Thanksgiving 2009

Sweet Jesus!

Its been well over a year since i posted...im not sure if its because i forgot or didnt cook much, but right now it was because i could remember my god damned password to sign in! So after many attempts at those security words that are all scribbly and mysterious, i finally was able to come up with a new password.

So now, upon my triumphant return, i figure i should probably fill in some of my best meals from the last year. After all, i never stopped taking pictures!

Lets start with my Thanksgiving meal from last year!

Last year i had the pleasure, nay, the honor, of being on my own alone with my man for thanksgiving...no family, no sober friends, just us two!

Now, some people may be miffed and scared at the idea of making their very own thanksiving meal from scratch, with only about 3 days notice....but baby i THRIVE on that shit!

so here we go.

MENU-

Sweet potatoe soup

green bean and pearl onion casserole with fried shallots

roasted veggies with fresh Rosemary

sausage, walnut cornbread stuffing with thyme

whole Turkey with Sage butter and Thyme

'Travis' apple pie

Now, all of this was made for 2 very hungry men, with leftovers for another meal...

So lets start with the Sweet Potato Soup

i've made this soup soooo many times since my first attempt last year, and i make it subbing a few ingredients depending on the final flavour i want. some nice options to add- 1 tbs diced fresh ginger, 1-2cups fresh oj

3 medium sized sweet potatoes, baked

1/2 of 1 large onion, diced

2 stalks celery, diced

1 carrot, diced

4 cloves garlic

butter, salt, pepper, chicken stock

Throw your potatoes in the oven before anything, they should be ready to add by the time the rest of the veggies are cooked.

Dice your onion, celery, carrot, and garlic, and sautee them in 2 tbs butter until onions are translucent. Add some salt and pepper, and about 3 cups chicken stock (the liquid should cover the veggies well) and turn the heat off.

Cut the potatoes in half, pull the peel off, and cut the taters up roughly. Throw em in da soup!

Once the soup has cooled down some, spoon into a blender or food processor. I used my trusty magic bullet! Add more chicken stock as needed until its the consistency desired.

Work in batches, transfering from blender to bowl, until all the soup is well blended and it can go back into the now cleaned pot.

This can be made the day before and put into a jar, to save on time and pots. Garnish with a little brown sugar after its ben reheated, tho it is good cold too!

Green Bean and Pearl Onion Casserole with Fried Shallots

This was a take on the usual casserole with the crispy fake onions from a can we all love...but is too disgusting to actually eat. So i made this!

1 jar pearl onions, drained

green beans, tips cut off and cut in half

1 can cream of chicken soup

2 large shallots

olive oil

this is a really simple recipe, and really quick.

get a pot of water boiling with some salt, and blanche the beans in the water for 1 minute, and plunge into ice water to stop cooking. they should be cooked outside and crunchy inside. Once the beans are cooked, combine in a casserole dish with the pearl onions, and the can of soup, and set aside.

Peel and thinly slice the shallots, keeping them in circles. preheat 2 tbs olive oil over medium high heat, and add salt. once oil is hot, add shallots and stir well, cooking for a few minutes until browned. Take out of oil and place ontop of casserole! Heat in oven until bubbly.

Roasted veggies with rosemary

This is by far the easiest part of the whole meal

chop up in large pieces-

potatoes, carrots, celery, onion, toss in olive oil and add tons of frsh rosemary.

and cut in half 2 WHOLE cloves, the entire bulb, cut in half horizontally so youve got 4 flowers of garlic.

Once your turkey has about an hour of cooking left, add the veggies to the bottom of the turkey pan! The veggies will soak up the drippings and be sooo flavorful! The garlic pieces will simply fall out of the paper once its cooked!

Sausage, walnut cornbread stuffing with thyme

Cornbread- you can make your own with jiffy mix, or buy premade

1 roll of jimmy dean sausage

diced onion, carrot, celery

candied walnuts

thyme, salt, pepper

chicken stock

cook veggies in some olive oil over mdium heat, once translucent, add the sausage and cook well. Once cooked, drain and let cool.

