Meal Plan 12/1-12/7

My fridge is finally returning to normal after the glut of Thanksgiving dishes last weekend.  This coincides nicely with the arrival of winter greens here in Austin, since big leafy greens take up a lot of fridge real-estate! In this week’s Local Box I’m getting delicious citrus along with three types of greens: turnip greens, bibb lettuce, and bok choy.  This will be my first time preparing bok choy, so I’m going to try a simple preparation with idiot-proof instructions from Jaden Hair of Steamy Kitchen, one of my favorite food bloggers. It’s not in the local box, but I’ll be eating Challah from UT’s Chapter of Challah for Hunger tomorrow night. This is the last week of the semester those guys will be baking, so I don’t want to miss out on the last loaves of the season. 🙂  Happy cooking, friends!

Here’s what’s coming in my Local Box from Greenling:

• Assorted Peppers – Lundgren
• Tangerines – Orange Blossom
• Watermelon Radish – Fruitful Farm
• Bok Choy – Naegelin
• Bibb Lettuce – Bella Verdi
• Green Beans – Naegelin
• Turnip Greens – Acadian
• Rainbow Carrots – Animal
• Cilantro – Acadian

Here’s what I’m making:

Wednesday: Bibb Lettuce & Radish Salad with Classic Vinaigrette Dressing, Challah from Challah for Hunger on the UT Campus
Thursday: Stir Fried Bok Choy with Ginger & Garlic
Friday: Enchillada Casserole with leftover turkey meat & assorted peppers
Saturday: Braised Pork Belly with Turnip Greens, Roasted Radishes
Sunday: Holiday party at a friend’s house
Monday: Turkey and dumplings, roasted rainbow carrots & green beans with citrus-sage glaze
Tuesday: Leftover Awareness Day!

Rosemary Lemon Cornmeal Cookies

I’m planning a little series of Christmas cookie posts this month, loosely titled “The 12 Cookies of Christmas.” (For the most part, I have just been calling it that in my head since it’s such a cheesy title. Let’s not call it that out loud, okay?) Each of the twelve recipes will feature locally-sourced ingredients in a holiday-cookie-exchange-ready format.  Get ready for beet whoopie pies, apple spice cookies, meyer lemon bars, and other holiday treats, just waiting to fill your Santa shaped cookie jar.

Rosemary’s sweet, pungent flavor and green needles remind me of Christmas trees, so when I was planning the series, I knew I wanted to kick things off with these crispy lemon rosemary cookies.  The timing couldn’t be better since Meyer lemons are finally in season here in Austin.  This recipe also features eggs from Ringger Farm and cornmeal from Homestead Gristmill, near Waco, Texas.  The course texture of the Homestead’s cornmeal enhances these cookies’ crunch, and I find these cookies to be more flavorful than ones I’ve made with nationally distributed brands of cornmeal.

Rosemary Lemon Cornmeal Cookies (yields 32 cookies)
adapted from “Cornmeal Cookies,” by Kathy Farrell-Kingsley
Cooking Light, May 2008

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/3 cup yellow cornmeal
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons butter, softened
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons finely chopped fresh rosemary needles
1 tablespoon grated Meyer lemon rind
1 tablespoon fresh squeezed Meyer lemon juice
1 egg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Prepare a cookie sheet with silpat or baking parchment. (Don’t skip this. The finished cookies are very delicate and will lose their shape if they stick to the pan after cooking.)

In a small bowl, sift together flour, cornmeal, baking soda, and salt.  In a large mixing bowl, beat softened butter, sugar, rosemary, lemon rind, and lemon juice until creamy, scraping sides of bowl occasionally.  Add egg and beat until well combined.  Add flour mixture to butter mixture and beat until just blended.  Dough will be very soft.

Spoon dough by heaping teaspoons 2.5 inches apart on parchment-lined baking sheets.  Cookies will spread while cooking, so take care not to put dough too close to the edges of the baking sheets.  Bake at 350 degrees for 11 1/2 minutes, until lightly browned and almost firm. Remove from oven and cool on pans for 2 minutes or until firm. Remove firm cookies from pans and cool completely on a wire rack.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup

Yesterday I picked all the meat off our leftover Thanksgiving turkey and boiled the bones to make turkey stock.  I felt a little like Ma Ingalls making my own broth, but the whole process was just too easy for me to forgo. I followed Kalyn Denny’s instructions for making broth with turkey bones and it turned out great.  In the end, I netted 12 free cups of turkey stock for my troubles!  That much low-sodium, organic broth would cost at least $10 at the grocery store.

