Thanksgiving

I will be hosting a small gathering for family, total count will be 7.  I’ve ordered an organic, pasture raised turkey, they smallest they had was 12-14 pounds.  Assuming it comes in on the small side, I am planning to do a “deconstructed” turkey.  You cut up the turkey, into a full breast with wings, legs with thighs, and everything else.  Everything else (back, neck, etc) is used to make a very nice broth, the thighs get stuffed.  To roast, the breast sits on a pile of stuffing and the legs sit along side.  This cooks much quicker than a full bird.  The full recipe is in the Julia and Jacques Cook book (which is one of my very favorite cook books).  In addition, I’ll make mashed potatoes. gravy, cranberry sauce (this is really easy, see below for the recipe), and a few vegetable sides.  Maybe a squash gratin, maybe a cornbread dressing with roasted fall vegetables…  it’s wheat free corn bread with lots of vegetables, but I’ll need to find a dish that fits in the toaster oven to make this work.   But when else are you going to eat parsnips and rutabagas? (and if its good, I'll post the recipe next year!) And of course there will be pies for dessert, both pumpkin and pecan unless someone gets a better idea.

Let me know what makes the perfect Thanksgiving meal for you!

So, to keep you interested in Thanksgiving and NOT Christmas (no matter how many of our neighbors already have their Christmas light up already), here are two favorites:


Creamy Winter Squash Gratin

8 cups cubed peeled butternut squash (about 3 pounds)
2 teaspoons butter
2 cups thinly sliced leek (about 2 large)
1 teaspoon salt
3 ½ cups 1% milk
1/3 cup flour
1 cup (4 ounces) shredded Gruyere cheese
¼ teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg

1 clove garlic
2 (1 oz) slices bread
2 teaspoons fresh chopped parsley

Preheat oven to 400F

Arrange squash in a single layer on a baking sheet covered with parchment paper (or use cooking spray).  Bake for 25 minutes or until the squash is tender.

Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over medium heat.  Add leeks and salt, cook 4 minutes or until tender, stirring frequently.   Combine milk and flour, stirring well with a whisk.  Add milk mixture to pan, bring to a boil.  Cook 1 minute or until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat.  Add cheese, pepper, and nutmeg, stir until cheese melts.  Gently stir in squash. Spoon mixture into a 2-quart baking dish coated with a cooking spray.

Mince garlic in food processor.  Break bread into pieces, add with parsley to food processor.  Pulse, then process into crumbs.  Sprinkle bread crumb mixture evenly over squash mixture.  Bake at 400F for 20 minutes or until golden brown.  Yield: 8 servings (serving size: about 1 cup).

Do ahead: prepare the gratin a day ahead and refrigerate, store the bread crumb topping separately. Let sit for a while at room temperature, add crumbs, then bake at 400o for 30 minutes or until brown.

Cranberry Sauce not from A Can

I think the cinnamon and vanilla really make this special (not to mention the lack of a tin-can taste), I always use tangerine juice since we just start getting them about this time)

Cooking Time: About 15 min.
Prep Time: About 5 min.
Makes:  3 1/2 cups, about 12 servings  (about as much as two cans)

6 cups (2 bags, 12 oz. each) fresh cranberries
2/3 cup granulated sugar
2/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup tangerine juice                 
(or use orange juice with a tablespoon of lemon juice added)
1/8 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 tablespoon vanilla

Put everything except vanilla in a saucepan, and over high heat bring to simmering. Turn down heat, and simmer uncovered, stirring occasionally, until cranberries are tender (lots of them pot open), about 10 minutes.

Stir in vanilla, let cool.  Serve, or chill airtight up to 1 week.

Mixed Media

One of my endeavors during sabbatical was taking a mixed media art class at the Desert Botanical Gardens.  They have a very serious botanical illustration program, with drawing, pen and ink, and watercolor classes.  Mixed Media was a new class, to combine pen and ink with watercolor.  The instructor was intending this as an advanced class, expecting the students to have taken the pen and ink and water color classes as prerequisites.  She was a bit unprepared when most of us in the class had little if any experience.  Fortunately, she quickly switched gears, and did a great job …  in the end, everyone had some very nice pieces. Her background was doing medical illustration, and she patiently taught us how to dip our pens, draw a line, as well has how to use watercolors.  However, She did not have any patience for non-artist quality materials, and started us with a pricey list of materials.  I have now fallen for sable brushes, and today figured they how well they work well for doing a little oxide line work on my pots!

