Thanksgiving

Notice the Wire Trussing

Squash and Lentil Soup

Turkey served over orange flavored Noodles

Robert's Chocolate Cake

Thanksgiving dinner for our friends is an annual event at our house. We always make the Renaissance Turkey recipe. It is served over Orange Flavored Noodles. I always rotisserie the Turkey. This is a very unusual presentation of turkey and it is definitely a winner. Our friends expect it! You can find the recipe on our blog of: November 23, 2012. Click the date to get the recipe. We were happy that we were able to use for the first time our new dinner plates. It was a fitting introduction for them.

We worried about the correct size of turkey. We wanted enough turkey for 10 guests and with leftovers. Nate a McCall's Meat and Fish suggested a 12 pound turkey. It was the perfect size.

I figured out something good this year, that I will always use in the future. When the Turkey is spinning on the rotisserie sometimes the filling spills out. I could never adequately the openings at the front and rear of the turkey. This time I wired them shut! It worked like a champ. I will always do the same from now on.

Cathy made a new soup recipe: Puréed Winter Squash and Red Lentil Soup, we found it in the New York Times. It was excellent.

Robert baked an incredibly rich Chocolate Cake. It was the perfect ending to an indulgent meal.

Puréed Winter Squash and Red Lentil Soup

New York Times

Here the tawny hue of the cooked lentils blends well with the sweet yellow-orange winter squash. If you’re looking for Halloween colors for a dinner main dish or starter, look no further.

INGREDIENTS

2         tablespoons grapeseed oil

1         medium onion, minced

2         garlic cloves, minced

1         tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon minced fresh ginger

3         teaspoons yellow mustard seeds

2         teaspoons cumin seeds

½         teaspoon turmeric

1         medium butternut squash (about 1 1/2 pounds), peeled, seeded and diced (about 5 cups diced squash)

1         cup red lentils, rinsed

Salt

Black pepper

2         teaspoons butter or ghee

Plain yogurt, for garnish

Chopped cilantro, for garnish (optional)

PREPARATION

1.   Heat oil over medium heat in large, heavy soup pot. Add onion and cook, stirring often, until tender, about 5 minutes. Add garlic, ginger, 1 teaspoon mustard seeds and 1 teaspoon cumin seeds and cook, stirring, until fragrant, 30 seconds to a minute.

2.   Stir in turmeric, squash, red lentils and 2 quarts water. Turn up heat, add salt to taste and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to low, skim off foam, cover and simmer 35 to 45 minutes, until squash and lentils are tender. Taste and adjust salt.

3.   Purée soup using an immersion blender or, working in batches, in a blender (pull a towel down over the top of blender to avoid hot splashes). Return to pot if using blender. Add black pepper, taste and adjust salt, and heat through.

4.   Just before serving, heat butter over medium heat in a small skillet or saucepan and add remaining 2 teaspoons mustard seeds and 1 teaspoon cumin seeds. Cook, stirring, until seeds are lightly colored and fragrant, about 2 minutes. Stir into soup.

5.   Serve with a generous dollop of yogurt and a sprinkling of cilantro if desired.

Sausage and Polenta

We are talking hearty winter dinner. We love Sausage and Polenta. We always get the Fennel Sausage at McCall's Meat and Fish. The Mushrooms add a depth of taste that is amazing. This is a super cold weather dish. I love it. You get the recipe from our blog of: June 9, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe.

Thai Pork Fried Rice

Left over Pork. Thai Fried Rice. You have read about it many times on the Blog. Question: Have you tried this recipe? We make it often for a reason - it is delicious! You can find the recipe on our blog of: April 4, 2013. Click the date to get the recipe.

Braised Pork with Red Wine

Colder fall nights call for hearty dinners! We have been finding an amazing amount of new recipes for us in The New York Times. We are looking for easy dinners with lots of leftovers. Braised Pork with Red Wine was an excellent new dish for us. The more the meat cooked the thicker and richer the sauce became. Persimmons at this time of year are at their peak and this year they are especially sweet. They make a great Salad.

Braised Pork With Red Wine
Mark Bittman
New York Times

INGREDIENTS

2         pounds boneless pork shoulder, cut into large chunks

Salt and pepper

2         cups fruity red wine, like Beaujolais or Burgundy (pinot noir)

1         cup good stock, or water

1         pound fat carrots, peeled and cut into large chunks

10         cloves garlic, more or less, peeled

2         tablespoons butter

Cooked egg noodles for serving

Chopped fresh parsley leaves for garnish

PREPARATION

1.   Combine pork, salt and pepper to taste, wine, stock, carrots and garlic in a saucepan, Dutch oven or slow cooker. Bring to a boil, then adjust heat so that mixture simmers steadily but not vigorously. (If using a slow cooker, just turn it to ''high'' and let cook for at least three hours.)