Besides saving money, it felt really good not to waste any parts of our Thanksgiving turkey. I had previously portioned out the leftover meat and froze it for use it for dinners in the next few weeks.  Of course, the bones went into the soup pot.  And the skin, tendons, and other leftover boiled meat bits?  I whizzed those in the food processor along with a few tablespoons of wheat flour and made 3 cups of meat Kong filling for Barclay. (We’re trying to help him gain some weight and free treats make this much easier!) The only downside to all this thrify fun is that I have 12 cups of turkey stock sitting in my refrigerator, needing my attention!

This butternut squash soup recipe is adapted from a vegan version published on Allrecipes.com, and it is one of Rami’s and my favorite winter comfort foods.  Its spicy-sweet flavors are very forgiving, and I’ve made it with mashed  sweet potatoes, canned pumpkin, and roasted butternut squash, depending on what’s handy.  To save time, I always roast the squash or potatoes ahead of time and add them to the broth cooked and mashed.  However, another option would be to peel and chop raw squash or potatoes and cook them in the boiling broth until tender. Since the soup goes through the blender at the end, either way would work just fine.

Finally, a note about the light coconut milk in this recipe: it’s a must-include.  In a pinch, you could substitute heavy cream, but the coconut milk’s sweetness enhances the buttery squash and spicy red pepper flakes.  I used half a can of coconut milk in a red lentil sweet potato soup recipe I made last week. I froze the leftover coconut milk right in the can and it kept just fine until I needed the remainder for today’s recipe.

Curried Butternut Squash Soup (serves 4)

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 small onion, chopped (3/4 cup)
2 cloves garlic, smashed
1/8 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 teaspoon turmeric
1 teaspoon curry
2 cups mashed roasted butternut squash, pumpkin, or sweet potato
3 cups turkey stock (recipe is vegan if you use veggie stock)
1 cup light coconut milk (1/2 of a 14 oz. can)
salt and pepper to taste
chopped cilantro for garnish

Saute onions and garlic in oil in a heavy bottomed soup pan over medium high heat.  Once onions are soft, add pepper flakes, turmeric, curry, squash, and stock.  Stir to combine.  Reduce heat to medium low and simmer soup, covered, for half an hour.  Add coconut milk in the last five minutes of cooking.  Blend the soup in the pot with an immersion blender, or allow it to cool some and blend carefully in small batches in a conventional blender.  Season finished soup with salt and pepper to taste, garnish with fresh chopped cilantro.  This soup doubles easily and freezes exceptionally well.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

Turkey & Radish Salad with Green Goddess Dressing

This salad combines leftover Thanksgiving turkey with crunchy daikon radishes, tender greens, and a creamy homemade green goddess dressing.   I used a food processor to slice the radishes and prepare the dressing, but the task could just as easily be completed by hand with a good knife and a mixing bowl.

Turkey & Radish Salad with Green Goddess Dressing (serves 4)
Salad:
1 bag salad greens, washed and dried
4 inch section of daikon radish, sliced very thinly
1 1/2 cups cold chopped turkey
Green Goddess Dressing:
1/2 cup chopped parsley, thyme, sage, or other fresh herbs on hand
1 tablespoon minced onion (or sub. 1/4 c. chopped shallots)
1/2 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup sour cream
2 teaspoons cider vinegar
juice of 1/2 lime, about a tablespoon
2 tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon fresh ground pepper, plus more for garnish

Chop turkey into uniform pieces, if necessary. Wash and dry the salad greens and set aside.  Cut a four-inch section off of the radish and use the disc blade on the food processor to slice the radish very thinly; set aside sliced radishes.  Fit the food processor with the chopping blade.  Mince onion/shallots in the food processor, then add herbs and pulse until chopped.  Add mayonnaise, sour cream, vinegar, lime juice, milk, salt and pepper and blend until dressing is well combined.  Toss dressing, greens, turkey, and sliced radishes.  Serve salad immediately.

If, after making this salad, you find yourself with half a daikon radish leftover, use it to make this easy radish dip and sandwich spread. Perfect for zipping up leftover turkey sandwiches!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

Ricotta Brulee from Asti Trattoria

The owners of Asti and Fino, some of my favorite restaurants in Austin, have given all of us an early holiday present!  Last week they published three recipes from the menus of Asti and Fino:

• Five Easy Pieces, cocktail by Josh Loving
• Moroccan Vegetables
• Ricotta Brulee

We were so lucky to enjoy the ricotta brulee on our Thanksgiving table this year.  My friend Nathan Russell made it according to Asti’s recipe, adding his own spiced cherry compote on top.  It was delicious! We joked during dinner that if cheesecake and creme brulee had a baby, it would taste just like Asti’s ricotta brulee. That joke didn’t last too long since eating babies is frowned upon in most circles.

In all seriousness, I can’t brag on this recipe or Nathan’s fantastic preparation enough.  Go check it out on Asti’s website, and consider adding it to your holiday party menu!