We started the class by copying some Beatrice Potter illustrations from “The Tale of Benjamin Bunny”, as she used a mix of ink and watercolor.  We tried ink first, then watercolor, and then the other way. We also tried different inks, including one made from walnut shells.   Either way, you start with a pencil drawing (which we traced) that is transferred to the watercolor paper.  For the watercolors, she taught us how to mix colors, we started with 2 reds, 2 yellows, and 2 blues. A good reference book is  “Blue and Yellow Don’t Make Green” (hint, hint Christmas is coming).  The hardest color to mix was the grays. For the final project, I composed a picture of five different basils that I have in my herb garden (sweet basil, lemon basil, variegated basil, a purple basil, and Blue African basil).  I did cheat a bit, I shot pictures of each, cut out the background (so I also learned a lot about Photoshop), then did some tracing to get the basic shapes and perspective.  My biggest problem with getting big drops of ink on the paper, fortunately, the teacher had some watercolor whiteout (Creative Mark Aquacover) which did a good job of covering them up!   Here are pictures of my pieces.  I also did one of a yucca, hoping to get one without an ink blog (but not successful).

I’m really glad I took the class, I have a much better feeling for a few more more techniques, I might get to the point someday where my drawings have some level of accuracy(!), and have found that good watercolors are really pretty fun to use.  I was really surprised how quick you can get the colors down, but found that just like pottery, there are times you just have to stop, to let things dry out properly… because it can go bad very, very quickly.   Now to just get my studio arranged to support both pots and paints!

Sabbatical End

The wailing you will hear tomorrow morning will be me going back to work.  It’s the last day of my 8 week sabbatical.   Its been a fabulous time, … I’m not even close to running out of fun things to do, and most days I’m exhausted in a good way.  The highlight was the trip to Italy, but there were so many other wonderful things, like my visit with my sister-in-law, a mixed media art class at the botanical gardens, time to, doing stuff with friends like lunch, golf, and wine tasting.  So far, I have written 20 blog entries, about 50% more than normal, and going twice a week to yoga.  The BBQ at my in-laws has gotten some use.

I have also really enjoyed my time at home: working on art, listening to music, puttering (not to be confused with putting), cooking and watching the birds and rabbits in yard.  I enjoy making a really nice salad for lunch:  finding what looks good in the fridge (which has not once been really, really empty), composing the salad, having a glass of wine. I have found that I might have the patience to paint.

I feel very lucky to have had this time, and glad my friends (and especially my husband) have been so supportive, and put up with my blathering even when they have had less than stellar days.  I am currently reading Julia Child’s “My Life in France”, where she describes herself before going to cooking school as the “butterfly of fun”.  That’s what I have felt like!  Maybe I should go to cooking school next (she started at the Cordon Bleu in Paris).

Boyce Thompson Arboretum

After many years of talking about it, we finally made the trek (with the dog) out to Boyce Thompson.  It is about 60 miles east on Hwy 60, just before you get to the town of Superior. There is a loop trail (a little over a mile) which runs around the arboretum, which takes you through the cactus gardens, rose garden, herb garden, and what I thought to be most unusual, the Eucalyptus garden, which has 80 year old (i.e. really big) trees for the middle of the desert.

Fortunately, you gain a bit of elevation over Phoenix, so it’s a few degrees cooler, which was really nice yesterday since it was 95F yesterday (and the end of October… if this sounded like a whine, well, it was).  There were a few things blooming, but I think the really nice time to visit would be March.  There would likely be some water running in Queen Creek, there are bunches of irises as well as other bulbs you might catch in bloom, maybe even the start of the roses.  Its nestled in a bit of canyon, so its protected from the wind.  I think it would especially cool to hit at the very tail end of a storm.  The first part of the trail is pretty standard botanical garden (and not too far from Hwy 60), but once you get to the end and circle back, its much more interesting.  At one end it the Picketpost house, up much higher than the park.  It used to belong to Boyce Thompson.  The walk back has two options, the main trail or the high trail.  The main trail follows the creek, going through a small canyon, I really liked the rock walls.  Also, back near the visitor center, there is a demonstration garden, a great place for ideas for landscaping your own yard. 

