My ingredients, a photolog

Castlevetrano olives

When I smashed them to remove the pits, I found I was making olive oil on my board. And yes, the most virgin of the oils tasted awesome.

Red snapper

Skinning the fillet, exposing beautiful grain

Sour dough.
Persimmon. Raw, it was a bit sweet but had a strangely coating taste in the mouth. We later learned this was from the tannins. Cooked down and blended, the tannins rendered the whole thing tongue scrapingly bad. I had to throw it out. According to wikipedia, our persimmon must have been unripe.

Tomato juice

Reducing the juice to come closer to a sauce.

The finished product, to be more fully explained at a later date. Crusted snapper over tortelini, coated in a bloody mary marinara, with sourdough toasts.

The weekend's winning dishes

Having gone to three separate Thanksgiving dinners, and traveled four hours to do so, Darling Husband and I got to talking and have compiled our "best of" list for the holiday.

Best Turkey:
My parents. It was moist and flavorful, with lovely white and dark meat. An all around nice bird--nothing fancy, but well seasoned and cooked just right.

Best Stuffing:
Darling Husband's paternal grandmother. Cooked in the bird and, therefore, wonderfully moist with the drippings from the turkey. I think we both got a touch of food poisoning from it, but it was darkly worth it. The veggies in it were not raw, as can be a problem with onions and celery in stuffing. It was the stuffing all stuffings wish they could be, and food scientists warn us about.

Best Potatoes:
My parents. Flavorful, creamy, dreamy. Just right as a vehicle for gravy or a foundation for a forkful of everything.

Best Pie:
Darling Husband's paternal grandmother. She says she'd rather bake than cook. God bless her, she's like my sister in that. It serves her well, though, as her pie was fantastic (even though she forgot the whipped cream). It wasn't glutenous or gelatinous, as pumpkin pie can be, nor was it heavy. The custard was just right. Baby Girl ate a whole piece herself.

Best Gravy:
It's a tie between my parents and Darling Husband's maternal grandmother. Actually, I think his mom actually made the gravy, and that's where the problem came in. Our mothers both made gravy the way they make gravy, and therefore we both picked our own mother's gravy as the most exemplary. My mom's was thinner than his mom's, with more of the flavor of the bird. His mom's was thicker and more stick to your ribs, with a lovely consistency. [It's worth noting that the other Thanksgiving dinner's gravy was unusually made. The aunt who was in charge insisted on using water from the potatoes for thickening the gravy. To us, it was a miss for a number of reasons, and this might have been one of them. For one thing, it just never emulsified and seemed greasy. As Darling Husband pointed out, the starch in the water would have already been cooked and done it's thing. For another, it's adding quite a bit of extraneous liquid to cook out. I guess it's an interesting idea, but for that reason or perhaps not, the gravy wasn't a hit for us.]

Best Beta Carotine Veg (sweet potato or squash):
Darling Husband's maternal grandmother. Darling Husband's aunt and uncle brought a lovely hubbard squash dish with cranberries and just a hint of cinnamon. Hubbard squash is rather pumpkiny in taste and texture; it's more fibrous than acorn or butternut. The cranberries were a wonderful bright note.

Best Veggie (unspecified):
This one also was a tie. The first veg we loved was at Darling Husband's paternal grandmother. They make a corn casserole, which is probably a spoon bread of some kind. Mmmmh, it is so good. It has corn kernels and corn meal and sour cream and I don't know what else. It's sweet but not sugary, starchy but fluffy. It's addictive.

The second veg we loved was, actually, our own. We made brussel sprouts and brought them to Darling Husband's maternal grandmother's Thanksgiving. First, we trimmed and halved the brussel sprouts, tossing them in olive oil and seasoning with salt and pepper. Then we roasted them cut side down on a baking stone in a 415 degree oven. Meanwhile, we reduced some balsamic vinegar slightly (we've over reduced before and wound up with tar, so I was a bit gun shy and could have reduced further) and halved some dried figs. When the sprouts were out of the oven, we added the figs and a few handfuls of candied walnuts and tossed with the balsamic. Roasting them brings out the sweetness and mellows the harsh cabbage bitterness, plus adds a bit of carmelization and wonderful flavor. The balsamic was tart and sweet and rich with umami. And while figs and candied walnuts are sweet, the overall flavor of the dish has enough dark flavors that it's not overwhelmingly sweet at all.