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2.   Cook, stirring every half-hour or so, until meat is very tender and just about falling apart, at least an hour and most likely a bit longer. Use a slotted spoon to remove solid ingredients to a bowl, then turn heat to high. (If using a slow cooker, transfer liquid to a saucepan for this step.) Reduce to about a cup, or even less. Taste and adjust seasoning, then lower heat and stir in butter.

3.   Add solids to sauce and reheat. Serve over egg noodles, garnished with parsley

Steak!

Sparks from the Fire

Bone-in Ribeye

When we returned from Japan we were ready for a good old American Juicy Grilled Steak. We purchased two big Bone-in Ribeye Steaks at McCall's Meat and Fish. We knew we would have leftovers. There are two secrets to a great steak: excellent meat and dry Rub from the Babbo Cookbook by Mario Batali. When you use the dry rub there is no need to spend the extra money for dry-aged steak because the dry rub will be the dominate seasoning. You can get the recipe from our blog of: August 10, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe.

Garlic Chicken In A Pot

Another keeper from The New York Times! We liked this Garlic Chicken Recipe on a cold night.

Garlic Chicken In A Pot

New York Times

WHEN I was just starting out in the kitchen -- a young woman with expensive pots, no experience and an ambition to cook in the grand manner -- a friend of mine, an older, wiser man who had notched decades behind a stove, gave me this advice: ''Before you attempt soufflés and flambés,'' he said, ''master one no-matter-what recipe.''

My friend's definition of a no-matter-what recipe was simple: it was a dish that would be good no matter what the occasion (and with whom you were sharing it); no matter what you added or subtracted (No potatoes? Skip them or use turnips) and no matter what little mistakes you made (like forgetting it in the oven for an extra half hour).

The foolproof recipe I chose, which I have been playing theme-and-variation with ever since, is chicken with 40 cloves of garlic. It is a version of the time-honored chicken in a pot, in which the entire meal -- chicken, vegetables and resulting sauce -- is cooked in a pot and, if you like, served in the pot, the better to keep all those dunkable cooking juices hot. It is a dish made for crusty bread and a lot of wine, and one for which the term comfort food might have been invented.

The first chicken in a pot I made came from Richard Olney's cookbook ''Simple French Food'' (Atheneum, 1974). Mr. Olney, an American painter who moved to Provence and became an almost cult culinary figure, gives a recipe for garlic chicken, instructing the cook to put a cut-up chicken in a casserole with 40 cloves of unpeeled garlic, two-thirds of a cup of olive oil, salt, pepper, dried herbs and a bouquet garni.

The casserole is sealed with a flour-and-water paste and slid into a 350 degree oven to cook for one hour and 45 minutes. When the seal is broken at the table, that first puff of fragrant steam is intoxicating.

I loved that dish. I could put it together blindfolded in 10 minutes and it was always delicious. But it became even more delicious when I started tweaking it. One day I added potatoes, the next carrots. When I had leeks, they went into the pot, as did green beans, red peppers, shallots, celery root, parsnips or fresh herbs. Sometimes I would add one vegetable, sometimes lots more.

I was certain I had savored garlic chicken in every guise imaginable when I came across a version by Antoine Westermann, the Michelin three-star chef from Alsace, France. In his incarnation, the chicken is whole, and it and the vegetables are browned before they are nestled in the pot. The liquid for the dish is white wine, chicken broth and olive oil, the herbs are fresh, and everything is enlivened by small squares of zest from a salt-preserved lemon, a genius addition to the recipe. This dish looked better than the original when the lid was lifted, and the lid was lifted in less time: Mr. Westermann's chicken cooks at 450 degrees for just 55 minutes. I dabbled with the new recipe as well, and I realized again how flexible this dish is. There are five variables -- the pot, the chicken, the vegetables, the liquid and the temperature -- and if you stay close to the spirit of the original with each, the recipe will be a success.

For the pot, look for heft and a lid. My favorite chicken-in-a-pot pot is Le Creuset's casserole made of enameled cast iron, but any lidded Dutch oven or large heavy pot, even an earthenware casserole, will do.

Your choices for the chicken are basic: whole or cut up. I think a whole bird looks a little dressier than pieces, but a whole chicken needs to be quartered before serving, while pieces go from oven to table nonstop. Pieces have another advantage: You can fit more than one chicken in a pot. Whichever you choose, you can brown the chicken before you cook it -- or not.

The vegetables are the most variable of variables, both in terms of kind and quantity. In general, root and hearty vegetables are best for this dish; think carrots, potatoes (white or sweet), some kind of onions (shallots or cippoline or quartered yellow onions), turnips, parsnips, celery root, winter squash or artichoke hearts (peeled Jerusalem artichokes work well, too).

