been so bare. One week we even forgot to get our Meadow Run Farm monthly meat order from the pick up site and sheepishly found it still on the porch the next day. It’s a good thing it’s cold outside.

Yesterday, after eating a cupcake and Utz (local!) pretzels with Bobbi’s (local!) hummus for lunch I figured it was time to cook something that wouldn’t be found on a school cafeteria menu. I knew I had a butternut squash still in the dark cabinet beneath the pantry and decided to use it. I found a recipe for Butternut Squash, Bacon, Rosemary and Phyllo Pizza on Epicurious and scoured the kitchen and freezer in the garage for the rest of the ingredients.

In the freezer I unearthed some bacon from Meadow Run and my rosemary plant is still thriving out back. I didn’t have scallions or red onion, but I had a regular onion that I sautéed in reserved bacon drippings with a clove of garlic from my CSA I found hiding behind the squash. There was half of a package of phyllo dough in the freezer, and to add some greens to the dish (since I had no intention of making anything other than the pizza for dinner) I pulled out some Swiss Chard I’d frozen early in the fall when I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

I’m pretty good with phyllo so the whole thing took about an hour from start to finish. I wasn’t sure at first, but after my second slice I decided the pizza was delicious. It could have used a bit more rosemary, and the squash puree needed some seasoning other than salt and pepper, but on the whole it was good. Really, I’m a sucker for just about anything made with phyllo dough. (And it was a lot easier to make than the butternut squash and caramelized onion that filled my house with smoke last month.) I would definitely make it again as party appetizer using phyllo cups instead of sheets.

The local ingredients were bacon from Meadow Run Farm, butternut squash, garlic and Swiss chard from Red Earth Farm CSA and rosemary from my backyard.

Since I started feeling sort of human again I’ve been in the mood for some Thai Red Curry. There’s something comforting about the sweet/hot combination and the Thai spices seem to clear the sinuses right up.

I wanted to make it on Saturday night but found we only had crème of coconut in the cupboard instead of plain coconut milk. This depressed me on more than one front. First of all, I wanted me some curry. Secondly, I was reminded of all of the pina coladas I can’t drink because I’m pregnant. Sadly, I resigned myself to a dinner of matzo ball soup.

Yesterday we picked up a few cans of coconut milk at the market so we were ready to go. But alas, last night we went to my in-laws’ house for a meal I thankfully didn’t have to cook. Instead of curry I ate a large meal of salty foods and gravy. It was comforting in its own way, but it wasn’t the Thai curry I wanted.

Tonight was the night. I had cooked chicken ready to go, green beans that needed to be used, fish sauce and brown sugar aplenty, coconut milk in stock, bottled lime juice, a mango, canned pineapple and fresh Thai basil. I opened the fridge to take out the last necessary ingredient, the red curry paste and sadly found a jar of green curry paste in its place.

I like green curries too, but it just wasn’t what I wanted. There’s no knowing if either of the supermarkets within a mile of my house carry red curry paste for sure so rather than run out and risk further frustration and disappointment I decided to go for it and make the green curry instead. It was good. Not what I was hoping for, but it was good. Tomorrow the leftovers will still be good and I’ll be glad that I made it. But the can of coconut milk remaining in the cupboard is ear marked for red curry. No substitutions.

Red Thai Curry

2 cans coconut milk (unsweetened, not coconut creme!)
2 tablespoons prepared red curry paste
2 tablespoon fish sauce
2 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 cup of fresh cilantro or basil
juice of 1 lime
1/2 cup unsalted roasted peanuts (optional)

1 cup or more of vegetables of your choice (green beans, snow peas, bell peppers, peas, broccoli, and mushrooms all work well)
Chicken/meat/tofu/fish

Add 1 cup of coconut milk to a large dutch oven and whisk together with the curry paste until most of the liquid evaporates, about 5 minutes. Whisk in the rest of the coconut milk with the fish sauce and brown sugar and cook about 5 minutes more. Add whatever veggies, fruits, and meats you’d like and cook through. Remove the pot from the heat and mix in the lime juice and herbs. Serve over rice and top with peanuts.

