Thanksgiving

It was the food event of the year, 2009. Very traditional Thanksgiving meal - I ask family to bring appetizers and dessert, and I generally provide the rest. This year, it was turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing (both in and out of the bird), the ubiquitous green bean casserole, and dinner rolls. And gravy of course. There always has to be gravy.

The table setting....

Preparing the "bed" for the turkey

Stuffing - Pepperidge Farm bread cubes with onion and celery sauteed in butter. And chicken stock.

The sweet potatoes, with one set aside for the baby's dinner (well, one-quarter of one sweet potato - he may be a hungry baby, but he isn't that hungry). This was eventually topped with a butter/brown sugar/cinnamon/pecan mixture

The turkey, midway through - it got flipped at this point. This poor turkey was put through the wringer - brining, stuffing, roasting upside down....

And the buffet - thanks to my niece for adding a human touch

We can't forget dessert (and a little taste of the appetizers - a cheesy garlic roll) - spectacular pumpkin pie!

Cruncheh Chicken

As I near the end of my maternity leave, I find myself with a random assortment of garden produce (if not my own garden, then my parents'). Time to get my hands dirty and get rid of this stuff.

First off, we have a small butternut squash and a random green squash from my parents' house. I cubed these and coated them with brown sugar (not enough, as it turned out) and melted butter, then roasted them at 400 degrees for about an hour.


For the meat, I coated some boneless, skinless chicken with cornflake crumbs mixed with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and garlic powder. They were ok - I think the smoked paprika was a little overwhelming, but the husband roundly enjoyed them. They were also baked at 400 deg for about 30 minutes.

Served those items up with more zucchini casserole to get rid of a large zucchini from the garden (along with a carrot lingering in the fridge). V. tasty dinner (will add more brown sugar to the squash for round 2 with this meal!)

Bumper crops

As a lot of people know, home gardens in August and September are busy places - at least in central Ohio. We have HUGE amounts of tomatoes and startlingly high yields of bell peppers this year. It was time to pay the piper and do something with the produce (although, to be fair, I've already put up around 100 lbs of tomatoes).

Ground beef on the stove....


Here are some pepper specimens - these puppies are bigger than what you'd buy in the store



Sauteed up with some onions for tacos


Tomatoes and peppers are being made into chili - although this turned into "kitchen sink" chili - I threw in a handful of lentils I had in the cupboard and grated in about half of a garden zucchini as well.


We have probably another 15-20 bell peppers on the way - stuffed peppers are definitely in the future...any other ideas?

New Year's Dinner

I decided we needed a mildly flashy New Year's dinner, and since I'm a beef kick, we had a roast beef. I've made this before and have surely blogged about it, so suffer through it again!

First, I lay a nest for the beef - garlic, onion, carrot. I'm using my cast iron skillet because I'm trying to be better about using it.


And then, the 3 lb eye of round roast can be nestled on its nest.


That baked at 325 degrees for about an hour and a half - I pulled it out when it hit 130 degrees. I drained the pan, taking out the veg and random herbs, and put the pan juices back in. I added a hefty pat of butter.


Meanwhile, the beef rests. Hello there Mr. Beef.


I added flour to the fat in the pan, and got a roux working, then added in some beef stock, Worcestershire sauce, salt, and pepper. Oh, and a tiny dab of Dijon, because I thought the gravy tasted too fatty.


Then I sliced that beef and served it up with some potatoes, roasted asparagus, and a roll. Because we're fancy like that.

It was quite tasty and Miss Daisy enjoyed licking a lot of pots!

More canning fun

This past weekend, I did more canning. We have tomatoes coming out of our ears, and a fair number of jalapenos, too.

I made an unsuccessful pepper jelly - it didn't gel, so it is now in the fridge awaiting a future fate - but here is a picture from when I was still hopeful.


And of course, tomatoes.

More canning fun

And the weekend brought with it the arrival of my Mom's pressure canner and thus, more tomato canning.

First, I spent about 45 minutes peeling and semi-deseeding a lot of tomatoes, here is about 1/4 of the tomatoes:


And then Mr. R took over so I could sterilize the needed jars, rings, and lids (after a trip to the WalMart):


Then I got the tomatoes heating up so they could be "hot packed" My books all debated the merit of hot packing vs. cold vs. raw packing, so I opted for the safest.


And then began filling the jars - a bit of a messy proposition. I could have used a funnel-like device, but it wasn't a big deal - I was only dealing with 10 jars. I also added a squirt of bottled lemon juice to each jar, just to be extra sure that the acidity levels were up.


And into the canner they go - about 10 minutes to vent the release valve then 15 minutes of actual pressurized canning. Then an hour cool down.


In the interim, I strained the pulpy, seedy juice that was left behind (and not used in the jars) to make a tomato juice-like substance - I can use this when I make homemade marinara sauce or to flavor rice.


