Sir Spatchcock, King of the Kitchen and Points Beyond, and his Drip Dry Vegetables

Today, Thanksgiving, is a good day and it is not over.  I saw Santa show up at Macy's and as always, I sniffled with childish joy.  I've been cooking all day, wrestling with Sir Spatchcock.  Since this is the first time I spatchcocked a turkey, there is something of a learning curve going on, but the turkey is delicious and I will definitely make it this way again and again.  It's really just the timing that has to be refined,  Taste and texture are the best I have ever had from a homemade bird.  Since I enjoy cooking, and especially for those I love, every moment is a pleasure.

If you know me, you know that I HATE the telephone.  I much prefer to express myself in writing, but I realize the rest of the world doesn't always understand or appreciate my finger-flapping, and so I actually made some phone calls to wish a happy Thanksgiving to some of my friends and family.  Now I feel all warm and fuzzy and I think I'll just hold on to the feeling for a while.  Thank you cousin Steve, friend Vicki, and sister Nora for receiving my calls so warmly.

We are heading over to my parents-in-law in a few minutes, bearing gifts of food, to share company and conversation.  It doesn't get much better than that.

Meet Sir Spatchcock.  He was delicious.

And the drip dry vegetables about to get the benefit of those natural cooking juices.

These are the spritely biscuits, this time cut into hearts instead of squares.  And there are a few other dishes, but those will come with their recipes down the road.

As you may imagine, I am thankful that I am able to prepare food for my loved ones, but I am most thankful for the family and friends in my life, and at the very top of that list, my husband Robert and my son Cory.

SPATCHCOCKED ROAST TURKEY

1 13 - 15 pound turkey
1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil or butter
Salt and pepper to taste.
Paprika and granulated garlic to taste

Heat oven to 450 degrees. Put turkey on a stable cutting board breast side down and cut out backbone. Turn turkey over, and press on it to flatten. Put it, breast side up, in a roasting pan. Wings should partly cover breasts, and legs should protrude a bit.

Drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle liberally with salt, pepper, garlic and paprika.  Place the turkey on the racks over the vegetables.

Roast an hour, undisturbed. Turkey should be browning.  Check the temperature of the thigh meat.  It should be heading up towards 165 degrees.  Keep checking the bird until the breast meat is no longer pink.  At this point you will probably need to separate the thighs and legs from the breast (the spatchcocking makes this relatively easy), and return the dark meat to the oven.  Check every 15 minutes until dark meat is done.  You should not be able to see any red or pink at the joints, and the temperature should easily shoot up to 165 degrees.

Let turkey rest for about 30 minutes before carving.  With a slotted spoon, remove the vegetable to a smaller baking dish and place back in the oven for a few minutes if you like. Serve with the pan juices and the drip dry vegetables.

DRIP DRY VEGETABLES

28 oz. bag new potatoes (mixture of red, yellow, a purple)
3 large carrots, cut crosswise into large chunks roughly size of potatoes
3-4 tablespoons bacon fat or oil
1 pound Brussel sprouts
Salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 400 degrees.  Combine the bacon fat, potatoes and carrots in a 9 x 13 baking pan and use a large metal spoon to turn the vegetables so they are coated with the fat.  Roast in the oven for 20 minutes. Refrigerate overnight.

The next day, preheat the oven to cook Sir Spatchcock.  Put the potatoes and carrots into a larger roasting pan (large enough for cooking the turkey.)  Put the pan the vegetables sat in overnight into the preheating oven to melt any remaining bacon fat.  Remove from the oven and add the Brussel sprouts, turn with a spoon so they are coated in the bacon fat, and add to the other vegetables.  Cover the pan with two cooling racks, and add the spatchcocked turkey according to its cooking direction.

The First Thanksgiving - Sweet Potato Pie

"Our national holiday really stems from the feast held in the autumn of 1621 by the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag to celebrate the colony's first successful harvest."

Forget everything you ever learned in school about the first Thanksgiving.  As any 20th century new bride can tell you, the first Thanksgiving is really all about that first big dinner you hosted and cooked for two dozen relatives, in an apartment barely big enough for you, your husband, and a small dog.

A very small dog.

Rob and I were married on October 20, 1974, and immediately moved into our own one-bedroom apartment in West Babylon, with a kitchen the size of a shoebox.  When we got back from our honeymoon, I promptly invited everybody for Thanksgiving dinner.  Back then, everybody was a lot of bodies.  All our closest relatives were alive and well and on speaking terms with each other.  The tablecloths my sweet mother-in-law had made for me were brand new and completely spotless. I knew how to cook scrambled eggs, meatloaf, and anything under a broiler - chicken, hamburger, lamb chops.  I could open a can of Campbell's tomato soup like nobody's business. I had an egg beater (non-electric), a gas stove, a cookbook (The Joy of Cooking) and a potato masher.  And I had a working telephone with which to call the help line, which was manned 24/7 by my grandmother (Mom) and my mother-in-law (Mom). This girl's on FIRE!

I had no knife skills - I did not even own a decent knife, and did not know I needed one - but I seemed to have an innate talent for following a recipe to successful results.  When I think back, this was a skill likely honed during my summers taking bacteriology in high school, applying what the teacher, Marvin Waks, referred to as "cookbook chemistry" when brewing up batches of tasty agar for the various bacterial colonies to feast upon. Oh yum, right?