I’ve been tired and lazy and haven’t much felt like cooking. When I was pregnant with Sam I had a second trimester energy burst that led to me cooking and baking like crazy. Right now I’m in a second trimester slump that’s led to two nights in a row of pasta with jarred sauce and a night of pizza and french fries. I’m lacking energy and inspiration and Sam’s return to middle of the night wakeups isn’t helping matters much. But I took a large frozen whole chicken breast from my organic, pastured meats stash out to defrost and have no choice but to cook it since I can’t bear the idea of letting it go to waste. Looking for a one-pot meal I can cook before I head off to water aerobics tonight I decided on arroz con pollo.

Arroz Con Pollo, Rice with Chicken, is a Latin American favorite. When I taught high school in a predominantly Puerto Rican part of the city (90-some percent of my students were Puerto Rican and the rest were Dominican) many of our PTO-sponsored events served homemade, Latin American dishes. Arroz con Pollo was a staple. It was always deliciously seasoned, yet the cut up chicken parts were always flabby and greasy. I never tried to make the dish at home because as a rule, I generally try to avoid cooking anything that I know will be flabby and greasy.

But a recipe on one of my favorite cooking blogs, Smitten Kitchen, turned up a recipe that looks and sounds neither flabby or greasy and stresses the importance of it being a one-pot dish. It unfortunately requires a number of ingredients I don’t have in the house and don’t feel like going out to get. (I’m too pregnant and tired to go out to the store again.)So I found another recipe, this one from Simply Recipes, that only requires things I have in the house. Combining the two is my best bet. I’ll post the adjusted recipe tomorrow.

Remember how I wrote that I was going to attempt to start using some quick and easy recipes? It turns out I’m not so good at it. The Saturday after Christmas we had my husband’s aunt, uncle, cousins and their kids over for Christmas round two and I decided that to make things easy on myself I’d make a salad, two lasagnas (because I could make them in advance) and let everyone else bring the rest. I new that one of the lasagnas I planned to make was labor-intensive. It’s a Lasagna Bolognese from Cook’s Illustrated and I’ve been eying it for months. But for the second lasagna I decided to make a regular spinach and cheese lasagna as simply as possible.

Of course I couldn’t make it simple. Rather than use a jarred sauce like most easy lasagna recipes call for I decided to make my own. Two days before the scheduled dinner I pulled out the tomatoes I froze over the summer and made a quick (ish) chunky tomato sauce. Then I started the ragu for the bolognese. As the meat simmered I realized that most of my husband’s family wouldn’t understand a plain meat lasagna. They’d want to know where the cheese was. So I decided to make a third lasagna with meat and cheese. This meant making more sauce because if I was making homemade for the first two I certainly wasn’t going to buy a sauce for the third.

While it should have taken no more than 2 hours to assemble all three lasagnas it ended up taking most of the following afternoon after making another batch of tomato sauce, reheating the ragu, making a bechamel sauce, cooking the meat for the third lasagna, chopping, cleaning and spinning spinach and basil, combining the ricotta mixture and grating four cups of Parmesan. Once all of that was done it took no time at all to assemble the three lasagnas, but I really could have simplified things by buying a couple of jars of sauce, pre-grated cheese and frozen spinach.

Here they are assembled and uncooked. From left to right: meat and cheese, spinach and cheese, bolognese

Sam just woke up from his nap so tomorrow I’ll post the recipes for the meat and cheese and the spinach and cheese. I promise I’ll make it easier for you than I did for me.

Delaware Online’s article about quick, healthy meals got me thinking. I don’t generally cook anything quickly. The majority of my meals take a minimum of half an hour unless I’m eating something unhealthy or eating something that’s primarily leftover based. Part of the problem may be that my definition of healthy may be a little different than most. For example, many quick recipes call for the addition of rotisserie chicken purchased cooked from the supermarket. I’ve bought them in the past and I don’t think there’s much that’s healthy about them. They’re salty and soggy and the chickens used come from factory farms. You might get a slightly better chicken from a market like Whole Foods, but it’s still supermarket chicken. Other quick recipes ask for store bought sauces and dressings. Unless you’re good at reading labels and know how to choose the healthiest options, most sauces, no matter how healthy and organic they claim to be are full of extra sugar, sodium and added oils. I prefer to make my own sauces, stocks and dressings which often adds to my total prep time.

