A Week of Feasting

After last Sunday's mini-Thanksgiving, we've continued to eat our way through the week. Monday we had a fondue night, with tiny potatoes, broccoli florets and bread and two different types of cheese fondue. Tuesday we went out for Thai food and Wednesday we had some leftovers to clear the fridge for the meals to come. On actual Thanksgiving I was working and our site director sent an entire traditional Thanksgiving meal which was good because it got busy and it was nice to have food ready to eat when we had a few moments.

Last night we went out to dinner at a Chinese restaurant, Red 8, in the new casino in Boston. We did not go into the casino part because not everyone in our party was over 21 but the whole place was quite the spectacle. After a whole lot of very good Chinese food we went to another restaurant, Sinatra, for dessert, most of which consisted of little pastries on a "gold record" made out of dark chocolate! It was Frank Sinatra themed, after all.

Tonight we finally had our family Thanksgiving, with my parents, while also celebrating my father's birthday. I made the pumpkin pie a few days ago but last night started the candied cranberries for a garnish. This recipe for pumpkin pie really is terrific. Yesterday morning I made the apple pie, this time cooking the apples first before baking them in the pie. I am really pleased with how this turned out. Also, I used honeycrisp apples instead of Cortlands and I think I like that better. I also made a quick cranberry-pomegranate sauce by making cranberry sauce and tossing in the seeds from half a pomegranate at the last minute.

Mom made the sweet potatoes again and, again, I overbroiled the marshmallows but this time I got them out before they entirely burned. Whoops. My husband got the turkey brining on Thursday while I was at work which was so helpful, and I made the stuffing yesterday. So today, between raking leaves and running to the store for last minute things, we got everything cooked and on the table by 4 pm.

So, Happy Thanksgiving to everyone and, Happy Birthday, Dad!

Pre-Holiday Feast

This year, instead of one large Thanksgiving meal I'm hosting two smaller ones. The first was yesterday, with pork roasted with onions and potatoes, applesauce, butternut squash, an apple pie and pumpkin bread pudding.

The pumpkin bread came from my first attempt to make pumpkin muffins a few weeks ago. The bottoms had burnt because my oven is so unreliable, so I sliced off the burnt parts and froze the rest. Yesterday I tore up the muffins into a 9x13 baking dish and added a custard: 2 cups milk, 4 eggs, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 tsp cinnamon. This was baked at 350˚ for about 25 minutes which was just enough to set the custard. It was served with salted caramel sauce.

The apple pie was tricky because I was trying to not add as much water to the crust - which worked because it turned out very flaky and light - but which made it harder to roll out so when I went to put the top crust on it broke into several pieces. The elderchild and I patched it together and made a bunch of leaf cut-outs to cascade down the ugly side and made it quite lovely, I think. I'll have another opportunity to try it since I plan to make another pie for Saturday's meal.

Time to Be Thankful

This has been a particularly blog-unfriendly year, between not having a lot of time and not having a lot of interest in canning or baking. I know, that seems weird. It's not like I'm not baking, it's just that it's fairly routine stuff, like cookies or cornbread or the regular batches of white bread I make with Legion whenever we run out. That's still happening, but it doesn't seem all that blog-worthy anymore. I haven't even started a gift stash this year.

But it is Thanksgiving, and it's time to stop and rest briefly and have a feast. To reflect on the things that have made this year good and overlook the bad.

This year there will be nine of us, and I just brined the turkey. We are having our feast on Friday as I'm working tomorrow, giving me an extra day to bake and prepare. Yesterday I made the squash by roasting my last three farm share butternuts and mixing the baked squash with butter, salt, and pepper. Nothing too fancy. Mom will bring the sweet potatoes we love, our friends are bringing rolls and Brussels sprouts, and maybe a dessert.

For the turkey, I mixed 1 cup of Kosher salt for each gallon of water, and put the turkey in that with some bay leaves, peppercorns, sage, celery salt and rosemary.

