Thanksgiving Dinner: It's all about the sides....

I actually love turkey. I particularly enjoy a fresh turkey sandwich on a crunchy ciabatta roll in the evening following Thanksgiving dinner. I do however, realize that turkey is basically a blank canvas that needs a strong supporting cast. That's why at our house on Thanksgiving, it's all about the sides. This year, there were eleven.

Some were pretty traditional like mashed potatoes, corn and my own guilty pleasure, Ocean Spray Cranberry Sauce. You know, that sweet jellied can shaped slab that your grandmother served. Cynthia won't go near it - I think it's the greatest stuff since sliced bread. Oh, those other things are pickled beets - not my favorite.

Then there were the vegetables, lots of them.

The oven baked sweet potatoes had just a hint of cayenne, dried chipotle, maple sugar and Vietnamese cinnamon (who knew?) to kick them up a notch. Wait, no one says that, right? The brussel sprouts were cooked with a little crispy bacon and some apple cider vinegar to brighten them up a bit. I'm pretty amazed to admit that I'm starting to like brussel sprouts. Go figure. The green beans were lightly steamed and then finished in a fry pan with brown butter, winter savory and green (immature) garlic pulled up from our garden this morning.

The carrots and parsnip were both oven roasted in EVOO and sea salt. The carrots were topped with bronze fennel tops and the parsnips with purple top turnip micro greens straight from our cold frame.

What's Thanksgiving without stuffing you say? Well we had stuffing made from red pepper, mushrooms, butternut squash, onion, parsley, sage, rosemary, carrots, celery, turkey stock, spicy sausage, bread and chestnuts. The stuffing was oven baked to get all those little crisy edges that make it so good.

That's ten, right? Number eleven was one of my favorites. It was a scalloped leek, shallot and onion casserole topped with bread crumbs and extra sharp aged chedder. It's up there a few pictures back next to the mashed potatoes.

Tried a couple of new beers to top everything off. The Chatoe Rouge is an Oregon beer in the style of a black lager. Interesting. Somewhere between a typical lager and a stout. Good- not great. The other was from one of my favorite brewers, Dogfish Head in Delaware. This particular style was made in a small batch and was purported to be a continuously hopped imperial pilsner. Wow, never expected to hear that string of words together. My Antonia was actually very nice and worked well with all the rich foods. Hoppy, not like an ale, but still good.

Aren't you glad I didn't bore you with another perfectly roasted turkey picture?

Cranberries, Apples, Polenta and Pizza

Sunday night I was thinking about what my third Meatless Monday would bring. I imagined starting the day with one of the Odwalla protein drinks I wrote about a few posts back. However, Cynthia had other plans. Before I knew what was happening she was off to the kitchen and was busy putting together an "Easy Cranberry and Apple Cake" so that I would have something for breakfast. Yes, I know how lucky I am.

The recipe can be found here Epicurious. She wanted me to make sure to note that she made one small change to the recipe - the addition of 1 tablespoon of Boyajian Orange Oil in addition to the orange juice called for.

Lunch was leftovers, really good leftovers from a dish she had made for a pot luck she had attended a few days before. From another Epicurious recipe, this was "Polenta and Black Bean Casserole". This time, there were two fairly significant changes. The recipe calls for store bought polenta (you know, that tube o'polenta you see in the supermarket). Cyn made hers from scratch, and she also slow cooked the black beans from dried, in place of the canned beans in the recipe.

Sorry, I was so excited to eat it, I forgot to take a picture.

Finally dinner. Sometimes salad and pizza are just the ticket. On this dreary, foggy evening in Northern Virginia, they seemed just right. The arugula greens were enhanced with pear, pomegranate seeds, toasted walnuts, dried cherries and marinated garbanzo beans which had been marinated in olive oil, white balsamic, salt and a little of the pomegranate juice. We dressed it with our homemade balsamic dressing.

The pizza dough was made from a high protein flour for extra crispiness and simply topped with mozzarella and tomato sauce. We finished it with hot pepper flakes, pecorino romano cheese and fresh basil.

Never thought I'd say this, but Monday is starting to be my favorite day of the week.

An unexpected breakfast treat in Dallas

I love it when I find an unexpected gem. That's exactly what happened when a local guy told me not to miss the breakfast tacos at Rusty Taco near the SMU campus in Dallas. Looking a lot like a converted gas station, this is the kind of place you might ride by all your life and never stop.

There are about seven styles of breakfast taco offered, all served on made in the store and freshly grilled soft tortillas. I had one each of the jalapeno sausage and the chorizo.