So how do you make something healthy quickly? The article suggests stocking up on canned beans, chick peas, couscous and frozen vegetables and using the stove top instead of the oven and recommends purchasing a cookbook for quick and easy recipes. Focused grocery shopping, crock pot meals, and actually using leftovers for the next day’s meal (instead of letting them sit until they’re unrecognizable) will also cut down on prep time.

If your family eats fast food more often than you’d like to admit and you want to start cooking healthy meals, the article recommends choosing two nights a week to cook and moving on from there. Shopping with your kids on the perimeter of the supermarket where the fresh foods are located can help get them interested in the process. Getting them involved in prepping the food by chopping vegetables or tearing lettuce if they’re too young to use a knife can also ease your prep burden and make them more invested in the process. Using fruits and vegetables in your meals is key in making them healthy.

Over the next few weeks I’m going to try to change my mindset and move from slow food to quick and healthy. I may even bust out my dusty crock pot to see if I can find an appetizing recipe. If you have any suggestions leave them in the comments.

Here’s a recipe idea from the article with the timing to get you (and me) started.

Berman said parents don’t have to be “uber-organized” to get a healthy dinner ready, but Erica Cover enjoys her detailed methodology when meal planning. She creates her family’s meals for the week on a computer spreadsheet.

She put the tortilla dish in the oven, set to bake for 30 minutes. The time was 5:23. It took Cover 15 minutes to make a dinner that, before 6 p.m., would feed the whole family.

Despite the fact that I’m still talking about it (I promise, I’m done with the turkey clip art now!), it’s been almost a week since Thanksgiving and it’s time to get rid of the last of the turkey and vegetables. My favorite way to use up the leftovers is in a pot pie. If you’re short on time there are plenty of shortcuts and if you’re feeling gourmet you can jazz it up as much as you want. The basic recipe calls for throwing leftover turkey, carrots, green beans, and whatever veggies you have into a premade pie crust with leftover gravy. You can also use frozen or canned mixed veggies if you don’t have fresh. More advanced recipes use puff pastry or homemade biscuit dough.

I’ll give you the recipe I used last night and offer some links to other leftover pot pie recipes at the end. I didn’t have as much gravy leftover as I usually do and was completely out of chicken stock to make more so I used a can of cream soup. It would have been better without the soup, so use stock to make your own gravy or use leftover gravy if you have it. The soup did make it easier than making stock all over again.

Leftover Pot Pie

*If you’re using a store bought frozen pie crust 30-40 minutes in a 350 degree oven should be fine. Just bake until bubbly and golden brown.

Cooking with the Single Guy has a recipe that calls for puff pastry. I adore puff pastry and will be sure to try this next time I make a pot pie.

This recipe uses spinach, ham and cream of chicken soup

I know that this recipe is for chicken pot pie, but it calls for a biscuit topping so I thought I’d throw it in for the biscuit lovers.

This recipe uses chicken bouillon and milk instead of a pre-made gravy.

Starting where I left off yesterday.

On Thanksgiving, after waking up at five and spending three hours trying to get Sam back to bed, I went back to sleep and slept too long. I woke up at 9.30 and groggily went downstairs to start the turkey. I took a quick look at the pie recipe and realized the oven temperature was higher than I thought and I’d have to cook the pie first, instead of later in the afternoon.

I peeled and sliced the apples then got to work rolling out the dough. It was a pain to work with. It was very sticky and hard to transfer even though I rolled it out between two sheets of parchment. But I finished it and got it into the oven. About an hour later I had baked my very first pie and set it aside to cool.