Oh, and then there was my mother's green beans, which had grown in her garden and had a wonderful crispness... Hmmm. I guess we ate pretty well this weekend. Thank you to all our family for their hospitality, good food and generous love. We're thankful for you all.

Leftover treasure

Darling Husband, Baby Girl and I don't make Thanksgiving dinner. Instead, we travel to my parents and both sides of Darling Husband's family- that's THREE Thanksgivings. I used to think that when we had children we'd whittle that down, but it hasn't happened yet. We're too excited to see everyone and show off our little girl to cut one out. It has up sides and down sides. It also means that we don't get much in the way of left overs unless someone packs them up and gives them to us. (I know someone who roasts their own turkey expressly for leftovers, though they eat dinner at a relative's house. I think that's overkill, myself.)

That being said, I've come up with a list of left over gems for you, my dear reader, to stave off hum drum turkey sandwich blahs.

Turkey:

• Gumbo
• Turkey Waldorf salad
• Hash
• Panini sandwiches
• Cheddar tortilla soup
• Fajitas
• Pot pie
• Chef salad

Potatoes:

• Potato pancakes
• Potato cakes
• Shepherd's pie
• Gnocci
• Perogi filling
• Potato soup (possibly with bacon and/or leeks)

Cranberry sauce:

• Reduced down as a glaze for pork tenderloin
• On baguette with brie

Stuffing:

• Okay, if you made good stuffing, you wouldn't have any leftovers.

Rolls:

• Breakfast strata
• Savory bread pudding
• Sweet bread pudding
• Garlic croutons
• Fresh breadcrumbs

This year, the only leftovers we're expecting is some home made turkey stock. I plan to freeze it in ice cube trays, then use it to make risotto or to flavor rice.

Hope this list helps! Feel free to add comments of your own ingenious ideas for left over turkey day fixins.

I give a fig

Figs are lovely and terribly underused. Fresh figs are pricey and hard to find at times, but they've available dried all the time. I think many people are afraid of figs, unless it's in a fig newton. The seeds inside are crunchy in a sparkly way; it's delightful.

What could be a simpler appetizer than a dried fig, split and stuffed with blue cheese? Salty, sweet, creamy, crunchy and just bite sized.

Tonight we made a quick, savory tart topped with sauteed onions which were deglazed with balsamic vinegar, asiago cheese, quartered figs, mozzarella and torn prosciutto. Along with a simple salad, it was just the thing to cap off black Friday.

My magic 5

Darling Husband gave me the following ingredients, from which I am to make a yummy meal:


Sourdough bread
Red snapper fillet
Castelvetrano olives
Persimmon
Tomato juice


Initial impressions: hmmmm, interesting! And eww! I don't like to drink tomato juice, but I know it will be workable. Sourdough is not something I enjoy, but surely the flavor can be masked. Red snapper sounds rockin'. Green olives, which Darling Husband assures me are not very brined or aged... I'm intrigued. Persimmons are beautiful and I have no idea what they're like. Sweet? Tart? Full of pips? You got me; we'll find out.

Beaujolais nouveau est arrive!

Each year, on the third Thursday in November, the wine and spirit stores release the year's beaujolais nouveau for sale. Ah, and what a day it is! My parents have taken to celebrating with a cocktail party (serving, obviously, only beaujolais nouveau).

This is a wine meant to be drunk immediately, as a celebration of the harvest. It is young, immature, and frankly will not be the best wine you drink. Some years it's awesome (two years ago, in fact, was a phenomenal year) and others, a bit "eh" (like last year). For me, that adds to the charm. It may be vin ordinaire, but that doesn't mean it's bad. Apparently some people see this as the wine of Thanksgiving, although it honestly never occured to me to connect the two.

