And now for something Completely Different (i.e. Slightly Different)

Change was in the air this fall as we gathered together to discuss our Thanksgiving menu.  We all agreed we needed to shake things up a bit: we were tired of making the same exact recipes year after year.  My parents go to Santa Fe every fall and return home with incredibly flavorful chile powders and whole dried chiles from the farmers' market there.  We are always struggling to find new uses for these flavors before the next round arrives.  With all these chiles at our fingertips we decided that this year would be a showcase of New Mexican flavors, in other words a Southwest Thanksgiving.  And of course everything would be different....

We sat down together to discuss the menu of new and different dishes we were going to prepare, only to find that every one of us had a dish (or two) that we apparently couldn't live without for our Thanksgiving feast.  Personally, I couldn't give up the cranberry sauce my mom has made for years.  My dad had to have the mashed potatoes.  Gravy was a non-negotiable for my mom.  Making something new and different was going to be harder than we had expected.

We came to the realization that it was our own traditionalist tendencies that kept us in a Thanksgiving "rut", and that really what was so wrong with that?  If we cared so much about keeping particular dishes in the Thanksgiving canon, then we had better embrace our "rut".

Needless to say, we mostly altered traditional Thanksgiving dishes, giving them a twist instead of having something completely different.  We had a lot of fun researching recipes and identifying "Southwestern" ingredients.  We tried to incorporate the "three sisters": squash, corn and beans.  These three grow well together because they help nourish one another, and they are a common combination in  traditional Southwest Indian diets.  We asked friends for their recipe suggestions, and even received in the mail a stack of New Mexican magazines with recipes from friends in Santa Fe.  And, I think we all had a pretty good time arguing about what recipes could and couldn't change.

Ultimately, this was our Southwest Thanksgiving menu:

Nibbles before dinner:

Pecan-Chile Dip

Roasted Chile-Pumpkin Seed Salsa

Tortilla Chips

Fresh Vegetables

Hummus
Spiced Pumpkin Seeds

Olives

The dinner:

Butternut Squash Soup with Cayenne and Sauteed Mushrooms

Chile-Rubbed Turkey 

Cornbread Dressing with Poblano Peppers and Chorizo Sausage

Mashed Potatoes with Chicos (smoked and dried corn kernels)

Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Cilantro-Lime Pesto

Gravy

Cranberry Sauce (the usual recipe with orange and walnuts)

Cranberry Sauce with Jalapeno and other earthy peppers

Pickled Red Onions

Desserts:

Pumpkin Pie

Pecan Pie

Ginger Ice Cream

Chocolate Chile Truffles

Caramel Popcorn

Chocolate Pecan Bark

Hors d'oeuvres

Soup

The bird

The spread: (Clockwise from top left) The Turkey, Cornbread Dressing, Cranberry Sauce, Pickled Onions, Roasted Chile Salsa, Brussels Sprouts, Mashed Potatoes.

My heaping plate

   Desserts!

Chocolate Chile Truffles

Caramel Popcorn and Chocolate Pecan Bark

All gone....

Table decor included a mix of gourds and cactus pears with a sprinkling of paper cactus cocktail stirrers for good measure.  I managed to ignore the whole "cactus" part of the cactus pears when I bought them.  I picked each one up, rolled it over to check the color on all sides, and then stood in line to check out with them cradled in my arms.  Do NOT follow my lead on this one!  I had very uncomfortable invisible cactus spines in my hands for a few hours.

The cactus cocktail stirrers I bought in Chinatown, cut the wooden pick down to about an inch long, and stuck the ends into rounds of cucumber to stand them up straight on the table.

I'm thinking maybe we'll improve upon the Southwest theme next year.  A few ideas for next time:

- Crumble the cornbread in the dressing in larger chunks

- Write out the menu on a board or mirror for guests to refer to

- Watch your hands on the prickly cactus pears

Gourds, Cactus pears and Cactus cocktail stirrers amidst votive candles

Gourds and cactus: Mixed messages? Perhaps, but we're allowed to on Thanksgiving

The garden

     A few leftover bottles of wine chillin' in the garden

An All Day Affair: Thanksgiving Prep

One thing I love about Thanksgiving is waking up in the morning, turning on the oven, and using it all day.  There are so many dishes to make, the kitchen becomes a stage and the cooks become performers dancing between one another, juggling knives and balancing pans.
This probably sounds absolutely dreadful to some though.  I happen to enjoy cooking, and have prepared Thanksgiving dinner with seasoned cooks who know the kitchen we use together and are organized and thoughtful about sharing the space.  However, I know that preparing the Thanksgiving meal can be a pretty stressful event.  So I like to think of it as a whole day of celebration rather than putting all the focus on the meal.  For me it begins with the preparation: Planning the menu, doing the grocery shopping, assigning tasks, beginning to cook, lots of pots of tea which melt into glasses of wine as the time comes to actually eat.
What are your Thanksgiving traditions besides the eating part?  A walk in the woods?  The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade?  A quiet breakfast at your favorite diner?  Whatever you do on Thanksgiving, remember that the meal itself is only a fraction of the occasion and that there are many ways to make it memorable.