Its probably worth a trip back, but only with the right weather conditions.  The dog's new nickname is Dusty.

Tender at the Bone: Growing Up at the Table by Ruth Reichl

If I had to give the movie pitch for Tender at the Bone, it would be “The Glass Castle meets the Julie / Julia Project”.   Ruth Reichl became famous as the food critic for the New York Times, is now is Editor-in-Chief of Gourmet, and has written a few books about herself.  This book is about her younger days, up to the point she started are a food critic.  The Glass Castle reference’s the relationship with the mentally ill mother, and the ability to build your own successful life while still maintaining that relationship in one way or another.  The Julie / Julia reference is living poor in New York as a young adult, and the seemingly natural ability to write about food.  The best line in the book is the disclaimer at the front “Everything here is true, but it may not be entirely factual …  I have occasionally embroidered”.  I think it should be included in most the memoirs I have read!   An enjoyable read, but lets hope they don’t make a movie about it, her mother’s cooking would definitely put this in the category of horror movies!

Fall Colors

So, I will just start by saying, yes, I went to New Jersey for fun.  My sister in law lives there, in Hunterdon County (which is on the Pennsylvania side of the state), and I was way overdue for a visit.  We had a great time… spent an inordinate amount of time eating, with museum visits, hiking, massages, kayaking, and top-down Miata driving fit in between.   Click here for some pictures.

The eating started with dinner at Fusion on Main in one of the cute little towns around where she lives.  It’s Thai-influenced, we started with chicken satay and vegetable triangles (each with a very nice sauce), and shared the coconut shrimp entrée… out on the porch of the restaurant, with a bottle of a French Chardonnay (non-oaked).  

On Friday, we headed to “the city”, where we visited the Museum of Modern Art.  We had secured reservations at The Modern for lunch, which is right next door (and it fact, you don’t even need to leave the museum, quite convenient).  There we started with Champagne, Foie Gras Torchon with muscat gelée and Pumpkin, Couscous and Chestnut Soup with ricotta salata and spiced crème fraîche.  Both were great, the fois gras was wonderful and creamy, the pumpkin soup had all sorts of interesting things mixed in.  For mains I had Beer Braised Pork Belly with sauerkraut and ginger jus and she had Gaeta Olive-Crusted Quail with chorizo, barley, toasted almonds and pickled ramps.  Both were good, but the quail was better, tender and well matched to the accompanying couscous and sauce.  To go with, we had glasses of Pinot Noir. Desert was Apple Strudel for her, and a Chocolate dome (over Pistachio filling) for me.  And some port.   The museum seemed even more interesting after lunch.  By the time we were done at the MOMA, it was raining, but we braved a walk to Ideal Cheese, where we loaded up on some stinky cheese, a salami, and fig jam..  not planning to let our eating standards to go down hill! 

The next day started with really wonderful massages, followed by lunch (and more Champagne) on the porch of the Frenchtown Inn.   I had a plate of several different pates followed by a very light butternut soup with apples, she had a pear and procuietto salad followed by mushroom soup.  They were all quite wonderful.  I wish Phoenix wasn’t overrun with big-box chain restaurants!  This was followed by driving the Miata with the top down, and a stop at a farm stand – mostly for apples, but they still had tomatoes.  We kept dinner simple with a nice salad including those tomatoes.   We started the next day with a hike at Merrill Creek Reservoir (which involved more driving around top-down), where the trees were really starting to get into the fall colors.  For dinner, the kids (along with their kids) came for dinner, where we grilled pizza (using some of the cheese, salami, tomatoes).   Desert was apple crisp the local apples (some kind I had never heard of) which were really good.   And we ate on the back deck… which for mid-October in New Jersey is a rarity.  

The weather continued to get warmer, so kayaking seemed to be the best thing for the last day of the visit.  We went to Round Valley Reservoir and did some paddling.  This was followed by a visit to a different farm stand, where they not only had tomatoes (we were out), but Macoun apples and local pork products.  The afternoon was a drive along the Delaware River, lunch at the Stockton Inn (OK, but not the Frenchtown Inn), then a drive back on the Pennsylvania side.    Dinner (again, out on the deck) was country-style sage sausage, grilled vegetables, salad (more yummy tomatoes), with a delightful Ponzi Pinot, and the rest of the apple crisp for desert.