Either the dinner was a huge success, or both sides of the family were being extremely kind.  I managed to make the stuffing according to my grandmother's directions.  I can't call it a recipe, because that implies fairly specific amounts of each ingredient, but it was close enough and the stuffing wasn't bad at all. Robert carved the turkey, which I remember being the size of a VW beetle, and best of all, we had my grandmother's sweet potato pie as the tastiest side dish ever.  Except I didn't make that one, she did.  And sent it along with my Pop, because she was home with walking pneumonia and had to miss my first Thanksgiving.  Everybody there went nuts for the "pie" and so I've been making it for almost every Thanksgiving since then, as well as for Christmas, Rosh Hashanah, New Year's Eve, and a couple of Tupperware parties.  If I try to change it at all, I am promptly chastised.  In the words of Joseph Stalin, "deviation is treason."

This Thanksgiving, November 27, is my grandmother's yahrzeit, the anniversary of her passing in 2000.  Thanks for the memories, Mom.  And most of all, thanks for the recipe.

Mom's Sweet Potato Pie

2 large cans of yams (or sweet potatoes), well drained

1 stick of butter, melted

1/2 cup brown sugar (light or dark)

1 large can crushed pineapple, well drained

Cornflake crumbs for the topping (Kellogg's is the only brand I know of)

Additional melted butter for the topping

In a large bowl, mash the drained yams with a hand masher.  Melt the butter in a small pan, and then blend the brown sugar into it.  Pour the butter-sugar mixture into the yams and mix well to combine.  Season with a little kosher salt, to taste.  Layer half of the mashed yam mixture into a baking dish.  Top this with all of the drained pineapple, and then the rest of the yams.  Cover the top with cornflake crumbs and drizzle over this some melted butter.  Bake at 350 degrees for one hour.  This serves at least eight as a side dish.

I like to make this in a 2 quart glass souffle dish, because the amount fits perfectly, and the dish is taller than your normal 2 quart casserole, and so it shows off the layers nicely.

Today, however, because we are a party of just 5, with a couple of really small eaters, I cut this down to fit into a smaller soufflé dish, about 1 1/2 liters, and also shortened the prep time by first beating the potatoes with an electric mixer, then adding the butter, cut up rather than melted, and the brown sugar, right into the bowl with the potatoes.  This presumes you are using a glass or otherwise microwave-safe bowl.  Microwave for about a minute to soften the butter, and finish beating the potatoes with the electric mixture until fairly smooth, and the butter and sugar are well-combined.  Layer the sweet potatoes and pineapple, cover with plastic wrap, and put into the refrigerator until 2 hours before you plan on serving.  Let the dish sit on the counter for about an hour, sprinkle on the cornflake crumbs, drizzle the additional melted butter, and bake in a preheated 350 oven for an hour.

For this size dish, I used two 29 oz. cans of sweet potatoes (Hanover brand), 6 tablespoons butter, 1/3 cup light brown sugar, and an 8 oz. can of crushed pineapple.

Have a happy, healthy, wonderful Thanksgiving.  Stay safe, drive carefully, and for Heaven's sake, carve the turkey BEFORE you get to the table.

When Childhood Flies

Today's ear worm is courtesy of Elton John and Bernie Taupin, circa 1970.  If you want to make me cry, just play this song.

I hope the day will be a lighter highway

For friends are found on every road

Can you ever think of any better way

For the lost and weary travellers to go

Making friends for the world to see

Let the people know you got what you need

With a friend at hand you will see the light

If your friends are there then everything's all right

It seems to me a crime that we should age

These fragile times should never slip us by

A time you never can or shall erase

As friends together watch their childhood fly

With all my finger-flapping about food, food shopping, cooking food, food strategies, food failures, and more of the same, I haven't had the chance to write about how absolutely lovely my weekend was, especially Friday night.  I got to meet up with some old friends, from a time long ago and far away.

(Forget the dude in the middle, he is totally irrelevant to this story.)  

Clockwise from the dude is Barbara, then Kathy, me and Lynn.  

We were babies - this was New Paltz, 1971.  

I was 18 years old and that is my real hair color.

Not sure if Mark wasn't in the picture because he was taking the picture, but that is highly likely.

Sandy and me, 1975.  Oh dear God, weren't we young???

Steve and me, 1972.  Still haven't been able to meet up in person 

but we managed to Skype a few times, and we play Words for Friends.

Talk about young! You can see that Vicki is wearing Dan's fraternity pin.

Does anyone even do that anymore?

We still have not been able to gather all of us together at the same time, but some of us have gotten together in various shortened permutations.

My grandmother told me time and again that the best friends you will ever have are the ones you make when you are young.  This was one of those few times I could not argue with her, because looking back across those 50 or so years that whooshed by much too fast,  I still have a number of friends from my teen years.  That is not to say that I have not made and kept close "new" friends but even my new friends are getting up toward the 20 year mark.

The majority of my "old" friends date back to my time at SUNY New Paltz.  Some, like Kathy, Mark, and Vicki have been constants, while others, like Barbara, Lynn, and Steve, were "found" through the miracle of the internet and Facebook.  

It is wonderful to meet up after 30 or 40 years to find that the bond of youth still exists.  So on Friday evening, we had a lovely, funny time, eating good food at the Ale House, drinking $2 margaritas, and enjoying each other's company, although we were nowhere near as raucous as we were last year when Mark, Sandy, Barbara and I got together, with a couple of patient spouses, at Toojays. We even managed to Skype Lynn into the party.  The waitstaff was delighted, as were Barbara and I, because getting New York-style deli is next to impossible in Central Florida, so we all got to share really good food with really good friends, a perfect combination.

