The past several years, my parents have gone to my sister’s for Thanksgiving. And she and her husband have made traditional Thanksgiving food (roast turkey, mashed potatoes, dressing from a package, gravy, and steamed broccoli).

This year, however, they shall be going to her in-laws because she’ll be too preggers to fly for Christmas.

So I get to make Thanksgiving for the second time ever. Really - just my second time cooking this mean, so I am not bored of the routine in the slightest.

So I called me mother to menu plan…

For the turkey… well, I was going to take a five or more year old free turkey from our deep freeze and turn it into something amazing through magic and impressiveness. My father, trusting neither my skill with freezer-burned meats nor the turkey in question, insisted on getting a fresh turkey. Apparently, it’s a very nice one, so I’ll go with a much simpler recipe than I had originally thought.

Actually, apparently, my mother isn’t waiting for me to think of a recipe at all. She bought a packet of turkey roasting herbs and the onion for it already. What herbs are these? Thyme, rosemary, and other things I still mostly have growing outside my apartment ready for final harvesting.

And for the vegetable, I am putting my foot down. All my father will eat for a green vegetable is either sugar snap peas or baby peas. Frozen. From green giant. And I declared that not enough vitamin content to count as worth my father’s time, so we’re having a green vegetable he won’t eat - namely, the last harvest of the swiss chard in my garden. So there.

My mother has already bought the sweet potatoes… because of my parents’ health issues, I’ll be making the traditional sweet potato casserole in individual-sized ramekins.

And then I was pondering the savoury starch option. Maybe mashed potatoes from scratch. Maybe I’ll make dressing from scratch. BUT my mother informs me she has already bought a (bag?) of Stove Top’s cornbread stuffing. Mer. So I’ll at least doctor it up a bit for fun and profit.

So all that’s left for fun is dessert. And I’m bad at desserts. I’m thinking of trying to make the old family recipe pecan pie. Unfortunately, I told my mother that, so I am betting that when I get there I will find either: a) a storebought Mrs. Smith’s pie or b) 2 brand new bottles of Caro, light and dark - even though I found half a dozen such bottles the last time I cleaned out their pantry, and I’m sure I left them one of each, kept one of each, and threw out several others.

It’s odd, because I’m pretty sure my mother understands how much fun I have with cooking and planning food. And I thought she trusted me to make fancy stuff still withing the limit of what my father’s bland tastes are willing to eat.

ETA: Oh, right - so one of the points of this whining. There’s still a random frozen turkey at my parents’ that they are never going to eat. And I have this plan for ethical meat consumption that goes: I’m going to eat all of the meat my parents have wastefully bought and then buried in their freezer. But turkeys are huge. Does anyone (well after Thanksgiving, because the turkey will keep) want to help me eat this turkey experiment? Or are you all afraid of the freezer taste, too?

menu planning & shopping lists

• Thursday - making dinner at parents’
  • soup
  • turkey
    • garlic
    • onion
    • herbs
    • soy sauce (take mine)
    • orange juice (buy)
  • savoury starch - stuffing from a bag
  • sweet starch - sweet potato casserole in individual ramekins
    • bring ramekins from home, and crappy baking sheet
    • mother already bought sweet potatoes
    • 2 egg whites
    • 1 orange (for zest and juice - bring zester from home
    • dairy until the right consistency
    • diced apples?
    • spices
    • marshmallows - does mom have?
  • cranberry stuff
  • green vegetables
  • dessert
• Saturday - making dinner for friends helping me winterize my apartment (also buy plastic for windows)
  • Chicken Raft
    • thaw chicken breast meat
    • get celery flakes from mom?
    • take a jar and retrieve bisquick from mom - and recipe
    • buy milk
  • Kenyan Collard Greens
• Sunday - fondue party
• Friday (12/11) - Food Blogger Potluck

So I’ve been reading a fairly dry report of urban/community farming in Philadelphia

And reading to the end pays off with this gem:

Beyond these instances, no other community gardeners reported selling their harvest – with the notable exception of the neighbor children who garden at the Fair Hill Burial Ground, who set up an occasional vegetable stand at 9th and Indiana, a corner formerly notorious for its heroin market (though they were part of a youth program run by Friends of Fair Hill Burial Ground).

