USA: Thanksgiving!

If there is a meal that defines American cooking, I would have to say it is Thanksgiving dinner.  Thanksgiving is the quintessential American holiday, and this year due to conflicts of one kind and another, neither one of my parents would be able to travel to Virginia to see us for the holiday.  This meant that I was on my own for cooking a Thanksgiving dinner for the first time ever.  I had hosted a Thanksgiving dinner for friends some time ago when Michael and I were here and the rest of the family had other obligations, but never had I done the whole thing myself.  So I was tremendously excited to do it.

Now typically, my dad is the bird maker, and he makes a wonderful stuffing and turkey.  However, I have never been able to faithfully recreate his stuffing and so I decided to go with my mother-in-law’s recipe, which she gave me while visiting over Veteran’s Day.  My friend Cindy suggested baking the turkey in a bag to keep it moister. 

I also decided to make an apple pie from scratch.  The crust and everything.  I have always wondered if I’d be able to do this, because I am from the “unroll the pie crust from the sheet of plastic and put it in the pan” school of pie baking (love Pillsbury pie dough!).  But as the old saying goes, “American as Apple Pie!” so I was going to add that to my repertoire.  I remembered Alton Brown did a show either on apples or pie a while ago and he talked about cooking the filling first so that the crust didn’t get soggy and the filling wasn’t runny, and that concept really appealed to me.  I started with his baking book, but his only pie recipe in there was one for a galette, and I wanted a 2 crust pie, traditional, old school.  So I turned to The Joy Of Cooking and found a recipe that seemed like just what I wanted.

So, it was time to plan.  I’m big on planning when I have a big task, and I decided I’d bake the pie the night before.  The JOC recommended certain apples to be used in pie, so I went with Gala, since Wegman’s had them front and center in the produce department when I went.  I got 3 pounds, per the directions, but honestly, in the future, I might get a couple more, they do cook down and eventually I thought the pie was a little big flat, I would have liked it to be taller.  But I digress. 

I started out peeling all the apples, and immediately the peeler slipped and I peeled off a chunk of fingernail.  I didn’t even know such a thing was possible, and let me tell you, it HURT!  So I washed my finger out, bandaged it up and went back to peeling.  Here you can see my peels and my peeled apple and my bandaged finger!  I used to think what a terrible waste all those peels were, but now that I have a rabbit, I have a built in fruit and vegetable peel disposal system.  He LOVED Thanksgiving, let me tell ya!

So, once I got the peels disposed of, I used my slicer corer, a magnificent invention that allowed my apple pieces to be uniform!  Hurrah!

Next up was to melt some butter and add my apple slices and coat them with the butter.  Then I added sugar and cinnamon and let it cook down till it made a nice syrupy kind of concoction on the apples and once they were done, I spread them out on a baking sheet to cool.

  Then it was time to turn my attention to the crust.  While JOC recommends using a pastry cutter, a lot of Food Network chefs make their dough in a food processor, so I decided to go that route, it seemed easier.

A crust is a pretty basic thing, cold shortening, sugar, flour, a pinch of salt, and ice water.  I used a combination of Crisco and butter since I wanted it to be a little bit buttery.

I turned it on and I have to say, I was a bit underwhelmed at the success of this endeavor.  I think maybe my food processor is too small to handle this kind of task.

Once I got the butter and Crisco and dried ingredients mixed, I dribbled in the ice water.  I measured out the correct amount of water first and then added ice.  I presume this is the correct way to do it.

Once the water was in there, the whole thing went more smoothly, but it was not easy when at first the fats didn’t want to combine with the solids.  Eventually, though I had a pretty decent looking dough

I shaped it into a disk and refrigerated it while the apples cooled off.

When all was ready, it was finally time to assemble the pie.  I had to roll out the dough, which I am really not good at.  I have the world’s worst rolling pin—it’s the Pampered Chef pin, which actually does a good job rolling things, but it is not great in terms of rolling out large circles.  So I opted to use a wine bottle instead, as it’s larger and easier to roll.  I need to get a real rolling pin one of these old days.

Once I’d rolled out two different circles, I put one aside and put one in my pie plate.  Then I added the apples!  I decided to get fancy with the top crust since it needed to have cuts in it to vent any steam that might be in there.  I got out my mini cookie cutters and found the apple cutter and made two little apple cuts in the top crust before putting in on the pie.  Then I had to crimp the edges, at which I also SUCK!

You can see I put my little apple cutouts on the other side of the crust.  My crust is all lopsided on account of the fact I am a craptastic crimper.  Oh well!