I am thankful for my friends, old, new, and renewed.

Commercial Properties - Staten Island Peach Cobbler

Not sure how, but recently Brenda and I veered off into a short conversation about TV commercials, specifically the Bright House Network commercials with Jim the installer and football great Derrick Brooks.  I love the "bromance" between Derrick and Jim, and they always make me smile, especially when, at Derrick's insistence, they sit down to watch a DVR'ed episode of "Days of Our Life" ("can't a man watch his stories?")

I have no idea why, but I love watching commercials that, despite the endless repetitions, affect me each and every time they are shown.

The one that still stands out as my very favorite, hysteria-inducing commercial of all times had Steven Colbert stalking Mr. Goodwrench regarding tires.   The line "those poor cows, those poor rubber cows" can still set me off into a fit of laughter so loud and so prolonged that my pets seek shelter.  Another huge favorite were the GEICO cavemen commercials, but they're gone now.  I like Flo from Progressive and Lily from AT&T.  During basketball playoffs, I never tire of Chris Paul's State Farm commercials (Chris and his "twin" Cliff Paul, separated at birth).  Animal icons such as the GEICO Gekko and the AFLAC Duck are okay, but the California milk commercials feature cows that crack me up.  What is it with me and cows?  And I hate milk, too.  Oh, and Maxwell the GEICO pig - his original "whee whee WHEE!" commercials left me in a puddle.

The Wounded Warrior Project, St. Jude's, Shriners Children's Hospitals, and any commercial involving pets are likely to rip out a little piece of my heart, but the saddest commercial ever was televised only one time, during Super Bowl XXXVI in February 2002.  Google "Budweiser Respect" and follow any of the You Tube links to watch it.  (I tried, I really tried to fix the broken link with absolutely no success.  The good news is, I edited the whole darn post.)

I developed a real affection for those Sprint Framily Plan ads, featuring the Frobinson family in which the father is a hamster, the mother doesn't seem to notice that dad is a hamster, the daughter has little birds twittering around her head, and the middle son's college roommate, Gor-Don, wears black lipstick reminiscent of Tim Curry in Rocky Horror, and considers the hamster to be his dad as well.  Unfortunately, Sprint dumped the whole Framily Plan campaign after just a few short months, and broke up with the Frobinsons, leaving us all hamster-less (and if you think Andrew Dice Clay was not funny as the voice of the dad hamster, you've never watched any of the commercials).

I guess that makes me a victim of television, but I do exercise some discernment.  I cringe at any commercial by an attorney.  I am old-fashioned enough to believe that my profession does not need those ads or big, honking billboards, showing shiny, oversized attorney foreheads, on the side of the road.  Another pet peeve are those weight loss program commercials, featuring a lot of has-been celebrities, and those dreadful weight loss product commercials (although I think the FCC is already on their tails).

My Pop used to say that my grandmother was a victim of television because she might see a product on TV, and would buy it on her next trip to Waldbaums.  It actually didn't happen all that often - she never did get into Hamburger Helper - but occasionally she would rock our world with a brand new product like Rice-a-Roni, frozen vegetables, or liquid margarine.

There are other reasons that I have labeled myself a victim of television, as I explained in this post from the beginning of the blog, and that hasn't changed in the intervening years.  You know it's serious when I am standing in the middle of the living room, pointing at the screen excitedly while watching The Kitchen on Food Network, proclaiming, "see, see?  Geoffrey Zakarian doesn't believe in brining turkeys!"  Or calling Robert to watch how Bobby Flay adds honey to all his super spicy dishes, or how Michael Symon adds cornstarch to his flour when preparing a tempura batter.

I may have 1000 cookbooks, but all it takes is one episode of Giada De Laurentiis preparing shrimp scampi on couscous, and I'm jumping off the treadmill and running down to the computer to find and print out the recipe.  The inspiration I get from watching the different hosts is the kind of victimhood I can embrace.  So I won't be brining my turkey - I never do - but I will be spatchcocking it, which is nothing naughty.

The day has come that I finalized my plans for Thanksgiving dinner.  That means I now have a final menu, and based on that I am going to print out or photocopy each recipe.  Next comes the shopping list, and finally the cooking schedule.  If this sounds excessively obsessive, try preparing even a simple dinner without jotting down a specific plan.  You are going to get stressed, I promise you.  You won't have a chance to sit down and enjoy any part of the dinner with your guests.  You will swear to never ever ever try to cook Thanksgiving dinner again.

Speaking of your guests, there is nothing wrong in accepting their offers to bring a dessert or a side dish or anything else for that matter.  So this year, I took the Staten Island Peach Cobbler off my menu when my mother-in-law offered to supply dessert.  But since I promised my friend Barbara I would give her the recipe, here it is, totally out of season:

Several weeks ago, while coming home from the Atlanta suburbs, we carried through our plan to make our favorite stops along I-75.  This excluded our close encounter with the deer, but included Lane Southern Orchards, or as we always refer to it, The Peach Farm; Ellis Brothers Pecans, also known as The Nut Store; and Carroll's Sausage & Country Store at their Ashburn location.

There were no peaches at the peach farm. Quel disappointment!  But not unexpected, as I was pretty sure Georgia's peach season was over.  Instead, we were confronted by that scourge of autumn ...