One should drink the beaujoulais nouveau before the next year's harvest, although in our house it's never lasted that long. Darling Husband has just reminded me that we gave away our last bottle of last year's wine this August, which I suppose is breaking that rule. Honestly, though, it was hiding behind some marechal foch and I found it in the wine rack and we were running late and it's not polite to show up empty handed and anyway it was a relatively informal picnic and...

Yes. Well. It's to be drunk by spring. Moving on.

My mother served "heavy hors d'oerves," which I think is a way for her to serve buffet style and not worry that people are leaving hungry. She still worried. She shouldn't have.

Here are some of lovely foods on which we nibbled:

*Shrimp with cocktail sauce
*Assorted fresh veggies
*Home made hummus
*Rice, cheese and spinach bake
*Assorted French cheeses (God bless runny cheeses...)
*Jalapeno poppers
*Mini corn dogs
*Ham, turkey and cheese with rolls, to make tiny sandwiches
*Olives

I just might be forgetting something, but the dozen or so of us there munched and quaffed and laughed quite contentedly. Baby Girl was with a sitter for the first time (as opposed to spending time with her grand parents or aunt) and did very well, but I wasn't willing to let it go more than an hour and a half. It's too bad, because the conversation was sparkling, the company relaxed and convivial, the food fun and satisfying and the wine very drinkable.

If you're going to snag a bottle, better be quick about it. It doesn't last long in stores and some unscrupulous wine sellers have been known to put aside a case of it for themselves and their friends. If you don't see it on the shelf, ask and it's possible they will "find" a bottle in the back after all. :o)

Meatloaf and charred food

Much as I'd like to pretend they aren't, the holidays are around the corner. Everyone's familiar with the new wife story of burning the first Thanksgiving dinner with the in laws or some such cliche, right? Well, tonight was the 30 year old, 5 years married version: the burning of the first meatloaf dinner.

What's that, you say? You've never made a meatloaf? As I believe I've mentioned, Darling Husband has bad meatloaf memories/associations (as well as barbecued ham, sloppy joe's and anything else that seems to have ketchup as a main ingredient). Therefore there will not be a night when I say, "What would you like for dinner?" and he says "MEATLOAF!" Nor is there likely to be a night where I say, "Would you like meatloaf or stir fry?" and have him pick the former. As such, I never made a meatloaf. It wasn't something my mom made often, so it wasn't something I missed or craved.

Still, I was inspired by my mom's meatloaf she made a couple months back and heartened by the fact that Darling Husband ate it with good graces. It didn't have the ketchup glaze he seemed convinced it would have, nor did it taste appreciably of the K word as a binder.

Tonight I made my first meatloaf. I used ground beef, crushed ritz crackers, a packet of onion soup seasoning (savvy readers will find this familiar), an egg, some "kickin' chicken" seasoning and white wine. I formed it into two small loaves and set them on top of a rack over a rimmed baking sheet, to allow maximum crust formation and minimize the loaf bathing in fat.

For side dishes, I cut some carrots into coins and put them in a sauce pan with some ginger ale and a bit of sambol olek to reduce and glaze. Also, I made wild rice pilaf.

Where does the charred food come in? The smoke filled house? The tears?

Right here, folks (minus the tears. We were more stoic this evening.) They say Lucifer was cast out of heaven for his pride, and for the same reason my side dishes turned into fiery infernos. I was so blasted proud of myself for prepping the whole meal in the 20 minutes I could reasonably spare between work and picking up Baby Girl from daycare that I let myself get cocky. I set the water to boil for the rice, popped the loaves in the oven and got the carrots heating just before taking Baby Girl up to bed. I asked Darling Husband to peek in at them when he was done reading stories to her.

The next thing I know, he's telling me that the pan for the water has boiled dry and begun to burn, and the carrots are a tarry, charred, carbon mess. Whoops. I guess my brilliant plan isn't so brilliant. Fortunately, the meatloaf was fine. Multi tasking doesn't work. Studies say that, and so does the news and yet still I believe I am the one person on earth who can competently juggle things and not get, ahem, burned.

On the plus side, I was able to re-make the rice and found some peas and edamame in the fridge. Dinner was saved. As for the meatloaf? Well, Darling Husband had seconds. I think that speaks for itself.