I tend to go overboard on the vegetables because I like the way they cook to a sweet, caramely softness and am happy to have double-size portions to spoon out.

Of course, you can also follow Richard Olney's recipe, which has no vegetables (although artichokes are an option).

As for the liquid, you can keep it simple and use just olive oil, or go with my new favorite, Mr. Westermann's oil, broth and wine mélange. Similarly, I've decided I like Mr. Westermann's high-temperature cooking method. In fact, I liked everything about Mr. Westermann's rendition of my beloved chicken in the pot so much that the instant I read the recipe, I ditched my plans for dinner that night and made his dish.

As I passed a plate to a friend, he said, ''Doesn't this remind you of Richard Olney's garlic chicken? I think you should call it garlic chicken, the next generation.''

He was right, but if it is the next generation of anything, for me it is the next generation of a great no-matter-what recipe.

INGREDIENTS

½ salt-preserved lemon, rinsed well (see note)

¼ cup sugar

⅓ cup olive oil

16 small peeled potatoes (white or sweet) or 2 large peeled potatoes, each cut into 8 pieces

16 small onions or shallots, peeled and trimmed

8 carrots, peeled and quartered

4 stalks celery, trimmed and quartered

4 heads garlic, cloves separated but not peeled

Salt and freshly ground pepper

3 sprigs fresh thyme

3 sprigs Italian parsley

2 sprigs rosemary

1 chicken, whole or cut up

1 cup chicken broth

½ cup white wine

About 1 1/2 cups flour

PREPARATION

1.   Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Remove zest from preserved lemon and cut zest into small squares; save pulp for another use. Bring 1 cup water and the sugar to a boil, drop in zest and cook 1 minute; drain and set aside.

2.   Heat 2 tablespoons olive oil in a large skillet over high heat. Add vegetables and garlic, season with salt and pepper and sauté until brown on all sides. (If necessary, do this in 2 batches.) Spoon vegetables into a 4 1/2- to 5-quart lidded Dutch oven and stir in herbs and lemon zest.

3.   Return skillet to heat, add another tablespoon of oil and brown chicken on all sides, seasoning it with salt and pepper as it cooks. Tuck chicken into casserole, surrounding it with vegetables. Mix together the broth, wine and remaining olive oil and pour it over chicken and vegetables.

4.   Mix flour with enough hot water (about 3/4 cup) to make a malleable dough. On a floured surface, work dough into a sausage; place dough on rim of casserole. Press lid onto dough to seal casserole. Bake 55 minutes. To break seal, work the point of a screwdriver between pot and lid. If chicken is whole, quarter it. Chicken may be served in the pot or arranged with vegetables on a serving platter.

Monkfish with Ginger/Crime Fraiche

We had Tom over for this FANTASTIC dish. I went wild for the sauce. I want to make it again! There  was a sourness to the sauce that I loved. Definitely try this dish!

Monkfish with Ginger/Crime Fraiche, and Seared Greens
Spice Flavors of the Eastern Mediterranean by Ana Sortun

Monkfish has a dense structure, like lobster, scallops, or tenderloins of pork or beef, so it can be cooked with powerful flavors such as ginger and is perfect for high-heat cooking and sweet fall flavors.

Try serving this dish with some roasted apples, figs, or peach slices. Brush some fresh-split figs or thick slices of apple or peach with extra-virgin olive oil, and then grill, or roast the fruit in a 350 ° F oven for 10 to 15 minutes, until tender.

Try a non-oaky chardonnay, such as chablis, with this dish.

Serves 6

2         pounds monkfish, skinned (ask your fishmonger to clean them for you)

Salt and pepper to taste

2         pounds green or red Swiss chard (about 4 small bunches)

2         tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

2         tablespoons butter

4         tablespoons finely chopped garlic (about 8 cloves)

1         tablespoon peeled and grated fresh ginger

2         cups creme fraiche

4         tablespoons flour

¼         cup vermouth or dry white wine

1         lemon, cut into 4 wedges for serving

1.   Cut monkfish into 6 equal portions, each about 5 ounces, and sprinkle them with salt and pepper. Set them aside or refrigerate them while preparing the rest of the dish.

2.   Trim the stalks from the Swiss chard and reserve them for another use or discard them. Wash the chard well and place it in a colander to drain.

3.   Heat 1 tablespoon of the oil and 1 tablespoon of the butter in a large skillet or deep-sided pan with a fitted cover. When the butter begins to brown, add the garlic, stirring constantly, and cook until the garlic turns golden brown, about 2 minutes. Add the chard immediately and cover. Cook for about 8 minutes, until the chard is limp and becomes tender. Remove from the heat and season with salt and pepper. Stir in the ginger and creme fraiche and season if needed. Keep warm.

