Thanksgiving dinner

This year, I really wanted to do something other than turkey.

Don’t get me wrong – I think turkey is phenomenal and wish that I made it more frequently throughout the year – but after years of Thanksgivings and Christmases turkey-centric meals, I really wanted a change.  I also wanted something modern, because I tend to always rely on comfort food classics and the usual suspects.

The other change was that I didn’t spend weeks planning out the sides and thinking about it.

See, my birthday almost always falls on Canadian Thanksgiving weekend, so sometimes I’m not entirely sure what night we’re having it until the day before, or sometimes of, so I’ve learned over previous mishaps to go with the flow a little more.

I shopped for fresh vegetables on Monday morning in the neighbourhood and didn’t plan out anything until an hour before I started cooking.

Had I gone completely insane?

Perhaps.

Because the capon was small (2 lbs. boneless), I knew it wouldn’t take too long to cook, so I just kind of winged it and I can’t believe how well it all worked out.

It was the.best.Thanksgiving.dinner.I’ve.ever.made.

Ever.

Menu

Lemon-Sage Roasted Boneless Capon

Trio of Tomato Confit with Mushrooms, Basil & Balsamic

Crisp Organic Green Beans

Baked Potatoes with Green Onions

Stuffing

p.s. I made a Portuguese soup for Thanksgiving Day lunch – kale, kielbasa and black bean. Crazygood.

p.p.s. Usually I think something;’s going to turn out and it doesn’t. This meal completely surprised me. And I couldn’t duplicate it even if you paid me. That drives me crazy, but makes me appreciate the good meals all the more.

Balls!

So excited to be cooking again last night, I went for a walk to think through what I’d make.

Do you ever get so wrapped up in something that you can’t see your way out?  I was all over the place – minestrone soup, empanadas, homemade pizza, baked trout, keftas over quinoa salad.  I had looked through some cookbooks before heading out to get some ideas, but went to some fine food stores for further inspiration.

Thinking about how much fresh food I had in the fridge, I bought only an apple to eat on my way back, some sesame flatbreads to snack on throughout the week, some muffins for my fella and some pasta for either pasta salad (in case I just made a bunch of cold salads – it was almost too hot to cook) or to keep on hand for a baked pasta dish I had yet to try.

Since I had many of the ingredients on hand, I came back and decided to make Southern Sausage Stew from Jamie’s America, Jamie Oliver’s latest cookbook.

I loved Jamie when he was first starting out – his take on everything was so invigorating and refreshing.  But these last few cookbooks, I’ve found little to get excited about.  This stew sounded good though.

But after looking at it closely, I decided that some of my own additions would make it even better.

Instead of green and red peppers, I used yellow and purple carrots and I added in a Chinese eggplant, portobello mushrooms, black beans, leftover kale from the night before, along with the ingredients and spices he listed.

I have to say it turned out beautifully.

My dessert however, did not.

Having worked on this dessert for two night and many stages, I can’t believe that the part I couldn’t do was melting the chocolate.

As you know, I do not bake, so anytime anything calls for chocolate, I get nervous.  I mean, I barely eat it to begin with, so handling it doesn’t inspire confidence in me like working with any savory ingredient.

I was making surprise Cake Balls for my fella.  I had made an orange cake and left it in the fridge overnight so that it would be cold enough to form into big meatball size balls.

Done.  B-e-a-u-t-i-f-u-l.

I simmered water in a pan and melted really good chocolate over it.

Good.

Now all I had to do was dip the balls into the chocolate and cover them, put them on wax paper and set back into the fridge to chill.

My sexy beau would be having delicious orange delights in just about an hour or two.

Except that the chocolate was so thick it didn’t really cover the ball, but swathed thickly around it, pulling it down into the chocolate.

F————————————–!

Then, I did the worst thing I could possible do – I added a little water to try and thin it out.

I don’t know these things.  I’ve baked about 10 times out of my life, so I didn’t realize this would create an immovable fudge!

I tried adding a little milk to further thin it.  Now I had a Dairy Queen Blizzard on my hands.

So I tried to save it by putting it in the microwave to melt it at least enough that I could hand form it around the balls.

Three fingers on my right hand have chocolate second degree burns and my wonderful little Cake Balls that I wanted to surprise the love of my life with now look like Tim Bits with sad melted fudge chunks on the top.

I was feeling really cocky earlier in the evening, because I thought my version of the stew was more Southern and creative than Jamie’s.

He must have heard me.

I think it will be awhile before I get the confidence to bake again (and I didn’t have any to begin with, so now I’m starting at like negative 10 or something).

Great.  And I just ordered 10 new baking books from the library…

Food, glorious food

I finally made it back to the stove.

After a long day of walking the city, I came back to my hood to do a big grocery shop.

Ahh, so nice to have fresh goodies in the house!  But before putting them away, I cleaned out the fridge – ooh, there’s that lovely chicken chili I made last week and the pesto pasta that I thought we finished…

Then I put everything away.  With one small cupboard and one small fridge, this always means that I have to take out the majority of the items before I can make room for everything.

Really, it’s a whole thing.

Two hours after I had come through the door, everything is finally put away and the kitchen looks pristine.

It’s now time to make dinner.  I pull everything out and start the assembly.

My menu for tonight is:

- Roast skinless, boneless chicken breasts stuffed with wild leeks, fresh basil and lemons.

- Boiled new potatoes with olive oil and fresh dill

- Organic kale with garlic and horseradish

- Chopped salad of romaine, yellow peppers, endive and radish

I was tempted to do a big soup as well, but all that chopping and cooking took another hour or so, and I had started on a dessert (yes, I’m trying to learn to bake) that is going to take a couple of days, because you have to let things cool in the fridge in various stages. So despite how tired I was from the whole process, I was very close to just cooking all night.

However, I remembered that there is still tomorrow and Monday is a holiday here, so I may take a couple of hours in the afternoon to do something slow-cooked.

It is so good to be home, cooking again.  I am like an actor who just found out she got the part.

Tonight’s audition: finish the 3-part dessert (it’s a surprise), homemade soup (I think something minestrone-esque) and something from the new Jamie’s America cookbook.

A night of endless pulsing

A good friend of mine was telling me she wishes she used her food processor more, but it’s downstairs in a cupboard.  Going and getting it and then setting it up is quite a hassle, so she doesn’t use it.

And with our lack of space, there’s nowhere for me to put one.  I’ve been using this mini chopper my Mom got me about a decade ago to chop, dice and mince my way through.

A couple of weeks ago, a farmer my Dad and I visit suggested I try making kale pesto with the fresh bunch I’d just bought from him.

It only took 6 batches with my tiny little whipper snapper of a machine to do the whole thing.  First I steamed the kale, then chopped it and added it in minuscule increments along with fresh lemon juice, olive oil, sunflower seeds, fresh garlic and salt.

Yes, it was fantastic, but damn exhausting.  It took about 45 minutes.

One day I’m going to have room for every appliance I’ve ever wanted.  And one of those big restaurant stock pots that are too damn big to keep in any cupboard.