When I was growing up, Thanksgiving morning started VERY early. I think the turkey had to cook for about 100 hours so Mother was up at dawn... Happily, we've learned a thing or two about that!
But my favorite food…
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Turkey Stock, or Turkey Jello If You Prefer...
So, how do you manage to have enough "liquid" to make turkey gravy without making everyone wait... AND without making yourself crazy during the wild last minutes of preparing the Thanksgiving feast?
Simple... sometime during the week before the big…
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The Remains of the Day #4 (Turkey & Sage Risotto)
I love risotto. Period.
From my first taste YEARS ago, right up until today. But... I don't like the idea of risotto as a dumping ground. If you want to add things... there's a method. Therefore...
I had great turkey…
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The Remains of the Day #3 (Turkey Curry with White Rice)
This is Charlie's favorite use for "repurposed" turkey... curry.
Brown-fry some onions, add lots of garlic and ginger, then add a bit of the stock you made from the carcass. Add your favorite curry powder (homemade REALLY is the best)…
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The Remains of the Day #2 (Turkey Sandwiches on Homemade Bread with Potato Pancakes and Cranberry Chutney)
Dinner the day after Thanksgiving... ALMOST my favorite use for white meat... the only sandwich to seriously challenge the BLT for the crown... the TURKEY SANDWICH (needs a better name, though)...
Slices of my good homemade bread (1 cup of…
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The Remains of the Day #1 (Turkey Stock)
You knew it had to happen... a 12-pound turkey... two diners... There had to be some REMAINING turkey, right? I say "remaining" because I refuse to use The L Word!
So the first thing you do on Thanksgiving night: break…
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The L Word (Leftovers) or The Remains of the Day
No one finishes the Thanksgiving meal.
There are always containers of... remaining food.
What to do? Dump everything in a pot and call it soup? YUCK.
Instead of thinking of The L Word as some "used" food you need to…
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Mise en Place
Mise en place is a French term... but don't hold that against it. It's a great thing for cooks of all levels to embrace...
Read your recipe... arrange all of the ingredients you need within reach... and it's a really…
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But I Can't Just Waste It! (Crumbs 'n' Croutons from Baguettes)
We eat a lot of baguettes.
But there's always a portion that gets lost on the counter and starts to dry out (or, if it's a really hot, muggy week in summer... mold... eeuww...). I have some simple ways NOT…
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Happy Thanksgiving!
HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!
In honor of the Founding Father who wanted the turkey to be declared our national symbol because the eagle was a bird "not of good moral character..."
I thought you'd get a kick out of this shot of…
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Everybody's Cookbook
I mentioned a while ago that we have all of my mother's recipes together in a cookbook. And I can't tell you how much it means to me to have those flavors from my childhood at my fingertips. And to…
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Veggie Hash (When There's Nothing in the House)
It was one of those rare occasions when I had NO IDEA what to do for dinner... AND I hadn't been shopping recently, so there was NOTHING in the house. (Don't you hate it when that happens?)
So it was…
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Pasta Comfort (Homemade Fettucine with Beef and Duxelles)
We wanted pasta. But the usual suspects just didn't appeal. What to do? I had some ground beef... but meaty tomato sauce wasn't it either...
So, I sautéed a lot of chopped garlic in EVOO. Before it started to brown…
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Easiest Roast Chicken (and Its Aftermath)
So, my store had a ridiculous sale on roasting chickens the other day, and since we were being told that yet another major storm was about to hit, I decided a roast chicken was just the thing...
So I used…
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