Pumpkins, dozens of pumpkins, carelessly displayed and stodgily annoying.  How did someone look at a bunch of pumpkins and see a Starbucks Pumpkin Spice Latte?  Was there some illegal substance being ingested, or was the inventor having an unfortunate brain fever?

So instead, I picked up a jar of Lane's peach halves, thinking that for the first time I would try making the cobbler with something other than fresh peaches.  The peach halves are gorgeous, large, undamaged, and sweet. Although I am not making this for Thanksgiving this year, I expect it will pop up as a family dessert sometime in the next few weeks.  

6 large, firm, ripe peaches

1 cup flour

1/2 cup sugar

pinch of sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 stick butter

1 egg

1/3 cup whole milk

1 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease a 9 x 13 baking pan.

Wash the peaches and dry well.  Cut in half and remove the pits.  Sift together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.  Crumble in the butter with a fork.  Add the egg, milk, and vanilla.  Spread the batter thin in the baking pan.  Lay the peaches, cut side down, on top of the batter, 3 across and 4 down, and sprinkle with sugar.  Bake for 30 to 45 minutes.  The batter will puff up to encase about 2/3 of the peaches.  Let cool and cut into 12 squares to serve.  Cover and store in the refrigerator.  This is good at room temperature, or you can give it 30 seconds in the microwave, and then top it with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.

The aluminum tin pan queen strikes again, but for some reason I baked this peach cobbler, immediately right of the cream pie, in a glass pyrex dish.  Still came out good.

... and so it begins ...

For the next four days, I will be chipping away at my cooking list so that when Thanksgiving rolls around, I won't be spending the day according to that old military adage:

When in danger or in doubt

Run in circles, scream and shout

I am working the first three days of next week, and I have court hearings on two of those, so there is not going to be time to take a whole day off to cook, which is actually better for me, as standing on my feet for big blocks of time is less than optimal.

So today, before I go out to cruise Publix and BJs to soak up the holiday mood and to fill up my cart with holiday food, I will bake the cornbread I will be using for the oyster and sausage dressing.  Now is the time I make a small confession:  I use a box of Jiffy mix.  All I do is add some black pepper to the mix, but otherwise, I make the Jiffy according to the directions on the back of the box.

You can make your favorite recipe or buy cornbread at the local bakery, but keep in mind that not all cornbreads are created equal.   My favorite homemade cornbread is a sour cream cornbread, very rich with brown sugar and melted butter in the batter.  Delicious on its own, but too moist and too sweet for the dressing.

Remember this bread?  The Thanksgiving bread that I baked in the bread machine a few weeks ago?  Very useful for the oyster and sausage dressing.  Already seasoned, containing bits of onion, and baked up into a hearty texture that contrasts nicely with the cornbread.

I bake the cornbread in an 8 inch square pan, and when I cut it into 1/2 inch cubes, it yields about 5 cups.  You want about the same amount of the Thanksgiving bread also cut into 1/2 inch cubes.  Place the bread into two separate 9 x 13 pans.

Preheat the oven to about 350 degrees.  Put the pans of bread cubes in the oven to dry out.  This will not take more than a few minutes for the cornbread, so watch carefully.  The Thanksgiving bread will take a few minutes more.  When they're both done, and the cubes are cool, combine them into one pan, cover and hold at room temperature until ready to use.

Oyyyyyyy .... so I did my food shopping, and wore myself out.  There will be no further cooking today, folks.   Watching the remake of "Total Recall" and missing Arnold.  Wanting to unwind before Monday morning.

Got the Big Bird in the fridge, resting until Thursday morning when I will start by ripping out his spine and cracking his breastbone.

Got Grade B maple syrup, the real stuff, for the cranberry sauce, and the sweet potatoes and pineapple for the pie that isn't a pie.  Broccoli in the freezer, Brussel sprouts in the other fridge, tiny potatoes on the counter.  It's beginning to look a lot like Thanksgiving.

What, no ear worms? - Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

Must be because I am now officially in the Thanksgiving groove.   But before I even get to that I recently needed to prepare a dessert for our holiday luncheon.   That decision turned out to be really easy - pumpkin gooey butter cake.   Oh I considered brownies, and better than sex cake, and even pig pickin' cake.  But those ideas whooshed so fast through my brain there was barely a lingering scent of warm chocolate from the brownies.

Speaking of whooshing ideas, I have already changed the Thanksgiving dinner menu. I'm going with oyster stuffing. With two kinds of bread, some sausage, corn kernels, red bell pepper and some other stuff. Leeks instead of ordinary onions.  Stuffing should have interesting stuff in it and this one certainly will.  Fishy stuff, piggy stuff, veggie stuff, herby stuff and you get the idea  And I can prepare it in advance. Working with recipes that can be prepared in advance is the most important strategy for Thanksgiving dinner.

Back to the dessert - I once got verschicknert on pumpkin gooey butter cake. True story. This was Thanksgiving 2003, and for the first time since 2000, we were home for the holiday.  It was also almost 6 months since my gastric bypass surgery and I was 80 or 90 pounds down.  Those six months had been full of new eating adventures - discovering what I could and couldn't eat; rediscovering coffee; learning that dumping is not just something that happens at Jersey landfills.  I am not going to lie, there were rough times.  I do not recommend this surgery to anyone, because not everyone is mentally or physically ready for it.  Some people get terribly sick or die.  Some get divorced.  And others gain their weight back, all of it.  Would I go for the surgery again?  Absolutely.  But that's me.