About halfway through baking, I smelled the crust getting kind of crisp, so I went ahead and did my best to wrap aluminum foil around the edges, but this was of limited success (pie pans that have been in the oven are REALLY hot!)!  Eventually, I pulled the pie out and removed the foil and the edges DID get a little crisp, but I have to say, I think my first from-scratch pie looks pretty darned good!

 

Mmmmmmmmmmm, pie!

So the next morning it was time for the main event—I get to make a turkey from scratch all by my lonesome for the first time ever for Thanksgiving dinner.  I’m glad I did this in retrospect because my husband and I have signed up to host an exchange student and I’m excited that I’ll be able to prepare her Thanksgiving dinner this year.

Now, I must be honest, I was a bit of a disaster on Thanksgiving in the kitchen.  Already I had peeled my fingernail.  Before the day was out, I’d be hosting a burn and a grated knuckle. Right off the bat when I cut the turkey open, it was A) still frozen and B) of the mind to leak all over the place.  Thanks, bird.

So, as I said, I decided to go with my mother-in-law’s stuffing recipe this year.  I gathered all the ingredients she suggested, and she was adamant about the Pepperidge Farm stuffing in the BLUE bag, not any other color, so I made darned sure when I was shopping that I got the blue bag.

It was a pretty basic recipe requiring only a few ingredients—namely butter, Italian sausage, celery, onions, and the stuffing mix.  I started off by chopping up the vegetables pretty finely.  (As an aside, hilariously Michael refused to tell me about the celery and onions when his mom was giving him the recipe over the phone.  She later asked me if I’d used celery! haha)

Once that was done, I sauteed the veggies and sausage in a frying pan till everything was cooked through and nice and soft.

I added this mixture to the stuffing mix in a big bowl and then melted a stick of butter and poured it into the bowl as well.

I combined it all together and then Sheila suggested I add water a little bit at a time, mixing well, until it looked “stuffingy”.  That’s exactly what I did, and voila!  Stuffing!

I know there are people who flat out refuse to put their stuffing inside the turkey cavity, but I am not one of them.  Don’t I look excited to be stuffing a turkey!?

All that stuffing stuffed in, I melted another stick of better and poured it over the turkey and into the bag.  My sister said I needed to look more excited about butter, so I present to you my before and after pictures!

That done, I sealed up the bag and cut a couple of slits in it, and popped that poultry in the oven!

The smell of that turkey was totally mouthwatering, I must say.  I was never so glad to take a turkey out of the oven in my life!!!!

I had a little bit of trouble getting it out of the bag and the pan.  I channeled my inner Uncle Buck "(“This is where we separate the men from the boys!”) and used a big slotted spoon and a fork, but it still fell back into the pan and splattered me with hot grease.  Then my sister got in on it and held the platter a bit closer, and we got it plated.  It looked SLIGHTLY the worse for wear, but still pretty darned good!

In addition to turkey, we had broccoli casserole (I grated my knuckle grating Swiss cheese for that!), mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and corn.

  Honestly, even just writing this, I’m kind of choked up with pride in my own accomplishment.  GO ME! :-)  We had company over for dessert and I didn’t get a picture of the apple pie, but you can take it from me, it was awesome.  YUMMY!  Not runny at all.  The only thing I’d do is add even more apples next time—the pie was a little bit thin, I like a packed pie.

So even though it’s already New Year’s, happy cooking!!!  :-)

A Burst of Sunshine

It has been raining in Virginia pretty much nonstop for about 15 years.  Ok, that’s a slight exaggeration, but it’s definitely been some dreary weather.  My friend Emily of 80 Plates Ecuador fame emailed and asked if I was ready to learn some Mexican cuisine and mentioned beverages.  I hadn’t really considered finding out if different countries had a beverage, but I was intrigued at rounding out some of the cooking we’ve done using beverage recipes.

So the other night, I was upstairs pondering the map and talking things over with the General and we made a list of potential countries.  One of them was Panama.  I went online yesterday to find Panamanian cuisine and voila!  I found a site by a couple of returned Peace Corps volunteers who had a recipe for limonada (Lemonade).  According to them, during citrus season in Panama, there are so many lemons, you can’t give them away, much less sell them, so a popular thing to do is to make lemonade.

I suggested it to Michael as something we try and he agreed!  I had 2/3 of the ingredients and decided to pick up some extra lemons today and we’d have limonada with our dinner, which incidentally was a repeat of Greece.  I wanted souvlaki, damnit!

