Thanksgiving 2020

A brief post, mostly made to remember the DELICIOUS menu the man and I prepared for our weird Thanksgiving 2020.

The day was of course totally different from normal years, but the two of us (and Lola cat) managed to have a fun time doing things like:

• Playing Outburst (Lola demonstrating her technique below)

• Watching the parade/dog show (my boyfriend loses his mind at dog shows, who knew?!)
• Zooming/facetiming with our respective families
• Going for a walk and hardcore judging the mob of 17 (!) unmasked people who walked by us
• Snacking N’s delicious deviled eggs

• Cooking lots

And then after our cooking was done we ate. And ate. And ate. And ate.

• N bought a smoked turkey breast and made it using this technique. I’d never had a smoked turkey breast and holy cow it was great. I am usually deeply indifferent to Thanksgiving turkey but I went back for seconds on this.
• N also made gravy. He said he was watching a morning television Best Thanksgiving Side Dishes bracket and said he was very disappointed that the two finalists were stuffing and rolls. So I said, “Well what is your favorite Thanksgiving side dish?” And he said “Gravy!” lolol.
• The best mashed sweet potatoes from Serious Eats which really did live up to their name. Roasting for two hours seemed a bit silly but it was totally hands off and they were melty and dreamy when they came out, and then with the flavor of the brown butter and thyme, holy cow. Note that I skipped the maple syrup because they were plenty sweet. Also note that I roasted the sweet potatoes 2-3 days in advance with no ill effects.
• Two-bread stuffing that I chose because it won this recipe show down. I made the cornbread the week before Thanksgiving, then froze it. Two days before Thanksgiving, I let it and the regular sandwich bread (I used the last bits of all kinds of random bread loaves including a few flaky breakfast pastries) sit out overnight and stale. Then the day before Thanksgiving I sauteed the veggies and herbs and things and mixed them up with the torn up bread and the broth and let them sit overnight. Baked on Thanksgiving day, hands off. Super easy.
• Smitten Kitchen’s homemade from scratch green bean casserole. I used Trader Joe’s frozen haricots verts rather than fresh green beans, and didn’t bother blanching. Made both components the day before and kept the onions out, at room temperature, just loosely covered by the paper towel. I heated up the green beans bit til hot and bubbly and then baked the onions on top for 10-15 minutes. N usually doesn’t like green bean casserole but got seconds on this.
• Cranberry sauce which I as usual just winged. In a little saucepan I threw together a bag of fresh cranberries, a small pear chopped up, maybe 1 T grated fresh ginger, maybe 1/4 c maple syrup, and maybe 1/4 c sugar. Cooked til it looked like cranberry sauce haha.

It was a rather beautiful and colorful plate. N got this artsy shot.

As for the dessert department…

• N made chocolate pudding pie, for which he considerably amped up the chocolate intensity by making the pudding using, instead of regular milk, a mix of chocolate milk, evaporated milk, and sweetened condensed milk. With beautiful chocolate shavings atop the cream.
• N also made pumpkin pie. Again he went rogue on the filling and used a mix of sweetened condensed milk and evaporated milk, and put in both pumpkin pie spice and additional cinnamon and nutmeg.
• I made this bittersweet chocolate bourbon pecan pie that was seriously the best pecan pie I have ever tasted. I mostly followed the recipe but diverted in a few ways 1. I used browned butter instead of melted butter because yes please. 2. Instead of chocolate chips I chopped up 1.5 Trader Joe’s Dark Chocolate Lovers 85% Dark Chocolate Bars because it they are super intense and delicious and thought the really bitter chocolate would nicely play off the intense sweetness of the filling. 3. I blind baked the crust at 425 degrees for ten minutes before filling, because I wanted to avoid a soggy bottom. Oh also I used a little bit of agave syrup in the filling because I didn’t have quite enough corn syrup but I don’t think that did anything too dramatic! It was freaking unreal. Note that you definitely taste the bourbon! Maybe not a great pie for kids haha.

I had maybe 1/4 to 1/2 slice of each pie on Thanksgiving itself but in the following days I have had pie for breakfast each day and a worrying number of additional servings haha. This is what happens when you make three pies for two people! I’ve been foisting off leftovers like crazy.

simply the best

As I’ve said previously, while others around me get passionate about fall, I just mourn. Summer is the best and watching the days get darker while dealing with angst related to the pandemic, the election, the inability of other human beings to be decent to one another… it may rid me of my little remaining sanity.