Thanksgiving 2010 Recap

There is so much to be thankful for this year.  A new husband, a happy home, more blessings than I can count.  Rami’s and my first Thanksgiving as a family was magical.  We shared a wonderful meal here at home with our friends the Russells before heading over to the Pittel’s home for dinner number two.  Around both tables we shared hours of conversation and laughter with good friends. The joy and love I felt was utterly humbling.

Food, of course, played a huge part in making yesterday great.  Cooking with local, sustainably produced ingredients made the meal delicious and guilt-free.  At last count, the ingredients for our Thanksgiving dinner came from ten different local growers! I am so thankful that Austin has fresh, delicious food so readily available.  Of course, I hope eating local will become a tradition in our home, no matter where are eating.

And although my family was scattered far and wide across the country yesterday, I did think of them fondly when I made mashed potatoes with my dad’s recipe. (Dad, I added extra real butter, just like you taught me, and mashed them right in the pot like you always do.) I also exerted some culinary independence by including a cheese plate, squash kugel, creamed kale, and vodka flips on my menu. Those items had never appeared on childhood Thanksgiving tables, and they helped make this year’s holiday my own.

Speaking of independence, roasting the Thanksgiving turkey for the first time was simultaneously terrifying and exhilarating. Holiday turkey roasting is an activity that in my book means you are a Real Grown Up, kind of like buying a house, or getting married.  Now that it’s over, I realize I may have approached this task with more gravitas than was really necessary. For example, I cried and gnashed my teeth Wednesday night when I couldn’t find the giblets in the turkey. I tried and tried to find them to pull them out, but I couldn’t even fit my hand in the cavity! Not to mention my turkey felt like a big popsicle. After a quick YouTube tutorial I realized I had been digging around inside the neck cavity of the bird, and that my turkey was still frozen! Disaster averted, I let the turkey thaw overnight and the giblets were recovered just fine Thanksgiving morning.  I felt like Superwoman a few hours later when I pulled a big, golden roasted bird (sans giblets!) out of the oven.

Today I’m basking in the Thanksgiving afterglow, and feeling a little sad that the big dinners are over.  We’ve already polished off the leftover deviled eggs and the stuffing’s nearly gone.  The endless possibilities for my nine pounds of leftover turkey meat seem exciting now, but I’m sure by the end of next week I’ll be sick of cooking with it. Which is natural, I guess.

Hopefully the emotional glow of the holiday will fade less quickly than our leftovers. Gratitude and love, like turkey giblets, can be hard to find.

Daikon Radish Dip

The first time I saw daikon radishes at the farmer’s market I thought they were giant parsnips.  I snapped up several, amazed at how inexpensive they were. What a surprise when I got home and realized I had purchased four radishes the size of my forearms!

Daikon radish is a versatile, inexpensive, low-calorie ingredient that is popular in Japanese, Chinese, Filipino, and other Asian cuisines.  It can also be substituted for plain red radishes in almost any dish. One of the most popular among daikon preparations is pickled, either in kimchi or refrigerator pickles:

• Sweet Pickled Daikon Radishes (Tyler Florence)
• Daikon and Carrot Pickles (Amanda Nguyen/NY Times)
• Daikon Radish Kimchi (Taekyung Chung, Debra Samuels)

There are also several great recipes for warm radishes out there.  When cooked, Daikon loses its crunch and forward flavor and softens into a mild complement for other ingredients.

• Braised Pork Mince with Daikon (Droolfactor)
• Law Bok Gow (Daikon Radish Cakes) (Yohana Gourmet)
• Cantonese Braised Beef and Daikon (Cookbook Chronicles)

My favorite recipe for daikon radish is this creamy radish dip.  Although it’s a significant step up over packaged ranch, this  spicy white dip is about as accessible as the giant root gets. It makes for a wonderful introduction to daikon radish for kids or picky eaters.  Plus, if you’re scrambling for an easy, last-minute potluck offering, this is your recipe!  It has just four ingredients, and takes minutes to put together. If you don’t have daikon on hand, a bunch of red or black radishes work well in this recipe, too.  Just know that the resulting dip will be pink or gray, according to the color of the radish skin.

Daikon Radish Dip (yields about 1.5 cups)
1 large daikon radish
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 cloves peeled garlic
8 ounce package cream cheese

Peel garlic, and combine with cream cheese and salt in a food processor. Wash and dry the radish. Use a vegetable peeler to remove the skin plus any root hairs.  Cut a five-inch section of the radish, discarding the top and end of the vegetable.  Chop that section into inch-long pieces and add those to the food processor bowl.  Pulse in the food processor until dip has a creamy texture with no big pieces of radish.  For best results, chill finished dip in the fridge overnight.  This firms up the texture of the dip and keeps it from getting watery.  Serve with crudite or use as a sandwich spread with leftover Thanksgiving turkey.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

Thanksgiving Update!

