Turkey
A Healthier Thanksgiving
I absolutely love Thanksgiving. It’s my favorite holiday. Not only do I get to cook up a feast, but people come and eat it and take food home too! But I also like the idea of having a day to get together with the family and count our blessings and all the positive and good things in our lives, no matter how small, for attitude is frequently half the battle. And this year, I wanted to keep the dishes on the healthier side so we wouldn’t feel quite so guilty for indulging. Come to think of it, it was quite a vitamin C and veggie feast. I had lots of red bell peppers and other veggies, used mostly healthy fats (olive oil) and banished soda from the table. Though...
Read MoreThanksgiving 2009
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I consider myself to be richly blessed and thank God for my blessings regularly. Having a nationally recognized holiday to do so is wonderful. In my family, I have taken over Thanksgiving responsibilities in the last few years and relish the opportunity to cook up a feast. And a feast it truly is. This year our menu was as follows: Appetizers: Baked Salmon Roasted Shrimp Cocktail Pickled tomatoes (store-bought) Hummus (store-bought) Smoked fish (store-bought) Goat cheese bruschetta Seafood Salad Roasted Red Pepper Salad Roasted Asparagus Main course: Vegetable Soup Mashed potatoes Turkey Dessert: Spice cake Puff Pastry...
Read MorePasta Sauce – Vegetables Galore
I haven’t made anything pasta related in a while and figured it was time to get back to that. So today I decided to make pasta sauce. Additionally, I had a lot of vegetables in my fridge that I haven’t used up yet, so I figured it’s a perfect opportunity to use them. This worked out really well since I like a really chunky tomato sauce. And if you have kids, this is a great way to get them to eat vegetables. This recipe can also be vegetarian quite easily – just leave the meat out. With this recipe, use what ever veggies you like, in any quantity you like. Here is what I did. Ingredients: 1 lb of ground turkey 1 very large carrot...
Read MoreTurkey – Thanksgiving and any other day
I was completely new to baking a turkey a few years ago. In fact, the first time I tried to make a turkey (for Thanksgiving) I almost burned down my kitchen. You see, I was following 2 different turkey recipes at once and made a pie earlier. When the pie filling oozed out ever so bubble-ishesly right between the heating coils, I didn’t give it much thought. Until I needed to crank the oven to 500 degrees. That was the day I found out that burned sugar and high temperatures don’t mix, for when I went to put the turkey in the oven, I saw flames! shooting up inside the oven. You have to image this: me standing in front of the oven, barely holding pan...
Read MoreThanksgiving Part 2
The day is finally here and I’m giddy with excitement. I started cooking late last night and continued today. One of my big realizations was that everything except that was cooked, except the boiled potatoes, was baked. My oven fulfilled its baking duties fully. I love my stove/oven but as my mental list of my dream kitchen grows longer, I’m adding double ovens to that list. Or maybe it should be triple ovens. Today, we got together around 2:30 and people left after 8. We laughed and toasted and chatted and reminisced and remembered. And ate. And ate. And ate. That’s the “Russian” way. This year, as we toasted to the things we were...
Read MoreThanksgiving
Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, in large part because I love all the cooking. Most people dread all the cooking, but I even take Wednesday off so I can make a few “spares”, just in case something doesn’t turn out and people still leave with overstuffed bellies. I still love the holiday, despite the mandatory family squabbling. But without further delay, here is the menu I’m planning (and yes, I take help where I can): Appetizers: Chicken wings (not a Thanksgiving staple, but I love them and they seem to go over pretty well with the family). See above Seafood puffs (puff pastry stuffed with seafood, store bought, and I hope...
Read MoreMushroom pepper rigatoni
Today I felt inspired to create something different, something I haven’t done before. Yes, believe it or not, I’ve never made a white sauce of any kind. Ever! I know, it’s ridiculous. Also, I stopped at the grocery store on my way home after work, and got some great things I wanted to use right away. I’m notorious for wasting food and I’m trying to work on that, so I figured I’d buy it and cook it today. This seems like a lot of ingredients and steps, but you can scale it to what you have in your fridge and what you want to do. And the hardest/longest step was chopping the onion. The rest was just...
