GeekOrchard

No, really, it’s not meant to be macabre….it’s kinda like Monday morning quarter-backing. So here’s the recap of the cooking and the day.

Every year, it’s always the same, I plan the time and space to cook, relax, etc., and then ‘Murphy’ shows up, univited, to rearrange my entire schedule to his liking. This year it was work drama, which doesn’t explain much since I have three ‘jobs’, so I’ll narrow it down to K&F (the ad agency, not the kitchen place). My scheduled hours went from 8 to 16 plus, so I wasn’t able to put in the time I intended on the prep making my cooking marathon into more of an Iron-Woman Triathalon, eek!

I did my shopping Monday, knowing that any procrastination on my part, this year, might result in a null ability to make up for it. After that I was switched to ‘nose to the grindstone’ mode for two straight days at K&F. I did manage, however, to get up early on Wednesday and prep the turkey in it’s brine solution before I left for work. (yeah me! )

Wednesday evening started with a soup course. I made the corn and wild rice chowder. Along with the preparations for the turkey herb paste suggested in my Cook’s Illustrated. Spending hour(s) pulling tiny Thyme leaves from stalks while watching the latest Netflix made it more tolerable. I also started the vegetables, cleaning and some chopping, but that portion of the evening has become a blur. Thankfully Stacy offered me some of her ‘Tortilla Soup’ that evening so I didn’t even have to feed myself. This is also the night Robin roasted the organic sugar pumpkin’s I bought and made two kinds of Pumpkin pie, one Maple sweetened and the other Honey sweeted (my new favorite pumpkin pie recipe, BTW!). So it was a long and fun evening of socializing and prep work, all done with the wonderful smell of pies baking in the background.

After I finished up the Cranberry and Dried Cherry Sauce, I sorta gave into exhaustion since I’m a morning person, and to be fair, it was after 11pm.

Next morning started with the usual excitement before a big race. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep at 6am, so I figured I should get the morning started with coffee brewing and the like. From there, it only took a little coffee and, I prorgessed to ‘control freak’ mode ( or ‘cooking show’ mode, either name is fine, they just mean I was my own sous-chef. I looked at the remaining items on my list, and prepared the correct amount of each, starting with cutting fresh herbs from my garden for the turkey’s herb paste and the stuffing.

I laid out the kitchen with prep areas for the remaining items, starting with the stuffing, then the turkey rub, following it with sweet potato and yam streusel, the mashed potato prep (surrounding the sink), the green beans, and then the appetizers (Hummus - which I never made). Then I went back down the line fron the beginning, and got everything oven ready.

The entire time I was working on food, Robin was battling a migraine headache (sudden atmospeheric change) and cleaning up the living room and beyond for everyone. He was such a trooper!:-D Somewhere around 10am we planned that his arrival to mop the kitchen would coincide with my first break and a chance to get ready myself before people arrived at 2pm.

Caroline and Devon arrived first with a Honey Baked Ham, Caroline’s famous ‘Clam Chowder’, a selection of cheeses, and a wonderful Avocado dip recipe that upstaged just about all the other appetizers it was so yummy. (Note to self- I need to get that recipe.) So the Hummus was unneeded anyway, and I was able to relax and put the prep stuff for it away while munching on the different dips laid out, including three from A.G. Ferrari, along with a selection of six different cheeses.

While everyone was enjoying the appetizers, the roasting pan was being deglazed, the potatoes were simmering, and I was able to put the warming drawer to good use as each casserole/side dish came out of the oven. Allie helped test the gravy, and Devon the potatoes, and soon it was time to carve that bird and eat!

Thanksgiving’s final menu turned out to be:

Cheese plate of 6 cheeses (2 goat, 1 goat and sheep brie, two swiss- an emmenthaler and a gruyere, and a brie that I can’t recall getting a taste of), with baguettes and flatbread.

Dips including a Pine Nut Gorgonzola, Roasted Red Pepper Sauce, Olive Tapenade, homemade GeekOrchard salsa, and Avocado dip served with chips and crackers.

Two kinds of soup, Caroline’s ‘Maine Clam Chowder’, and my ‘Corn and Wild Rice Chowder’.

Mixed spring baby greens with a pomagrante vinagrette.

Whole Wheat dinner rolls.

Roasted Green Beans with and Meyer Lemon inffusion topped with slivered Toasted Almonds.

My mom’s traditional stuffing recipe.

Whipped potatoes with fresh chives.

Sweet Potato and Yam Streusel

Honey Baked Ham

Roasted Turkey with gravy.

