What's Cooking (Take Four)

Maybe it's a burnt orange cake?

Tonight, I made the goo for a batch of Chocolate-Orange Ice Cream, and I made the cranberry sauce.

Tomorrow I'll churn the goo, and maybe make the gravy (I bought a couple turkey wings so I can shift this recipe off of the big day).

Tuesday I pick up the bird from the farmer, and take it home to the fridge... which is why the big bowl full of ice cream goo had to get started today!

Bird pickup turned out to be a house-party for everyone in the farmer's city dwelling. Spent hours talking, eating, drinking. Very pleasant indeed!

Yesterday made the pumpkin pie. It's a very tasty but slightly troublesome recipe. Firstly, it makes enough for a 10" crust but I often forget that and buy a 9" crust... which leaves a couple cups of goo to be baked-off separately. (Yay for those little Pyrex dishes!) But the recipe also has trouble setting properly. I often have to go 10 minutes beyond it's avowed cooking time to get the middle to firm up. (Which it does.)

Today I made the soup (pumpkin, stock, and marsala), the bird (using the 'roast upside down for 2/3 of the time' method), the stuffing (gotta love a stuffing recipe that calls for a stick of butter, a bottle of wine, and a splash of Grand Marnier!), sauteed brussels sprouts with mushrooms. Out to the table also comes the cran (cold) and the gravy (hot). Then pie, ice cream, creme chantilly, and a few chunks of almond bark.

Pleased with myself.

Now, I'm simmering a roast turkey stock. This one is new to me: instead of just tossing the carcass + veggies in a pot full of water, this recipe roasts the bones in a hot oven first, then likewise the veggies, then deglazes that pan with wine. And then toss it all in a pot with bay, thyme, parsley, peppercorns. It's supposed to make a strong and dark stock. We'll find out!

I think that is going to be delish, Jeff. I did that for a number of years, roasting the bones and veggies when I was making stock for the freezer. It was so good.

Thanksgiving dinner was coq au vin, Julia Child's recipe from The Way to Cook. It's one of my favorite special occasion dishes. It's great that fresh pork belly is widely available now, as it means I can make proper lardons.

-Paul W.

That's what I call a Bass-o-matic recipe... just drop whatever it is into a blender, whoosh it around, pour it out and heat it up.

Mmmm. That's good bass.

We wound up with two T-Day invites.

The first was a $100/chair Sheraton Hotel buffet (luckily I didn't have to pay). A gigantic spread of food: breakfast food, salads, Mexican foods, T-day foods such as turkey, ham, prime rib, desserts and sides galore. Overall, good, but not really excellent, especially the prime rib. It was cooked well done all the way through. And the horseradish sauce was the equivalent to ranch dressing--no bite whatsoever.

Then it was off to some young friends for more turkey, ham and sides. Semicomatose when I got home.


.

I don't usually frequent hotel or country club buffets, but usually the one thing you can count on is some mediurm rare prime rib. Well done is sad (and inexcusable).

Jeff, last night I just did the carcass in a pot style, but I've done the roast the carcass/bones first. It does make a deeper/richer stock (not that's what you always want, but its fun)

Thanks Karen and Dale for the encouragement!

The stock is made. It is dark and rather clearer than my usual work. And good though not especially strong; I can reduce it more later.

And because the fridge is totally full, the stock is in the freezer now.

And I just could not help myself: the store had some really excellent-looking beef short ribs on sale so I braised 3# of them -- 9 pieces -- in a slightly gussied-up tomato sauce. Those are in the fridge now, too... having displaced the stock to the freezer.

Yesterday, I cooked bone-in pork chops seasoned with Penzeys Pork Chop Seasoning and surrounded them with a rice pilaf mix to which I added unsalted chicken stock, fire-roasted diced tomatoes, fresh peas, apple juice, pepper, and salt. I topped the pork chops with onion rings and red bell pepper. Brussels Sprouts and Acorn Squash wedges were roasted with cinnamon, maple syrup, and Balsamic vinegar. It was delicious and very colorful.

Betsy made turkey tikka masala Sunday, my new fave way to use leftovers
https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/101 ... kka-masala
Such a change and fun.

[Jenise]

I need to get a turkey just so I can luxuriate in leftovers. I miss it when I don't do the turkey myself.

But it was a meaty weekend. So last night I gave Bob leftover Cottage Pie (I'd made one on Sunday) and for myself, just a bowl of fried cabbage and we shared a huge Granny Smith apple afterward.

Jenise, when you say fried I'm assuming you mean in the heavily sauteed sense?
I like cabbage, and should cook it more often (we eat more raw, but I enjoy cooked)

[Jenise]

Yes, a stir fry essentially. Stirred around in a skillet with a bit of olive oil just until the edges of about half the pieces start to brown. I sometimes add sliced garlic or sprinkle with a mild vinegar at service like I did last night. I particularly like it as a side dish for pork chops but am happy with a big bowlful for a meat-detox mono-meal. I sometimes add Calabrian chiles or a big spoonful of Patel's Mango Pickle. It's a very good chameleon for other stronger flavors.

