Thanksgiving Review

Hope your Thanksgiving was as blessed as mine! My husband and I and our girls celebrated at home, just the four of us this year, so we held back on creating too many dishes (okay, my husband reminded me to hold back), and it all turned out very well, over all. I'll be setting up the hyperlinks to my posts on the dishes below as I have time to write them. Stay tuned!

New dishes:
Onion-Cranberry Compote (see below)
Sweet Potato Puree
Cranberry Pie with Whole Wheat Crust

Dishes I've mentioned before:
Sandy's Gingered Squash
Cranberry Sauce


And Justin slow-roasted a turkey and we had Riesling, sparkling pear juice, and coffee.

Really very good!



As an alternate to my usual sweetened cranberry sauce I decided to try out a more savory version this year. And it was good. Very good. (Is it disturbing that so far my only greatest Thanksgiving acheivements can be categorized under "sauce, cranberry")?

From Sally Fallon's Nourishing Traditions:

Onion-Cranberry Compote

• 1 1/3 cup raisins [the recipe calls for both yellow & dark raisins, I just used all dark]
• 1 1/2 cups hot water
• 2 lbs small white onions, peeled [I used 1 large yellow onion]
• 3 Tbls butter
• 3/4 cup white wine vinegar
• 1 cup dry white wine
• 3 cloves garlic, peeled and minced
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 1 tsp sea salt
• 1 2/3 cups fresh cranberries

Soak raisins in water for 10 mins. Meanwhile, in a large saucepan, saute onions in butter until well coated. Add raisins with soaking liquid and remaining ingredients except cranberries. Liquid should just cover the onions--if not, add a little water. Simmer, covered, for about 1 hour, stirring occasionally. Remove cover, add cranberries and simmer uncovered for 15 to 30 mins until liquid has thickened. Let cool. Maybe made up to 3 days in advance and stored in the refrigerator. Serve at room temperature. Makes 4 cups.

What I most liked about this recipe was it blended so well with the rest of the holiday food! Truly a delicious relish. I personally plan to make this one again next year. Not to replace the sweeter version, but to complement it and give diners a more flavorful plate.

Pumpkin Saag

One small pumpkin, tons of garlic, a section of fresh ginger that needs to be used up, and what seems to be acres upon acres of chard... What's a woman to make?

Rainbow chard. It's pretty and grows & grows & grows...

I decided to focus on the pumpkin and searched through a few cookbooks for inspiration, finally alighting on Moskowitz & Romero's Veganomicon.  Their recipe for Pumpkin Saag was easily adapted to assist me with my I-have-so-much-chard-I-could-scream situation.

Pumpkin Saag

3 pounds sugar pumpkin

3 Tbls oil [the recipe calls for peanut oil, but due to daughter's allergy I used olive]

1 large onion, diced finely

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 1/2 teaspoon garam masala 

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon cayenne

1 cup water

1-inch cube fresh ginger, peeled

2 bunches fresh spinach chard greens, washed well and chopped coarsely

juice of 1/2 lime [I used the cheater plastic-lime kind]

First they have you cut the pumpkin in half (clean out the stringy insides and the seeds) and bake the two halves cut-side-down on a cookie sheet at 350 F for about 45 mins. Then you let the pumpkin cool completely and, once cool, you peel off the tough skin and chop the pumpkin up into 1 inch cubes.

Next you saute the onions in oil for a few minutes, then add the garlic and saute for a few more minutes.

Once the onions and garlic are lightly browned, you add the pumpkin and cook until heated (about 3 mins). Add the spices and salt and ginger. Add the water and cook for 5 minutes, mixing often. Finally, add the greens in batches, mixing well after each addition.

Cook for another 10 minutes or so, stirring often. Add the lime. Adjust the salt. Allow to sit for a bit before serving.

The cookbook suggests pairing this with basmati rice, chutney and flat bread, which would have been good, but we kept it simple and served it atop brown rice.

It was delish, and made for tasty, beautifully aromatic leftovers to take to work.

Fearless Feasting

I found a recipe over the weekend and knew I had to try it because (1) we usually have all the ingredients on-hand and (2) it looked super easy. I was not afraid! And so I made it today. And of course (1) we didn't have two of the ingredients and (2) it took twice as long to cook as the directions indicated.

That's how it goes, right?

I chose my recipe from Gourmet Vegetarian Feasts by Martha Rose Shulman. I've never used her cookbook before, but paging through it I found a lot of recipes that sound delicious (cold cherry-lemon soup, coucou a l'Iranien [basically a flat omelette with nuts], garlic souffle, curried lentil pate, and many more). Today's dish was one of the most simple in the book.

