So...whats for dinner?

auntienance

Special, here you go. It's really delicious.

http://www.angelfire.com/on3/picklecreekbridge/on_the_move_recipes/ham_and_asparagus_cheesecake.htm

Lacey12

Oh, Special, I do hope your hearing returns. It seems that I keep learning about friends suddenly losing hearing of late. Several of my friends ask me to stay on one side of them, when we walk so I can speak into their hearing ear. It sounds like your doc is on top of this, so keeping fingers crossed for you.

I know how you were feeling about the brain mets worry. I just had a brain MRI due to some constant very painful headaches (never before got headaches in my life), and some rather sudden memory retrieval problems, when that was always a cognitive strength. The 12 yo neurologist ordered the imaging to rule out any bc mets in my brain. Turns out the brain is "normal" for my age, but there is some sinus involvement in my head that was marked, and I now need to see what to do about that. As Rosanna Rosanna Danna used to say, "It's always something...." I was very relieved to learn that my brain was mets free.....as was DH, who popped out with, "Oh, now I can book the trip to Italy." Guess he was waiting to see if there was something else in store for us over the next 6 months...but hadn't expressed it until the MRI results.

Minus, please extend a warm hello and best holiday wishes to Pat. It was fun meeting her with you.

ChiSandy, what an epic tale...glad it worked out that you can still do your concerts. But I can imagine how awful an experience that "noise" must have been.

For T-giv we will head into Boston to be with DS2 and DDIL2, a short drive which will take forever given turkey day traffic here....but still a great tradeoff since I am only preparing two things, roasted brussells sprouts and butternut squash, and a salad with romaine lettuce. DDIL2 (some of you might recall her limited food repetoire) will eat romaine lettuce at this point, so that's what it will be. I'm not a huge caesar fan so have to decide what else to put in the salad that all of us can enjoy. Tomatoes will be separate since she can't tolerate them, carrots should be fine, onions will be separate...and I have to figure this out. It seems ironic that I, the great nightly salad maker, (who also brings salads to any pot luck, by request) is struggling about what to put in a salad for our newest and most food particular family member! Life can be strange.... Ya know, after writing all of that, it occurs to me that I will just make a caesar salad with my own modified caesar dressing! There!

Nance, I will be thinking of you and your spatchcocked turkey, and its efficient cooking time. But even more, I will be thinking of the DH requested cherry pie! I had wanted to bring one to T-giv dinner, but seems they have dessert covered. I might just buy a small cherry pie from this woman who makes wonderful ones and have it here for DH and me over the weekend. 😉

Illimae, as usual....yum!

Nothing too interesting for dinners here. Some grilled chicken marinated in my mother's barbecue sauce, lots of salads, some lamejin (meat, and also yogurt based ones) from a local mid-eastern store. Leftovers of both of those mains along with salads, veggies and some farro. Tonight I may rely on Trader Joes since DH is stopping there on his way home from visiting an elderly friend. We liked that frozen eggplant parm we tried recently.

Carole, I too would have preferred to start the holidays at a lighter weight, but I guess the good thing about dining at DDIL2's house is that there will not be tons of food...and it definitely will not be at my house for days after! DS2 has described the event as a "low key" Thanksgiving. Ha! Something we never had here.

Special, enjoy your time with your son!

Have safe travels anda wonderful holiday everyone! I am so sketchy with my posts, I figure I'll wish it now....😊

auntienance

Oh Lacey - what a scare! Glad things turned out (relatively) ok. You are right -- it's always something at our age. I hate it. No aging greacefully here!

I discovered that the recipe I posted left out an ingredient - an 8 0z. container of sour cream. (Actually, the second listing of cream cheese should be sour cream instead.) My recipe is an old clipping from Southern Living Magazine and I assumed this version was accurate. My bad. Also - I use fresh asparagus not canned.