We met some gardeners who described bartering relationships in which they and fellow gardeners trade vegetables for other goods and services on a very informal basis. One gardener boasted he traded food for the affections of women, and we don’t think he was joking.

Earlier, however, was an isolated mention about the decline of community farming in the ’80s in the area where I’ve been looking to move, specifically because of the abundance of available plots of land:

The interaction of these two trends – the aging of gardeners and the decline of support programs – was sometimes as important as each of these factors individually. Some of this predated the funding cuts, as the spread of drug activity and related crime drove gardeners off the land in Mantua, Belmont, and other neighborhoods. Crack addicts stealing cabbages and collards discouraged gardeners, and street-level drug gangs intimidated them.

Mer.

So I’ve been reading a fairly dry report of urban/community farming in Philadelphia

And reading to the end pays off with this gem:

Beyond these instances, no other community gardeners reported selling their harvest – with the notable exception of the neighbor children who garden at the Fair Hill Burial Ground, who set up an occasional vegetable stand at 9th and Indiana, a corner formerly notorious for its heroin market (though they were part of a youth program run by Friends of Fair Hill Burial Ground).

We met some gardeners who described bartering relationships in which they and fellow gardeners trade vegetables for other goods and services on a very informal basis. One gardener boasted he traded food for the affections of women, and we don’t think he was joking.

Earlier, however, was an isolated mention about the decline of community farming in the ’80s in the area where I’ve been looking to move, specifically because of the abundance of available plots of land:

The interaction of these two trends – the aging of gardeners and the decline of support programs – was sometimes as important as each of these factors individually. Some of this predated the funding cuts, as the spread of drug activity and related crime drove gardeners off the land in Mantua, Belmont, and other neighborhoods. Crack addicts stealing cabbages and collards discouraged gardeners, and street-level drug gangs intimidated them.

Mer.

When I first went to register this domain name, I was shocked that all permutations of nocounterspace were available despite its applicability to both cooking and interior design. 12 hours later, .com was taken. Grrr! Squatters!

But I said, “La la la - let them have .com - .net is good enough for me.”

A couple weeks ago, though, the squatter had the balls to email me and ask, “So didn’t you want this domain? Look it’s all shiny.”

And I wrote him a fun email denouncing the whole squatting thing and saying that I was perfectly happy with my .net anyway. Thank you.

Only, I randomly googled a little bit later, and all of a sudden the domain was free. Hee!

So, yeah, now nocounterspace.com will redirect here. (sorry, interior designers)

I ended up acquiring an abundance of food over the weekend (leftovers from my mother, a tempting farmers’ market, and a delightful cheese exchange - oh, and amazing fruitcake in the mail), so roasting is postponed.

Well, at least the part where I crack open the butternut squash… I am still looking longingly at the uncaramelized garlic and onions and things. Soon.

But my larder has an abundance, so that calls for a list to make sure everything is properly savored.

Food I have
Produce
1 hachiya persimmon
2 quinces
6 large red potatoes
cherry tomatoes (from neighbor’s tomato plants)
2 red and 3 green tomatoes (from mother’s tomato plants)
mixed tomatoes (adopted from friend’s refrigerator)
1 green cauliflower
4 radishes
1 sunchoke / Jerusalem artichoke
3 carrots
carrot greens
arugula
2 small leeks
hot peppers galore
4 limes
small chinese cabbage
3 parsley roots
1 rutabega
ginger
kale

orange juice
vegetable stock
most of a can of coconut milk (full fat)

leftover cooked vegetables (from a restaurant)
creole seasoned creamy corn sauce (from a restaurant)

dairy
smoked aged local cheddar
Prima Donna
a blue cheese
store brand extra sharp cheddar
cream cheese
2% milk
plain yogurt

meat
filet mignon leftovers
chicken raft leftovers
and one of the leftover containers from my mother looked like she accidentally gave me some of her concentrated ground beef cooked down with onions and tomatoes for filling lasagna.

chicken stock

red beans made with pork

Meals to make with that
I’ll make some carolina rice and freeze up the beans in lunch-sized portions