Cheese, Bread, and Tomato Casserole
Serves 6-8

Ingredients:

• 4-6 slices whole wheat bread
• 8 onces Cheddar cheese, grated
• 3 ripe tomatoes, sliced
• 4 eggs
• 2 cups milk
• 2 tablespoons dry white wine
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme, dried or fresh
• 1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
• pepper, freshly ground
• sea salt to taste

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. Butter a 2-quart baking dish or souffle dish.
2. Layer bread, cheese, and tomatoes in that order, two layers each in prepared baking dish.
3. Beat together eggs, milk, wine, thyme, mustard, pepper, and salt. Pour over cheese, bread, and tomatoes.
4. Bake 35-45 minutes, or until puffed and browned.

I didn't have any thyme so I used tarragon and basil. And we were out of wine, and I probably could have just skipped the 2T, but I substituted some apple cider (I don't know why. Made me feel crafty or something).



How did it taste? Great! In fact those 6-8 servings disappeared into the bellies of just two adults and one-year-old. How long did it actually take to cook? Just shy of 90 minutes. I don't know what was going on, but there was a persistent runniness that took forever to cook out. Combination of cheese and egg and tomato or something.

Would I make it again? Yes. It was quick to put together and tasty in a simple, cheesy, egg-ish way. But next time I'll count on cooking it for an hour (checking on it after 45 mins).

Savor the Flavor

What happens when you have only a few of the ingredients a recipe calls for but you make it anyway? Sometimes it may be a flop, but this past week I called it dinner!

If you ever watch PBS, Christina Pirello, author of Cooking the Whole Foods Way, has a face you may recognize. Her cooking show and website are called Christina Cooks. Since I don't have cable and thus don't have the Food Network, I rely on public broadcasting for my TV cooking needs. And she's a cook who generally delivers.

I bought her cookbook where I buy nearly all my cookbooks: a second hand shop. It's the very best place to find interesting editions, and it's a super big bonus if the previous owner has made notes in the margins (I love finding those!). In this case, I nearly passed the book over because of her weird picture on its cover. Which is ridiculously unkind of me, and, thankfully, my "I...must...buy!" cookbook obsession overcame my Mean Girls moment.

Christina's story is an amazing one. She was diagnosed with terminal leukemia at 26 and given less than six months to live. Searching for her own cure she came upon macrobiotic food, began cooking-up a wholesome food storm, and 16+ years later she's healthy and well. The doctors called it spontaneous regression and told her she was lucky--Christina called it the power of healing foods and considers herself a new woman, down to her very cells.

However you choose to view her recovery, you must admire her enthusiasm for wholesome cooking. In the introduction she writes, "Develop an understanding of food and how ingredients work together, and cooking becomes an act of pure joy. How can the act of nourishment be anything but?"

I was scanning recipes this weekend, wondering what I'd do with the leeks and root vegetables we had piling up in the fridge (I swear, you put three beets in the crisper and suddenly there are 10 of them!). When I first came across Christina's recipe for roasted veggies I figured I couldn't make it: I didn't have the same mix of vegetables she called for. But after another look, I realized that her directions indicated that "any firm, hearty vegetables will serve nicely," and decided to go for it.

My version of her recipe:

Preheat oven to 375F.

Drizzle olive oil into a large roasting pan.

In pan place large, irregularly-cut pieces of
potato, with skin
beets, with skins

leeks, white part only
onion, peeled
kohlrabi, peeled
rutabaga, peeled

Drizzle Bragg's (you could use soy sauce) over the vegetables.
Bake for an hour, covered.
Serve over rice.

Her recipe had called for mushrooms, brussels sprouts, parsnips, leeks & daikon, but I don't think we missed out by using what we had on hand. What was probably key to her recipe that I didn't have: kombu (I thought there was still some left but it must have been tossed) and reduced balsamic vinegar. Next time we roast veggies I hope to have both on hand.

I know what you're saying. Roasting vegetables isn't really using a recipe. Especially when you totally change the sauce that was called for! Well, remember, I'm still a newbie cook and since we were able to eat and enjoy this meal and I'd referred to a cookbook along the way, I'm calling it a success and need to post it. Plus, according to Christina, we shouldn't "be trapped by recipes," which may be ironic for a cookbook author to write and her blogging reader to quote, but doesn't make it less true.