Preparations begin with plenty of tea on hand

Caramel popcorn

Rolling the chocolate chile truffles

Two sauces: Pecan-chile sauce and Roasted chile-pumpkin seed salsa

Can you guess what our theme is this year?  .... Southwest Thanksgiving!

   

Every Day Delights: (Over) Abundance

Image via This Week For Dinner

Zucchini is a prolific garden vegetable.  Every time you turn around more squash have formed on the vine.  If you fail to inspect the plants for even a single day, you may end up with a mammoth zucchini the size of your thigh.  They are certainly sneaky things, and thus they require a certain amount of stealth on our part as well.

Barbara Kingsolver wrote of zucchini season:
       "Sometimes I just had to put down my knives and admire
     their extravagant success. Their hulking, elongated
     cleverness. Their heft. I tried balancing them on their
     heads, on their sides: right here in the kitchen we had the
     beginnings of our own vegetable Stonehenge. Okay, yes, I was
     losing it. I could not stay ahead of this race. If
     they got a little moldy, then I could compost them. And the
     really overgrown ones we were cracking open for the
     chickens to eat – that isn’t waste, that’s eggs and meat….
        Could they design an automobile engine that runs on
     zucchini?
        It didn’t help that other people were trying to give them
     to us. One day we came home from some errands to
     find a grocery sack of them hanging on our mailbox. The
     perpetrator, or course, was nowhere in sight.
        ‘Wow,’ we all said – ‘what a good idea!’
        Garrison Keillor says July is the only time of year when
     country people lock our cars in the church parking lot,
     so people won’t put squash on the front seat. I used to
     think that was a joke.…”

    -Barbara Kingsolver, excerpt from 'Zucchini Larceny,' Animal,

    Vegetable, Miracle

Assuming Garrison Keillor is correct, and we all have a little too much of a late summer harvest, it is time to get creative with this ingredient.  

Grilled zucchini is definitely my favorite, but I have had some other more surprising dishes as well: Zucchini skin salad with lemon zest, Disappearing Zucchini Orzo (Barbara Kingsolver's Animal, Vegetable, Miracle), Zucchini Brownies (Edible Berkshires), Pizzas with zucchini, corn, feta, lime and cilantro.  The list goes on and on.  Some recipes showcase the zucchini's flavors, and others use it more for its texture and moisture.

Last weekend I got inventive in the kitchen.

Clockwise from top: A tiny fraction of the harvest, zucchini soup, zucchini bread, zucchini pickles (delicious atop a hamburger).

This weekend I'll probably do a little offloading, so keep your doors locked....

Watermelon Round-Up!

'Tis the season for those big juicy globes that bring delight to all and are such a radiant symbol of summer.  That's right, I'm talking watermelons.  Here's a round up of watermelon uses from elegant to campy.

Watermelon and Feta Salad:

This is one of my favorite recipes.  I see it on restaurant menus more and more these days, but I still find it an unexpected pleasure to serve at home.  Plus it is easy and doesn't require ANY cooking (which is a great advantage on a hot day).

Watermelon, cut off rind and thinly sliced

Feta, sliced thinly

Olive oil

Black pepper, freshly cracked

Salt, a flaky one is the best like Maldon or Fleur de Sel

Arrange sliced watermelon on individual plates, then place feta slices on top.  Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and pepper.  Ta-dah!


An Alternative Watermelon Salad:

Watermelon, cut off of rind and thinly sliced

Mint leaves, whole or ripped

Olive oil

Black pepper, freshly cracked

Salt, a flaky one is the best like Maldon or Fleur de Sel

Chili flakes

Arrange sliced watermelon on individual plates and sprinkle with mint.  Drizzle with olive oil, then sprinkle with salt and chili flakes.

Watermelon Porcupine:

This whimsy just tickles my fancy because we've had a resident porcupine in my parents' garden for the past two years.  She/he waddles out in the late afternoon to fill up on greenery and in the process trims our hedges.

Image via Cutest Food

Vodka Watermelon:

Image via SweetPaul

I've always wanted to try this, but haven't yet.  These directions come from Sweet Paul

Watermelon

Vodka

Large funnel

Cut a hole in the watermelon all the way into the meat. Place the funnel in the hole and pour in the vodka.  (He suggests using lime vodka.)