4.   In another large skillet or saute pan over high heat, heat the remaining i tablespoon oil and butter, until trie butter starts to brown. Dredge the fish in the flour and shake off any excess. Fry the fish until it is golden brown both sides, about 5 minutes a side. If the fish is very thick, turn the heat down and cover the pan to brown it more slowly and cook it all the way through.

5.   Add the vermouth to the pan and let it cook down to almost nothing. This should take less than a minute and should glaze the fish, by pulling up any sugars that may be stuck to the bottom of the pan.

6.   Remove the chard from the pan, leaving the juices in the pan, and smother the fish with it.

7.   Bring the liquid from the chard to a simmer and cook on medium low heat for about 5 minutes, until the sauce becomes thick enough to coat a spoon.

8.   Pour the sauce over the fish and chard and serve with lemon.

Shumon Cooks

Slow Cooked Salmon

Lobster Salad

One of the joys of eating at our favorite Chinese Restaurant (Newport Seafood) is bringing back the extra Lobster. We usually make Lobster Stock out of the left over shells to freeze. We also will make either Lobster Fried Rice or a Lobster Salad using the Lobster meat. This time we made a Lobster Salad. Yum!

For the main course we made Slow-Roasted Salmon With  Cabbage,   Bacon,  and  Dill . We love this preparation. You can get the recipe from our blog of: May 31, 2014. Click the date to get the recipe. The Salmon was from McCall's. With dinners like this I could become a pescatarian (if they can eat Lobster). 

Grilled Bass with Sauce Vierge

Here is an interesting recipe that we made: Grilled Bass with Sauce Vierge. I especially liked the sauce. We started with a Pear Salad.

Grilled Bass with Sauce Vierge

Good Food Magazine

Ingredients

50g butter, melted

4 sea bass fillets

For the sauce

100g cherry tomatoes, finely chopped

2 tsp small capers

juice of ½ lemon

1 shallot, finely chopped

100ml extra-virgin olive oil

handful torn basil leaves and chopped chives, to garnish

Method

1.   Line a grill pan with foil and brush lightly with butter. Brush the fish on both sides with butter and season. Lay on the foil, skin-side up.

2.   Put the tomatoes and shallot in a pan with the capers, lemon juice and oil, and season.

3.   Grill the bass for 5-7 mins under a hot grill until just cooked and the skin is starting to brown. Meanwhile, warm the sauce through for 2 mins, then stir in some of the torn basil leaves. Lift the bass onto warmed plates using a fish slice and spoon the sauce around. Serve with steamed new potatoes or small baked potatoes, and add the remaining basil and chives.

Sausage ala Cathy

We have a recipe for Sausage and Mushrooms that we really like. We found a different recipe in The New York Times then Cathy modified it to suit our taste. It was a huge improvement. We will definitely make this recipe again.

Polenta and Sausage (Cathy Recipe)

5 cups water

1 ccup polenta

2 tbl butter

salt

½ cup Parmesean

Mushrooms

1 oz dried porcini soaked in water ½ hour

drain retain liquid

4 tablespoons butter

1 pound mushrooms sliced

Saute with porcinis (chopped)

When no liquid in pan added ¾ cup mushroom juice and cooked till absorbed

Season with Salt and Pepper

1 red onion chopped sauté in 2 tablespoons olive oil

add 6 fennel sausages to cooked onions cook for about 10 minutes

added mushrooms to sausage and onions and 2 cups hot beef stock while cooking polenta.

Add 2 tbl butter at the end to cooked sausage, onion and mushrooms

Tuna With Oloroso

Brownie and Ice Cream

Tom and Shumon joined us for dinner. We had some beautiful Tuna Steaks that we had purchased at McCall's Meat and Fish. We have a favorite recipe for Atun con oloroso (Tuna With Oloroso) from Moro The Cookbook by Clark & Clark. If you are ever in London be sure to eat at their restaurant Moro. It is a wonderful restaurant. You can get the recipe from our blog of: April 17, 2013. Click the date to get the recipe.

The thick tuna steaks are almost like meat and tuna is one of the few fish that I don’t mind eating as leftovers. This is a good recipe! We served it with rice.

We started with Prosciutto and Melon. The Melon this year is particularly good.

We finished with Brownies and Ice Cream. It was a delicious dinner.

Sautéed Shrimp

This is a real easy and delicious shrimp dinner. You can get the recipe from our blog of: August 13, 2011. The recipe is from a great cookbook: Ottolenghi The Cookbook  Buttered Prawns with Tomato, Olives and Arak. You can serve it with polenta or rice or just by itself.