Another Successful Turkey-day

Donna loves to cook. She loves to make big, complicated meals. When it's just her and I eating, it's usually hard to justify the kind of effort and cleanup that such proclivities entail. So, occasions like Thanksgiving gives her a real chance to shine.

It doesn't come without real effort and hard work, however. Thanksgiving meal preparations are a multi-day affair. Before we left DC, she'd had to do some last minute marketing (going to farmers markets to source fresh food stuffs). She also mixed the doughs for the pie crusts she would be rolling-out once in Carlisle. She made a fresh loaf of challah bread to be used in the turkey-day stuffing and in a breakfast bread-pudding. Lastly, she did her whirlwind packing of all the cooking supplies (knives, specialty pans, etc.) she would need for this year's spread.

That was Tuesday. Wednesday, she made the pies. This year: two pumpkin pies and one pecan pie:

Pies!

The pumpkin pies were made from freshly (home) processed pumpkin purée. The pecan pie (or, as my mom frequently refers to it, "peekin pie") was made from pecans she and I had freshly shucked and flavored with her homemade vanilla extract (vanilla beans steeped, for over a year, in Ezra-B 10 year old KSBW). Pies done, she cut up half the loaf of challah bread and made an awesome bread-pudding (also flavored with the homemade vanilla extract!):

Fresh Bread-pudding

I imagine that, when she gets around to it, she'll post the recipe(s) on her blog.

The turkey-day sweets out of the way, she began her preparations of the turkey. Now, there's just the three of us, so, we don't bother with a whole turkey. We just get a couple drumsticks and a small, half-breast from a local farmer. For three people, it still manages to turn out to be a lot of meat. At any rate, over the years, we've discovered that brining turkey's is the key to ensuring that they're extra moist and flavorful. Sourcing from a good, local farm also helps a lot.

Years previous, when she was preparing dinner for five (Mom, Dad, my grandmother and Donna and me), we usually did the (small) whole bird thing. This required putting an entire turkey into a brining bag and letting it sit, over night, in a cooler out in the garage. This year, with it just being two drumsticks and a half breast, it was only two, large resealable Ziplocks tossed in the fridge:

Salty bird ...in the bags, that is

This morning, she got up and resumed preparations. Mom was scheduled to work at the nursing home and wouldn't be back till after 15:00. So, it was to be a late Turkey-day meal. Having stayed up the night before with the prep-work (and then some pre-vacation sewing!), Donna slept in till after 10:00. Wasn't long after that (and a slice of fresh bread pudding) that she got into the actual cooking phase. On the menu:

• Brined turkey rubbed and stuffed with herbed-butter
• hashed brussel sprouts with onions, garlic and bacon
• fresh cranberry relish
• horseradish mashed potatoes
• herbed, baked stuffing
• fresh, scratch-made biscuit
• gravy

No, I don't have the recipes for any of it. Hopefully, she'll make a post on her blog detailing it all. All I can really do is document it all. In the end, this was what ended up on our table:

As per usual: an excellent spread

All in all, a great way to get back into a family holiday.

A Night Out

So, come the 25th, it will make seven years since we stood up in front of our friends to celebrate our marriage. Things haven't always been great - particularly lately - but, it's still a milestone that should probably be celebrated.

This week, got an email from a local restaurant we like. Apparently, they're having an evening where they're doing a tie-in to the local, Virginia winery scene (or whatever). Basically, it's a prix fixe meal with a fixed, multi-course offering of food and local wines. Donna likes wines and food from this restaurant, so, even though the event happens a few days after our anniversary, we're going to go and use that event as our celebration.

Yesterday, I called the restaurant to reserve seats for it. Sometimes, events like this you have to specifically request ahead, not just seating, but intention to participate. I'm hoping that this isn't one of those ones that you needed to reserve your intent. The reservations woman, on the phone, seemed rather unclued. It's a tad unsettling when calling to make reservations at a restaurant and the person on the phone doesn't seem on the ball. I don't know whether we just have reservations or whether we have reservations for this event. Hopefully, if it's just the former, then we'll still be able to order for the event once we get there.

