American Thanksgiving 2012

Last week, we had our third annual American Thanksgiving Dinner with our friend, Gwen. John helped me reign in my excitement and only plan a very large meal, instead of a crazy big one. Like previous years, we made a Thanksgiving dinner without meat, but in this case, a large amount of dairy, and somehow, no soy products.

We set the table for four, and unfortunately one of our guests got the stomach flu the day before. He kindly stayed home, instead of spreading his virus to us. 

Yes, I was that person who made the little pears with name tags on them, an idea I saw all over the internet this year. It was actually really easy and kinda fun, even though I felt silly making fake little name tags and tying them on to pears. 

Here are some links to the recipes we enjoyed. 

Basic Cranberry Sauce from MarthaStewart.com (the sauce in this photo is in progress, of course). John said he didn't like cranberry sauce, but that this recipe converted him. I had no idea it was so easy to make! Berries + sugar + lemon zest + water + heat. Done. 

Our sick friend was supposed to bring pie, so at the last minute, John and I decided to make a pumpkin pie from scratch (who are we?!). Actually, we practice "cutting in" all the time when we make biscuits, so John handled the crust recipe like a pro. 

Here's the pie before it baked: voluptuous vegan pumpkin pie, from Vegan Pie in the Sky, from the geniuses at the PPK.  

This pie turned out 50% awesome, 50% not quite right. First, I subbed tapioca flour for agar powder, which was probably an error. The consistency wasn't quite right for pumpkin pie. Also, we under baked it, so the crust on the bottom was a little chewy. Still, the spice balance in this is great, and it's not very sweet. To make the filling, you just combine all the ingredients and dump them in the pie shell, much easier than cooking them on the stove first. Making the crust was somewhat an epiphany for John, since he didn't realize it was so simple. I think this pie has him pretty excited, and that this will be the Christmas of Pies. 

We also made this Pear and Pecan Cornbread Stuffing, also from the PPK. 

This stuffing is delicious. It dries out easily, so be generous with the stock, especially when you reheat it. I think it needs about 2 cups of stock from the start, and we've added more with the leftovers. It's so flavorful and good, I can't wait to make it again at Christmas.

This picture of John maniacally stirring is the only one I got of the mashed potatoes. We didn't follow a real recipe here, just cubed and boiled potatoes, mashed them with chopped rosemary and a bunch of butter and cream. It's basically potatoes+fat. We use red potatoes and leave the skin on for a little color. 

I made brie en croute with the cranberry sauce pictured above. I loosely followed a similar recipe using apple compote from Annie's Eats, just to get the general idea of how to wrap it and how long to bake it.   This brie turned out beautifully, because, how could it not? Brie oozing out of puff pastry? If you don't like that, then I can't help you. Once it came out of the oven, we started eating it so fast that I didn't snap a picture, but take my word for it that the finished product was really pretty and presented well. We ate it with some cranberry-pumpkin seed pita chips from Costco, which I would highly recommend. You need a firm cracker to stand up to all that brie. We meant to also use green apple slices, but it completely slipped my mind when the time came.

You'll notice from the picture that I didn't really wrap it in any kind of systematic way. I just gathered the pastry up around the brie a bit at a time and kind of knotted it at the top. John and Gwen literally exclaimed "Oooh! Ahhh!" when I took it out of the oven. Can't wait for Christmas when I can make this again. 

Here is my plate. Clockwise, from 1 o'clock, you have the cornbread stuffing, then mashed potatoes, blanched green beans (just so we could say we had a veggie, and for something green on the plate), then the actual "main" course: Apple Walnut Lentil Loaf, from Oh She Glows. As predicted, the loaf was a big hit and we gave some to Gwen to take home. It would definitely please any vegetarians, vegans, or omnivores you serve over the holidays. Just make a little extra glaze for dipping.

No post-bake photos of the pie, since we covered it in whipped cream and stuffed it in our faces. I hope you had a Happy American Thanksgiving, or a regular Thursday, depending on where you are. Here's to a delicious holiday season!

Smells like Fall at our House

The squirrels are still enjoying the acorn buffet in our front yard. 

Besides squirrel watching, John and I have been up to a few other things around London.

We went to our first London Knights hockey game, and we sat  almost high enough to see the Northern Lights (j/k, it just felt scary while we were climbing to our seats). Before the elementary school kids sang the national anthem, they announced that Wayne Gretzky's dad, "THE FATHER OF THE GREAT ONE!" was in attendance. John and I watched the Knights beat the crap out of the Plymouth Whalers while we ate too much pop corn and cherry slushees. 

