Well, I am now officially a veteran of cooking the Thanksgiving turkey. This year the bird fell to me, and I have to say, it wasn't as hard to cook as I would have thought. It was a brined Trader Joe's turkey, and I seasoned it with olive oil, fresh herbs and salt, then roasted it for about 7 hours, basting with chicken stock. While I'd still like to work on making the moistest turkey ever, it was quite good.
I also found a delicious recipe for eggnog pumpkin pie in The Good Housekeeping Cookbook. Just replace the evaporated milk with eggnog for extra sweet creaminess.
More recently, I have been loving my CSA shares from The Kitchen Garden, and have been able to make a ton of meals out of each pickup. The second time around, I received:
Fingerling potatoes, daikon radishes, russian kale, brussels sprouts, spinach, a turnip, parsley, two small heads of broccoli, a head of romanesco cauliflower, and garlic.
Brussels sprouts, brussels sprouts! I actually had four whole stalks of these, since I had been given some from Trader Joes at Thanksgiving. It was a good thing though, since the stalks I had received from The Kitchen Garden were teeming with my new nemesis - aphids. As mentioned previously, The Kitchen Garden's produce is of noticeably higher quality than some of Silverbrook Farm's, but I think hidden aphids are beyond the farmers' control. They are a risk you take when buying farm-fresh rather than from a grocery store. Unfortunately, the sprouts were un-salvageable, so I tossed them and used the Trader Joes brand instead, to make:
two batches of a favorite dish around our house, sauteed brussels sprouts with sriracha and cashews from The Bitten Word blog (recipe in sidebar). I served it once with a simple bulgur salad with Moroccan spices and dried cranberries,
and once with naan and Indian dal (cooked, seasoned lentils).
The turnip was shredded and went into an udon noodle stir fry with carrots, red pepper, and shiitake mushrooms. I have to admit, I'm not really sure of the best way to cook turnip. It was quite bitter even after being stir-fried until soft.
The russian kale went into another pan of spicy kale lasagna (recipe in sidebar).
My office has an annual celebration of 'International Thanksgiving' shortly before actual Thanksgiving, where people are encouraged to bring food from different cultures/cuisines for everyone to eat at lunch together. In the past I've made fried rice, Chinese pickled cucumber and dumplings, and I was stuck as to what to make this year. I wanted the dish to not require any heating, as that can present issues in our office kitchen, and making it hand-held would also be preferable. So I thought, what was my favorite cold, hand-held international food? Bahn mis of course! Bahn mis are Vietnamese baguette sandwiches that have some combination of pate, protein of your choice, cilantro, pickled carrots and daikon radishes, mayo, chili peppers, and other soy, garlic and spicy condiments. Using food from my CSA, I invented an open-faced vegetarian take on banh mis that people could eat as finger sandwiches.
First, I quick-pickled the daikon radishes with carrots in a mix of vinegar, sugar and water. Then I made each little sandwich: a slice of baguette, a smear of adobo mayonnaise (mix adobo sauce into mayo), a slice of baked tofu, a pile of pickled veg, and garnish with parsley (I hate cilantro) and a slice of jalapeno. Bagging each component separately, these were easy to transport to work and make onsite, and my co-workers enjoyed them (although most removed the raw jalapeno, understandably).
With the rest of my share, I used the potatoes to make curried smashed potatoes, and paired it with creamed spinach and parsley with Indian spices. The broccoli and cauliflower I steamed and threw into a lazy bowl of vegan goodness with sweet potatoes, tofu and black beans.
My third share contained:
Celeriac, onions, parsnips, a bunch of fresh herbs, radishes, hakurei turnips, a head of lettuce, a bunch of kale, a bag of spinach, carrots, and potatoes.
First up, I still had some brussels sprouts left over, so I made Smitten Kitchen's brussels sprouts and chestnuts in brown butter, which I put on top of orzo. To go alongside, I made a quick Caesar salad with the lettuce. By the way, this was the first time I had ever roasted or eaten chestnuts. They are delicious and unexpectedly sweet!
Then there was leftover turkey from Thanksgiving. I found the perfect recipe to combine it with a ton of veg from my CSA in Mark Bittman's Food Matters Cookbook. The solution? White turkey chili: a simple, seasoned mix of turkey, celeriac, parsnips, turnips and potatoes with white beans. I made a giant batch and froze it, so I have quick meals in the future.
I still also had all the ingredients left over from my banh mis, so I made banh mi sliders with leftover Thanksgiving rolls. With this, I made a farro salad from the new Smitten Kitchen Cookbook, which includes parsnips and carrots with a sweet and spicy dressing and goat cheese (the book calls for feta).
The beginning of the holiday season has had me eating more carbs, sweets and indulgences than I'd like to admit, and I've started feeling like a slug. Time to detox with a salad - or two. On the left, a persian rice salad with brown rice, cashews and dates from Bon Appetit, and on the right, Martha Stewart's winter spinach salad with pomegranate seeds instead of cherries, and pears rather than apples.
The kale and onions from my share went into a caramelized onion and kale gratin, also from the Smitten Kitchen Cookbook. Well that's all for now. I've been finding great ways to use root vegetables which I will share next time!
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