Showing posts with label memorable meals. Show all posts
Showing posts with label memorable meals. Show all posts

So what did you do with your turkey?

This year especially, since it was just the two of us for dinner, Thanksgiving was all about the leftovers.  Ironically my bird turned out better than it usually does for guests--maybe it was that I just had less distractions during the roasting--or that we didn't try to cram a lot of extra side dishes into the schedule.



Nicely summarized by this article, I do love the process of planning for a weeks' worth of meals from one smallish bird. Its a cross between feeling obligated and feeling challenged, in a time of year seemingly full of wastefulness, to make the most of what I have.   Instead of shopping, part of our "black Friday" was spent making stock out of the picked-over carcass. 

So besides a few lazy days of classic turkey sandwiches, we had:
  • Turkey pot pie, with biscuits on top.  Somehow with all fresh homegrown herbs and veggies (leeks, carrots, broccoli, celery, parsley) in November, not even all from the hoophouse!
  • Creamed turkey on leftover biscuits (yes, I'm on a biscuit kick lately...the lazy person's bread)
  • Turkey hash:  potatoes, leeks, kale, turkey, and leftover gravy, mixed together and browned in a skillet.  
And tonight, another tradition, turkey mole enchiladas.

My mole recipe comes from my sister, whose husband's family is from Mexico.  I'm sure it's dummed-down a bit from a more authentic version, but we like it, and it's simple enough for a weeknight:

Mole Poblano sauce:

6 or so dried ancho chiles, stems and seeds removed
4-6 cups turkey or chicken broth
several cloves of garlic
1 small onion, chopped
salt

In a saucepan, simmer the chiles, garlic, and onion with a dash of salt in the broth for fifteen minutes to a half-hour, or until everything is soft.  Let cool slightly, and puree (I use an immersion blender, but you could also use a food processor or blender, just be careful of flying hot liquids in all cases).

Once liquified, add the following to taste:

1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
a few tablespoons:  brown sugar (or honey, etc)
1-2 tablespoons cocoa powder
salt and pepper

Return to a boil and simmer until reduced to a desired consistency.  In this batch, I used one quart of stock and was pretty thick right after blending.  It also mellows nicely if you make it the night before.

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So after six days, we are calling the bird done, and best of all, I have another meals' worth of meat in the freezer, and 3 quarts of stock canned! 

Strata

Usually, when I have extra eggs and veggies, quiche is an excellent solution.  I may have a new favorite option, however:

I had some sliced dry bread in my freezer I knew would be handy for something, and it was.  Adapted from a recipe via Smitten kitchen (and Epicurious...) I layered the bread with a mixture of cheese and filling.  The filling was made from some overwintered red onions from the garden--I added some of the greens too--mixed with garlic (still hanging in there from fall's harvest).  Added to that were some grocery store mushrooms, plus the first of our spinach harvest of the year.  Oh, and a little local bacon!  Over the layers was poured a mixture of milk and eggs (I used six for this pan, and it worked out well).  Let it soak for a few hours or overnight, and then bake for 45 minutes or so. 


I'd seen this type of savory bread pudding on fast grow the weeds, and another favorite foodie blog, and I wish I had made it sooner!  I think it's better than quiche, very much like a comforting stuffing without the bother of a roasted bird!

Lasagna!

I'm not sure what to do here after the DD challenge ended, but this meal seemed worth talking about.  We've been meaning to make this during the challenge, but it got put off due to laziness mostly. 

And there are so many veggie lasagna recipes out there, kind of overwhelming.  I decided to follow the "template" of my favorite meat version, that layers bechamel sauce with bolognese.  So instead of the meat version, I made more of a ragout out of frozen zucchini, eggplant, and green peppers, some onions, and a jar of crushed tomatoes.  Added a frozen scoop of pesto and some fresh oregano (something had to come out of the spring garden!).  Bechamel was made from Sassy Cow milk, and then everything was layered with some Farmer John's parm and some ubiquitous WI mozz.


The sauce was a bit chunkier than ideal, and next time I'd like to increase the proportion of veggie sauce to white sauce.  But it tasted great.  And I should add this was our first time making fresh lasagna noodles, I confess I've ONLY used pre-boiled no-cook ones before!  So that was a revelation, they are SO good and worth the time if you have it.  And what the heck, you're making lasagna, might as well go all out.  And note to self, make enough for two next time and freeze one...

mediterranean monday?



grilled eggplant parmesan

I'm not sure why we haven't made this one yet this summer, but it seemed a fitting grillout food for labor day weekend. I base this on an epicurious recipe from years ago, but there's no real need for a recipe: simply brush olive oil on rounds of eggplant, grill on one side for 3 or 4 minutes, flip, and add your toppings. In this case I had fresh mozzarella, then a thin slice of tomato, and a mixture of toasted breadcrumbs, basil, and parmesan. I put the lid on and let them go another 3 minutes or so, until everything was melted and cooked through.

I always see recipes for "healthier" eggplant parmesan, which mainly try to avoid the breading/frying things. Personally I feel that most of the point of EP is the fried texture, and if you don't want the work or fat just make something else out of eggplant (say, an indian dish). But, this is an exception--fast, easy, healthier, and really really delicious.

meze monday



Mondays are actually meant for leftovers: low-energy, no-brainer meals that use up extras from weekend meals. But this time of year, anything that uses up excess produce is a good thing.

Panzanella is a traditionally for us a celebratory meal for the first ripe tomatoes of the season. This year, it celebrated the first ripe brandywine tomato. I chopped up a medley of tomatoes: the brandywine, a black krim, italian heirloom, and some orange sungold and black plums for color. Add some red onion, garlic, basil, parsley, a rogue cucumber, plus olive oil and lemon juice, and you have a juicy sensory overload:



Add some croutons (aka old bread, toasted bread, or in this case bread tossed with butter and olive oil, pan-toasted, with a little parm for overkill:



And throw on a small bed of arugula, or mixed greens.

Meanwhile, my assistant is game for stuffing cherry tomatoes with a quickly thrown-together pesto sauce, and has the inspired idea to add some goat cheese..... That and some farmer's market cantaloupe and a few raspberries from our patch makes for a memorable meal.... Perhaps it wasn't completely brain dead cooking, but it went together in probably less than an hour.

Ahh, August. Does it get any better?


note to self....ignore the FIFTEEN pounds of tomatoes you picked today....until tomorrow.

memorable meals

This is the time of year when we start planning meals around what is ripe in the garden. In some ways this sounds easy, and early-ish in the season like now, it can be. While they are a few meals I'm longing to make with veggies that aren't quite ready yet, we have plenty of ingredients to work with. Later on, when you feel almost bombarded by the options available to you, it can get a little harder.

Last night's dinner used broccoli, green beans, peas, and onions. I was kind of in the mood for indian food, and did a little googling and came up with this one:

Creamy Cashew and Vegetable Korma

(from Recipezaar, recipe # 109975)


korma

We've had similar dish at an indian buffet nearby, so it looked like a good new one to try. It could use a little tweaking, but we both enjoyed it.
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