In a large bowl, crumble the cornbread in large pieces and add the leaves of thyme and candied walnuts. Once the veddies are cooled, add to the bowl with a splash of chicken stock and toss well.

I prefer to NOT actually stuff the bird, since the idea of eating something from inside somethings carcass grosses me out, i just filled another pan with the stuffing, drizzled with some butter, and cook until toasty brown on top.

TURKEY with sage butter and thyme

remember, of course, to start this first!!!

take a good look at the cooking time of your turkey, and go by that.

along with the turkey, duh, youll need-

sage leaves, butter, any leftover thyme you may not have used in stuffing, salt, pepper, and chicken stock to baste with during the cooking time.

you WILL need 4 hands to do this, so either start mutating or get a friend to help.

melt ya butta in a pan a let cool a little bit, but do not let solidify. Have one person hold the turkey, and seperate the skin from the body enough to slip the sage leaves underneath, as the other person pours some of the butter between the skin and meat too. this will help the skin to get crispy, and the sage flavor will seep into the turkey! Crack fresh salt, pepper, and throw the leftover thyme ontop of the bird once its been stuffed with sage and butter. Cook according to directions, basting with stock the whole time.

See how beautiful that is with the sage leaves under the skin?!!

"Travis" Apple Pie

now, i call it travis pie because it has a special secret ingredient, which i shall NOT disclose! but heres the rest of the recipe, which is still amazing.

8 green apples, peeled, cored, and diced. Squeeze some lemon juice on them to help prevent browning.
oats

pillsbury pie crusts

brown sugar

white sugar

butter

cinnamon

in a big ass bowl, combine the apples, 3 cups oats, 1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup melted butter, 4 tbs cinnamon, and 1/4 cup white sugar, mix well. get your pie dish ready with the bottom crust in place, spoon in apples. be prepared, there is going to be a mountain of apples! Place the top crust over the apples, and sprinkle with cinnamon
Cook until crust is browned, and apples are tender!

Peppers stuffed with Chicken feta apple and wild rice

I was on this awsome kick of making things Ive never had before....I made this amazing turkey meatloaf, but I didnt document it at all, so its not up here yet.

BUT. I did document this loverly dish.

Red bell peppers stuffed with ground chicken, feta cheese, green apple, and wild rice.

Oh yes it is good.

2 large red bell peppers

1 lg chicken breast, ground up

1 medium green apple, diced

1/2 c crumbled feta cheese

1/2 a carrot, shredded

2 tbs fresh Parsley

1/2 stalk celery, minced

1 medium onion, diced

salt and pepper

1 box wild rice pilaf

Go ahead and cook your rice according to the directions on the box, and set aside.

Cut the tops off the peppers, and scoop out the ribs and seeds. Slice of the bottom part of the top part of the pepper...that you already cut off...ya know? So now youve got an empty pepper to be filled, and a lid.

Cut up the veggies and combine with 1 cup of the rice, the feta and the chicken together in a bowl, mixing well. Once your mixed, spoon large amounts of the meat mixture into the peppers, stuffing well, since the veggies will lose all of their water during the cooking process, and shrink.

Using toothpicks to keep the peppers standing upright, place peppers in your baking dish. You can put the pepper lids directly onto the pan, theyre only for presentation. Drizzle with a little olive oil and cook in a 350 oven for, lets say, 25-30 minutes, checking to make sure the chicken is no longer pink!

Serve with the remaining wild rice!

Chicken Kabobs with fruit

After thinking of making weenie kabobs the other day, I had to get some skewers.

Dice up large chunks of-

Green Apple
Onion

Red pepper

Chickeeeen

I had some leftover eggplant chunks, so I threw those on...

I also had a couple of bacon slices so they went on to.

Drain a can of pineapple chunks, set juice aside.

Skewer your ingredients in any random order, and coat with oil, salt, and pepper.