Anyway, I made the pumpkin gooey butter cake as one of many desserts.  I had not been eating sweets for 6 months - really had no interest in them - but this was a brand new recipe for me, and it was creamy almost like a cheesecake, so I sliced a wafer-thin piece from the edge, just to taste.  Nirvana.  I tasted a few more times. I stopped when I developed the sugar-fueled, completely  irrational belief that I was going to wake up the next morning having gained back all of those 90 pounds.  Shortly thereafter, I felt like I was going to toss my cookie bars.  My head started to spin, I felt queasy, and ended up having to lie down on the couch for a good half hour.

It's called dumping, a super-hypoglycemic reaction to sweets experienced by us posties (post-surgical gastric bypass folks) in the early stages of recovery.  I still have it happen occasionally, and recently gave up even the smallest amount of ice cream for good, because it just isn't worth feeling like I had drunk two strong Cosmos while on a cruise ship caught in a hurricane.

I haven't baked the pumpkin gooey butter cakes since then, and I surely will not take a chance and taste them at the holiday luncheon, but that's no reason my coworkers shouldn't enjoy something really really delicious.

This is my version of the pumpkin bars.  I switched, cut, and added some ingredients for a slightly more complex combination of flavors and texture.  More festive for the holiday.

Cake base:
1 (18 1/4 oz) package spice cake mix
1 stick butter, melted

1 egg

1/2 cup pecan meal

1/2 cup lingonberries

Pumpkin filling:

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened

1 stick butter, softened
3 eggs

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 (16 oz) box powdered sugar (next time I cut this back a bit)
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

Preheat oven to 350°.

Prepare cake base: 

While oven is preheating, melt the butter in a 9 x 13 inch baking pan.  Remove from the oven once melted, and set aside to cool.   In a large mixing bowl, combine the cake mix and the melted butter and mix with a wooden spoon.  Set aside the baking pan, which is now greased and ready to go. Next add the egg and mix well.  If the dough is a bit difficult to work together with the spoon, switch to your hands. Add the pecan meal.  Pat the mixture into the baking pan and bake for 5 minutes.  Let cool a few minutes, then spread the lingonberries over the crust.

Prepare filling:

In a large bowl, with a hand mixer, beat the cream cheese and softened butter together until smooth and light. Next beat in the pumpkin. Add the 3 eggs and the vanilla, and beat together.

Next, add the powdered sugar about 1/3 at a time.  Use a sieve so that the sugar isn't clumped up.  Finally, add the pumpkin pie spice and mix well.

Spread pumpkin mixture over the cake base and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Make sure not to over bake as the center should be a little gooey, but you don't want the center to be runny.  Refrigerate overnight before serving.

Now the funny part - not ha ha funny, but funny - I never made it to the holiday party and neither did the pumpkin bars.  I woke up early to make sure they were all cut neatly, and then left them in the refrigerator and headed to court for another day, and hopefully the last day, of a lengthy trial.  My plan was to scoot home at lunchtime, retrieve the pumpkin bars, bring them to the office, eat a forkful of mashed potatoes, and head back to court.  Didn't happen that way because of the need to restart the trial one hour earlier than anticipated, so ... tomorrow is another day.  It might not be a party, but my legal peeps will have a little sweet treat, always nice any day of the week.

Not sure you can see the layers of cookie base, lingonberries, and pumpkin filling, but I have it on good authority from the Official Taste Tester that they are delicious.  Maybe I'll leave a few home for him.

You can serve these with Cool Whip or real whipped cream.  Since I can no longer eat Cool Whip - it hates me, and after a lifelong relationship, that hurts - I would have to go the real stuff route.  Or eat 'em naked (the bars. I plan on wearing clothes.)

Sitzfleisch - Double Duty Tiny Turkey Meatballs

I was spending the day at home, cooking and watching TV all over the airwaves.  So cool to watch Sara Moulton cooking again on public television.  Not that I could sit still long enough to watch her complete even one of the three recipes she knocked out. including that risotto with duck confit and duck cracklings.  Okay, oven risotto made no darn sense, though, because regular risotto made on top of the stove is really pretty easy.  But the duck confit set my heart aflutter, and since I might want to order boneless duck breast from Maple Leaf Farms in the very near future, I might as well throw a couple of confit duck legs into the mix.

For a while, nothing gets accomplished. I sit down, I stand up, I go into the kitchen, I sit down, I watch TV, I jump up, I go upstairs, I come downstairs, I forget what I went upstairs for, I go back into the kitchen, I talk to myself, I sit down, and over and over again.  I change topics in the middle of a conversation.  I start a new topic which is actually a continuation of something we talked about 4 days ago.  In Yiddish, we call my problem "sitzfleisch".  Here in the good old USA, we call it ADD - attention deficit disorder.  I call it the Gracie Allen Syndrome, and - hey, is that a chicken?  No, actually it's a turkey, ground turkey to be exact.  I am extremely distractible, and I daydream at the drop of a hat.  Except when I knit, or cook, or find myself in court trying a case.  I wouldn't mind a little consistency, but that wouldn't be me.

 

I decided to make my tiny turkey meatballs so I could have them with the  spaghetti squash and roasted grape tomato sauce.  I developed this recipe for the tiny meatballs a couple of years ago when I needed something to put in one of my quick chicken soups, and I had no cooked chicken.  These were delicious in the soup, and as it turned out, worked really well with the spaghetti squash and sauce.