The next thing I did was make two pumpkin pies, using my favorite recipe. Fortunately, I had condensed milk in the house and didn't need to run out and get some.  I also had 3 cups of pumpkin  purée in the freezer; that may be the last of it. The crust got a little toasty because they were a little too close to the edges of the oven but nothing too bad. I baked the leaves and acorns separately for about 20 minutes so they wouldn't burn. One will go to work with me tomorrow and the other is for my feast.

Tomorrow after work I will make an apple pie and also the stuffing, then on the day of I can roast the turkey, make the mashed potatoes, and put on all the finishing touches!

Thanksgiving Celebration!

It's not often we do our Thanksgiving dinner on the actual day. Usually I have to work and we have our celebration on a different day. Not this year!

Here's what was on the menu:

Roast goose. I followed Hank Shaw's instructions from Duck, Duck, Goose, removing the breasts halfway through the cooking and then searing them at the end. This was more work than I anticipated and I think it came out too tough. Not the recipe's fault, maybe mine? Anyway, for the price of a fresh farm raised goose I think it will be easier to stick with a smaller turkey. The gravy that is made from the giblets is pretty tasty, though.

Stuffing, topped with goose fat before reheating. Cranberry sauce which I made the other day.

Mashed potatoes, made by my husband. Sweet potatoes and marshmallows, made by my mom. She also made a Brussels sprouts and grape dish that was pretty good, so says those of us who like Brussels sprouts.

Pumpkin bread, made by my sister-in-law, and brioche dinner rolls, made by me. I made the dough last night and refrigerated it until this morning when I got up early and shaped a dozen dinner rolls. I haven't made brioche in ages!

Lastly, the pies. I had a pumpkin pie and that fabulous apple pie I made yesterday. The cornstarch worked perfectly, the crust was flaky and light, and not having a solid top crust wasn't a problem at all. I topped the pie with homemade caramel sauce which I made this morning and then there was ice cream and whipped cream because what's a pie without one or the other?

So from me to all of you, Happy Thanksgiving and may your table always overflow with lovely homemade food!

Vision = Reality

Finally.

I've been trying for a while now to get a particular look for my apple pies. I want them to look autumny. Like piles of fallen leaves. I want them to evoke that nip in the air that screams snow is coming and still look tasty enough to eat. It's Thanksgiving, and I want my pie to be perfect.

Here is a list of the things I tweaked for today's pie:

1. I used my smaller (new) pie plate so only 6 apples.
2. Therefore, I dropped the sugar to 3/4 cup.
3. I added 2 T. of cornstarch to the sugar because I'm tired of my pies being runny.
4. No top crust - I covered the apples with cut outs of leaves and acorns, all scored with a knife, and tossed randomly but strategically onto the pie.
5. I used an egg-milk wash rather than milk and sugar.
6. The pie was baked uncovered first, and then covered for the second half of the baking process.

Not very scientific of me, but I can probably trace each alteration to a specific result and therefore I should be able to figure out which of these I should do again.

Regardless. I am happy.

That Time of Year

This is the time of the year where I do a lot of cooking but not a lot of noteworthy things and very few canning projects. I've been making bread, and granola, and cooking pretty basic meals. It's a busy time with school and work and travel. However, Thanksgiving will be upon us shortly and I need to get ready.

First of all, no turkey this year. There will only be six of us, so I'm splurging on a goose (they are surprisingly expensive compared to turkeys). We're also cutting back on the sides: no squash and no beets. Mom will make the sweet potatoes and some new brussels sprouts and grape dish (I'm intrigued) in the place of the broccoli. I will make gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce and the pies. Those I'll start tomorrow, although yesterday I roasted the sugar pumpkin and got 6 cups of purée. I froze 3 cups for a later batch of pies and have 3 cups waiting for tomorrow. This morning I made the stuffing; since I won't be stuffing the goose it's just in a dish to be heated up at the last minute. I used leeks and duck stock instead of the usual onions and turkey stock, so it'll fit with the flavors of the goose a little better. I have pumpkin bread in the freezer which I'll thaw.