Homemade Cranberry and dried cherry sauce, along with the canned Ocean-Sray stuff.

Two kinds of pumpkin pie, brownie bites.

Hot mulled GeekOrchard hard apple cider, and coffee.

I think that’s everything! At least it’s everything I can remember. Everyone headed home, very torpid, by 8pm with leftover plates in hand. I cleaned the last of the leftovers up, and Robin and I headed down the hill with them to Petie and the spare frig. of Stacy and Johannes. We needed to store the stuff for Friday’s ’second Thanksgiving’.

After a jaunt in the hot tub (for my aching body), Robin gave me a foot rub and I fell asleep watching Firefly. Now that was worth being thankful for!

And now for something a bit sweeter. My friend Spring used to work at a place where they made the most heavenly muffins, and it looks like she’s finally devised her own version of this recipe. She just passed it to me yesterday, and I can’t wait to try it. Yum!

PUMPKIN CREAM CHEESE MUFFINS

Makes 24 muffins

1 (8 oz) package cream cheese (the best cream cheese for this is
cheesecake-flavored)
3 cups flour
2 cups sugar
4 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
Pinch of cardamom (optional)
2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin (not pie filling)
1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
4 eggs, beaten
Chopped nuts* (walnuts, pecans) (optional)

Put the entire tub or brick of cream cheese on a piece of aluminum foil, and shape it into a long log; wrap in foil. Put it in the freezer while you mix and fill the pans, up to an hour.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin tins or line with paper baking cups.

Stir together the dry ingredients. Mix together the pumpkin, oil, and eggs. Stir into dry ingredients just until blended. Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full.

Unwrap and cut the cream cheese with a sharp knife. If the disks are too big around, cut thick slices and then cut them in half. This keeps the cream cheese in one big lump, and also lets you push it down into the batter. Put 1-2 tsp cream cheese in each muffin cup in the middle of the muffin batter, pressing down. Sprinkle with 1 tsp of the chopped nuts.

Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!). Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. DO NOT TOUCH THE CREAM CHEESE OR EAT THE MUFFINS UNTIL COOLED, AS THE CREAM CHEESE IS VERY, VERY HOT.

Thank you Spring!

Perfect for those fall evenings when it’s just starting to get chilly….I just emailed it to my great Aunt, and thought maybe I should post it here too.

I took this recipe:
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/recipe_views/views/104280

And changed it to:
Roasted Butternut Squash Soup

3 lb. or so butternut squash
3 to 4 celery stalks
2 med. white onions
3 to 4 carrots
1 garlic head (Robin prefers two, I think it overpowers)
1tsp. olive oil
6 cups chicken broth (low-salt), or 6 cups water and 2 or 3 bullion cubes
1 tbsp butter
1/8 tsp cumin
1/2 whipping cream
chopped fresh sage for sprinkling on top
creme fraiche, to put a dollop on top
dash paprika or tumeric for color on top before serving

Preheat oven to 350*, Half the squash lengthwise, clean inside of gourd and rub olive oil on cut edge. Cut onions in half or quarters, and celery in half, carrots in half, and clean all the cloves from the head of garlic. In a 9×12 shallow pyrex dish with just enough of the broth to cover the bottom (depending on size of squash I sometimes end up using two), arrange carrots, onion, celery, and garlic so they will fit under the dome of the gourds and roast inside it until done (about an hour, but longer with a bigger gourd or two pans, I always divide the veggies between so there a bit of each kind under both halves of the squash). While the roasted veggies cool, prepare stockpot on low heat with broth, pat of butter, and cumin, and I tend to improvise and add a little oregano, thyme, or other spices depending on my mood.

Pour contents of roasting pans minus the gourds in the stockpot. Scoop out the interior meat of the squash into stockpot, then puree with hand immersion mixer in pot, or in parts in the blender (this way is messy if the liquid is too hot).

You can freeze it for later at this point, or turn up heat to medium, and add cream, and serve with a dollop of creme fraiche (or sour cream), chopped sage, and a dash paprika. Better the second day.

Also, you can add any/substitute other root vegetables you like (turnips, parsnips), but stay away from potatoes as they ruin the texture in our opinion, and try not to get the ratio of other veggies to squash too high. The real key is the roasting of all of them together I think, and I almost never make this the same way twice. It’s soup, so I use whatever I have fresh. The Kobucha squash or acorn is also good done this way but have a different texture, and my vegan friend adds an apple and/or a pear and uses yellow curry in place of the cumin, plus she drops the dairy altogether (including the butter) .