Fun Playing With Thanksgiving Food

As the Thanksgiving Weekend draws to a close - a few thoughts. As usual - Bob and I were guests rather than chefs on Turkey Day proper. All of my family is east and south, and for years, we celebrated Thanksgiving with Bob's family. Sadly, since his mom decided to "retire" (as in - not go anyplace - she's going to be 95 years old shortly, and gosh dang, if she doesn't want to go anyplace, I say, "you [don't] go girl!"), his other family members have scattered more and more each year. The last three years, we've  been fortunate to share Thanksgiving dinner with wonderful friends (the photos from this year's feast are here). 

Still, we always roast our own turkey on Black (or in our house, Gobble) Friday. We started this tradition as we became immersed in the local and sustainable food movements, and because we missed having our own leftovers for sandwiches and the like. This year's guest bird came again through the tender auspices of Breychak's Farm. Every year, Kathy Breychak says she is done raising turkeys, and so far, every year she's relented. I hope we get to enjoy another of her pasture-raised birds next year!

Our 14 pound bird prepares for the Symon treatment - a generous Kosher salt rub a day before cooking.



Twenty-four hours later - a double layer of cheesecloth is soaked in warm oil and aromatics, then draped over the bird. Sorry Michael - we love the flavor of our locally raised turkey so - we prefer a neutrally flavored oil to your recommended butter only for that reason.



Michael's "high temp" method is pretty similar to how we've always roasted - and we were rewarded with crispy skin and succulent, moist meat.





Organic cranberries, organic Florida cane sugar, filtered water. Looks, feels and tastes a lot like the canned product - only better! I actually make this more to grace turkey sandwiches than the turkey dinners - but this year, it got a little late on Friday, and Bob decided for forgo the gravy until Saturday. Good thing we had cranberry sauce - and yes Mom, we remembered to put it on the table. (In my house, the term "Cranberry Sauce" means that something that was supposed to be on the table is still in the fridge.)



I improvised this vegetable side dish from a couple of on-line recipes - roasted cubes of local winter squash, local onion, our last Richter's Orchard (LI) apple, Pumpkin Pie Spice/Pepito butter (Ohio City Pasta), toasted pecans and garden parsley.



Here's the stock Bob made several days ago from extra turkey necks and giblets Kathy Breychak bestowed on us. Thick with gelatin - perfect for gravy-making.


Turkey with Crisp Skin - 20 or so minutes out of the oven


Garden Purple Viking Mashed Potatoes with Garden Parsley


Turkey Slice with Gravy - Saturday night


Garden Purple Viking Mashed Potatoes with Gravy - Saturday night


Our first leftovers meal:


Bob's Potato Bread





Breychak Turkey Breast, Trader Joe's Organic Mayo, Cranberry Sauce, Skin Crackling, Purple Viking Potato Bread = yum. Another Thanksgiving in the books - we had great fun playing with food and fabulous company at Linda and Fred's place, and lots more fun playing with our own food the rest of the weekend! And I've got about 8 lunches worth of turkey breast sandwich makings already resting in the freezer, for me to play with later! Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours - hope you had fun playing with your food this weekend!

Fun Playing with Latkes 2009

Chanukah, the Jewish Festival of Lights ended Saturday. We had a great time playing with our food this holiday!

First - the fully lit Menorah, from Friday night (the last night - we start with one candle, plus the middle "helper" candle, then add another candle each night until the end):

But we all know what is really important about this holiday: Latkes! Our tutorial on the best way to make these crispy potato pancakes is here.

So, what did we eat with our latkes? We had brussels sprouts, either steamed or sauteed, throughout the holiday. The first batch came from Farmer Jones-The Chef's Garden, courtesy of our friend Nora's CSA basket. The bunch pictured below came from good friend and local farmer Herbthyme. You can get her goodies at the Geauga Farmers' Market, in season.

 

Herbthyne Sprouts, Raw

The Chef's Garden Sprouts, Sauteed in Bacon Fat

Yes, you read that correctly. After frying the latkes in peanut oil - my hubby decided the sprouts needed pork fat. Not very kosher - but very delicious!

Our entree the first few days was leftover turkey from our Thanksgiving Boubon Red. As that meat slipped past its prime, I asked Bob to come up with something else. He readily obliged:

Breychak Farms Lamb Roast

The only additions to the fabulous meat were a little salt and pepper. It was sublime, and a perfect companion to the latkes and sprouts.