While the pie baked I prepped the turkey. I drained the brine, rinsed the turkey and patted it dry. I cut my herb butter into half inch rounds and pushed it under the skin. I lightly salted (no need for too much salt when you brine) and peppered the turkey all over and started the stuffing. I cheated with the stuffing. I didn’t buy any bread to make my own cubes so I used a bag of Pepperidge Farm stuffing, the bag with the least amount of sodium. To make it taste better I sauteed an onion and a few celery stalks in butter and used homemade chicken stock to moisten the stuffing instead of water. I also added a bunch of herbs from my garden. While the stuffing was still steaming hot I filled the body cavity of the turkey and put the remainder in a buttered baking dish to heat separately later. I tossed a few chopped carrots, a few chopped celery stalks, a few sprigs of thyme and a chopped onion at the bottom of the roasting pan then put the turkey in the rack breast down and put it into the oven.

That’s one of the secrets of juicy turkey. Roast it breast side down at 425 for the first hour then flip it and reduce the oven temperature to 325 until the turkey is cooked through. When you roast it upside down the juices collect in the breast. It doesn’t make a picture-perfect turkey, but it makes a tasty one. I also cover the turkey with foil and don’t remove it until the last hour or so. That way it gets crisp, but the skin doesn’t get too dark. Another tip, now that the holiday is over, is that you shouldn’t baste too often. Every time you open the oven heat escapes the temperature lowers. Basting every 45 minutes to an hour is plenty for a brined turkey.

The only other thing I had to do was start the gizzards for the gravy. I don’t actually put the gizzards in the gravy, but I do saute them with onions, carrot and celery then add chicken broth to make a stock. After it simmers for a couple of hours, drain the chunks and the remaining stock can sit until you’re ready to add pan drippings.

After a few hours of down time I caramelized the shallots for the green beans and added chicken stock to the butternut squash puree and brought it to a simmer. Not too long later the turkey and stuffing had both reached the necessary temperature and I was ready to finish up.

While the turkey rested (it should rest for at least half an hour.) I made the carrots, finished the green beans, put the sweet potatoes, extra stuffing, and the dishes contributed by my aunt in the oven to reheat, and finished the gravy using deglazed pan drippings (which were nicely flavored by the veggies I’d thrown in the bottom of the roasting pan) and the gizzard stock thickened with a bit of flour browned in butter. I hate the word gizzard. It makes something so good sound so terrible.

I had my friend help serve the soup while I carved the turkey. I’m a terrible food photographer, but I’ll show you some pictures anyway.

Butternut Squash and Roasted Garlic Bisque topped with sour cream and chives from my garden (hello, global warming!)

I know it’s not the prettiest picture, but here’s the turkey resting. The green stuff under the skin is the herb butter.

Apple Pie, the first pie I’ve ever made.

Okay, I know I’m cheating, but I never got a chance to recap Thanksgiving dinner over the weekend. Dinner went really well. On Wednesday I prepared the brine for the turkey (kosher salt and brown sugar dissolved in water with whole coriander seeds, whole black peppercorns, thyme sprigs, rosemary sprigs and a few sage leaves) and placed the turkey in a huge ziploc bag in a cooler lined with trash bags in case of leaks. My refrigerator is a stupid side by side model (HATE side by side) so I don’t actually have room to accommodate a brining turkey before a holiday so a cooler has to suffice. Once the turkey was properly submerged it needed to be rotated every few hours so it brined evenly. I left it breast side down overnight.

After the turkey was safely in the cooler I started the rest of my tasks. I started the dough for the rolls and set it out for the first rise. Next I started the pie dough, a recipe that called for vodka. I’ve never made pie dough before. Honestly, I’ve never made it because I don’t love pie. I’ll eat it if it’s the only thing around, but I’ll take cake over pie any day. The only reason I made a pie was because I still had a dozen apples left from my CSA share and no one volunteered to bring a pie. For some reason even though I don’t love pie, it doesn’t feel like Thanksgiving without one.

