Our quite decadent meal for two:

So this is pretty much our whole Thanksgiving meal save the dessert which was a coconut banana chocolate frozen goop.

The pumpkin soup is the recipe I shared here.

The salad is mixed greens from our CSA box, right off the farm. They are a delightful mix which includes some nice spicy and bitter greens.

The roasted potatoes are also from the CSA box and they are tossed with diced garlic, fresh rosemary, salt and pepper and olive oil and then roasted until browned. (they could have cooked a bit more actually)

The dressing is spelt bread diced in small pieces tossed with sauteed onions, celery, garlic, salt, pepper, sage, thyme, and LOTS OF BUTTER. After the saute I put in 2 diced uncooked apples, a handful of pinenuts, a handful of walnuts and a handful of raisins. Then put them in a baking dish and covered them while baking until the last 15 minutes.

The turkey is two thigh pieces. Roasted with salt, pepper, sage, rosemary and garlic.

The cranberry sauce was about 12 oz of cranberries with 2 diced pears and about 1/3 of a can of frozen orange concentrate. No sugar added. The orange juice was plenty for me, though it was tart, no doubt. Also about 1/2 tsp cinnamon and 1/2 tsp of nutmeg. Boiled until nice and thick.

I made a mock gravy as we didn’t have a whole bird to save juices. I boiled about 32 oz of chicken stock with 1/2 a cup of red wine down to about 10 oz. Added salt, pepper, garlic powder and sage, and then thickened it with flour. It wasn’t bad, though I prefer the real thing. No fat…that was nice.

We also have a dessert. I pureed in the blender 3 bananas, a 14 oz can of coconut milk, 1/2 cup raw chocolate powder and 1 tbls of honey. It’s in the freezer. When it’s thickened we’ll eat it. No picture.

Looks like guacamole, but it’s not!

• 2 cups white beans (cooked in the crock pot over night on low after soaking for about 4 hours — in the morning I turned it on high for about 1 1/2 as the beans weren’t cooked! that surprised me)

• 1 bunch cilantro

• 1/2 cup olive oil (more if needed)

• Juice of 2 lemons

• 5 cloves of garlic (more or less to taste)

• Salt to taste

I pureed the olive oil and cilantro in a food processor with the garlic first then added the rest of the ingredients. Blended until smooth.

I served this on grilled eggplant slices the day I made it. After that I ate it on rice cakes, and also used it in place of salad dressing. It can be a sandwich spread, or a veggie dip. I imagine it can be frozen as well, though I’ve not tried it yet.

Ingredients:

• 3 lb whole chicken

• 2 lbs mushrooms sliced

• 64 oz stock of your choice

• 1 cup dry white wine

• 8 oz fresh goat cheese

• 1 very large onion diced

• 4 cups of celery diced

• 6 cloves of garlic minced

• 3 bay leaves

• 1 tbls celery seed

• Salt to taste

• Fresh ground black pepper to taste

Boiled chicken in stock for 2 hours with the bay leaves and the celery seed. I usually skin the chicken first to avoid having to take the fat off of the soup in some other way.

In separate pan I sauteed the garlic, onions, celery, and mushrooms until soft. Then I added the wine and brought it to a boil and turned it off while I waited for the chicken.

Once the chicken is done I remove the chicken from the broth and let cool. I take out the bay leaves from the stock.

I crumbled the goat cheese and melted it in the broth at this point.

Once cool I take all the meat off the chicken and cut it up in very small pieces. At this point all is thrown together–the chicken, broth with goat cheese and the sauteed veggies with the wine. Heat all together to blend flavors, then serve.

If you want a creamier soup you can add a 1/4 cup flour after first adding water very slowly until you have a liquid. Drizzle in the flour with water while stirring a boiling soup. I did not add the flour and liked it just as it was.

One can also add rice which I intend to do tomorrow for the second round. I like steaming the rice separately.

Photo a little blurry, but what a nice color:

Borscht is a soup people tend to either go hot or cold on. I’m hot for it. Love it. I thought of that as one can eat it hot or cold too! (ugh, bad play on words, perhaps?) It can also be made with meat or just veggies. There are endless variations. I simply used what I had around as is my wont to do.

Ingredients:

• 6 beets (I used three orange and three red beets)

• 1 small purple cabbage

• 24 oz crushed tomato

• 48 oz vegetable stock

• 3 carrots

• 1 very large red onion

• 12 cloves of garlic

• 3 tbls dill (fresh would be better, I used dry)

• 1/2 cup very strong red wine vinegar (I get this really rocking stuff from a winery in California’s Napa Valley. My step father is the source. I have never liked the weak crap you can get in the grocery store and also grew up with fine vinegar. This stuff is thick and dark and you can’t see through it–it’s a whole other realm of wonderful–if you have ordinary vinegar you might want to use more as you like)

• 1 tbls paprika

• Salt to taste

I cut up everything in relatively large chunks as I am not well enough to do lots of time consuming stuff, including endless chopping. (I’m a hard-core foodie so I can’t give it up, but I do have to take a lot of short cuts) If you can cut some of the veggies before hand and saute them, that’s better. Then whether you puree it at the end is a matter of taste.

I just did big chunks and threw all the ingredients in a pot and let it cook for about an hour and a half. I then let it cool a bit and pureed it in a blender.

Top with thick delicious greek yogurt.