Cherry-sw

Happy Thanksgiving everybody! I am working in an US company, I have some work issues that are to be closed, everybody overseas is just pushing for it talking about the upcoming holidays. I have not been posting but I have been reading your posts.

SpecialK, as I have already mentioned on "our" TP-thread, I hope your hearing problem will resolve quickly.

Lacey, this is how the our lives will look like, the constant fear as soon as we feel any pain, I am not complaining, there is no use, I am trying to cope.

ChiSandy, you are a walking, guitar-playing Wikipedia, I learned a lot about cataract from your post and my mom had this surgery a couple of years ago.

illimae, wonderful pictures as usual.

Eric, you are a keeper, I cannot even imagine my DH doing all this without me nagging and even though he would I have to go and show him the all the spots that he would otherwise miss. I do not think he ever cleaned the fridge, at least not in this way. Back in 2005 we once left for vacation and left one of his friends to stay in our place to look after our previous cat. He was an exchange student, leaving alone, huge appetite, often staying for dinner. He had literally cleaned my fridge and even the freezer in a week time, and I do not mean that there was nothing edible left, there was nothing left at all, no ketchup, no bottled sauces. i have been afraid of flying since 2002 and back in 2005 until probably 2013 i used meds during flying that left me dizzy and drowsy for hours. I remember coming home and going to bed at once and my eldest being at the time ten years old came to me and said mom I am hungry and there is nothing to eat and I told her to wait until I was able to go out with her and fell asleep again. She woke me up and said mom I found these six dumplings left in the freezer. I felt so bad for her that I went to the kitchen opened the fridge and it was completely empty, I open the freezer and nothing was there either, I think he missed the dumplings because he thought it was ice cubes. A really funny story.

I was not in the mood for posting because I waited for the results of my bone scan, I have been having upper back pain since my diagnosis that wouldn't go away and my doctor ordered the scan. I did it last Friday being in nearly catatonic state, the tech just told me right away that I could relax because it looked good, that the doctors would look at it of course but it looked clean. I went on hugging him, he was from Iraq, I had to ask him, because if he were from Iran I could thank him in Persian. I do not know if he was fine with me hugging him but he took it with grace. Today I finely got it confirmed by the nurse.

I did some cooking though, here come some pictures. My cassoulet, I was really going for the crust there, and minestrone with cavolo nero. I was saving the latter for ribollita, it is my favorite Italian soup, but I did not buy any wine and had no stale bread so I cooked minestrone instead. On the picture the pasta is really large not the pot being small. I also cooked chicken achiote with baked sweet potatoes. I bought this achiote paste when I ordered my gumbo filé and I did not realized that it completely lacked salt so we had to salt our chicken afterwards. Today I sauteed some chicken hearts with eggplants, onions, garlic, bell pepper, parsley and chopped tomatoes. It has been a long time since we ate any intestines dishes but when I sent my DH for chicken liver he came home even with a package of chicken hearts and a package of gizzards and I said what do I suppose to do with those and he said I like those, you can do a stew. I have been living with him for 17 years, never heard of it from him, I do not recall cooking this stew either. So, now I have to find a recipe for this stew.

Cherry

illimae

I need your help! I can cook simple meals but my husband is the chef in the family and he's out of state working. So, I've never made gravy, anyone have a simple but tasty recipe for the gravy? I know I use drippings and possibly flour and cream?

ChiSandy

Ilona, go to the NYTimes website and look up Melissa Clark's recipe for make-ahead gravy, which doesn't require drippings. I think it does require a roux and either turkey or chicken stock. Four years ago, I made a quart of it and on T-Day stirred the drippings into it. My friends, OTOH, make turkey gravy "on the fly:" they simply remove the turkey to the carving board to "rest" and place the roasting pan across two burners on the stove. They deglaze the pan with a little water (scraping down the "fond," or baked-on stuff), then add flour (no butter necessary because they don't remove the fat from the drippings) and whisk like crazy.

Cherry, your cassoulet and minestrone look awesome!