Also available are vegetarian versions, a brisket taco and several others. All are served with egg and cheese. Three house made hot sauces and several bottled sauces are available to add a heat level of your choice. Everything was fresh, served piping hot and the ingredients were full of savory goodness. If you're in Dallas and can get to one of their three locations, do. I'm going back for the lunch versions next time I'm in town.

Did I mention that all the breakfast tacos were only $2.00 each?

The five best restaurant meals I've ever had.....

This is hard, I've been fortunate to have had the opportunity to eat at a lot of great places over the years. Sometimes, a great meal is all about the food, sometimes it is enhanced by the atmosphere, the service, the company or the occasion. These choices have probably been influenced by some combination of all of them. In no particular order....

The Water Lot Inn at the Fairmont Southhampton Hotel in Nassau Bermuda

Il Mulino in New York City (interestingly enough the second time was just OK) 

Felidia in New York City

Topolobampo in Chicago (happily, the second time was equally as good)

Le Florimond in Paris

I've had lots of other really amazing meals at places like The Inn at Little Washington (Little Washington, VA) , Le Bec Fin (Philadelphia), Po (NYC), Boulevard (San Francisco), Nola (New Orleans), Le Coq au Vin (Orlando) and many more. Somehow the  particular meals I had at the five I listed rise to the top. How about you?

Week two is in the books....

Last week I wrote about trying to keep the breakfast carbs to a minimum. Well, for this weeks version of Meatless Monday that didn't work out so well. My wife is from from a part of central Connecticut that is stocked with a broad variety of ethnic cultures and their respective foods. There are a lot of eastern Europeans and one of the things they do very well is bake. Breads, pastries, you name it, they do it well. The other day, Cynthia comes home from Wegmans with this.

Who can turn down a good Russian rye bread? Two slices toasted and buttered later, I've had a not so low carb but very tasty breakfast. Not as good as back in the Northeast, but pretty darn good.

I had decided to go to an Indian restaurant near my office for lunch that several of my coworkers had spoken highly of. I figured their buffet would offer a pretty broad variety of vegetarian dishes. Turns out they are closed as the sign on the door said "every Mondays". Back in the car I drove where else, but to Wegmans. For those of you that don't have this supermarket chain where you live, my condolences. Those of you that do, know that they offer a huge variety of choices for lunch. Everything from pizza, sandwiches, hot buffet cold buffet, salad bar, dim sum, a noodle soup bar and sushi. They have two huge banquettes with hot and cold vegetarian foods on the buffet! Here's what I ended up with. Broccoli, cauliflower (two ways), carrots, scalloped potatoes, a cream cheese filled jalapeno popper (OK, I had to have one fried thing) and a piece of grilled naan.

Dinner was a real treat. Cyn managed to whip up something really special. Two courses, a simple blanched Peruvian asparagus

and a beautiful mushroom ravioli

The ravioli were stuffed with portabello mushrooms but, as usual, it's the sauce that makes the dish. Cyn started by browning shitake and crimini mushrooms in extra virgin olive oil and butter on high heat. Once they were brown and had released their moisture, she added two french shallots and fresh thyme from our garden. Once the shallots were translucent, she de-glazed the pan with Madeira and added some cream. Once the cream had reduced by a third, the ravioli were added to the sauce to finish their cooking. A sprinkling of chives finished the dish.

Sounds complicated, right? Well, this was made in just about 30 minutes. Eat your heart out Rachel Ray.

When is honey, not?

Ran across this article and was honestly shocked. I've always understood that honey is one of the best things we can eat. If you are a honey lover like I am, read this article. I'm just happy that we buy our honey at farmer's markets.

With apologies to all my wine enthusiast friends....

...we are in the Golden Age for beer.

Anyone who knows me, knows I really enjoy beer. I don't mean that mass produced, tasteless, watery stuff that America in particular seemed to fall in love with through much of the 80s and 90s. I mean the wide variety of craft beers that are now widely available.The proliferation of craft and micro breweries during the past ten years has been amazing. You can now find really good stouts, porters, ales, special bitters and many other styles available at many grocery stores.

Then there are the specialty stores like Cork and Fork and Total Wine here in Northern Virginia that not only stock great beers but have staff that understand them and can offer first hand advice to buyers in a way that wine enthusiasts have expected for a very long time. Most of these specialty stores and even some of the better grocery chains, like Wegmans, allow you to purchase single bottles and mix and match six packs.

You thought this was a food blog didn't you? Well, it is my contention that food can, and should at times, be paired with food in the very same way that wine is. In fact, there is a very good restaurant in Leesburg, VA that does that 5-6 times a year. Tuscarora Mill holds beer dinners where the chef works with an invited brewery to pair select beers with various courses. Cynthia and I have attended several of these and they are wonderful.

Look for more on this favorite topic of mine in future posts. Quoting my favorite tv commercial - "stay thirsty my friends".