Ok, so it’s pretty easy to make limonada.  All you do is boil up a cup of water and mix in something called raspadura, which is a type of sugar.  Unfortunately, my stores don’t carry raspadura, and yes, I checked several.  The recipe suggested that I substitute dark brown cane sugar or molasses if I couldn’t get hold of raspadura, so I used some Sugar In the Raw that I’ve had in my pantry for forever.

My burner still appears purple.  If ever stoves are made with purple burners, I want full credit and also the first one to roll off the assembly line.  It looks awesome.

Anyway, once the water has boiled, you toss in either 1 cake of raspadura or a half cup of whatever sugar you are using as a substitute and then stir it around until it is dissolved.

Then let it cool!

In the meantime, I juiced a pile of lemons with my food processor, which I had out for juicing the lemons for the souvlaki.

 I just love my little daisy made out of lemons :-)  You will need a cup of fresh lemon juice.  Add that to 4 cups of water, and then toss in the raspadura/water syrup.

Then all you do is combine it real well and you’re ready to drink!

I guess because of the fact you are using a sugar that is not white, the limonada comes out a different color than if you are making a more traditional American lemonade.  It was almost a cross between lemonade and apple juice colorwise.

I decided to gussy up the glasses, since Leah was giving the General and I a hard time this evening.  I rimmed them in sugar and added a lemon slice.

And actually, I was pretty glad I did!  Despite the fact that the sugar water is pretty sweet, there is almost a bitterness about the drink.  The sugar made it a bit more palatable for me.  Michael didn’t much care either way.

We both enjoyed it very much indeed and it was a nice, quick treat and another country on the books!  When life hands you lemons, make limonada!     

The Verdict is In!

Heard back from my friend Tom in New Zealand this morning:

Heh, I guess I should have known that someone who is ambitiously setting out around the world with cooking would be able to handle the challenge of the pav. Well done, and I laughed at Mike wanting only the sweet version.

Kiwi Cookin'

So as you know, we didn't get to New Zealand during the blizzard due to our lack of supplies for the traditional NZ dessert, pavlova. A pavlova is a traditional dessert from New Zealand which was created in honor of Russian ballet dancer Anna Pavlova. There is some debate as to whether the dessert was invented in Australia or New Zealand, but the earliest recorded recipe in print was in a New Zealand recipe book, so I firmly claim it as a New Zealand thing. Apparently, this is a source of some contention between the two countries, as is evidenced by this amusing advertisement which I found on line.

Ok, well as it turns out, one of my two very good friends from graduate school married a Kiwi (the kiwi [the bird, not the fruit] being the national symbol of New Zealand) and moved to New Zealand. So I dropped him a line on Facebook the other day, inquiring after how they were doing and explaining my intention to make a pavlova. Tom responded this morning with words that chilled my heart:

Wow, that is a brave thing to do! It has been 10 years since I last tried a pav, and it fell completely. It is sometimes considered a rite of initiation as a classic kiwi chef, which I guess I am not. So, I would not take any tips from myself on that one.

Well okay then. If someone from that very country considers this a challenge, what is little ole me going to do with it? It made me thing of the old saying "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." But again, in for a penny, in for a pound. I'd already spent five freakin' dollars on raspberries for this sucker, and despite my profound love of raspberries, I bought them with this express purpose in mind and I was darned sure going to use them for it.

I googled some recipes and came upon one from somebody called Peggy Trowbridge Filippone. I can't vouch for its authenticity in terms of its New Zealandness other than to say she called it a New Zealand Pavlova, nor am I sure exactly where I found it--I didn't bookmark it after printing it out. So if you want the recipe, please email me and I will happily send it to you via email.

So today was a good day to bake. I had the afternoon free, which was good because according to the recipe, you bake a pav for an hour and then you let it sit in the oven until the oven goes cold or overnight. So it needed some time, since we were darn sure going to eat it tonight!



Pavlova is actually a pretty easy dish if you get all your stuff together first before attempting it. What you are basically doing is creating a meringue of sorts and then topping it with whipped cream and fruit and chocolate. If you have experience with meringues, it will help you a lot. I like to make meringue cookies for Christmas, and while this is a different technique for making a meringue type substance, I think you will find it to be similar in many ways.

So in reading the directions, it tells you to line a shallow jelly roll pan with a piece of parchment paper. A bit later on, it tells you to mound your meringue in a roughly 6 inch circle. So I used one of our cereal bowls and traced it on one side of the paper and put the written on side down. I could faintly see the circle from the other side and it gave me a nice guide to what I was doing. I took a picture, but it's really hard to see. I'm sure you know what a circle on a piece of paper looks like, however. I also preheated the oven to 400 degrees.