Our friend's daughter turned two, and we all celebrated with a potluck. John and I brought chocolate zucchini muffins (more on those in a minute), and a small collection of children's books we bought at Goodwill. The birthday girl is really into books - when they come over to our house, she always shows me her new books, and she looks at the two we happen to have (in French and German - we are nerds). 

The chocolate zucchini muffins are oil free, from Oh She Glows.

They are unbelievably moist and taste more like cupcakes than muffins. You can't even find a strand of zucchini in them! I love these muffins. They are a dream come true. Several people asked me for the recipe. 

All the leaves have peaked, I think. John and I stared at them from our bedroom window, since we both spent almost all of last week sick in bed. We watched about 6 seasons of the Office, and John watched Lawrence of Arabia on his own, while I graded assignments and midterms. 

Before we got sick, we had some squash! 

No recipe here, just roasted halves of acorn squash, filled with caramelized onions, lentils, and thyme with a little olive oil. I think adding goat cheese and/or mushrooms would crank these up a notch.

We also made this loaf, which may be the main dish at our American Thanksgiving dinner this year:

Glazed Lentil Walnut Apple Loaf, also from Oh She Glows. We made a loaf once before, but this one was hands down better. It held together so well that we could take it out of the pan and slice it for left overs. Even better, the glaze is amazing. We made a second batch of it to add to the left over pieces and I wanted to lick the leftover spots off my plate. It would be a great vegan entree for any holiday meal (or any other fall dinner).

These are the final harvest from my tomato plant:

It produced about 1 tomato per month for June and July, and then it went crazy near the end of August. Unfortunately (for the plant), we've had a very wet and cold September and October, so these toms didn't get enough sunlight and warmth to ripen on the vine. When I told my mom, she offered two suggestions: 

1) Cellar them in newspaper and they will very slowly ripen. Apparently my Grandma Madge does this. My priest seconded this recommendation and said she does the same thing with a paper bag for her tomatoes. I feel like my mom is full of random gardening advice that I didn't know she had. I need to get some more advice from her next year, as I plan to expand the tomato plant to 2-3 tomato plants, including one cherry or grape tomato plant. 

2) She also told me to just slice the green ones and fry them, and have fried green tomatoes. I'm not from a big city, and I often feel like a country mouse compared to my friends and relatives in places like Chicago and Toronto, but seriously - I did not know that unripe tomatoes and "green" tomatoes were the same thing. I thought it was some special variety of tomato that never got red! Color me ignorant. 

So we've fried a few and cellared the rest.

These were part of a recreation of the Amazing BLT from the FARM cookbook we made earlier in the summer. We used almost all the same ingredients, except the basil, and made BLTs with these fried dudes and some fake bacon (fakon). Their batter is simple - flour, egg, cornmeal with seasonings. They're best with some chicken seasoning. and a pretty fun fried appetizer all on their own. 

Other upcoming highlights this fall: the Halloween Haunting 10k/5k, then we're off to NOLA for the AMS/SEM/SMT Triumvirate.  It's hard to believe we're already at the end of October!

Waldorf Salad

Like I've mentioned before, John recently went through a big Good Eats phase where he watched a couple episodes a day. I'm not as completely in love with the show as he is, but I do enjoy how it inspires him to come up with dinner ideas. Last week, before we went to Fort Wayne, we had a couple of days to plan dinner for and we didn't want to have a lot of leftovers spoiling in the fridge while we were gone. John suggested this waldorf salad, and it seemed like the right amount of food to fill that gap.



















We ate ours with a big pile of spinach underneath. How could apples and mayonnaise be a bad thing??? Actually that combination didn't really grab me at first, but then I realized that Alton Brown's suggestions for additional ingredients are the same ones I would put in chicken salad: grapes/raisins, apples, walnuts, etc. The curry powder is really the ingredient that takes this from good to great.

Alton Brown's Waldorf Salad

Ingredients

• 2 Ginger Gold apples (Fuji will substitute)
• 1 Red Delicious Apple
• 3 tablespoons cider vinegar
• 1 cup prepared mayonnaise
• 1 pinch kosher salt
• Cracked black pepper
• 3/4 cup toasted walnuts, crushed
• 1 cup golden raisins
• 2 teaspoons curry powder
• 1/2 red onion, julienned
• 1 head romaine lettuce, heart only (we each had a big serving of spinach instead)

Directions

Cut apples in half and remove the core with a melon baller or spoon. Chop apples into medium-sized pieces, leaving skin on.

In a bowl, toss apples with the cider vinegar. Fold in mayonnaise thoroughly. Season with salt and pepper to taste. Fold in walnuts, raisins, curry powder, celery, mint and red onion. Adjust seasoning. Refrigerate for at least 1 hour to allow flavors to incorporate. To serve, arrange 2 leaves of romaine lettuce (or a small pile of spinach) per plate and spoon salad on top.