And then I want to make a bunch of small batches of soup -

• I bought the carrots for the carrot greens so I could see what they were like in my standard asian pork, greens, and noodles soup ETA: Done. Ummm… not as exciting as I’d hoped. It just tasted like its component parts and the greens never melted into the soup flavor. I have a leftover portion, so maybe they’ll end up better.
• While this recipe for Jerusalem artichoke soup with lemon and saffron sounds exciting, I think I’d rather try my first introduction to this tuber more simply… I’m a little worried, though, that most recipes seem to call for 3 parts potatoes to 2 parts jerusalem artichoke. Do you think that’s because the flavor is too strong (probably not, since they can be eaten raw) or because of the expense? I’ll let you know how it goes. ETA: Oooo - or I could turn it into risotto!
• Carrot Ginger Coconut Milk Soup (inspired by Orangette’s travels, possibly with this recipe as a starting point)

I still want to roast the cauliflower. I think that would tumble well with some of the tomatoes.

And I have a hankering for pasta. Possibly tossed with blue cheese and toasted pine nuts. But that’s not an efficient use of ingredients. I might have to use some of the blue cheese with the roasted cauliflower to make sure I get to it while it’s still tasty… hmmm.. or the cheese and cauliflower could add to the list of soups.

These Poached Quines will finally give me a use for my vanilla sugar.

I’ll probably make a colcannon type think with the parsley root and the kale. Or maybe the rutabega.

And as soon as I finish gobbling up the rocket with nibbles of the local smoked cheddar cheese, I’ll start making kale, tomato, and poached egg breakfasts.

So there are ideas maximizing the combinations, but now I have to figure out a schedule and get to it in time.

Which means I need to head home and make myself some dinner.

So it all started when I was hosting a bridge night at my house, and I thought that a nice low-work thing to serve would be various frozen dumplings steamed and fried. Turns out - this was an amazing plan!

And I made several dipping sauces to go with:

From The Thousand Recipe Chinese Cookbook by Gloria Bley Miller

Mustard Dressing (p.717)
1 Tablespoon powdered chinese mustard
2 Tablespoons soy sauce
2 Tablespoons vinegar
1 teaspoon sugar
a few drops of sesame oil

1. combine in a jar, cap tightly, and shake well to blend
2. refrigerate 3-4 hours to develop the flavor.

**verdict: nasty! Despite vigorous shaking, the mustard rose to the top and the whole thing tasted mostly of vinegar. This one got one taste and then wasn’t served that night.**

From Real Thai by Nancie McDermott

Nahm Jeem Gratiem
Sweet-Hot Garlic Sauce (p.189)

official proportions:
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup water
1/2 cup white vinegar
2 Tablespoons finely minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon chili-garlic sauce (tuong or toi sauce) or coarsely ground dried red chili

how I made it -
Brought to a boil:

• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar

And then added:

• 2 Tablespoons finely minced garlic
• 2 generous pinches of salt

Once it hit a rolling boil, reduced the heat and simmered until it thickened to a thin syrup (longer than the 20 minutes the recipe called for, but I didn’t make it too thick because it still had too cool and be dip-able).

Then I poured it into a jar already containing:

• and the tail end of a bottle of sambal olek (I guessed there was about 2 teaspoons there, but I could have been off)

And stirred. Then I tasted it and said, “Oh, god that’s good, but hella spicy!”

So I mixed up another batch of syrup:

• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 cup cider vinegar
• 1 Tablespoon finely minced garlic
• 2 generous pinches of salt

and added that to the jar and stirred.

**Verdict: This sauce is amazingly tasty! It was also amazingly hot served the day I made it. Oddly, two days later, when I went to steam up some leftover dumplings, it no longer seemed so hot. So either the sauce mellows, or I just like spicy food and don’t have to notice how odd that is when no one is looking… la la la! Still, even the people who didn’t like spicy agreed that it was an awesome sauce**

From Classic Chinese Cuisine by Nina Simonds

Dumpling Dipping Sauce II (p.112)
1/2 cup soy sauce
2 Tablespoons Chinese black vinegar
1 Tablespoon chili oil
(plus a pinch of sugar)

**Verdict: I thought it tasted amazing and made a double recipe, but I was promptly informed that while it was tasty, it was too hot. So I sliced some scallions in this one to differentiate it and went on to make…**

Dumpling Dipping Sauce I (p.112)
1/2 cup soy sauce
3 Tablespoons Chinese black vinegar
(plus a pinch of sugar)

**Verdict: So this was judged not to be the dipping sauce found in every chinese restaurant, but it was still found to be quite acceptable and very tasty.**

But even after eating up all of the tasty dumplings we hadn’t gotten through at bridge and after giving away about a third of the sweet-hot spicy sauce, I still had a ton of these dipping sauces left over.