Ok, now the directions said to sprinkle cream of tartar over egg whites and then add in corn starch and superfine sugar that have been whisked together. I decided to have the corn starch/sugar mixture together before starting whisking the eggs so that I was that much more prepared. Let me again extol the virtues of my Kitchen Aid stand mixer. It is so powerful that whisking the whites and tartar together till stiff was a quick job. It took 2 minutes tops, and I doubt it took that long. Once they were nicely combined, I jacked it to top speed and let it roll.

Then it was time to add the sugar and cornstarch, one tablespoon at a time while the mixer is on medium speed. Please note that superfine sugar is NOT the same as confectioner's sugar. In fact, Ms. Trowbridge Filippone suggests that if you can't get superfine sugar, you take regular granulated sugar and grind the heck out of it in your food processor until it is very fine. Once you begin dropping the tablespoonsful of sugar in, the meringue comes together very quickly. It becomes beautiful and pearly colored, very shiny and very white.

Once this is accomplished, it's time to fold in some vanilla extract. I always get nervous when I'm folding that I'm going to over-fold it and the whole thing will collapse or I'll beat the air out of it. I've seen a technique by Alton Brown on the Food Network that I tend to use, which basically involves kind of a cutting motion through the middle of whatever it is you're folding and just going till everything is incorporated. So I let it go till everything looked like it was in there, and then it was time to put it on the sheet and in the oven.



While I may not be a champion folder, I'm a pretty good mounder. :-)

I put it in the oven and immediately dropped the temperature to 200 degrees, per the directions. Then it bakes for an hour. And then you turn off the oven and you let it sit. And sit and sit and sit. I let our sit for about 4 hours after I turned the oven off.

So after dinner, it was time to chop up the fruit and prepare the whipped cream. The whipped cream was supposed to be 'lightly sweetened'. When I make whipped cream, all I do is sprinkle some powdered sugar on top of heavy cream and let it go with the mixer. I may have overdone the sugar just a tad--it got away from me and I probably put in a tablespoon where I meant to put in a teaspoon. Next time, use the spoon, don't sprinkle from the bag! Next it was time to chop the fruit. As you can see, I used a variety--peaches, kiwi, strawberries, and raspberries. From my reading, it appears the fruit topping you choose is regional by country. For instance, the UK is getting into pavs big time and is hot on raspberries on theirs. It seems important that contrasting flavors are used, some sweet and some tart, and two of the combinations listed on Wikipedia were combinations I used--peaches and berries and strawberries and kiwi.

So this is what my pavlova looked like when I took it out of the oven:



Now, according to Trowbridge Filippone, the fruit goes on and then you top it with whipped cream. Now, in my extensive Google image search research, I did not find a single picture of a pav in which the fruit was not on top of the whipped cream. In fact, the picture in the print out from her recipe shows the fruit on top of the whipped cream. So this is what I did. I spread on the whipped cream, added the fruit, and then sprinkled mini chocolate chips over it.




Now, the meringue base did crack a little bit under the weight of the fruit and whipped cream, but nothing awful. It was quite airy to begin with and so consequently I think the top collapsed a little bit, but as you can see from the following picture of the General with the pav, it actually held up beautifully.



So it was time for a taste test! We dug in and oh what a treat we were in store for! The outside of the pav is crunchy like you'd expect a dry meringue to be, but the inside is chewy, almost like marshmallow. The shell is sweet and the whipped cream is sweet, so a tart fruit on top is a must. In fact, if we have this again, I intend to have just raspberries and chocolate on the next one. They are the perfect combination for a pav in my mind. I took a couple of close pictures to try and get you the sense of what the marshmallowy part of the pav is like.



As you can see, it's rather dense in there. Once the cream and fruit fell through the crisp outer shell on top, it was stopped by this delightful marshmallowy stuff.

The General liked it, although he picked off all the fruit. He would prefer it with just chocolate chips the next time, and when I packed some up for his lunch, I didn't include fruit with it, just chocolate.

The wonderful thing about it is that a little piece goes a long way and it is made with egg whites, which counterbalances the heavy cream a bit :-) Seriously, we each had a piece and I packed some up for the General's lunch and we have half a pav left.

It was a fun experience and I was glad to have succeeded pretty well! I'll be looking forward to Tom's feedback on how I did, seeing as he's a native, and hopefully I'll get passing marks!

No idea what country's next--we are getting close to baby's arrival date, so I don't want to plan too much in advance, but is anyone interested in coming over for an Italian night? I'm going to make tagliatelle bolognese and a carbonara dish, but pasta is big and filling and hearty, so I definitely need to plan for a crowd! I was thinking March 28th if that works for anyone/everyone? Let me know!!! The more the merrier!