Once the pie dough was refrigerated I peeled and cut the sweet potatoes. I ignored the part of the recipe where it tells you to steam the sweet potatoes first since I knew I’d be reheating them in the oven the next day and didn’t want them to be too soggy. I made the glaze for the sweet potatoes but it took much longer to thicken than the recipe said it would. I don’t know if I didn’t have the heat up high enough or if it was because I increased the recipe. When it seemed thick enough I poured it over the sweet potatoes (a mixture of yams and sweet potatoes, I discovered once I peeled them) and put them in the oven to bake. While the sweet potatoes cooked I blanched the green beans, plunged them into ice cold water, drained them and put them in a large ziploc bag with paper towels.

I cut the herbs from my garden- chives, rosemary and thyme- and made herb butter for the turkey by combining chopped herbs with softened butter. I put the mixture in a small ziploc bag and smooshed it down to the bottom so it would form a log.

The sweet potatoes were done, but they never really seemed glazed. The glaze seemed too runny and saucy. I didn’t know what to do, so I poured out the glaze and set it aside, figuring I’d try to thicken it up the next day before reheating.

The bread, which took forever to rise, finally rose enough, so I punched it down, formed it into dinner rolls and set it to the side to rise again. After about an hour it had risen enough so I baked it and sampled one to make sure I liked the recipe enough to actually serve the rolls. I did and decided that I was pretty much done with cooking for the day.

This is getting way too long, so I’ll finish my recap tomorrow.

I found my green bean recipe after a quick search last night. It was between two- Green Beans with Caramelized Shallots and Haricots Verts with Herb Butter. The herb butter recipe only had one review, and though it was glowingly positive and I’m making herb butter anyway I decided to go with the shallot recipe for a few reasons: It sounds delicious, It can be completely made ahead of time and reheated before serving, and the reviews were all positive.

I’m kind of low on shallots since I have more than 2 pounds of green beans to cook and they’re the regular kind which aren’t as tender. (I’m bummed I used all of the haricots verts from my garden during the summer, but I didn’t really grow enough to save any. Note for next year: either skip the green beans or plant 3 times as many) And I’m going to use fresh thyme from my garden. Reviewers suggest cutting the butter/oil a bit so even though I’m going to use more beans than the recipe calls for I’ll try it with the original amount of butter and oil and add more if necessary.

Green Beans with Caramelized Shallots
Bon Appétit | December 2006

2 pounds haricots verts or slender green beans, trimmed
1 pound medium shallots
2 tablespoons (1/4 stick) butter
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/4 teaspoon dried thyme

Cook haricots verts in boiling salted water until tender, about 4 minutes (or 6 minutes if using green beans). Drain. Transfer to bowl of ice water to cool. Drain well. DO AHEAD Can be made 1 day ahead. Wrap in several layers of paper towels. Seal in plastic bag and chill.

Cut off and discard ends from shallots. Cut shallots lengthwise in half, then remove peel with paring knife. Melt butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté 1 minute. Reduce heat to medium-low; sauté until shallots are browned and tender, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with thyme. Season to taste with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD Can be made 2 hours ahead. Cover loosely with foil and let stand at room temperature.

Add haricots verts to shallots in skillet and stir over medium-high heat until heated through, about 6 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl and serve.

Cut off and discard ends from shallots. Cut shallots lengthwise in half, then remove peel with paring knife. Melt butter with oil in heavy large skillet over medium-high heat. Add shallots and sauté 1 minute. Reduce heat to medium-low; sauté until shallots are browned and tender, about 20 minutes. Sprinkle with thyme. Season to taste with salt and pepper. DO AHEAD Can be made 2 hours ahead. Cover loosely with foil and let stand at room temperature.

Add haricots verts to shallots in skillet and stir over medium-high heat until heated through, about 6 minutes. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Transfer to bowl and serve.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Last night I picked up the turkey, did the grocery shopping and spent a good three and half hours in the kitchen accomplishing… Well, I don’t even know what I accomplished. It doesn’t seem like a whole lot.