One other thing I plan to do - on Wednesday I'll make brioche dough and refrigerate it overnight. Then on Thursday morning I can make brioche dinner rolls. Whatever doesn't get eaten can become bread pudding later on.

This morning I'm tapping into my cranberry reserve and making cranberry sauce. Just 8 cups of cranberries, 2-2/3 cups water and 2-2/3 cups sugar. I'll be canning whatever I don't need for Thursday as I've been out of cranberry sauce for a while. Never fear, I still have at least 4 bags of cranberries in the freezer!

The Finished Product

Here's our table from last night's feast!

The turkey, brined for two days, was perfect. There was stuffing. Mashed red potatoes. Creamed (well, sort of) broccoli, mashed squash. Pumpkin bread made by my sister-in-law and sent with my in-laws. The sweet potato casserole was made by my Mom, although we did the marshmallows on top here at the last minute. I got a little distracted and so they had a smokey je ne sais quois which, heh, augmented their flavor. Really, they were only burnt a little!

Plus, cranberry sauce, gravy, pickled beets and eggs, pumpkin pie, apple pie, and two different kinds of macarons brought from Zurich and London by a friend who joined us for dinner.

I am thankful for all the love and joy in my life and that I have time to sit back and savor it once in a while. Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving! Here's Your Pie

Yes, I'm aware I'm a day late. As usual, I worked on Thanksgiving and planned my celebration for today. That doesn't mean we didn't also celebrate yesterday; we went down to Faneuil Hall and had dinner at Durgin Park. Faneuil Hall is all decked out with lights and Christmas trees and was so pretty in the drizzly fog. And it wasn't tremendously cold, either, which was nice.

Over the past few days I've been getting my side dishes and pies ready for today. I used my last three butternut squashes from the farm share, and used two jars of my pickled beets to make the beets and eggs my mother-in-law likes so much. And I've made three pies.

The pumpkin pies were first, because I planned to take one to work yesterday. I made the crust the usual way but it was too dry and crumbly so it gave me some trouble. I also had a little difficulty with the leaf cut outs again, I should have learned my lesson the last time when I burned them, but this time I put them on the pie at the beginning of baking and they didn't brown up the way I wanted, either. But, recognizing some of the crust issues had to do with the moisture content, I made sure for the apple pie I added more water.

Last night after we got back from dinner I sliced the apples and assembled the pie. The apples were laid in the crust by hand, which meant they were all flat against each other and I think that makes for a prettier side view when the pie is sliced.

After playing around with the leaf cut outs again, here's the final product.

Now I'm working on getting the turkey in the oven and all the last minute details. More later!

Timeline

8:00 am: Get out of bed. Make coffee. Discover we are out of our favorite coffee, the one we have shipped to us 10 pounds at a time. Order coffee. Get the turkey and the stuffing out of the fridge, find the turkey roasting pan.

9:00 am: The brined turkey is now stuffed and will go in the oven at 10. The pumpkin pie is returning to room temperature and is hanging out next to the apple pie (made last night), waiting for their photo op. The rest of the stuffing is in a baking dish. A very large papaya has been cut. The papaya has nothing to do with our Thanksgiving feast, I just felt like buying it. I'll have some for breakfast shortly.

10:00 am: The turkey is in the oven. The pumpkin bread has joined its flashier brethren on the table. Potatoes have been peeled and are waiting in a pot of water until close to dinner. Turns out, neither of my children like papaya. We have a lot left. The dining room has been cleared of all the books, papers, magazines, and random projects that have accumulated there over the last few weeks. The stand mixer's bowl and whisk are now in the freezer for when I need to make whipped cream for the pumpkin pie.

10:30 am: Remember that there is a parsnip to go in with the potatoes. Peel, chop and add. Waiting for the dishwasher to finish so I can get a pot to cook the broccoli in. Usually the creamed broccoli is made days in advance but this year it seemed OK to wait until the day of the party.

