Thanksgiving in a Skillet
I think I've mentioned that we're going to be in Chicago for Thanksgiving. Well... at Union Station, anyway, changing trains with a three hour layover on our cross-country trek from San Francisco back to Philadelphia. Our friends Kate and Lori are going to meet us there for dinner. It's going to be a great time.
But celebrating Thanksgiving in Chicago means no Thanksgiving dinner at home. No leftover turkey, no turkey soup, no turkey sandwiches on squishy white bread...
Enter Thanksgiving in a skillet. It's the perfect combination for those who want the taste of Thanksgiving without the hassle.
- 1 pkg Ground Turkey
- 1 medium Onion, diced
- 1/2 stick butter
- 1 or 2 sweet potatoes, diced
- 1 pkg Stuffing Mix
- 3 cups broth
Melt butter in skillet with cover. Add onion and ground turkey. Cook until onions are soft and turkey is cooked through.
Add diced yams, broth and stuffing seasoning packet. Cover and bring to a boil. Simmer until yams are cooked through.
Add stuffing. Turn off heat. leave skillet covered for 3-4 minutes. uncover and stir.
It's a great nosh. Ans makes enough for those all-important leftovers!
Flank Steak and Cheesy Potatoes
I had a flank steak I wanted to cook up and no idea what I wanted to do with it. There were lots of potatoes in the basket, but I had no idea what I wanted to do with them. And several different veggies - with no idea...
I've been a little brain-dead since Wednesday. What can I say?!?
I ended up grilling the flank steak with just a simple salt, pepper, and garlic. I broke out my trusty mandoline and thinly-sliced potatoes, and fried them on one side and then put them into the oven. When they were 99.999% done, I emptied a (drained) container of fresh mozzarella balls on top and set it back into the oven until it melted.
Green beans with almonds rounded out the meal.
The steak was fork-tender, the potatoes properly gooey, and the green beans crisp. And then there were brownies for dessert.
Comfort Food
Yep. I definitely needed some comfort food tonight. To have our right to marry stripped away from us has been extremely disappointing.
The number of phone cals we received, though, from family and friends has been heartwarming.
The important thing is that our families both love and support us. And a Black Family is moving into the White House.
One step at a time.....
When the going gets tough...
Make Brownies.
I'm not a TV watcher. Listening to the pundits drives me crazy. So into the kitchen I went to bake brownies. Gooey dark chocolate with a chocolate ganache and walnuts.
I tried taking them out of the pan waaaaay too soon and they crumbled and made a huge mess. But they tasted really good.
I'm not always the most patient of persons. My great-great aunt Katherine would tell me as a young child "When a string is in a knot, patience will untie it."
What the heck. They were good tonight and will be stellar tomorrow.....
Election Night Jitters
Yep. Election Night Jitters. Not because of the Presidential race. I have full faith that Barack Obama is our next President. No... my jitters are for California's Proposition 8. Victor and I are supposed to get married on November 23rd - our 14th Anniversary. I'm going to be really bummed if we're shot down.
So... easy dinner tonoght. easy to cook, easy to eat, and easy to clean up.
Mandarin Orange Chicken, with pineapple and bell peppers. I added peach jam, soy sauce, and chili paste to the sauce packet, and served it all over rice.
It's dark outside... I could just go to bed.
Happy Hal's Online
I suppose I could have mentioned this before, but my most favorite Jalapeno Relish - Happy Hal's Jalapeno Relish - is now available for purchase online! I wrote awhile back about getting a jar of the relish, and then meeting Susie and Joe Spurlock, the owners of Happy Hal's.
I liked the product so much, I redid their website and created the online store for them. I really have been having a lot of fun with the relish. It goes on everything!
Victor and I are heading home to San Francisco in a couple of weeks, and I plan on bringing a few jars with me to introduce Hal to some folks who just love jalapenos!
Anyway... a bit of shameless self-promotion and a really great relish!
Perfect Fall Dinner
It's getting a bit chilly outside - again. After a few days of wonderfully warm weather, Fall is roaring its ugly head. A precursor to the frigid winter months ahead.
Well... I can't change the weather, but i can turn on the oven, and that's just what I did with tonight's Bourbon-Glazed Sweet Potatoes.
Dinner started out with a Niman Ranch ham steak. I like Niman Ranch and their quality products and humane treatment of their animals. A nice 1-inch thick slab of ham is definitely my idea of good eating.
Ham and sweet potatoes are a natural combination, and Paula Deen's Bourbon-Glazed Sweets are great:
Sweet Potatoes
- 1 strip orange peel
- 1/4 cup bourbon
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp gincer
- 3 tbsp butter
- 3/4 cup brown sugar
- 2 cups water
- 2 sweet potatoes
Bake potatoes until they are soft to the touch - about an hour at 400°. Cool slightly and peel. Reduce oven temperature to 350°. While the potatoes are baking, bring remaining ingredients to a boil, then reduce the heat and simmer for about 45 minutes until sauce is slightly thickened. Slice the potatoes 1/2-inch thick into a small casserole dish. Pour syrup over them and bake about 30 minutes.
And them we had to have a fun vegetable - and vegetable pancakes fitted that bill!