I cleaned out the refrigerator and discarded all of the expired condiments. We somehow had a fridge full of salad dressings I’d never buy since I make all of my own. I guess my mother-in-law must have brought them here for some meal or another and forgotten them. I also discarded an ancient jar of mayonnaise. Mayonnaise is one of those things I won’t touch unless I’ve made it myself (well, I’ll eat some restaurant aioli, but only sometimes.)

So the refrigerator is cleaned out, the shelves are clean (except for the two drawers that I just didn’t have the energy to deal with) and some of the prep work is done. I still need to figure out how to make the green beans and I haven’t decided if I want to make multigrain dinner rolls or buttermilk biscuits. I bought the stuff for both. I was pleased to see that the turkey (unlike the chickens I’ve bought from the farm) was pretty well cleaned. The giblets and neck were actually detached and stuffed inside the cavity and I didn’t have to scrape out any nasty, gooey innards. Nothing like fresh from the farm animal goo.

The menu:
roasted butternut squash and garlic bisque
turkey
extra stuffing (aunt bea)
mashed potatoes (aunt bea)
cranberry sauce (aunt bea)
roasted potatoes (I have close to five pounds. Will people eat two kinds of white potatoes?)
candied sweet potatoes
green beans
balsamic glazed carrots
rolls or biscuits
cheesecake (mom)
apple pie
chocolate chip oatmeal pecan cookies

Completed prep:
Butternut squash and veggies roasted and pureed
Stock made for soup and stuffing
Onions and celery chopped for stuffing and gravy
Turkey ready to be brined
Giblets removed and liver discarded
Green beans trimmed
Sweet potatoes scrubbed
Refrigerator cleaned
Cookies baked

Today
1. Prepare brine
2. start bread dough? Biscuit dough?
3. make pie dough
4. make sweet potatoes
5. blanch green beans
6. cut herbs from the garden: thyme, chives, rosemary
7. clean up
8. bake bread
9. make herb butter for turkey

Thursday:
1. rinse and dry turkey
2. make stuffing
3. stuff turkey, and start roasting
4. start gravy
5. assemble pie
6. make carrots
7. reheat sweet potatoes and bread
8. finish green beans

I know I’m missing plenty from the lists. I have to set the table at some point and get all of my serving dishes labeled and ready to go. I don’t know if I’ll do that today or tomorrow though.

Epicurious.com is the best place for me to find new recipes. (Allrecipes is great too, but the recipes on Epicurious are just a bit more gourmet, and when I’m hosting ten for dinner, I’d rather err on the side of classy.) Aside from the fantastic search function, where you can search by course, by ingredient, and even by kid-friendliness, you can sort by user reviews. I only ever bother with recipes that have been reviewed multiple times and have high ratings. In many reviews the reviewers post modifications they’ve made and some of the modifications become the standard- in some cases almost all of the reviewers follow the advice of one person and rave about the recipe.

Today’s search was for sweet potatoes. I make sweet potatoes pretty regularly and have cooked them a variety of ways but never for Thanksgiving. The last two years my mother-in-law has made and brought them to my house, but this year I’ve got a good 6lbs of sweet potatoes left from my CSA and I’ve got to use them. Rather than reinvent the wheel (new, interesting recipes got me nowhere last year) I’m going for tradition. I know I don’t want anything with marshmallows on top (yuck!) and I know I don’t want pureed or mashed because my aunt’s bringing mashed potatoes. (I wish I was making the mashed- I have a ton of potatoes from the CSA and I make phenomenal roasted garlic mashed potatoes. Another time.) After browsing by rating for a while I came across two contenders.

Maple-Glazed Yams with Pecan Topping and Candied Sweet Potatoes. After reading the reviews, Candied Sweet Potatoes was the clear winner. I’ll make them a day in advance and reheat them while the turkey rests.

Candied Sweet Potatoes

Simmer brown sugar, butter, water, and salt, stirring occasionally, until sugar is dissolved and syrup is thickened, about 5 minutes. Stir in bourbon to taste. Drizzle syrup over potatoes and bake in middle of oven, basting occasionally, until syrup is thickened, about 1 1/4 hours.