Thanksgiving Photos

sweet potato pie with cinnamon roll crust

apple pie

apple+cranberry sauce

bacon cheddar mashed potatoes

stuffing

Kimchi's plate

the spread

action shot of the sweet potato pie

Kimchi trying to swipe Ramona's dinner

A Tale of Two Turkeys

So as mentioned before, we went to Central Market to pick up our heirloom turkey.  I was pretty sure that it was going to be about $6/lb.  I wasn't stoked about the price, but resolved to cook the hell out of it and make every bit count, from the pan drippings (gravy), to the bird itself (oh my, the leftover possibilities!) to making a really amazing turkey stock (stock!) to the rendered fat (perhaps the best part of all: schmaltz!).  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the turkey only cost about $25.

Fast forward to when we brought everything home and actually looked at the turkey, to find that it was actually a free range turkey and not the heritage turkey that I had been planning for months.  This made the price and the unexpected plumpness of the turkey make sense.  I called Central Market right away to find out how to swap it out and they graciously offered to bring the heritage turkey to my house since it was their mistake.  I expected them to charge me the difference between the two birds and then take back the free range bird because, you see, the heritage bird actually *is* $6/lb.

So the dude came, handed me the bird, and was about to leave and said that we could keep the turkey because they had a bunch extra.  So instead of charging us $62.30 for our 10.4 lb heritage turkey, they charged us $24.32 for both and now I have 22.62 lbs of amazing turkey in my fridge for the price of one large Butterball.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! :)

Thanksgiving Recapped

I celebrated my first Thanksgiving away from home and it made me realize two things: a) my friends are wonderful and b) I really want a *real* dining room table instead of the card table that we inherited from Kyle. I sent an open invitation to the department and had about 12 people show up. It was the perfect size for the party and now I'm looking forward to planning a miniature white-elephant exchange Christmas party.

I took a lot of recipes from all over and modified them to fit my tastes/pantry. I made the homemade rolls from the pioneer woman cooks, which were tasty if not a bit heavy. Turkey, of course, with stuffing a la Chris complete with breakfast sausage and sour dough bread from the farmers market. We also had the Alton Brown version turkey and green bean casserole (although, I didn't have the patience or time to make my own french fried onions). Both came out wonderfully, and the turkey was made even better with cranberry apple chutney. There were also mashed potatoes with roasted garlic (along with plenty of cream and butter) and we mashed sweet potatoes from the farmer's market with cream, butter, smoked sweet paprika, and just a hint of cayenne. We also had apple and pumpkin pies which were made courtesy of my new pink KitchenAid stand mixer. Way tasty and easy too! :) In all, it was very successful and I'm looking forward to winding down the rest of the semester and going home.

NaBloPoMo Day Three: Continuous Cooking

I find it amazingly difficult to complete an assignment, from start to finish, in one brutal sitting. Take, for instance, this gasbags homework. It's not that hard and it's almost completely from our notes, but instead I'm playing with garbanzo beans and updating my blog. Fortunately, I have a lot to write in the next week, so I'm using this as an excuse to get me started on the very mechanics of writing things, such that I am better able to talk about my experiences in the world of astronomy. The one downside is that I've been told that my personal statement reads like a cookbook, so I'm not quite sure that the food blogging is helping. ;)

The aforementioned farmers' market veggies sat sadly in my refrigerator, feeling abandoned yesterday. Instead of making the stir-fry I had planned, we went to Chuy's instead, and I had lackluster flautas and watery salsa. I felt that I had to make amends to my delicious veggies and so for dinner last night, I made chicken and veggies, cooked in parchment paper with roasted garlic mashed potatoes. The mashed potatoes will be making an appearance at Thanksgiving, so I wanted to practice a bit. I'm still working on perfecting the recipe, so more details to come on that later when I've decided that it's good enough.

Chicken in parchment
1 boneless, skinless chicken breast, halved into two congruent pieces
2 tbs olive oil
2 tbs butter
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tbs basil
1 tsp tarragon
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
broccoli florets, cut into small, uniform pieces
1 green pepper, cut into small slices
s+p
2 20in sheets of parchment paper, folded in half and then reopened

preheat the oven to 400. mix the olive oil, basil, tarragon, garlic, red pepper flakes and veggies. season chicken breast w/s+p. Set down 1/4 of the vegetable+herb mix on the fold of the parchment + 1/2 tbs of butter. place the chicken breast down on top of that and then place another 1/4 of the veggies and another 1/2 tbs of butter. Seal up the parchment paper to make a sac, much like making an empanada... out of paper that is infused with silicone... repeat. Place the two chicken sacs on a baking sheet and bake for 35+/-5m until it's done. Nom nom away.

Procrastination tastes like cranberries

I should be preparing my personal statement for the NSF Graduate Fellowship Program application, but it turns out that talking about myself in a flattering, but not arrogant light is really hard. My research statement has been a lot easier to write, but that's mostly just self-reporting what I remember from projects that I've worked on. I find it sad that I need to do an ADS search of myself to remember all my projects. Oh well, instead I'm contemplating the obscenely warm weather and what foods I want to prepare for Thanksgiving.

I've been menu-planning for weeks. I feel like I'm justifying all the stupid department stores that put up Thanksgiving decorations shortly after Christmas, but I can't help it. This is the first Thanksgiving that Colby and I are celebrating on our own, so it's exciting and a little frightening. Even better, two (and possibly three!) of my closest friends are coming out to Austin to celebrate and eat lots and lots of food. In my extreme anticipation of the holiday, I've been testing recipes here and there, and I have decided to never ever buy the cranberry-jello-in-a-can again. By making it myself, I can call it a chutney which sounds fancy; more importantly, it's incredibly tasty.

apple cranberry chutney
2 small apples, peeled, diced
12 oz fresh cranberries
1+ c granulated sugar
1 c water
1/2 c apple cider vinegar
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground cloves

combine all ingredients, bring to a simmer/boil. Let it all reduce. it'll take about 30 minutes or so. store in the fridge.

My favorite application is on toast with turkey.