As with our Breychak Ham, I found the skin and fat to be simply amazing eats - and I was raised to throw the skin away! Not here - at least not while it was crispy.

Bob's secret to keeping this type of meat from overcooking on reheating is to make gravy, and then simmer the leftovers in the gravy to reheat them. We lose the crunchy skin on the reheat, but the meat never gets dry or tough.

Lamb fat (and some schmaltz rendered from Aaron Miller chickens) is mixed with flour and made into a roux.

The balance of the roasting pan drippings from the lamb are added.

A bit later - gravy goodness!

Dinner is served! We also discovered that fresh dill is wonderful in the latkes, and it also complimented the lamb very nicely.

Here's hoping that you have fun playing with your food during the December holidays of your choice!

I Have Given Myself Over to the Pork Side, Episode II - Ham

My last post detailed how the Pork Side began to seduce me over this past summer. Although I felt an intuitive sense of resistance - at the risk of mixing pop culture metaphors - resistance was futile. Hooked on the meat and the fat I was. The bacon and sausage from our Berkshire Hog were sublime. But then, I had always liked bacon, and in recent years, I had learned to like quality sausage. With a half hog in the freezer, however, there would be one more test before my journey to the Pork Side would be complete.

I have never particularly liked ham. I have tasted it in various permutations, and though I won't reject a thinly sliced bit of artisanal ham, the thought of sitting down to a hunk of it for  breakfast, lunch or dinner has never appealed to me. So, when I recently asked Bob, "what's for dinner" and he said "ham" - my heart sank. Of course, our half hog had yielded ham - I just hadn't realized until that moment that I'd be expected to eat it!

I spent eight hours in a hideous Continuing Legal Education Seminar (on Business Succession Planning) on November 12. Arriving home exhausted, I caught a whiff of dinner from the garage - it smelled great. Not just great - it smelled like bacon. No, not exactly like bacon - kinda like bacon on steroids. Could this be ham? Would this be my final step on the path to the Pork Side?

Even though it smelled heavenly - I still felt a little tentative. I had never liked ham - sure this smelled good, but would this really taste different?

Oh yes! The butcher, Keller's Meats, had smoked the ham (they had also smoked our bacon and made our sausage, which you saw in my previous post), and the smoky, sweet, savory smell filled the house. And Bob hadn't done a thing to it - so salt or pepper, no grease rub - just roasted it in the oven. The first thing I tasted was the skin - cooked to crispy perfection with an amazing layer of glistening fat under it:

 

In fact, once I started to nibble the skin - I could not stop. I mean - I really could not stop. Both the crispy top and the creamy bottom of it - I could not stop.

By this time, Bob had sliced up some of the flesh, and dished out our sides (potatoes, butter, parsely and roasted Turban squash).

 

While the ham slices could not match the unctuousness of the skin - it was not until I had tasted the  succulent, smoky flesh that I knew for sure - I had, of my own free will, given myself completely over to the Pork Side. The flavor was like nothing I'd ever tasted, and the meat melted in my mouth. Don't grieve for me, Obi-Wan - it's a far, far better thing I do than I have ever done! (Drat those mixed metaphors - forgive me Ronald Coleman and Charles Dickens!) I gotta admit - I had fun playing with this Breychak ham!

NY Roadtrip Postscript-Fun Playing with Freezer

When last I posted (some two weeks ago), I promised a posting on our Sichuan dinner in New Jersey during our August trip to NY. Since so much time has passed, however, and so many new photos are accumulating, I'm going to hold the Chengdu 1 photos for now.

Our reason for driving to NY the last two trips was to secure a full sized, frost-free freezer from the basement of my parents' house. They acquired the freezer sometime around 1974, to hold the food for my sister's backyard Bat Mitzvah party. My mom anticipated additional entertaining when she bought the freezer. However, so far as I know, it was only used one more time, for my Bat Mitzvah party three years later. Mom got sick with MS and stopped entertaining, and the freezer sat empty, unused, and unloved in the basement, though in perfect condition.

I've wanted it for years - and this summer, we made it a reality.

It took two trips to get the whole thing back to Cleveland in my Ford Edge - first the body, then the door.



But it was well worth it - especially with half a Breychak Berkshire Hog and half a Breychak Dorper Lamb due in shortly!



Half a hog (or most of it; we've eaten some bacon and sausage so far).





And cleaned garden tomatoes on top - for winter sauce and chili making.

Thanks Mom and Dad - without this freezer, we wouldn't be having this much fun with our wonderful locally raised meats!