So as my cooking blog world grows I get inspired by more and more people. A week or two ago Auntie V made this eggplant and lamb casserole. Eggplant and lamb are so delicious together so I was immediately drawn to her recipe when I saw her post it on twitter. I knew eggplant and lamb was in my future. I ended up thinking I’d rather make some facsimile of Moussaka which I’ve never made and probably only eaten once or twice. It’s a very delicious Greek dish. I bounced around and looked at multiple Moussaka recipes. Also, since I read a wonderful Greek blogger who makes wonderful Greek food, I visited Peter’s site and found this recipe.

Frankly given Peter is Greek, I’m a bit terrified to admit this is the route I took as I did indeed take liberties. This cannot be considered a true Moussaka. I’m a bit of an Italian food snob as I’m a first generation Italian and so I know that what I’ve done here (especially with the cottage cheese!!) is probably mildly sacrilegious in the eyes of a Greek person. So let’s just call this a Moussaka inspired food.

In any case, I cook with what I have in my kitchen often determining what is created more than a recipe…so here is my creation. It turned out quite nice.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb ground lamb (or ground beef)

• 2 eggplants

• 16 oz canned diced tomatoes

• 1/2 cup red wine

• 1 red onion diced

• 8 cloves garlic diced

• 1/2  tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

• 4 tablespoons pesto (I had some frozen, you can just use basil of whatever kind you like)

• 1 tsp red chili flakes

Slice eggplants in rounds, brush them with olive oil, lightly salt them and then put them on the grill. I used a small foreman grill and it took three cycles. I’ve been grilling eggplant instead of frying it for eggplant parmigiana for a long time now and so I did the same here. I also sometimes stick a big pan of eggplant in the oven under the broiler. I never prepare the eggplant with salt ahead of time and don’t know how much of a difference it makes. Peeling the eggplant would certainly make cutting up the dish easier, but I didn’t do that either.

The meat sauce is as follows:

Saute the onion and the garlic until soft and lightly browned. Toss in the ground lamb and brown that as well. I then put in the 1/2 cup of wine and cooked it on high until it was pretty much gone. Then I added the diced tomatoes and let that cook down as well, don’t want much liquid left if you want a firm casserole. While it was cooking I added the spices and herbs.

Bechamel sauce

• 1/2 stick of butter (1/4 cup)

• 1/4 cup flour (I used rye flour as I’m allergic to wheat, so use whatever you like)

• 2 1/2 cups milk

• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

• 1/2 tsp nutmeg

• Salt and pepper to taste

• 6 eggs

• 1 lb cottage cheese

• 1 cup grated pecorino cheese (there is a greek cheese called kefalotyri that is used in the true moussaka, but I saw lots of references to substituting pecorino which I always have in my home, the cottage cheese is absolutely NOT Greek.)

Make a roux with the butter and flour and then add the milk slowly while stirring. Add the salt, pepper, nutmeg and cinnamon. Stir while on medium heat until it thickens and comes to a boil. Take off heat and let cool just a bit. Add cottage cheese and pecorino. Add eggs.

Stack the dish with the eggplant on the bottom, the meat in the middle and finally the bechamel on top.

Bake at 350 for about 30 – 40 minutes until the top is browned.

It tasted very good to me. Given that I really don’t know what an authentic Moussaka tastes like I don’t know how it compares. My husband liked it too. There was a bit too much liquid but that didn’t bother me much. It might have had I served it for guests. I really really loved the bechamel stuff…it was sort of souffle like and was delicious with the lamb and eggplant.

Once again this post was inspired by Tina. I had never made a bourbon marinade. I used a few of the ingredients from Tina’s recipe but then did my own thing once I cruised around the net looking at variations. The meat I used was not tenderloin either. As I eat natural and organic meats I tend to buy cheaper cuts in order to maintain affordability. This is a pork butt that I sliced up. It’s good and we get it a lot. Certainly use tenderloin if you’ve got it!

Ingredients: (double up for larger amounts of meat)

• 1/4 cup bourbon (I used Jim Beam)

• 1/4 cup tamari (soy sauce is fine, I use tamari as it’s wheat free)

• 2 tbls pureed garlic (I pureed a ton of fresh garlic and froze it, nice and convenient)

• 1 tsp cayenne pepper

• 1 tsp red chili flakes

• 1 tbls prepared mustard (the condiment in the fridge, I used a nice seeded natural mustard)

• 1 tsp sage

I mixed it all up and put the meat in it and mushed it around.

Now I have a gadget to share with you all. It’s a great toy for the foodie! It’s a marinater that one can get all the air out of. It creates a vacuum and forces the marinade into the meat in a fraction of the time. It’s wonderful!

My husband is the hand model!

Anyway, this marinade thingy is one of my favorite kitchen items. It means you can get away with thinking about dinner that involves a marinade on much less notice than if you don’t have one. It deeply and richly marinates in much less time. So I marinated about 4 hours. Without it you might do twice that.

I used my little Foreman Grill which I totally love even though I feel like it’s a bit of a cheat machine.

I thought this was amazingly delicious, but in the interest of full disclosure my husband was not as impressed. Not sure what the deal was on that difference of opinion. My husband thought it was good, but not like I did. I was ecstatic. Anyway he and I have never had the same taste in food. He is British and I’m Italian. Our culinary experience growing up was vastly different. We do have lots and lots of crossover though and he is my favorite person to cook for, so I was a bit disappointed that he didn’t enjoy this as much as I did.