My singing partner is deaf in his left year, so I always have to stand stage right so he can hear me when we don't have monitors. Thank goodness he's a fellow rightie, otherwise there'd be dueling guitar necks.

SpecialK

illimae - I do the pan gravy method chisandy describes above. I remove the turkey - pour off the drippings into a fat separator or glass measuring cup and let the fat rise to the top. Add the fat back to the roasting pan with a spoon and place on low across two burners, then add enough flour to make a paste. Cook this until it almost looks too well done, but not burned - about the color of caramel, this cooks the flour taste out. Slowly add chicken stock, and/or the de-fatted part of the drippings, or both (I do) to the pan and whisk over med heat until the gravy is very smooth. Taste for seasoning - I sometimes add more salt if I have used unsalted stock. This takes a little while so I do it while the turkey is resting and the side dishes are warming in the oven. I actually use my mom's slotted spoon - rubbing is across the bottom of the pan to loosen all the bits, it makes the best gravy and I learned this method from her. It works with poultry or a beef or lamb roast also. Good luck!

auntienance

I usually make stock ahead of time using the backbone, neck and wing tips that I've trimmed off the bird when spatchcocking it. I can make the gravy ahead of time and add the drippings if I want. I usually find the gravy made in the roasting pan a little too greasy tasting. You really don't get that many drippings when cooking the spatchcocked bird.

Here's the cheesecake: It was good.

DodgersGirl

We are picking up Thanksgiving Dinner tomorrow from a local restaurant and taking that to my parents house where we will all have a great day/meal.

We are taking a couple of traditional sides to dinner will see more like "ours".

DH and I experimented with a new cranberry relish which DH liked so well we had to make another batch for tomorrow! So, I thought I would share:

Apple Cider Mulled Cranberry Sauce

1 cinnamon stick

5 cloves, whole

1 star anise

bag of cranberries

1 cup sugar

1 cup fresh apple cider

1/2 cup port wine

1/2 cup mandarin orange sections, cut into thirds

Place cinnamon stick, cloves, and star anise in a spice/herb bag (I have a Pampered Chef silicone tub for this purpose but you can also use cheese cloth as a bag stuffed with the spices and tied off with kitchen twine)

In a 2 quart pot, add the ingredients including the spice bag. Cook over medium low heat, stirring occasionally, for about 20 mins. The cranberries will "pop" and the sauce will thicken.

Remove from heat. Remove spice packet. After sauce cools, store in refrigerator overnight to allow all flavors to fully incorporate

Cherry-sw

illimae, I do exactly as ChiSandy and SpecialK described, but I can add some sherry or red wine so the drippings would loosen from the roasting pan. We do not call it gravy in Sweden, there are two very popular warm sauces, brown sauce and cream sauce, the brown sauce is basically gravy as you describe, the cream sauce is the drippings plus cream that is later left to simmer to reduce it. The famous meatballs are can be served with either. Otherwise, Serious eats have good recipes, I was reading about Thanksgiving's dinner there and saw it.

Cherry-sw

auntinance, I did not know that you can call a non-desert cold pie, or how to call it?, a cheesecake. Swedes call this type of pie a sandwich cake, smörgåstårta, and it is considered to be a very fine meal and is absolutely a favorite and a must for for example a student graduation dinner when everything is served in buffe style. The cakes usually were made on wheat bread but now they do it even on rye and the filling can be either cured meat or boiled chicken, vegetarian or seafood, the latter is being the absolute favorite. Here comes the pictures of two of mine sandwich cakes I have done for my mom birthday. The first one is with the famous Skagen röra (shrimps, onions, roe and sour cream, even mayonnaise) on wheat bread and the second one on the rye bread with tuna, onions, olives and mayonnaise. The Swedes love their smörgåstårtor:)

.