11:30 am: Creamed broccoli is made and resting on the stove, over the back burner so it gets the heat from the oven to keep it warm. Dishwasher emptied. Tablecloth on table, centerpiece centered. I've been told by my Mom not to set the table until she gets here because she has something for it. Holding pattern for now, I guess, but I will get the nice china out and ready.  Off to take a shower.

12:30 pm: The china and silverware are out of storage. The foil is off the turkey and the house smells wonderful.

1:30 pm: Made the canapés. Honey goat cheese and cream cheese blended together and then piped onto crackers, topped with bacon jam. Lesson learned - the disposable pastry piping bags are Not Reliable. Cheese squirted all over the place so the canapés are not as pretty as visualized. Parents have arrived. New leaf runners are on the table and the table is being set. Potatoes are boiling. Sweet potatoes have arrived and need to stay warm.

2:30 pm: The turkey is out of the oven. I repeat, the turkey is out of the oven! Potatoes mashed. Extra stuffing now in the oven to bake while the turkey rests.

3:00 pm: Time to eat! The turkey is carved, the sides are ready, the pies are now warming in the oven. Here is the gloriousness that is our feast:

3:30 pm: We are completely stuffed.

4:00 pm: PIE! The whipped cream is made and everyone gets some apple pie and a few people even have room for a slice of pumpkin.

4:30 pm: My parents head home and we start in on the dishes. The dishwasher is on it's third load for today and we're still not done. Time to relax. Happy Thanksgiving!

It's That Time of Year Again

Pie season!

Actually, Thanksgiving. But really isn't it all just about the pie?

Today I made 2 pumpkin pies. Since I'm working tomorrow I wanted to take one in and have one ready for our big dinner on Saturday. I already made pumpkin bread last week, I'll start the turkey brining tomorrow night, and make the stuffing and the apple pie on Friday. The rest will get made on Saturday morning. It is all under control.

Here are the pumpkin pies. Instead of evaporated milk I used less sugar and then used a combination of egg nog and sweetened condensed milk. (Note to self, open the can completely, don't make the little triangle holes. It doesn't pour out easily. I always forget.)

Quick Batch of Turkey Stock

After dinner on Thanksgiving, I separated all the meat off the turkey bones before I put the bones away.  If I don't do that right away, it's so much harder to make stock when I want to.   Yesterday I took the bones and simmered them with celery, carrots, and some onion skins, plus salt, pepper and bay.  The stock was then put in the fridge until this morning so I could skim off the fat before canning.  Ultimately I had 10 pints of stock that I pressure canned for 20 minutes at 10 pounds of pressure.  Now, the next time we have ducks, I can make turducken soup again!

Also this morning, I started a batch of yogurt.  When I get home from work around 3 am I will get that in the fridge as well.

In 6 days my extended family will be having our Thanksgiving/Birthday/Christmas celebration so, later in the week, I will make 3 pies.  Here's the plan:  Apple, Pecan, and Chocolate Sweet Potato with Bourbon whipped cream.  I will also make maple candied bacon sprinkles to put on the latter 2 pies when they are ready to be served.  Maybe that's too many flavors, but at least it'll be an optional topping...

So Very Full!

Happy Thanksgiving to one and all!  We had our feast this evening, complete with the turkey my husband roasted while I was at work.  Everything was ready when it was supposed to be and, while we ate, I popped the pies in the oven to warm up.

The apple pie wasn't the prettiest I've made, but I think the pumpkin pie more than made up for it.  They both tasted pretty awesome.  I even made whipped cream for them rather than using the canned stuff.  After the eight of us had our fill, there was half a pie of each flavor left.  And a loaf and a half of pumpkin bread.  And lots of turkey, and veggies, but the stuffing and the deviled eggs are all gone.  And then we all rolled into the living room to sit by the fire and play games.  How perfect is that?