Things are moving right along for Thanksgiving this year. I was pretty overwhelmed yesterday, so I revisited the Thanksgiving menu I made earlier this month and made some changes. The produce on the menu is still locally-sourced, and I’m making everything from scratch.  However, this simplified version of the menu cuts a few dishes I prepared last week and for earlier potluck meals– no repeats this way. I also added a few items to make a first course on Thursday: a cheese plate and deviled eggs.  Lynne Rossetto Kasper mentioned both of these things on “The Splendid Table” this weekend and now I can’t get them out of my head.

Thursday Meal
Cheese Plate with Homemade Wheat Crackers, Plum Black Pepper Jam &
Chili Lime Roasted Squash Seeds
Deviled Eggs
Roasted Turkey
Gravy
Apple Sausage Stuffing
Butternut Squash Kugel with Sage Chiffonade
Buttery Mashed Turnips & Potatoes
Creamed Kale
Home-infused Pumpkin Vodka Flip
Ricotta Creme Brulee (Asti’s recipe, made by Nathan & Amy!!)

Thursday Night Potluck
Vegan Stuffed Mushrooms
Vegan Apple Crisp
Crudite with Daikon Radish Dip (if I have time. No promises.)

Thanksgiving: Butternut Squash Mac ‘n’ Cheese

My family doesn’t traditionally include macaroni and cheese on the Thanksgiving table, so I feel like a bit of a rebel putting it on my menu this year. When I was planning our meal, though, I just couldn’t resist the rich, creamy texture and slightly spicy flavor of this recipe.  It gets bonus points for ease of preparation and kid appeal: the orange hue of the butternut squash makes this look just like the blue-box macaroni and cheese that kids love.  Plus, with whole wheat pasta, this is about as healthy as macaroni and cheese gets.

This recipe tastes great when reheated, but it doesn’t look very pretty on the second day.  For Thanksgiving, I plan to prep all the raw ingredients ahead of time, and then assemble and cook the macaroni and cheese in the 20 minutes while the turkey’s resting.  I’ll probably delegate stirring of the cheese sauce to my husband or a guest; though the sauce is really easy, it does require constant whisking so the dairy doesn’t scorch.

Butternut Squash Macaroni and Cheese (serves 6)
1/2 lb. whole wheat pasta, your choice of shape; we like shells & spirals
1 tablespoon butter
1 tablespoon whole wheat flour
1 cup skim milk
1/2 cup butternut squash puree
1-1/4 cups sharp cheddar cheese
2 tablespoons cream cheese
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1/2 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon dry mustard
1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper

Boil water and cook pasta according to package directions.  While pasta is cooking, melt butter in a medium saucepan.  Whisk flour and melted butter together for about 4 minutes over medium heat; until mixture thickens and turns golden brown. Add milk 1/4 cup at a time, whisking constantly.  Continue whisking until liquid is warmed through and light brown. Next, add the squash puree and whisk until combined, followed by the cheeses.  Remove sauce from heat and continue to whisk until everything is smooth and creamy.  Whisk in seasonings, adding cayenne to taste.  By now the pasta will be done; drain and shake off excess water.  Stir pasta and cheese sauce together in a serving dish. Garnish with paprika and black pepper.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.

 

Red Lentil & Sweet Potato Soup with Cilantro

I’m ready to eat. Ready for turkey. Ready to cook two kinds of bread for homemade stuffing from scratch on Thursday.  (What was I thinking with the homemade stuffing???)  One thing I’m not really ready for is all the other dinners this week. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed.

Enter red lentil soup.  This recipe is healthy, tasty, and it only takes about 10 minutes of hands-on work to prepare.  It’s also inexpensive and easily adaptable to whatever fall produce you have on hand: sweet potatoes, leeks, onions, winter squash, whatever.  Best part is, while it’s bubbling away on the stove, there’s plenty of time to whip up some stuffing.

Red Lentil Sweet Potato Soup with Cilantro (serves 4)
adapted from “Vegan Red Lentil Soup” published on Allrecipes.com

1 tablespoon olive oil
1 onion
2 cloves garlic
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 teaspoon dried ground ginger
1 teaspoon curry powder
1/4 teaspoon red chili flakes
1 cup peeled, chopped sweet potato, pumpkin, or butternut squash
1 cup dry red lentils
2 cups water
1/2, 15 oz. can light coconut milk
1/2 cup finely chopped fresh cilantro leaves, divided
1 lime, cut into wedges

Chop onion and garlic.  Saute them in oil in a heavy bottomed pot over medium heat.  Meanwhile, peel and chop sweet potato or squash. Once onion is translucent, add all remaining ingredients except for half the cilantro and all the lime wedges.  Bring soup to a boil, reduce heat to medium low and simmer for half an hour, until potatoes/squash and lentils are tender. Taste soup and season with salt and pepper.  Garnish each bowl of finished soup with fresh cilantro and a lime wedge.

Click here for a printable version of this recipe.