Vegetable Pancakes
- 1/2 cup flour
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp pepper
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup milk
- 1 cup carrots, grated
- 1 cup zucchini, grated
- 1 sm onion, diced
Mix together the flour, baking powder, salt, and pepper. In another bowl, grate carrots, zucchini, and onions, and mix. Beat together the egg and milk, toss into the grated vegetables, and stir. Add to the dry ingredients and stir until combined.
Heat small amount of oil over medium heat. Drop the batter by tablespoons into the pan. Cook about 2 minutes on each side, or until golden.
Everything came out great!
The vegetable patties were like veggie latke's - same type of texture and consistency. Quite good. i can see many different variations on this theme!
And the potatoes were just plain good. I used some of the sauce to douse over the ham. Most excellent, indeed.
Party Food
I'm working on some party food ideas and wanted a new twist on one of my personal favorites - stuffed eggs.
The poor egg has been so maligned. It is probably the single best protein source there is. Extremely versatile and extremely good tasting. They hold things together, help make cakes rise, and on their own can be a meal in minutes.
I was visiting Paula Deen's website looking for a Pumpkin Pancake recipe and stumbled upon a recipe for some fairly outrageous eggs. I tweaked the recipe a bit, used walnuts instead of pecans, and wondering which chutney I would like the best - tomato or cranberry. Both were good, but the cranberry won.
Outrageous Stuffed Eggs
- 6 hard cooked eggs
- 3 tbsp Chevre cheese
- 3 tbsp Mayonnaise
- 2 tbsp Cranberry Chutney
- 3 tbsp chopped walnuts
- 2 tbsp minced celery
- salt and pepper, to taste
Slice cooked eggs in half. Mix yolks with all the other ingredients. Stuff eggs. Eat.
We're not going to be here for Thanksgiving - we'll be spending it in Chicago with friends waiting to change trains on our cross-country train ride home - so I'll have to remember this for Christmas at Tom & Joanna's. Yum.
Pork and Andouille Bean Soup
Cold night. Hot soup.
Okay... It's been pretty much a food-fest all day, starting with an early breakfast. Some days you just have to go with the flow...
Dinner tonight was all about spice - from the heat of the D'Artagnan Andouille Sausage to the heat of the Guamanian hot peppers (ground Boonie Peppers) Marie's nephew Jay sent us a few weeks ago.
The Boonie Peppers are a local favorite - and a local cottage industry. These are grown and ground by just about everyone. Ours arrived in a baby food jar with a handmade label. Most excellent.
Bean Soup
- 2 boneless pork chops
- 2 links andouille
- 4 shallots
- 1 cup red wine
- 2 cans black beans
- 1 can diced tomatoes
- 1/2 tsp Hot Pepper
- Fresh oregano
- salt and pepper to taste
Cube the pork, dice the andouille, and chop the shallots. Brown in a bit of oil until pork is cooked thgrough.
Add wine and reduce a bit. Add beans, tomatoes, and spices.
Simmer until heated through and flavors meld.
Enjoy.
And enjoy, we did! It was juuuuuust spicy enough to be interesting, with lots of flavors and textures going on.
My kind of cold-weather eating!
Kiva - Loans That Change Lives
Kiva and Food. Well... in the grand scheme of things, they go together. Kiva is an organization that facilitates loans to individuals to make them self-sufficient, raise them out of poverty, and let them feed themselves.
Victor got involved with Kiva quite awhile ago, and has about $200.00 in loans. He has been paid back every penny he has loaned out, and takes the paid-back loan and reloans it to others. It is a great system!
Their website states:
Kiva is the world's first person-to-person micro-lending website, empowering individuals to lend directly to unique entrepreneurs in the developing world.
The people you see on Kiva's site are real individuals in need of funding - not marketing material. When you browse entrepreneurs' profiles on the site, choose someone to lend to, and then make a loan, you are helping a real person make great strides towards economic independence and improve life for themselves, their family, and their community. Throughout the course of the loan (usually 6-12 months), you can receive email journal updates and track repayments. Then, when you get your loan money back, you can relend to someone else in need.
For as little as $25.00 you can help someone change their life. Not give them a handout. Not change their life for them, but allow them to help themselves.
What a concept, huh?!?
Grilled Cheese Sandwiches
Toast.
It's one of the major food groups. I love toasted bread in any way, shape, or form. And when you included butter and melted cheese... well... gastronomic heaven.
We had a hearty breakfast early this morning. The whole daylight savings time change had us up much earlier than we should have been for a Sunday. And by 1:30pm, I was thinking I'm now ready to eat more. (Like I really need an excuse...)
Looking for quick and easy because I'm thinking hearty for dinner, Grilled Cheese Sandwich just magically appeared. Slices of sourdough french and cotswold cheese made for a reasonably traditional sandwich.
Sated for another few hours...
Sunday Morning Breakfast
Sunday Breakfast... just thinking about it brings me back to those early childhood days when my father - when he wasn't at the Firehouse - would cook these huge breakfasts for all of us. Pop was a pretty good cook and in no time at all would create mountains of French Toast or Fried Ham with Sourdough Toast. Gastronomic heaven.
He may not be around to cook for me anymore, but I'm following in his foot steps. Today was a mountain of pancakes.
While I usually have pancake mix in the cupboard, it seems I didn't this morning... Of course, that didn't stop me. I've been making pancakes from scratch for years...
A bit of bacon on the side, Lingonberry jam and maple syrup, fresh-brewed coffee...
Pop would have been proud.