I am also a cabbage lover, and I often just fry some up for lunch, especially cabbage that needs to be used up. Like Jenise, I love it with pork and apples. I make a pork tenderloin recipe in the crockpot, including cabbage, apples, and fennel. At serving, I drizzle vinegar over the veggies. It is so yummy.

Also a big cabbage fan, but almost always red cabbage and never green. In the winter, we pretty much buy red cabbage every week. Main preps are raw salad and sauteed with various additions.

[Jenise]

Rahsaan, we're opposites. Why no green? I prefer it; I tend to only buy red for accent color.

Rahsaan, we're opposites. Why no green? I prefer it; I tend to only buy red for accent color.

Yes, red cabbage has such great color. It also has a more toothsome texture, that is great and crunchy in raw salads and holds up well with long sauteeing. Whereas other cabbage is either too slippery/slimy or too close to other leafy greens, which are always overflowing in my shopping. But, truthfully, I don't have a good reason and some of my favorite farmers do have green cabbage varieties that I should buy more often. Will see if I can keep that inspiration!

(And nothing against the taste, we always have cabbage kimchi in the refrigerator)

[Jenise]

I love a salad of shaved red cabbage, romaine lettuce and raw mushrooms, and sometimes combine it with green cabbage for a warm cabbage salad with lardons. Otherwise, outside of the standard German preparation, it doesn't occur to me to use it very often.
I love the green for pot-au-feus, stir fries, stuffing (rolls), and shaved salads which I make frequently. The last head I bought is one of those heavy/tight white heads better suited to sauerkraut than salads vs. the lighter conical heads of spring that I especially adore.
Funny that we all tend to speak of them as if they're one thing when in fact certain varieties are very seasonally specific.

Lighter conical sounds like maybe caraflex? Sweeter/milder than the big green heads, maybe closer to Savoy.

[Jenise]

I don't know variety names, but in this picture you see the conical shape guy in the upper left: that guy. I saw it referred to once as 'kool', but that's just Dutch for cabbage and in Dutch double-o is pronounced like a long 'o'. 'Sla' is Dutch for 'salad'. Which is how 'kool sla' became 'cole slaw' in English. But anyway, I don't find the flavor similar to Savoy other than that it's cabbage. At one time I thought the conical shape was merely a young cabbage. They'll be a fairly bright green and a lot less dense than the winter cabbages that are in the markets now. Not good for stuffed cabbage--too few large leaves, about half or less of any other cabbage, but great for salads and stir fries.

https://www.bing.com/images/search?view ... ajaxserp=0

I am roasting a large chicken bone, skin-on chicken breast, and a few wings today. Seasoned with Montreal Chicken Seasoning, then later adding Larrupin goods Red Sauce. This sauce has all-natural ingredients and is made by the Restaurant Larrupin on the coast near Trinidad, CA. They make awesome mustard as well.
I found the Japanese Sweet Potatoes in a store near me and am baking a large one, which I will consume half of tonight. The veggie will be Acorn Squash and carrot chunks with red onion, and garlic, seasoning is yet to be decided but I want to start with Hazelnut oil. I also have a few tomatoes that I'm roasting with EVOO, salt, pepper, and garlic.

[Jenise]

Karen, sounds good. I am braising some pork steaks (this 1" slices of shoulder cut against the grain so it looks like a lot of marbles all glued together. Came from a Chinese market, I've never seen pork cut this way before) with onions, garlic, tomatoes and wine.

The tomatoes, btw, are Mutti baby romas, a product I've fallen in love with. I am undecided on how to finish the dish, but am tempted to add canned cannelini beans and a lot more garlic and wine.

Had most of a can of pineapple chunks in its own juice left over from another project. I didn't want to wind up throwing it away, so I baked a pineapple/walnut bread. Not cloyingly sweet. Yum.

[Jenise]

So last night's braised pork that didn't have a name yet turned into one of the best dinners I've made in some time. It's how I used to cook when I was equally inspired by wine and my husband's rapt attention, both of which have sadly reduced of late.

As I said above, I didn't have a plan except to cook the pork because it had been in my fridge for a few days and time was almost up. I browned it, added onions, garlic and wine and left it to braise while I took care of other things. When I got back into the kitchen an hour later I opened the fridge and saw a cabbage, and a tennis ball size remainder of what head been a big head of castelfranco, I think the name of it is, raddichio.

And suddenly I had the dish: a Frenchman's take on posole. Wine in the broth, beans (cannelini) instead of hominy, thyme instead of oregano, black pepper instead of cumin, baby roma tomatoes, a dried urfa chile for spice, and served topped with a fine chiffonade (mandoline) of green cabbage and raddichio raw lightly seasoned with vinegar and salt. No cheese.

OMG was that good. I felt like my old self again.