Cranberry Sauce

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday to cook for, whether we have 4 or 14 at the table.  I generally start preparing things a week in advance.  First off, the dishes get divided up.  My mother always makes the sweet potatoes.  My sister in law makes the green dish and, for the second year in a row, a chess pie.  I make the turkey and the stuffing, the mashed potatoes, gravy, and squash, a pumpkin pie and an apple pie, and pumpkin bread.  Most of that can be made in advance which is good because I only have one oven.  Today I made the cranberry sauce and canned it.

It's super easy - 2 cups sugar, 2 cups water, 2 bags cranberries.  Boil for 10 minutes or so.  Can for 15 minutes in the canner and let it rest for 5 before taking it out.  This made 3 pints of sauce.  I'm not a fan of orange zest or any other flavors in my cranberry sauce so I don't get all fancy with it.

Over the weekend I'll start getting everything else all set.  I'm working long days in the early part of next week so the baking will have to be after dinner!

So Very Full

This isn't even all the dishes we had, not to mention the 3 pies!

What a feast!

I hope that all of you had a very happy Thanksgiving!  

READY.

The turkey is stuffed and has been in the oven for 2 hours already.  Devil eggs made.  Potatoes peeled and ready to be boiled and mashed.  Apple and pumpkin pies are made.  Squash is in the fridge waiting to be reheated.  Pumpkin bread will be sliced.  The last jars of cranberry sauce and cranberry habanero jam were pulled out of the pantry.  The pickled beets and eggs are ready.  I have 3 or 4 other sides arriving with my guests.  We just need to set the table.  I am SO READY!

Can I go back to bed now?

Under Pressure

Not in a bad way, but I do have to go to work in a few hours and wanted to get the leftovers processed into stock and soup.  I started around 8:30 today, it is now almost 1:30 and the soup will be in the canner for another hour.  But I did make 6 pints of turkey stock and 5 quarts of turkey soup.

Since the kale and brussels sprouts salad was not a success, I had a bag full of shredded kale and sprouts.  I decided to add those to the soup.  First I simmered the turkey bones with a lot of the leftover meat (there is still plenty for sandwiches for at least 3 days) and then I got the bones out, added an onion and some celery, some pepper and thyme and, at the last minute, the kale and sprouts.  This is being processed for 90 minutes since it is in quart jars.  I didn't add any salt because of the brining of the turkey, but there may be a need to add salt when we open the soup.  We'll see.

I also used up the mashed potato leftovers by making potato pancakes.  The 6 year old did not like them and had a bagel instead, but the rest of us ate them up.  They are better with cranberry sauce than with syrup.  Here's how I made them:  2 cups of mashed potatoes, 2 eggs, 1/4 c. flour, and some buttermilk, with a teaspoon of sugar.  I mixed this all together and fried them in a pan.  That made 10 pancakes.  It took a little figuring out to know when they were ready to be flipped, the first ones kinda broke apart.  Even though they weren't pretty, they tasted fine - a little bit like potato chips.

Stuffed!

And tired!

I've been up since 6:30 am.  I rinsed and stuffed the turkey and got it in the oven by 8:30 am, and it was ready at 1:30 pm on the dot.  Amazing!  And the brining was a success - my father could not stop saying how wonderful the turkey was, which made me so happy!  I thought I was the last person on earth to get on the brining bandwagon but, if I'm not, and you haven't brined, you have to try it.

The kale and brussels sprouts salad was challenging, even for me.  I think the kale was too chewy for my taste, others found it too bitter.  My husband very politely avoided it.  I have some of the greens left that didn't get tossed in the dressing, I will likely cook them up sometime.  Maybe add them to some soup... which I need to make with all that leftover turkey.  Hopefully tomorrow, before I have to go to work.

