Thanksgiving, like most of my fall, was marked by food — as well it should be. It was just Jeff and myself for for our little celebration, since we have no family nearby and friends already had plans. But we put together our own little dinner, with Cornish game hens instead of turkey, because one only needs so much leftovers.
The menu:
- Creamy sweet potato soup
- Glazed, stuffed, roasted rock Cornish hens
- Wild rice and porcini stuffing
- Broccoli gratin
- Bread (store-bought, but from an independent bakery)
Most of the recipes are from the Joy of Cooking, 1990's revision. However, I must recommend the sweet potato soup, which was not from the Joy of Cooking. It's like liquid sweet potato pie.
I am thankful for my husband. I am thankful that we both have good jobs that we enjoy and that let us live comfortably. I am thankful that I have a home to stay and be comfortable in; I am thankful that I am not driving or flying this week.
I didn't take any pictures of our Thanksgiving dinner, unfortunately (the hens did turn out fairly nice-looking), but I do have photos of some of our other gustatory adventures.
At the end of October, I made beef stock and canned it in a new pressure canner. The impetus for the canner was Eatwell Farm's "Tomato Party," an event spurred by a medfly quarantine preventing the farm from distributing its tomatoes and much of their other produce. The tomatoes could not leave the farm while raw, but they were safe if cooked for at least thirty minutes, so they let members come and cook their own tomato sauce on-site. Jeff and I canned ours in boiling water, and it seems to have worked well enough, but our equipment was less than satisfactory.
Then it turned out that the farm's current laying hens are about to stop laying enough to pay for their feed, so the farm is going to get rid of them. Jeff and I are buying five hens, four for stock and one for cooking. We used to freeze chicken stock, but that is inconvenient both because it takes up freezer space and because it has to be melted before use. So I bought a pressure canner, and its first run was with a few jars of beef stock.
If you're wondering what a pressure canner looks like, imagine a big burly aluminum pot with screws to hold the lid down and a pressure gauge on top. It's more or less a very large pressure cooker.
We used the first jar of our very own beef stock earlier this week in French onion soup. Needless to say, it was excellent and much more satisfying than the "beef-flavored stock" I have been buying out of laziness. Honestly, stock isn't very hard. It does take a bit of initial time investment, but it pays off in laziness at the end.
Speaking of Eatwell Farm, I made an amazing omelet a few weeks ago. Well, it probably wasn't as good as a gourmet chef could make, but it was both tasty and beautiful. I generally achieve tastiness to at least some degree, but beauty in my cooking is due more to luck than craft.
All of the major ingredients in this breakfast came from Eatwell Farm (eggs, onion, bell pepper, and potatoes). Technically I think the peppers were grown on another farm due to the quarantine, but they came in our CSA box.
You may have noticed that the menu did not include dessert. This was mostly because we were too tired to make a pie last night, but it was just as well; we got pretty full. Besides, Jeff made me a pumpkin pie for my birthday earlier this month, and we both enjoyed that mightily. Especially Jeff.