Cherry-sw

Thank you ChiSandy, it is my second cassoulet and I took the recipe from Seriouse eats, just chicken not duck confit, this time I had brined ecological pig hoak. I cut off the rind and fried it in the pan, then just added different meats and in the end threw the rind, left it in the oven for 5,5 hours, the beans melted in the mouth, so delicious, who needs meat when you can have the beans that taste that good. And the recipe is so simple, I will be cooking it again.

The dinner today was orange chicken I have made of an organic chicken I have started to buy in our grocery store. Still cannot understand how a chicken can cost over 20 Euro, the usual one is four times cheaper but I have decided to switch to ecological household. I do not notice so much difference when it comes to taste but the chicken itself is larger and even older because the bones are much harder to break or cut. Organic prime rib definitely tastes better though. Here comes the picture, the skin got a bit burned when I just turned away for the moment but no one is eating it except for me and mom so it was not a big deal. Today we had the eldest's boyfriend here with us for dinner, I ate chicken liver though, my hemoglobin is still low.

ChiSandy

Organic chickens sold at butcher counters here tend to be older hens whose laying careers are over but not so old they are useful only for soups & stewing. And those "sandwich cakes?" I can taste the shrimp, sour cream and dill even as I look at the photos!

Finally got my hair done yesterday (thrice-yearly trim, color and keratin treatment). The salon was around the corner from Argyle St., what used to be called Chinatown North but is now "Asia on Argyle" because there are now also Vietnamese, Japanese (including a Shiseido outlet), Korean, and Indian businesses to reflect the diversity of the Asian population. (Thai restaurants here tend to be located in non-Asian, especially trendier and gentrified, neighborhoods. We have four Thai eateries within easy walking distance of us. Most of Chicago's ethnically Chinese people who don't live in integrated neighborhoods live in the original Chinatown on the near S. Side, which has seen a boom in middle-income & upscale condo & townhouse construction). I went to Sun Wah BBQ and got half a roast duck, Shanghai baby bok choy (with plain rice included), beef chow fun and shrimp dumpling soup to go. With the temps having fallen into the 20s, that soup--based on chicken broth--was my fave dish of the bunch.

illimae

Thanks everyone, I appreciate it!

I made some Oreo cookie truffles (chilling now) and will cover them in dark chocolate tonight, so they're ready while I'm working on everything else. You know me, I'll be posting pic's tomorrow

Cherry-sw

ChiSandy, these are Northern Sea shrimps that taste differently from the shrimps I ate in NYC or in Dominican Republic, I have never been to Chicago though. On the other hand these are the only shrimps we got here except for tiger prawns that are sold frozen. They differ a lot from tiger prawns in taste and texture. They taste sweeter and are softer like langoustines or mantis shrimp. They are though similar in taste to the Black Sea shrimps of what I recall from our family vacations back when I still was a kid. I did one layer with Skagen röra (the shrimp salad) and another one with avocado and gravad lax, the same as lox but after you apply the brine you then also cover it with a layer of coarsely grounded white pepper and lots of dill. When ready to serve you just brush the dill and pepper off and slice it. I can do different variations, cover with chopped basil, with grated beet roots, with lime. The truth is I could not taste the lax, the shrimp salad took over.

I really miss the hens in the store, I remember back in 90-es I could find those in the frozen section for like 1,5 dollar kg but at some point they just stop selling those. And of course I remember eating those when I was on summer vacations at my grandfather's farm. They usually bought small chickens and then when they all were growing up we ate a lot of young roosters because there is now way to see when you buy two dozens of two-week old chickens. A dumpling soup sounds very good, there is a variant of Russian dumplings called pelmeni, I like to eat those in the broth with a table spoon of vinegar, maybe I will ask mom to make those.

ChiSandy

Hey, Ilona, here you go:

How to Make Gravy, by Melissa Clark

eric95us

Thanks Cherry. I've always been "that way" (doing household chores), most likely due to the example set by my parents. Sharon is exhausted from work and her allergies are bothering her, so I'm quietly continuing to clean so she can relax.