And here are the cans - the tomatoes lost a little bit of their red color and separated from the water a bit, but all the cans sealed - a success!

Putting up tomatoes

So, as stated early, we have a burgeoning problem in the form of too many garden items.


So, I was a bit bored on Friday and thought, why not try drying and canning some tomatoes? My first purchase of Ball canning jars. A momentous occasion. I have warm feelings towards Ball canning jars in the manner of Mr. Garrison Keillor who has extolled the virtue of home canning on numerous occasions. If anyone has time and can find the PHC monologue on this topic from the late 90s, please tell me.


I sliced a LOT of tomatoes and laid them out on baking sheets - Romas and cherries alike - with some salt, pepper, olive oil, and garlic.


3-4 hours later (for cherries, more like 5-6 for romas) we have shriveled little tomato blobs.


Then I got my jars going - several minutes in boiling water to sterilize


The tomatoes needed more acid - so they took a bath in some boiling vinegar



Then, into the hot hot jars

The jars, lidded and ringed, then spent a solid 35 minutes in boiling water themselves, in order to encourage the jars to seal (and by jars, I mean one jar - 3 baking sheets of tomatoes yielded a pint of sundried jarred tomatoes) Voila!


Well, at this point, the canning bug had bit me pretty good - so I went and took advantage of $.99/lb peaches and canned some of those as well. This time, I got three jars out of the batch.


Yay for preserving! Here's hoping there's no botulism!

Zucchini lasagna - more ways to use garden zucchini

I have yet more zucchini to use up, so I went to an old family standby - the zucchini lasagna. Luckily, unlike a summer many years ago, I only made ONE lasagna, not years' worth of lasagna.

First, the veggies had to be dealt with - two medium onions and one small green pepper from my dad's garden


Those were added to a pound of ground beef and two links of Italian sausage to brown up:


Then I chopped up our "star" ingredient, the zucchini:


And grated cheese, in this case mozzarella and pecorino romano:


And got the filling together - ricotta, herbs, salt/pepper, and an egg:


Meanwhile, I added in the remaining tomato sauce from last week into the meat/veg sauce:


Then I looked at the filling again and decided it needed to be thinner, hence, another egg:


And prepared the pan with a large ladleful of the sauce:


Then began the layering - sauce, noodles, zucchini, ricotta filling, cheese...


Until I filled the pan


I baked this at 375 degrees for probably close to an hour - I covered it with foil for the first 3/4 and then took it off towards the end (when I failed to photograph it). I also made some breadsticks with the remaining pizza dough - dough, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and some Parmesan cheese.


It was pretty good - I definitely needed more sauce, it was a tiny bit dry. I still have more than half a pack of lasagna noodles, though, so I can probably take another crack at it if I desire...I'm sure we've got more zucchini lurking in the fridge.

Homemade tomato sauce

So, the tomatoes are coming in. And the basil. And other veg. My father has a ginormous garden, so he sent me up a dozen and a half or so Roma tomatoes. I decided to make a quick marinara sauce to serve on pizza (the lengths I go to in order to avoid the store).

First, we have our Romas. I did not want the skins in the sauce, nor most of the seeds, so some prep was required. I cut a small cross in the bottoms of each tomato, and plunged them into boiling water for about 30 to 60 seconds. Just enough to loosen or start to split the skins. Then, they are placed in an ice bath to stop the cooking and get them to a temperature where they can be easily handled. The skins should easily peel off at this point. I give them a good squeeze into the sink (and all over the wall, myself, the countertop, usually) to get out the bulk of the seeds and what little juice is inside.


Meanwhile, two medium onions are sauteeing in a pot on the stove.


Then some carrots too - three small/medium carrots peeled and roughly chopped.


Then I figured, what the heck, and tossed in one medium chopped zucchini and a few garlic cloves - I also added some salt at this point, along with black pepper and red pepper flakes.


And in go the naked tomatoes - I smash them up a bit with a wooden spoon, but generally allow the heat to do most of the work.


Once the mixture gets rolling, I added some bay leaves, a few sprigs of thyme from the garden, and other Italiany seasonings - oregano, etc. I also added more salt at this point and eventually, a scant teaspoon of sugar to cut the tomato acidity.


Once the tomatoes were broken down and the other veg totally soft, I removed the bay leaves and thyme stems, and put my boat motor to work to make a spreadable sauce. Here the sauce is, in its pizza glory (on a giant pizza - I was very hungry and didn't realize how much dough I grabbed from the fridge)


Topped it with some pepperoni, fresh mozzarella, grated provolone/regular mozzarella, parmesan, fresh basil from the garden and remaining Roma tomatoes. I also forgot to brush the crust with olive oil, oh well.


And here is the giant pizza after about 12 minutes in a 475 degree oven - golden and bubbly.


I didn't eat all this - I split part of it with Mr. R - even we are that greedy. :)