Note: It takes about 2 days for a watermelon to soak up 2 cups of vodka, so do it in the fridge and ahead of time.


Watermelon Polo:

Image via Goaupairsouthcentralnj

Image via Crazy As A Cool Fox

This game is reminiscent of the days of summer camp.  It can be played in a pool or at the lake.  Grease a watermelon using Vaseline or Crisco.  Divide your players into two teams.  The objective is to get the slippery watermelon to the "goal" without picking the watermelon up out of the water. (In a pool, the goals would be two opposite walls.  In a lake, use two buckets weighed down with rocks to keep them submerged, and set them up about a pool-distance apart from each other.)  I promise, this is harder than it sounds.

The Peony Viewing Party

My mom has 58 peony plants in her garden, which bloom in about the first three weeks of June. Each one is different in color and personality, some having more organized and cupped petals like a rose, and others having wild plumes, and feathered edges.  The season is short, coinciding with strawberry season, so there is always a sense of urgency and reverence to our appreciation of this occasion.  Getting out into the garden to see which bloom has opened over night, which should be cut and brought in to be admired during meals at the kitchen table, is foremost on our minds when we get up in the morning.

Last weekend we held a Peony Viewing Party to herald in the summer months, and appreciate the peonies at their peak.  It was a garden tea in the afternoon, with scones, tea sandwiches and little desserts.  Delicate and decadent, with the added challenge of bringing the peony-pink theme into the food as well!

The Menu:

Rose wine

Iced tea

Hot tea

Orange currant scones

Strawberry jam

Strawberry butter

Tea Sandwiches:

Shrimp with spicy mayo

Goat cheese and roasted radicchio

Beet-tinted mascarpone with walnuts and honey

Cucumber

Ham and grainy mustard

Radishes

Mini cupcakes with pink frosting

Fresh strawberry tart

Strawberries

I awoke Saturday morning to gloomy skies and occasional showers.  It didn't look good for our party in the garden.  We began to set everything up inside: setting out all the food in the dining room, and cutting more peonies to brighten the inside rooms if we were to be cornered indoors by the rain.
And then, just as our guests were about to arrive, the glorious sun poked through the clouds!  We rushed out to the lawn with extra tables and chairs.  The tea cups and wine bottles went out, and the plates of food, seat cushions and picnic blankets.  And there we remained, sipping wine and clambering around in the peony bushes, trying to capture the perfect photo.

Preparing sandwiches

Ellen sketching peonies in the kitchen

The spread indoors

An array of tea cups

Fresh strawberry tart

Hurriedly assembled drinks tables outside.  Tea cosies I made for my parents.

A pink-hued guest


Pink nibbles


The scones with a "peony" of strawberry butter

And the guests of honor....

And one yellow one!

A Childhood Tradition Revisited

Every spring as a girl I used to candy violets with my dad.  Violets are edible, and have a lovely faint floral flavor.  We would pick the best looking ones from the garden, then carefully coat them in egg white and sugar and let them dry.  My dad, ever delicate and dexterous, and me, not so much.  His always looked like they'd been touched by a fairy's wand, and mine ended up a bit more clumpy.
The candying of the violets always coincided with the end of the school year, and to celebrate I would take mini cupcakes to school on the last day, frosted in white, with a candied violet on top.

This year I was at my parents' house when the violets were in full bloom.  I tried my hand again at carefully coating the violets in a thin layer of egg white, then sprinkling them all over in sugar and leaving them to dry for a few days.  They turned out well: I have much better hand-eye coordination now than I did when I was six, though this project made me remember that feeling of anticipation for the end of school and the start of the long summer holidays.

I didn't make mini cupcakes for my classmates this time, but I did make a cheesecake for Liam's birthday and arranged the candied violets on top and blackberries around the edges.

To make candied violets:

You will need:

Very fresh violets, with enough stem to hold them by

an egg white, lightly beaten in a small bowl

white sugar, in a small bowl

two forks

a baking sheet with a sheet of waxed or parchment paper on top

Holding the violet by the stem, very carefully submerge it in the egg white.  Using the fork, smooth egg white over every surface (the sugar will only stick to areas moistened by egg white).  Holding the violet  at the side of the bowl to steady it, use the fork to open up the petals and smooth off excess egg white.

Using a dry fork, sprinkle sugar over all the surfaces of the flower.  I find using my fingers instead of a fork works best to control the amount of sugar I put on.  Don't put too much as it will clump and weigh down the petals.

Carefully place, stem side down, on the waxed or parchment paper baking sheet.  Allow to dry in a cool, dry place for at least two days.  Then carefully peel the violets off the paper and store in an airtight container.  They should be used as soon as possible after they have dried because they will begin to lose their beautiful color after about a week.