Special. I hope that your hearing returns and am glad that it's not due to brain mets I do so much with my hearing that I would be scared half to death if my hearing went away.

And the same for you Lacey...

I worry when some new symptom shows up in Sharon and it's not obvious what is causing the problem. I have to work very hard to not worry too much. Sometimes I'm successful and sometimes not so much. I guess it's "ghosts of cancers past".

I fry the turkey, so I don't have pan drippings, so I use a couple of jars of the homemade turkey stock as my start.

The "food porn" pictures are great. I should get my camera out and take pictures as I make/serve stuff, but for whatever reason, I do not do so.

...back to cleaning...floor mopping and that's it..but first I need to feed the sourdough starter. I'm making sourdough dinner rolls tomorrow and I want the starter to be in top form. :-)

auntienance

Speaking of gravy, came across this in a newsletter I get:

http://www.extracrispy.com/food/4441/kinds-of-gravy

I agree with cherry Eric, you are most definitely a keeper.

auntienance

After cooking all day, too tired to cook dinner so it's carryout hot and sour soup and steamed dumplings. Orange chicken (of course) for dh.

eric95us

I found the potato recipe that DD liked so much. It's right here. They are a soft/creamy inside with a crisp outside. I use Serrano peppers as those are the ones that I grow in the back yard....and I add an extra pepper for some extra spice.

DD's roommates are from the east coast and they didn't want to spend the money/time/effort to fly home for just a few days, so DD is bringing them over here tomorrow. Instead of the now normal four, we'll have seven people at the table.

ChiSandy

Had some Key West shrimp that defrosted, and I needed to cook them. So I did a stir-fry in garlic-ginger oil with them, leftover Shanghai bok choy, snap peas, scallions and rice. Made a sauce with mirin, sesame oil, tamari, five-spice and tapioca starch.

Lacey12

I’m feeling like quite the lazy food gal on this thread, given that I am just making the two items to bring to DS2’s for T-giv dinner today. I even recruited DH yesterday to cut the brussells sprouts off the stalk, which he had picked up at Trader’s (super lazy gal!). The sprouts are so much sweeter right off the stalk that we’ve been enjoying them often.

Loving all of your foodie pics (while I usually like the “food porn” moniker, I can’t quite manage to enjoy it this morning after learning about the sexting foibles of yet another congress(old)man....what have we become?!).

Anyway, that shrimp sandwich cake looks so delicious, Cherry! I wonder if those shrimp taste like the very sweet small ones we used to get seasonally from Maine. They were so wonderful, but we rarely see them in stores now. Will have to research that now that I miss them! Sometimes DH used to buy them, on his commute home, from folks selling them on the side of the road. After that we sometimes saw them in local markets, too, but not recently.

Nance, your asparagus cheesecake looks soooo good!

I make my turkey gravy in a similar way to Sandy and Special’s description, removing turkey, using drippings in pan, etc., but when separating the fat in the little separator cup, I only return the less fatty part of the liquid to the floured roux pan, or it is too greasy. I used to use boiled giblet broth for the rest of the liquid with the livers blended in, but leave the livers out now, even if I use that broth. Yesterday, I saw Lydia B. use some breadcrumbs instead of flour to thicken her gravy. That would be interesting to try!

Eric, I was the East Coast girl in college who spent most Thanksgivings visiting with my midwestern classmates’ families. It was fun learning each family’s culture as well as food traditions. Those memories remain with me....one hilarious image from one family is of my curiosity about where everyone disappeared to after our turkey dinner. Well, it turned out, the men, unsurprisingly, were off sleeping in front of the TV, and the women were all hunkered down in the upstairs locked bathroom, smoking and exhaling out the wide open window. Apparently, the patriarch disapproved of smoking, so this was their forbidden ritual when he was visiting. Ha! At another home, I enjoyed my first New England clam chowder made by my friend’s dad who was a Boston native transplanted to Michigan. I was head over heels about that soup, and it was likely another swaying factor in my decision to come to “the Bean” for grad school.

