The boys are having a sleepover at their grandparents’ house, so I decided to get a jump on the week and finalize my Thanksgiving menu. I also got all my shopping done, save for unsweetened, dried cranberries (I’m going to try Mrs. Green’s, which probably carries them). I’ll pick up the fresh turkey and stew meat from my butcher on Wednesday morning. And J. will get the cheeses for our cheese tasting from Murray’s this week. I definitely feel ready! Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday — I love planning for it, cooking, setting the table, having my family here, and I don’t even mind cleaning up (much).
In previous years we started the sit-down meal with soup; sometimes a butternut squash soup, or even a clear wild mushroom. But it winds up being too much food — we’ve already taken the edge off our hunger with the cheese, crackers and fruit. We’ll skip soup this year and just serve the main meal without individual courses.
We’ll have 16 people eating, plus my sweet niece who I would like to plop on the table as a cute centerpiece. Somehow I miscounted earlier in the week and came up with 12 people. Hmmm. I hope my cooking is better than my math.
Thanksgiving Menu, 2008
Before meal:
cheese tasting platter with red and green grapes, crackers
sliced cranberry sauce (from a can, that’s how we like it!)
Brussels sprouts w/ chestnuts & dried cranberries (recipe from RBF)
garlic & oil carnival squash (making this up as I go along)
savory stuffing (mom’s bringing) dijon roasted potatoes
sweet potatoes with marshmallows (j.’s aunt is bringing)
I feel like I’ve barely been cooking lately — we’ve had lots of planned meals out (like our cheese tasting) and on other days I’m using leftovers from the freezer (we defrosted some goulash one night). I suppose I’m in a bit of a rut. This week will be better, though. And I’ve started planning for Thanksgiving, which we’ll host here — I’m getting excited about trying some new recipes for the holiday.
This weekend is up in the air — my sister is in town, and J. and I are having a date night to watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull while the kids sleep out. We’ll figure out weekend eating plans as they come.
Another day, another chocolate chip muffin. I’ve come to realize that as long as two criteria are met: 1.) smooth batter (no lumps of fruit); and 2.) chocolate chips are included, my boys will eat anything I can pack into a muffin, even if they’d never touch it otherwise (carrots, peanut butter, bananas, etc.). Today it was pumpkin. I had intended to throw some flax meal in at the last minute but I forgot. Next time.
These are a nice, simple, slightly-dense muffin that I am comfortable serving for breakfast with a cup of milk. It beats crackers or pretzels, which is what G. has otherwise been requesting after I turn down his pleas for ice cream or cookies.
3 c. white whole wheat flour
2 tsp. baking soda
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. cinnamon
4 large eggs
1 c. white sugar
1 15-oz. can pure pumpkin
1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce
1/2 c. canola oil
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
Preheat oven to 350° F.
In a large bowl, mix together all ingredients except chocolate chips until they are just combined. Mix in chocolate chips.
Line or grease muffin tins, and fill each cup generously with batter. Bake for about 25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Recipes I’ve torn out of magazines recently… surprisingly most are from Every Day with Rachael Ray, a magazine I love to read but that rarely yields recipes I’d like to try.
With the high holidays and both boys’ birthdays falling around these few weeks in fall, it’s hectic here. I was tempted to ditch a meal plan this week and just take the week as it comes, but I think that will make things more difficult in the long run.
I am deeply indebted to Keirnan, who told me that to avoid tears, she rinses her onion under cold water after she makes the first cut, which slices the onion in half. I tried this and it worked perfectly for me. It’s the first onion I’ve cut in a long time where I didn’t do half the chopping by touch alone, hoping I didn’t lop off a finger.
Last week when I made chicken soup, I used my regular recipe but threw it in my crock pot on high for 6 hours instead of doing it on the stove. It was one of the best batches of soup I’ve made in a while. I may never use the stove top for soup again.
J.’s family introduced me to Manero’s in Greenwich, CT a long time ago — eating there was one of their family traditions. The Greenwich branch closed a few years ago, but some of the employees from the restaurant opened up Greenwich Prime Meats to fill the void (their Web site has been down for a while though the store is definitely open; you can read about it on Chowhound). You’ll have to cook your own steak, but they sell the prepared Gorgonzola salad, garlic bread, and fried onions the restaurant was well-loved for. So bad for you, but oh so good.
I don’t need them for another few days, so it didn’t matter that every avocado in the huge display was rock-hard. I was amused by their proclamation, though: “Buy me, I’m ripe! I promise!”
I just stumbled across the Cake Wrecks blog, which has the tagline “When professional cakes go horribly, hilariously wrong.” Oh, it’s too much — I can’t help but laugh out loud. My favorites are all the random quotation marks found in the Creative Grammar section.
Tonight’s easy, simple dinner: saute broccoli (in small pieces), 2 cloves minced fresh garlic (milder than regular, dried garlic), and a little salt and pepper in olive oil. Add rough-chopped braising greens on top. Squeeze the juice of one lemon over the pan and cook over medium heat until the greens are wilted and broccoli is tender. Serve greens over bow tie pasta with leftover hamburgers on the side.
This past week went smoothly cooking-wise, which always makes me feel calm and super-organized. Earlier in the week I used my crock pot to cook two leg/thigh pieces of chicken — I just layered a sliced onion and some carrots in the bottom of the crock pot, set the chicken on top, and sprinkled it with Spike seasoning. It cooked on high for about 3.5 hours while we were at the pool, and dinner was ready to go when we got home. I need to make lots more use of my crock pot this summer.
My favorite meal was our veggie-packed scrambled eggs. Unfortunately, my mom’s Chicken Castillo recipe didn’t translate well to the crock pot — I need to work on reducing the liquid. I have found, though, that I much prefer chicken breasts cooked on high for a shorter time in the crock pot (3-4 hours), rather than having them cooking on low all day. They are less mealy that way (always desirable in chicken, right?).
I'm Dara, the chick in the kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two boys, ages 3 and 5, and husband. Trying to feed my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Reach me at .
Want to Try
Enchiladas in Pumpkin Sauce: I'd make either a chicken version without cheese, or a vegetarian version with cheese and beans as a filling. Either way, the pumpkin sauce sounds delicious.
Cook to This
"Bullet with Butterfly Wings" by Smashing Pumpkins. We've been watching Whale Wars on Animal Planet, which I was surprised to hear using this track as their theme song. I think it's alienating as a opener for the show, but it rocks in every other way.
The boys are having a sleepover at their grandparents’ house, so I decided to get a jump on the week and finalize my Thanksgiving menu. I also got all my shopping done, save for unsweetened, dried cranberries (I’m going to try Mrs. Green’s, which probably carries them). I’ll pick up the fresh turkey and stew meat from my butcher on Wednesday morning. And J. will get the cheeses for our cheese tasting from Murray’s this week. I definitely feel ready! Thanksgiving is my absolute favorite holiday — I love planning for it, cooking, setting the table, having my family here, and I don’t even mind cleaning up (much).
I'm Dara, the chick in the kitchen. Living in the suburbs of Manhattan with my two boys, ages 3 and 5, and husband. Trying to feed my family something more diverse than a different shape of pasta each night. Reach me at .