Tiny Turkey Meatballs

20 oz. package of ground turkey (not all white meat)
1/2 cup matzo meal
2 eggs
2 1/2 tablespoons half and half
1/2 cup grated Romano cheese
1/4 cup fresh parsley, minced
2 green onions, minced (all of the white and some of the light green part)
2 cloves garlic, minced
kosher salt
ground black pepper
Italian seasoning

Combine all of the above ingredients in a mixing bowl.  I like to use a fork to mix everything together, so the meatballs will not be too dense.  Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Using Pam or a similar product, spray the bottom of two shallow baking dishes, the inside of a very small scooper, and the palms of your hands.  Portion out all of the ground turkey with the scoop, then roll it into nice meatballs.  Place them into the baking pans, and bake for just 10 minutes.  Serve in soup or with sauce over noodles or even mashed potatoes and turkey gravy.

I would not substitute bread crumbs for the matzo meal.  Matzo meal is one of my secret ingredients, and it makes things like meatballs and meatloaves come out almost fluffy.  Fluffy, not stuffy.

Back in the USSR - A Quintessential Southern Corn Casserole

Well the Ukraine girls really knock me out
They leave the West behind
And Moscow girls make me sing and shout
That Georgia's always on m-m-my mind

Oh, show me round the snow-peaked mountains way down south
Take me to you daddy's farm
Let me hear your balalaikas ringing out
Come and keep your comrade warm

I'm back in the USSR
Hey, you don't know how lucky you are, boys
Back in the USSR
Oh, let me tell you honey

Crazy cold!  Twenty-two degrees it was in Staten Island, New York and 43 degrees here in Central Florida.  This house, built in 1925, is not known for it's cold-fighting capabilities.  Neither am I, anymore - 23 years living in Florida, your body adapts, and I am much more resistant to heat than cold.  All I really want to do is crawl back under the covers with these guys, and let the warmth soak into these old bones.

I had a strange dream the other night - we were sightseeing in Russia, a country that, despite both maternal and paternal roots, I have never hankered to see.  Might have something to do with stories about pogroms, and desk-diving at school during the Cold War.  My dream ignored the passage of time, the presidency of Ronald Reagan and the collapse of the Berlin Wall, and placed us firmly and unapologetically in the USSR.  Besides that strange turn of events, we ran into two old friends from my misspent youth - one, Sara Feldman, is a friend from high school who introduced me to the music of Sonny and Cher, and the other is a friend from college, Steve Feldman, a fellow psychology major and good buddy who once drove all the way down to Howard Beach to help me scrape those old-fashioned foot-stickies from the bottom of the tub in my first apartment.  Sara studied Russian and visited there when it first opened up to US tourists, but as far as I know, Steve has never set foot on that part of the European continent.  They are not related, by the way.  That was just my dream doing loopy things.  However, they both live in upstate New York (defined as anything north of the Bronx-Westchester border) and are no doubt feeling a bit chill this morning.  The dream ended with us sneaking past our Communist stalkers (nameless, faceless government spies).   Of course after that imaginary road-trip-from-hell, I awoke with one of my my trademark headaches.

Speaking of headaches, have I mentioned that I do not own a winter coat?

Because the day was so unseasonably chilly, I found myself inspired to look for cold recipes - gelatin molds, to be precise.  I printed out the Eggnog Molded Salad and the Layered Cranberry Mousse Mold.  I just need a good reason to whip them up and pour them into my vintage Tupperware gelatin molds.  Sadly, no good reason came to mind.

So let me focus on the good stuff.  I picked up the ingredients I need to make a dessert for the holiday party at the office.  I found the pre-made crepes so I can experiment with appetizer wraps like smoked salmon and cream cheese, and hummus and tabbouleh.  My wonderful husband stocked the fridge with burnt ends from Jimmy Bear's BBQ, along with fried pickles, pulled pork, and ribs.  And my son prepared, with his own two hands, a corn casserole to bring to a friend's potluck Thanksgiving.  Proud mom!  Kvelling!

• 1 (8 ounce) box Jiffy cornbread mix
• 1 (15 ounce) can whole kernel corn, drained
• 1 (15 ounce) can creamed corn (not drained)
• 1 cup sour cream
• 1 stick melted butter
• 1 - 1 1/2 cups shredded Cheddar

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

In a large bowl, stir together the 2 cans of corn, corn muffin mix, sour cream, and melted butter. Pour into a greased 9 by 13-inch casserole dish. Bake for 45 minutes, or until golden brown. Remove from oven and top with Cheddar. Return to oven for 5 to 10 minutes, or until cheese is melted. Let stand for at least 5 minutes and then serve warm.

Come Saturday Morning - Spaghetti Squash with a Roasted Grape Tomato Sauce

I had a lovely work day recently, quite different from my usual routine, and while I like my usual routine, a change now and then is good.  Or so I've been told, because truthfully, I hate change. But this was a once-time-a-year thing, a meeting of Central Region DCF attorneys and we had a really fine class on Baker Acts and Marchman Acts, and a big buffet lunch that was prepared by our regional managing attorney (I love the fact that she can cook and bake and isn't afraid to show it) and then our annual awards and recognition ceremony.  I did not win any awards, but my direct supervisor did and I thought that was really pretty cool.

The meeting took place up in the Metrowest area, and as I was driving home, full of facts and good humor, I realized I could route myself to pass Whole Foods in Bayhill, and if I was going to pass it, I might as well stop in and check the vegetables.  Yes, I wrote that.

There are many people who do all of their food shopping at Whole Foods, and I am not one of them.  Not even close.  I usually go there maybe a few times a year at best, and when I stepped into that Mecca of Mangia, I realized I had not shopped there for about two years.  Think of all the money I saved!