The mashed potatoes were made with buttermilk this year, also successful.  Almost everyone chose the cranberry habanero sauce over the plain sauce, the spiced crabapples were a hit, and between the 10 of us we ate one and a half pies.  I totally missed out on the beets and eggs, they never even made it to my end of the table.  The kids were at their own table; there were lots of giggles and not a lot of eating going on.  But they did make a big dent in the pumpkin bread.  I froze the second loaf - we had, as usual, WAY too much food.  My fridges (I have 2) are full of food.  I do not need to cook for a week, I think.

I talk a lot about food, but the best part of the day was just having my family around.  My sister called during the festivities and joined in long-distance.  My brother and his family hung around for a while after dinner and it was fun just to sit around and talk.  That's what I'm thankful for - all the people in my life!

New Things

Happy Thanksgiving!

As usual, Thanksgiving for us is whenever we can have it.  This year, it's Saturday.

I have my list.  I'm checking off things as I make them.  The other day I made the creamed broccoli.  Today I made:

1. A pumpkin pie, with homemade pie crust.  Added bonus: since I didn't have evaporated milk, I used egg nog.  Mmm.

2. Pumpkin bread:  2 loaves.  I was going to make 4 and freeze 2, but I was one egg short.  (I went through 17 eggs today, between the pie, breakfast, pumpkin bread, and:

3. Pickled beets and eggs.  I hard boiled 6 eggs and added them to the liquid of one of my jars of pickled beets.  Since I always have trouble with eggs cracking when I boil them, this time I set the eggs in cold water and waited to see which end floated.  I then poked a hole in that end and boiled them for 14 minutes. None cracked.  They were easy to peel.  I will do that from now on.

4.  Brined the turkey.  This is the New Thing.  I have never brined a turkey.  Fortunately, the turkey fits in my lobster pot so I didn't have to sanitize a cooler and worry about keeping it all cold.  I added 2 gallons of brine, 2 T. peppercorns, some sage, some thyme, and some celery seeds.  Tomorrow I will turn it over in the brine.

Tomorrow I need to make the stuffing, toast almonds for the salad (another New Thing:  a raw brussels sprouts and kale salad from Bon Appetit.  Most of my extended family is a little apprehensive about this one, but I think it'll be awesome), and go to the store for all those last minute ingredients.  Plus we are going to buy a new washer and dryer (my dryer is almost ready to give up the ghost, one can only repair these things so many times...) and there is this thing in the afternoon at the MIT Museum about kinetic/chain reaction sculptures that we must attend.

Saturday, I will do the rest!

Much Delayed Thanksgiving Post

Normally, I don't mind working over Thanksgiving. We've always held our Thanksgiving get together on a different day: "It doesn't matter when, just as long as we get together." This year, through a series of progressively more complicated events, that didn't happen. And I just finished working every other night (3 12-hour shifts in 5 days) through the actual holiday. Despite all this chaos, we managed to have some fun. Such as:

My wonderful husband cooked the turkey while I slept on Thursday, and he did an awesome job. Chestnut stuffing and everything! Even though it was just the 4 of us (and the 4 year old ate 4 bites of pumpkin bread and declared the meal over) we had the fancy china, candles, tablecloth, and the good silver. So thoughtful! (Astute readers will note the canned cranberry and cranberry habanero sauces in the foreground and, fyi, the pumpkin bread is made with my canned sugar pumpkin from last fall.)

To escape the turkey leftovers we went out one night to have crazy huge burgers at one of the most famous burger places in Cambridge, Bartley's Burger Cottage. (I had the Keith Lockhart, in case anyone is wondering!)

Yesterday afternoon, before my shift, the weather was nice enough that we went on a 10 mile bike ride. Even our 8 year old managed it! We did have a good halfway point destination - dim sum. I love the little carts! It was nice to get out and enjoy the good weather and get some exercise, and we rarely have this kind of family adventure.

Speaking of the 8 year old, I was perusing the local paper and saw a drawing printed there from OUR 8 year old! It was Thanksgiving themed and summed up the weekend nicely: "I am thankful for love."