So I thawed a pork loin roast.

After one evening in the fridge, it was thawed enough that I could take it out of the plastic back and score it with cross-hatched knife cuts. I put it back in the back and added some marinade:

• a couple ginger slices
• some 5 spice powder
• and about half a cup of the two dipping sauces combined (I just dumped the two containers together after people left, since I didn’t mind the heat)

And I left it for another night.

It still wasn’t completely thawed, but I went ahead and roasted it anyway - with three cloves stuck in the crosshatching cut into the fatty side, a light dusting of powdered thyme, and salt over the fat (because it’s tasty!).

I cooked it according to the directions in my Joy of Cooking. Pre-heat oven to 450F; insert roast and turn down to 350F; cook 30-35 minutes/pound. I was generous in my time estimate because it was still a bit frozen in the middle, but I ended up with thoroughly a cooked roast I would not have wanted to have in the oven all that much longer.

So that first night, I just cut off bites and ate it slathered in the sweet-hot garlic sauce to finish that off - they went together perfectly.

~*~

But now I have the rest of the (cooked) roast in my fridge. So I took a few slices of pork, cut them into strips and made wraps/quesadillas/soft tacos with them.

In a bit of olive oil, I grilled down

• half an onion, cut into short strips
• 2 jalepeno peppers with just the flesh (no seeds or white part) diced
• 4 cloves of garlic, sliced
• a little less that a tablespoon of pickled ginger, ripped into smaller pieces
• a fistful of baby carrots cut into matchsticks
• pork strips
• shredded napa cabbage
• and sprinkled over with black vinegar and some of the dipping sauce

Then I warmed a tortilla, piled on some lettuce from an oriental mix that had been on sale at my supermarket, and then put the pork/veggie mixture on top - and ate it. With a bit of homemade chinese mustard. Yum yum yum.

~*~

So last night, I not only still had leftover pork in my fridge (which I’ll get to next week), but also I had leftover wrap filling. So I put it on a salad.

Pretty much just more of that same salad mix, the rest of the filling popped into the microwave for a bit, and a salad dressing (made from a quarter of a teaspoon of chinese mustard, some plum sauce, some black vinegar, some more of the dipping sauce, and a dollop of honey).

The only thing I could have done to make it any better was slice up some more napa cabbage to refresh the cooked-down cabbage in the filling.

~*~

Now I have to figure out what to do with the rest of the roast (though sandwiches, with mayonnaise on white bread, are high up on the list).

ETA: There was also random fried rice (made from French red rice because I had acquired it randomly, and I thought its nuttiness would be kinda like brown rice and all that - it ended up being tasty food). It took a lot more work that brown rice to make the flavors play nice with the strong ricey ones.

It’s a pretty small studio apartment, and there have been things I’ve been doing without besides counter space.

I think it’s time I bought a trashcan. I have been living these past 4 years or so by just dangling those plastic grocery bags off the back of a chair, but I think it might be time to have a real trashcan.

What’s more, I finally figured out where in my tiny apartment one would fit.

So I’ve decided I want one just like this: tall, slim, and secretly holding a smaller bag (so I can still use the grocery bags instead of buying plastic bags - since that’s even stupider for the environment than the grocery jobbies). And then if I want something tall that still hold a little bag, there’s no reason not to have a recycle compartment underneath.

But - when did trash cans from target start costing $100? Right, so this one only costs $50 (50!), but that’s because it’s crap and three of four reviewers received the thing damaged. I would like one in metal. For $30. Where can I find that?

ETA: Oooo! This! I want this. For $30 - bitches. /ETA

Speaking of my tiny apartment, I am stuffing it to capacity (or over) this weekend. I have successfully managed 8 people with 2 tables for bridge before. I have even managed 8 people with one spectator before. I might have 10 bridge players and up to 2 spectators this Sunday. Yikes! Hopefully the weather will be nice enough that we can spill out into the back yard.

And I haven’t stocked up on snacks or drinks at all.

While we are at it - I am also boycotting the South Street Bridge and Northwest Airlines (ask me about my horror story).

And a few other businesses, but for more petty and less life-threatening reasons.