Some people go to art museums to appreciate beauty.  I go to a well stocked, carefully tended market.    I love strolling through the produce department.  This appreciation of fine fennel and gorgeous green peppers may come from the fact that my father-who-did-not-raise-me, Mike Osher, was a produce manager his whole life.  One of my only memories of Mike is a very young me - three or four years old at most - hanging out in the produce store in which he worked.  Later on, when small neighborhood groceries gave way to supermarkets, he managed the produce department at a Waldbaum's in Far Rockaway, or so I've been told.  Mike's oldest son, my oldest brother Larry, was also a produce manager at Wegman's.  Unfortunately, I never got to meet Larry or next oldest brother Fred, or either of my younger sisters (although I have spoken on the phone with my sister Nora) but I think it is now clear that I inherited my love of food from both sides of my family.  Reinforcement of genes, and you get one food-obsessed crazy cat lady.  I'm okay with that, it was the unmanageable curly hair that was the bane of my youthful existence.

I sailed admiringly past the fish counter and the meat counter, noting that Whole Foods does carry real pork belly at a manageable price.  Maybe next time.  Their fish is fresh - really fresh, not defrosted - and beautiful.  And priced into the stratosphere, where I don't even visit, much less reside.  I checked out the olive bar and the cheese counter and cupcakes the size of my head.  I sniffed the fresh coffee.  And I bought, albeit sparingly, some different rices, a small container of smoked whitefish salad, a cute little spaghetti squash, and a very small container of pickings from the salad bar so that I could taste some stuff I've been wanting to try out (or retry, in the case of kale).  The verdict is that quinoa is very cool and I will try cooking it; I still don't get the great public adulation for kale, but at least it doesn't suck; edamame is as great cold in a salad as it is steamed and salted as an appetizer at the sushi place;  and tofu is just meh.  There's got to be a way to get more flavor into it - all those vegetarians can't be wrong about it, and I like the idea of alternate protein sources.

My plan, so much as I had one was to use up some of the vegetables in the refrigerator - grape tomatoes that were left after I prepared the pasta salad with balls, an eggplant that had been waiting patiently to be parm'ed, and the cute little spaghetti squash I picked up at Whole Foods.  Not to suggest that Publix does not stock spaghetti squash, but this one was a good bit smaller than theirs, and I did not want to wrestle with a behemoth spaghetti squash.

I have a great deal of trouble eating pasta.  Actually, I have a great deal of trouble eating most foods, so I am always on the lookout for different ways of getting my nutrition.  I do taste as I cook, but once I do that, I cannot eat anything else.  I am full and will likely stay full until the next day.

But I love good old-fashioned spaghetti and meatballs, or with my grandmother's meat sauce, which got me to wondering if spaghetti squash topped with sauce might not go down easier (and stay down longer) than my favorite Barilla pasta.  For me, it's not about the calories, but this would certainly cut some carbs for those who are trying to do so.

Now, about those lovely grape tomatoes - first I thought about preparing a sauté with pesto, but I still had several different vegetable dishes in the fridge, so I switched gears and decided to try a recipe for a fresh grape tomato pasta sauce.  Found it on a food blog, tweaked it a bare trifle and when I tasted the finished product, I almost swooned.

First make the sauce.  I actually did this the day before, because the spaghetti squash gets cooked in the smaller crockpot, and that was being occupied by an eggplant for most of the afternoon.

Roasted Grape Tomato Sauce

2 1/2 pints of grape tomatoes (about 5 cups) - for the best flavor, mix the colors - I used red and orange grape tomatoes
5 cloves of fresh garlic, smashed and peeled
Freshly ground Himalayan pink salt, to taste
Freshly ground mixed peppercorns, to taste
a pinch of sugar (optional)
2 tablespoon of garlic olive oil
2 tablespoons fresh basil, or basil paste (I use Gourmet Garden brand)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.  Place the tomatoes in a single layer in a 9 x 13 aluminum baking pan.  Tuck the pieces of garlic between the tomatoes.  Drizzle everything with the olive oil, and add some salt and pepper, and the pinch of sugar.  Place into the preheated oven and roast for 45 minutes.  The tomatoes should have released a good part of their juices and appear somewhat wrinkled but not dried out.  Let them cool for about 10 to 15 minutes, then carefully pour everything into a food processor fitted with the chopping blade.  Add the basil or basil paste, cover, and turn on the processor.  Let it run until the consistency suits you - and I agree with Beth, the food blogger who created the original recipe, that smooth is best.  Taste the sauce and prepare to swoon.  Add a little more salt and pepper, as needed.  This sauce is so light and fresh-tasting, it is perfect for the delicate spaghetti squash.

Now take your cute little spaghetti squash and pierce it a few times with a sharp, thin knife.  Spray the inside of the crockpot with no-stick spray.  Place the squash into the crockpot, and add a cup or two of water.  Cover and cook on high for 3 hours, until the squash is quite soft.

Carefully remove the squash from the crock, and let it cool a bit before trying to handle it.  Then cut it down the center, and remove the seeds.  Finally, with a regular dinner fork, begin scraping at the cooked flesh.  You will see the squash form strands as you scrape.  Continue until all of the squash has been removed from the shell.  Serve the spaghetti squash with butter or a touch of olive oil and salt, or any kind of pasta sauce, homemade like this one, or a good quality jarred sauce.

