thanksgiving recap

woo, as wonderful as thanksgiving is, i'm thankful it only happens once a year. although i suppose since leftovers drag out for a bit, it's not really one day. but most of the dishes i care about disappear within the first day, so i'm sort of in luck (now if someone could magic the pies out of my house, that would be great!)

the menu for the day. my foodservice class theme meal project seems to have rubbed off onto me. it was all new recipes again this year and i've modified most if not all the recipes to be healthier. the biscuits did not make an appearance (we were feeling unmotivated) and the spinach and artichoke dip didn't get a photo op b/c i was too lazy before it got devoured:)

from top left corner clockwish: rosemary and butter turkey, focaccia stuffing, focaccia stuffing base, apple pie and mississippi sweet potato pie, roasted lemon brussels sprouts, smashed potatoes. we also had a mushroom gravy (that stuff gets better and better everytime). recipes at the end!

the veg's plate (w/o the gravy yet)!


Recipes:

Spinach & Artichoke Dip with baked corn chips modified from here
Makes 5 cups

1 10oz pkgs frozen spinach, thawed, drained and squeezed dry
2 14-oz cans artichoke hearts, drained and coarsely chopped
1 c shredded part-skim mozzarella cheese
8 oz light cream cheese, softened and cut in ½” cubes
½ c cannelini beans, pureed
1 c greek yogurt
¼ c grated Parmesan
4 cloves garlic, minced (1 T)
½ tsp red pepper flakes
¼ tsp salt

1 pkg small Corn Tortilla wraps

Chips can be made a day to a few days ahead. Cut the tortillas into eighths and lay out on lined baking sheet. Bake in 350 for about 7 minutes. Flip or toss the wedges and bake for another 7 or until golden brown (the wedges will curl up). Let cool and keep in air tight container.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Set aside half the mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses. In a large mixing bowl, stir together all remaining ingredients. Spoon mixture into a greased or sprayed 1- ½ to 2 qt baking dish. Sprinkle top w/ remaining cheeses. Bake uncovered for 25-40 minutes or until bubbly and golden.

Smashed Potatoes

serves 8

15 small red potatoes, washed, de-eyed, chopped into even pieces, boiled, water removed and mashed

3 wedges laughing cow garlic cheese

1/2 cauliflower head, microwaved about 5 minutes and pureed

1/2 can cannelini beans, pureed

3/4 c chopped kale

garlic

milk

salt and pepper
Make sure the potatoes are completely mashed, while still warm add other ingredients and spices to taste.

Roasted lemon Brussels sprouts

serves 6

2 lbs Brussels sprouts, washed and quartered

olive oil

garlic, minced

salt and pepper

Canola oil

lemon

Toss Brussels sprouts in all ingredients except lemon and spread out in large baking sheet lined with aluminum foil. Spray with canola oil (or olive oil. Bake in 350F for 10 minutes. Remove, toss and bake for another 5 minutes. Remove from oven and sprinkle with half lemon juice and toss. Serve immediately.

Focaccia Stuffing from here
serves 5
½ loaf focaccia bread, cubed
2 T pine nuts
1 ½ T olive oil
½ small onion, diced
1 clove garlic, minced
1/2 dried sundried tomatoes, finely chopped
½ c marinated artichoke hearts, chopped 1 ½ T chopped fresh basil 1 c vegetable stock ½ tsp salt ½ tsp black pepper
Preheat oven to 375 F. Place cubed bread in a large bowl and set aside.
In a dry skillet, toast pine nuts over medium heat until golden brown, about 4 minutes. Add the nuts to the bread cubes.

Heat 2 T of oil in the same skillet over medium heat. Add onions and saute for 5 min. Add garlic and cook for an additional 5 min, stirring often. To the bread bowl, add the onions and garlic, along with the sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, basil, stock, salt, and pepper. Stir until combined well.

*The day before I combined the sauteed onions, garlic, sundried tomatoes, artichoke hearts, salt and pepper and kept it refrigerated. I also toasted the pine nuts in advance so that way on Thanksgiving day all that needed to be done was cubing the bread and tossing everything in basil and stock.
Oil a 3-quart casserole dish and spoon the stuffing into the dish. Spray the stuffing with canola oil. Bake, uncovered for about 20 minutes. Broil for a few minutes until golden.

Mississippi Sweet Potato Pie modified from here makes 1 pie
4 oz (1 stick) butter, softened, could probably use less of this 2 c baked and mashed Korean sweet potatoes 1/4 c brown sugar 1 5-oz can evaporated milk 3 eggs, beaten 1 tsp cinnamon 1 pie shells, unbaked
Mix butter, potatoes, sugar, and evaporated milk until well blended. Add eggs, and cinnamon; mix well. Pour into the prepared pie shells. Bake in a 350 oven for about 75, until set.

food coma yet?

happy last few hours of thanksgiving! our family is celebrating on saturday when s2 comes home so today was a pseudo-trail run for the real thing:) which means lots and lots of baking! s4 came home on tuesday morning and we pretty much baked non-stop on wednesday except to eat and give the oven a break!

 first up is a sunflower seed bread from joy the baker. it's delicious. the only thing we would change is increasing to 3/4 cup of the sunflower seeds going into the bread and only 1/4 cup for sprinkling.

 this is a pumpkin pie ice cream cake from eating well. we decided to make it not so healthy and add chopped pecans into the crust (gingersnap cookies, eummmm) and use breyer's vanilla bean (half a gallon!). the pumpkin mixed into ice cream with cinnamon and nutmeg is unbelievably tasty, but i wish it were a bit warmer to enjoy the coolness of it. the pie tastes best after it has enough time to chill or else you start getting a little icy crystaly (any suggestions on storing an ice cream cake/pie?)

we have another coconut sweet potato pie but we're saving that until saturday so we made another version of sweet potato pie to do a little taste testing. this one comes from a recipe i used last year but we subbed in a graham cracker and toasted coconut crust. the pie mix is sweet potato, condensed milk, sugar, butter and spices. i'll try to find the link for the recipe!

 a glimpse of the oven- the sweet potatoes baking on top, sunflower seed bread and an apple crumble. we made another version of apple pie in a bundt pan that turned out really well. we took the other half of the KAF pie crust i made for pop tarts and covered chopped up apples mixed with cinnamon sugar in a bundt pan and it was just like apple pie...topped with ice cream. so so good. did i mention we ran twice today? haha.

there was real food today! pizza on naan! the left one was naan topped with pesto, onions, tomatoes and mozzarella. the back pizza has onions, tomatoes, salmon chunks (from frozen salmon burgers from bj's, which are really really good) and pepper jack cheese.

i think we baked something else but it's slipped from my mind. we're still making at least one more pie tomorrow (apple pie in a square dish!) and then starting the preparations for eating on saturday! anyone going black friday shopping to burn off some more calories?

Belated Thanksgiving

Now that it's less than 2 weeks until Christmas, I've decided it's high time to talk about the past holiday (ahem, my favorite holiday) Thanksgiving. The usual was made and devoured, although the one that was different and I wanted to talk about my sweet potato pie-Korean style.I got the recipe off of the foodnetwork site and it was really simple. But then, being frazzled shopping at Lotte and cornered by my mother to use the Korean sweet potato (not the American yam/sweet potato, which I've realized no one labels as both!). So instead of an orangey kind of pie, it was more yellow. It looked down right frightening before it was baked, but the resulting flavor tasted like a dense Korean sweet potato with a crust. Yum. Happy eating.