As I was writing this, it was 48 degrees and raining in New Jersey.  We had 3 dinners and 3 lunches (in 4 days) outside, glad I didn’t put the trip off any longer!

Grilling Pizza

My latest adventure in grilling has been pizza’s on the BBQ.  Pizza has become yet another way to use up odds and ends of cheese, vegetables, and cured meat at our house (along with pasta, salads and soup).  But it does heat up the kitchen in the summer (the A/C can keep up with baking most things, but not a 475F oven).  And its not great for doing more than one or two since they take 12 minutes each to cook.  I was considering buying a grill pizza stone from Williams-Sonoma, but after checking on the Chowhound board, it seemed possible to cook right on the grill.  So I started to experiment…first on my self (lunch at home… I love this sabbatical thing, the loud crying you hear on Nov 5 will be me going back to work), then Roy, then on unsuspecting relatives in New Jersey… where I made 6.

So, to start, I use my basic Pizza dough (see below..  its really quick with the Cuisinart).    Here’s the basic technique (and tricks):

1. Get your toppings ready..  have by the grill when you start to cook.  On toppings… I usually use olive oil (no tomato-based sauce, but you can), some herbs (like basil), a “melting cheese” (think mozzarella or fontina) plus a flavor cheese (parmesan or goat or peccorino), plus a couple toppings of choice… salami, onions, eggplant, bell pepper, olives, sliced tomatoes, mushrooms.  The important thing is not too much or too many toppings.  Too much and the bottom is burnt before the top is done, too many and the bottom burns before you are done getting toppings on (but… if you really want 6 different things or are just slow, you can take the pie off grill, put on the toppings, and then back on).

2. Roll the dough thin, going for a 12 – 14 “ pizza.  Don’t worry about perfection, square-ish pieces fit better on the grill.  When you are done, roll onto a piece of parchment paper to help support the dough to get it on the grill.  If you are doing multiples, just stack them up. 

3. The grill should be at medium / medium high depending (good and hot, but not nuclear hot).

4. Flop a piece of dough directly on the grill (no need to oil, but you can), peel off paper, close the lid, and wait 3 minutes.  You can do 2 at time.

5. Check to make sure the bottom is nicely brown, then flip the dough with tongs (it has enough structure by this point to do easily).  Brush with olive oil, add herbs, cheese, toppings.  Close the lid, cook for another 4 minutes or so.  Its done when the bottom is brown and cheese melted…  it the cheese is not melted, its done anyway if the bottom is brown.  Pull the pizza off (tongs work) on to a plate or tray.  Slice and eat!

Figure 1 pizza per person it they are hungry…  less for polite eaters or if there is lots of other food. 

For a party..  the dough gets soft and puffy and hard to get on the grill if you let it sit after rolling.  I would recommend putting in the fridge if you are looking at more than 20 minutes between rolling and cooking, you might also try pre-cooking the one side and setting aside (I have read about this, but never attempted)

Also – you can just cook the bread (no toppings), add a little olive oil and salt when you are done for a nice bread side dish. 


Pizza Dough.      Cook pizza at 475 F.  This also is good for calzone’s.

Makes 1 ¾ pound dough – enough for 2 pizza’s (in the oven) or 3 pizza’s (on the grill)

2 teaspoons active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
1 ¼ cup warm water (105 – 115 oF)
3 1/3 cup flour  (ok to replace up to 1 cup with whole wheat flour)
1 ½ teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons olive oil, plus more for bag

Dissolve yeast and sugar in warm water, let stand until foamy – about 3 – 5 minutes.  Coat inside of large zip-loc baggie with oil.

Insert dough blade in work bowl of food processor and add four, salt and oil, then mix.

With machine running on dough speed, pour liquid through small feed tube as fast as flour will absorb it.  Process until dough cleans sides of work bowl and forms a ball, then process for 30 seconds to knead dough.  Dough will be a little sticky.  Put into baggie and seal.  Let rise for about 45 minutes.

Note: Dough freezes well.  Put ½ of dough in quart baggies (coated w/ oil) and freeze. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, let sit out ~ ½ hour before using.  It will also keep in the refrigerator for several days.