So Eric, enjoy participating in memory making for DD’s college friends! They will have wonderful memories, I’m sure....and might learn a bit about old cars, vintage recipes, and generallyhow helpful men can be around the house!

Well, I’d best get off this screen and finish up my minimal ‘sides’ prep, which now is pretty last minute.

I hope you all have a wonderful day! I am thankful for all of your interesting, thoughtful, and delicious posts to this thread.

auntienance

Happy thanksgiving my friends. I'm so thankful for all of you! Have a delicious day!

Cherry-sw

Lacey, these are, now I have googled them up, Crangon crangon shrimps, they can be various sizes, I saw them pretty large and really small Black Sea shrimps. Very soft in texture they also have this sweet taste that to me must come from what we in Sweden call "crayfish butter", the part in crayfish head that is yellow and delicious, these shrimps have similar "butter" inside their head so when I am peeling those, I never buy them already peeled and cleaned, I am trying to pull the head in the way that yellow part remains. You can always make a chowder from the shells. I throw it away often though, but we have a famous chef on TV who is leading Master Chef Sweden and he says that if he finds out that someone throws the shells he swears to pay them a visit.

Happy Thanksgiving everybody!

ChiSandy

I save not only shrimp shells but leftover lobster shells (I always leave a bit of lobster over to bring home to make salad and then stock). The closest thing I've had to those little shrimps (outside Ikea, of course) are the tiny Alaskan ones we used to get when I lived in Seattle. I'd sprinkle them atop a green salad, usually with buttermilk ranch dressing.

I think I take the prize for "Thanksgiving lazy:" not making or bringing diddly-squat, as we're going to a neighborhood restaurant with friends. Dinner's not till 6, so after I fed the kitties at noon I had a small brunch of one free-range egg fried in olive oil, a slice of good bacon (Nueske's uncured applewood-smoked) and a piece of low-carb high-fiber whole grain toast with salt butter and sugar-free marmalade. Black coffee followed by an almond-milk cappuccino. Not going to eat anything else till dinner, just stay hydrated.

Happy T-Day to all!

eric95us

I'm frying the turkey again this year, so that leaves the oven (and covered grill that works well as an oven) available for other things.

The food will be turkey, dinner rolls, the potato recipe I posted earlier for an appetizer (DD is allergic to shrimp and MIL is bringing shrimp), salad, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, a fruit salad, squash, pumpkin pie, cream cheese pie. MIL is bringing a casserole (Sharon made the arrangements, so it will be a surprise) and stuffing.

I've got everything queued up waiting for its turn. If I can squeeze it into the schedule, I've got some more sourdough bread rising that I'll make and give it to DD and her roommates.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. Enjoy! :-)

M0mmyof3

We had turkey, steamed carrots, steamed butternut squash, yams, hash brown casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce and homemade rolls here. Dessert is pumpkin or coconut cream pie.

Cherry-sw

But of course, IKEA sells those shrimps, I always forget about that. Now I am thinking why it has never occurred me that I actually can bring my lobster shell home with me from the restaurant, to make a stock, exactly!

ChiSandy

My sister & I once shared a lobster in Paris, and we had the wild idea to save the part of the shell with the head--eyes, antenna and all. We washed it thoroughly in our hotel room and she took it back home (wrapped well in plastic) to shellac and mount on a plaque as a joke trophy for her fisherman/hunter husband. Since the French word for cold water N. Atlantic lobster is "homard" (h & d silent), we were going to call it "Omar." Unfortunately, it got crushed in her suitcase. Next time I go to visit her in VA, we should go to Legal Sea Foods at Tyson's Corner, share a lobster, and try again.

illimae

Well, I failed at making gravy. The drippings and flour started out good but when I added broth, it bubbled and clumped up to a point where it couldn't be saved. Fortunately, a friend was able to make a 2nd batch, everything was delicious