In remembrance of happy times, let me recount the many delicious things I cooked this summer with the fine, fine produce of summer.

I threw together a watermelon gazpacho with no particular recipe and it was swell. I know it involved watermelon cucs and peppers (mostly blended up but a few attractively diced as you can see on top) and some olive oil and vinegar and herbs. Topped with feta. SO refreshing and lovely.

Played with the grill some more and cooked up some zucchini strips. Made them into little toasties with hummus.

Burger got topped with cheese and caramelized onions, then combined into a salad with arugula and those dreamy candy-sweet Sungold cherry tomatoes.

More watermelon, topped with (perfection) chili lime seasoning. Plus hummus soup on the side for a hot n cold combo.

Miso eggplant. Made with cute tiny fairy tale eggplants.

How cute are these PURPLE, green and yellow string beans? Tragically when cooked they were all the same color.

Used them to make an Ottolenghi recipe for tofu and string beans with this unbelievably flavorful and delicious chraimeh sauce. WHOO BOY this recipe is worth your time. The sauce I could have just licked from the pan.

Another Ottolenghi winner:

Plain Greek yogurt gets blended with lemon zest.

Then it’s topped  with roasted cherry tomatoes with lots of garlic, herbs, lemon peel, olive oil, and everything nice.

The hot tomatoes and the cold yogurt create this intermediate layer that’s creamy and sweet and flavorful and deeply, deeply luscious and must be sopped up with bread. SWOON this was good. Version of the recipe here.

I will say this pasta and cherry tomato dish from Ottolenghi took a long time and tasted like… pasta with cherry tomatoes. So not needing you to put in the effort for that one.

Ugly but VERY nice and simple

Avocado cucumber salad from Smitten Kitchen. I will say I use a lot less mayo than she does, and comparatively more Sriracha. I am inherently a bit leery of mayonnaise, and the avocado already provides lots of creaminess. This dish takes maybe 5 minutes to make and will make you so, so enthusiastic about eating vegetables. A winner.

On this particular day I had it with a bowl of avgolemono soup. Mm.

Sadly as summer winds down more of my meals may look like this rather uninspired day

A crossword to calm my anxious mind, and a meal that reflected being low on provisions. Edamame and mac n cheese from the freezer. A slight nod to seasonality with tomato salad.

Fortunately there are still some cool weather meals that are yummy. For example…

Chana masala from Smitten Kitchen. Much more flavorful than the typical stuff you find (confident and abundant spices and lemon juice) and the texture was extra nice because I used dried chickpeas that I prepared in the Instant Pot. On the side, since I didn’t have basmati, I used cauliflower rice but made it substantially more delicious by heating it with coconut milk.

Fortunately it’s not all pantry staples and freezer veg and I have one particular family of veg that I give a particular shoutout…

Big props to pepper plants for growing like champs! The farmer’s market guys said we could expect to see them through Thanksgiving!
Above is a plate of my summer’s MVP vegetable, the shishito pepper. I learned while cooking at the boyf’s that these are extra delicious when you blister them in a cast iron skillet. We had a big mac esque dipping sauce on the side that we had leftover from a restaurant meal. Other times I throw together a dipper from plain yogurt, smoked paprika, and lemon/lime juice. Whatever you dunk them in, shishitos are terrific.

My fella provided the entree of this particular meal- avocado carbonara! The recipe still had bacon (bacon is really, really important to him) but instead of the eggs and super huge quantities of parmesan, the sauce gets a lot of its rich creaminess from avocado. Super nice!

And continuing the pepper love affair…

My cousin’s husband, ably assisted in the garen by his four- and one-year-old children, has another bumper crop of hot peppers!

They showed up here…

I threw together a taco night for me and the boyf. Toppings included:

• Pico de gallo with raw hot peppers
• A sauce with roasted hot peppers plus sweet onions plus more things that turned out VERY VERY VERY HOT! haha.
• black beans
• cheese
• crumbled and spiced tempeh (see above re: bacon; I’m trying to expand the boyf’s experience with meatless meals)
• avocado

And just for funsies another meal at the manfriend’s. He threw us together a wacky and delightful tasting plate.

Finally, as fall begins, one of my best friends’ birthdays usually falls on or around Labor Day. Her birthay allowed me to wrap up this post with something sweet!

This year as in many years past I made her a birthday cake. From Cooking Light, Nathan’s Lemon Cake is delightful. Perfect amount of lemon, dreamy texture, indulgent yet light. Note that I halved the glaze due to a powered sugar shortage and there were no ill effects.