Dreadful Minutiae

So, this is the part that people hate about social media: updates about stupid thing. Today, the stupid minutiae will be "what I had for breakfast".

As I've indicated before, we're big into the fresh/slow/organic food thing. Well, Donna is, I'm just sorta along for the ride.

This morning's breakfast was an average kind of breakfast: scrambled eggs with peanutbutter and jelly toast.

The eggs: We don't have chickens of our own - though Donna periodically lobbies to change that - so the eggs are externally-sourced. This morning's eggs were from one of the local farmers that sells at one of the markets we regular hit. They were just your basic, brown "organic" eggs. However, I spiced them up a bit: I chopped in some chili-peppers grown in the front bed (that I'd picked the other day) and some onions picked last month (Donna grows onions and garlic between our rose bushes - apparently helps keep the weeds at bay). I mixed in some sea salt and mixed, fresh-ground pepper and some mustard bought at the local German market. I also like to mix milk in with the eggs, as it makes them a bit fluffier when scrambled. The milk was from a local bottler and bought at the Whole Foods on Duke Street (in the Old Town section of Alexandria). I then topped them with some of the ketchup Donna had made in the annual tomato-processing run. So, was pretty zesty and the homemade ketchup gave it a nice, bright, tomatoey taste.

The toast: This was a bit more of a cheat. I still haven't fully weaned myself from the Jiff "extra crunchy" variety peanutbutter. That said, the jelly was a nice homemade jelly and the bread, itself, was some of Donna's homemade bread. 

So, yeah, "mundane," but still mostly good for me.

Curries from Home

So, you take some spices (mango powder, ground pomegranate seeds, ground coriander and cumin seeds, cayenne pepper, sweet paprika, kosher salt and punjabi garam masala [fresh-mixed and toasted])...

Then, you mix it in with new potatoes, chilis, onions and tomatoes - all fresh from the garden - and ladle it over rice. Bake up some papadams and grill up some lamb sausages. You get a nice, spicy, filling meal...

Unfortunately, NCIS was on and I loves Abby. So, ate on the couch rather than at the table. Thus, the pillow and laptop in the background. =)

Adapt and Overcome

Dinner was a "make do" affair, this evening. Was expecting to make a nice steak salad. Had even pulled a fresh cherokee purple tomato from the garden for the purpose. Alas, after FOOM-starting the grill, I discovered that the steak was not a "salad steak" (typically a lean and/or tougher cut of meat). No, what I found, waiting for me in the fridge, was a buffalo ribeye steak.

Don't get me wrong, a ribeye is a fine cut of meat. Even one made from bison is still a nicely marbled, buttery piece of meat. But, it's not a salad steak. No. All that lovely marbling and lovely, buttery texture makes it a feature steak. It's a steak that you center a meal around. It's not a steak that you slice up thin and scatter through a larger, overall dish.

So, salad plans dashed, I had to make do. The grill was already starting to warm up, so, I couldn't make a proper baked potato. Didn't matter, we didn't have proper baking potatoes in the house, at any rate. However, we did have some mid-sized white potatoes. So, I took out a paring knife, stabbed it a few (dozen) times and tossed it into the microwave to "bake". The garden had just yielded up a big crop of serranos and other peppers, so, I grabbed a handful of those. I took the just-picked cherokee red and cut into thin slices and salted them. Donna had a bunch of mushrooms from this weekend's market, so, she chopped those up and sauteed them.

In all, for a "make do" meal, it was rather good. And, for being, essentially a "meat and potatoes" meal, it was nicely accented with various shades of reds and greens. I slathered the "baked" potato with butter and sour cream, topped the steak with the mushrooms, cut up some of the peppers and sat down to eat. Donna even snagged me a nice malbec to go with it.