Cook under the broiler for 7-10 minutes, turning once or twice...

In a pan, pour some pineapple juice, combined with 1 tbs cornstarch, 1/2 tsp red pepper flakes, 2 tbs soy sauce, and any leftover pineapple chunks, crushed smaller.

Heat and combine.

Plate up some rice, place a few kabobs on top, and pour on the sauce!!! Enjoy!

Weenies with onion and apple.

I found a container of these little weenies at the store. They were chicken sausages with apple and onion! Deeeelish. I wanted to do kabobs with them, but didn't have skewers, so no go. I made a sauce and simmered them with chunks of onion and apple! Served over rice.

Cook your rice ahead.

In a bowl combine amounts of the following, tasting frequently to get the taste you like.

BBQ sauce
Apple sauce

Chili sauce

Honey mustard

Chicken stock
Red pepper flakes

Anything else you like!

Once youve got a good taste, pour into a pot and simmer, adding chunks fo green apple and white onion, and your sausages!!

Simmer for a good 10-15 minutes, and serve over rice with a few pieces of fresh apple.

Tortiollini with Spinach and Eggplant

Another box of my favorite pre-made pasta- Buitonni. Delicious.

Skin and cut up one medium eggplant into small bite sized pieces. Dice half an onion and mince 5 cloves of garlic. Stir onion, eggplant and garlic with 3 tbs olive oil, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp fresh thyme, and some freshly cracked black pepper. Combine well, and roast under a hot broiler with plenty of oil for 7-10 minutes, stirring frequently.

Slice up 5 oz fresh spinach, or defrost and drain 3 oz frozen spinach.

In a small pot, heat up 2 cups chicken stock. Add black pepper, fersh thyme, and the spinach. Simmer for 2-5 minutes.

Cook pasta as directed, drain, and combine with sauce!

Serve pasta with sauce in bowl or plate, depending on amount of sauce wanted. I served it to Brett like a soup, but I had mine on a plate with less sauce...Top with a large spoonful of the eggplant mix, and I topped mine with a slice of bacon...cos I love me sum Bacon.

Gnocchi with Ham

Last night I made one of our favorites....potato gnocchi. Theres a great non-brand I get at my local market, its a great dinner that only takes 5 minutes, so I can chill!

I cooked the gnocchi until it floats to the top, drain immedietly. Dice up some ham, bacon, or canadian bacon. I used canadian bacon since I hadnt had any in years and years. In a large pan, heat up some butter over medium high heat and toss in the gnocchi and ham. Toss the pasta and ham around in the butter, letting both brown and crackle, itll sound amazing!

Once the gnocchi has a nice golden touch to it and the bacon has browned, add more butter and melt. Add in 1/2 cup of chicken stock and one large teaspoon of fresh thyme, combine. Simmer for another minute, and serve!

Orange Honey BBQ chicken with green beans and cornbread!

I found a BBQ sauce that is Orange Honey BBQ...and heres what I did...

I wound up marinating the chicken for two days...you dont need to do that long but it was nice and flavorfull.


If youd like to make your own BBQ sauce, add the juice from one can of mandrin oranges (youll use them later) and 1 1/2 tbs honey to 1 1/2 cups normal bbq sauce.

Dice up half a red bell pepper and half an onion. Drain a can of mandrin oranges. Sautee the pepper and onion in olive oil and some bbq until tender, take off heat and add the oranges and combine.

Cook chicken under broiler for 7-10 minutes each side or until no longer pink inside.

Spoon on onion peper and orange mix and a drizzle of honey!

BEANs!!!

Trim your green beans and set aside. Cut up the other half of the onion into thin strips. Slice up a few pieces of ham or bacon and sautee in butter until the onion is tender. Add 1 1/2 cups water or chicken stock and get to a boil. Add beans for 3 minutes and drain. Add 1/4 c white vinegar and the juice of one lemon. Toss together and enjoy!!

The cornbread was jiffy mix with a couple green onions and 1 1/2 tbs taco sauce added.