A funny thing happened on the way to the final saucing - when I cut the squash open, I got an unexpected and unwelcome surprise:

As you can see, about half of the seeds have sprouted.  I tasted one, and it was bitter, so along with the seeds, I separated them out from the flesh of the squash and discarded them before scraping out the strands.

Unfortunately, the spaghetti strands were also quite bitter, so I spread the squash out on some foil laid on the counter, drizzled a tiny bit of olive oil over, and then seasoned with salt, pepper, and sugar, using small amounts and tasting as I went along. I also added some parmesan cheese, but I think I should have skipped that step.  The seasoning did improve the taste and counteracted some, but not all, of the bitterness.

Serving this with the roasted grape tomato sauce also helped, because of the tomato's natural sweetness, but I am convinced that the sprouting seeds caused the squash to become unpleasantly bitter.  Since I cooked it whole, I had no way of knowing about the seeds until it was too late, and I really don't know if removing the seeds and sprouts before cooking would have made a difference.

In the end, it was just okay.  Cooked in the crockpot, the strands came out beautiful and very spaghetti-like, and the sauce was awesome, but that bitter undertaste was off-putting.  I will have to try again with another squash and hope there are no sprouts lurking within.

I'm So Excited - Pink Clam Chowder

I never know what I'm going to find when I type a phrase into google.  I was looking for the lyrics to the Pointer Sisters' song, but up pops the Tenth Doctor.  What?  What?  Who?

Well, it so happens I am excited because of the weekend.  Weekend before Thanksgiving, which means it's time to go shop for the majority of ingredients.  I love food shopping this time of year.  I love the smells of cinnamon and spit-roasted chickens and bread rising in the bakery.

Saturday of this weekend the Magic are playing the new, Lebron-less Miami Heat, and Rob and I are going to Amway Center to watch them.  Maybe we'll win; we've got a pretty strong team this year, with Nick Vucevic, Tobias Harris, and Victor Oladipo.

I'm excited that I tweaked the Thanksgiving menu again.  Forget the cranberry mold, I'm going to make Ree Drummond's recipe for cranberry sauce.  Fresh cranberries, fresh oranges, and real maple syrup. And I am going to spatchcock the turkey before roasting it.  No maple ginger glaze this year.

And I can't help being excited that it's only 15 days to my next cruise.  Carnival Sunshine to Aruba, Curacao and Grand Turk.  New ship, new itinerary, old husband.  Very nice combination.  Heh heh.

Today is National Adoption Day, and although I have had a number of adoption finalizations throughout the year, I have four today.  Each of those were hard-fought cases to insure the children's well-being and permanency, and I could not be happier. Big happy ceremony at the courthouse, with so many children (my four are only part of the total) finally, legally becoming part of their forever families.

But best of all, Friday night I am meeting up with some very dear friends from my New Paltz days, my freshman year, College Hall.  I couldn't vote or drink, but I was living away from home for the first time, and independence felt sweet.  Over the years, I have gotten to see them all - Barb and Lynn and Kathy and Mark and Sandy - but never all together at the same time.  Maybe someday.

Finally, I am excited because I am sending you a double dose of inspiration today.  Here's a recipe I created back in 2011, and it involves clams and some crabmeat, and today is Friday:

Friday, FI - ISH, all you happy children, we wish the same to you!

From August 13, 2011 - I had an idea in my head about what sort of chowder I was trying to make.  For some reason I am obsessed with "pink" chowder, a diplomatic compromise between the creamy New England variety, and the earthy, tomato-based Manhattan variety.  I debated long and hard between Worcestershire and Vermouth, and decided that the Worcestershire better represented my seasoning goal in this case.  Except once I got started, I realized there had to be a touch of sherry to finish it off.

It is a rather good, but untraditional clam chowder.

4 slices bacon, diced small
1 tablespoon butter
1 large onion, chopped
2 large cloves garlic, minced
4 stalks celery, medium-diced
3 carrots, medium-diced (about 15 baby carrots)
2 large baking potatoes, peeled and diced
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme leaves (1 1/2 teaspoons fresh)
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
4 tablespoons tomato paste
2-8 oz. bottles clam juice + the juice reserved from the drained clams
1 teaspoon Worcestershire sauce
4 drops Tabasco sauce
4 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cup milk, heated in the microwave
3-6 1/2 oz. cans chopped clams, drained, juice reserved
1-6 oz. can lump crabmeat, drained
1/4 cup sherry

In a stockpot, cook the bacon until crisp and the fat is well-rendered.  Remove the bacon with a slotted spoon, drain on paper towels, and  add 1 tablespoon of butter to the bacon fat in the pot.  Add the onions and cook over medium low heat for 10 minutes.  Add the garlic, celery carrots, potatoes, thyme, salt and pepper and saute for 10 more minutes, adding another tablespoon of butter if necessary.  Add the tomato paste, stir well, and cook another 30-60 seconds.  Add the clam juice, the Worcestershire, and the Tabasco, and simmer uncovered until the vegetables are tender, about 20 minutes.  Add the clams and heat over low heat while you prepare the roux.

In a small pot, melt the butter and whisk in the flour.  Cook over very low heat for 3 minutes, whisking constantly.  Whisk in a cup of the hot tomato clam broth then pour this mixture back into the chowder.  Simmer for a few minutes until the broth is thickened.  Add the hot milk and the crabmeat and heat gently for a few minutes.  Stir in the sherry.  Taste for salt, pepper, and Tabasco.  Serve hot.