Thanksgiving Menu Planning

Every year, I get excited about planning the Thanksgiving menu. I love to experiment with new and traditional dishes. We are keeping it very simple this year, but that doesn't mean it won't be special! Our gathering will be small and will include my Grandparents, my Dad, and my boyfriend and will include calls to many more family and friends! I am thankful for them all!

I am trying hard to keep the ingredients we use local with other preferences towards organic or free range (when we can swing it). I will be using homemade applesauce given to me from my Grandma in an applesauce cake to start Thanksgiving day. Our turkey is a free range turkey that was raised on a family operated farm in California. I actually called the store and asked someone in the meat department to give me the details about the turkey. I will also be purchasing locally made sausage (for our stuffing) at Pike Place Market this week. I will see what other ingredients I am able to find at the market, including potatoes. It is hard to find all locally grown and produced ingredients for your turkey dinner, but it feels good to try. Local farmers and merchants need our help!

In addition to planning a menu, I also enjoy decorating. What will I do for table decorations? I know for certain we will have a table with mismatched dishes and serving plates. That doesn't bother me one bit, however! It use to, but now the eclectic table setting feels more comfortable and welcoming (especially to guests) and less like we are going to spill or break something. I don't really have the money to spend buying a whole new set of matching dishes. If I did, I'd head to the thrift store where there are plenty of dishes to choose from (even plain white dishes you can decorate up to any holiday occasion). This year, I plan on using what we have. I also plan on taking a trip outside to the garden to find colorful branches, leaves, pine cones (whatever I can find) to add color and interest to the table. Another option is buying small pumpkins and gourds or other edible items you can decorate with now and eat later. In years past, I've cut oranges in half (scooped out the flesh) and placed a votive candle inside to create a small lantern that glows a glorious orange (if you do this, make sure to cut a small circle on the top to let out the heat). Whatever you do to decorate, there are many free and low cost options if you just use your imagination!

The best part of Thanksgiving for me is spending the day relaxing and eating with family and friends. I am thankful for many things in life, but I couldn't do it without my faith, my family, and my friends! I have much to recognize and be grateful for.

Thanksgiving Day Menu

• Breakfast: Homemade Applesauce Cake
• Hors d'oeuvre: King Crab Artichoke Dip
• Main Course: Barbecued Turkey
• Side Dish: Cornbread Sausage Stuffing with Sage
• Side Dish: Steamed Green Beans with Lemon Butter
• Side Dish: Whipped Sweet Potatoes
• Side Dish: Mashed Potatoes and Gravy
• Side Dish: Apple Cranberry Chutney
• Side Dish: Hot Biscuits
• Dessert: Lemon Meringue Pie
• Dessert: Pumpkin Walnut Pie with Whiskey Butter Sauce

How do you make your Thanksgiving Day special?

I Pledge Allegiance to My Garden

I hope you are enjoying your holiday weekend! I am visiting my Dad. I took the bus from Seattle to Gig Harbor and as such am sticking with the no spend July challenge in choosing to ride the bus instead of driving my car. A very affordable option - free! We have been entertained as all get out just staying put at home - watching movies on DVDs we already have, garden work, tasks around the house, evening bonfires, and watching the surrounding neighbors fireworks. There have been some pretty spectacular displays.

We have also been cooking all our meals from scratch so we have found no need to go out to eat. Our meals have been wonderful, including fresh salads from the garden each day. This is monumental for us. It is fun to see my Dad so excited eating produce he has grown himself. Really, what is more American than that!? I am convinced we can all be farmers in our own backyards. Very little effort is involved in growing salad greens.

It has been harvest time at my Dad's. His raised bed is to the brim with lettuce, kale, swiss chard, and tomatoes. The tomatoes are not ready yet but the salad greens are. I cut quite a bit of lettuce, washed it, and tossed it with some of our sugar snap peas and a few non-native ingredients like an avocado and bell peppers. I added in some crumbled feta and a lovely chive, parmesan vinaigrette. Tonight we are going to have another home grown salad, barbecued flank steak, a cucumber salad, roasted potatoes, and kale sauteed with garlic and olive oil. I am very thankful for this time with my Dad, for the beautiful weather, and for a wonderful country to call home. Happy 4th of July!

Seven Course Birthday Meal

This weekend I had the fantastic fortune of sharing it with my family. Particularly, with my Aunt and Uncle, Father, and Grandparents. Why the gathering? We were celebrating my Dad's 58th birthday. I love my Dad and I love celebrations. My Aunt Kathleen and I make a great team in the kitchen and together we created a culinary feast serving up a seven course dinner. We collaborated for a week, throwing out suggestions for favorite recipes. Below you will find a sample of our wonderful meal together!

Above. Our lovely table setting. We were going for an elegant, casual look. Despite the snowy landscape outside, we were able to find a simple winter bouquet for the table.

Above. Printed menus that Kathy created add a special touch to each place setting.

Above. We grilled artichokes and dipped them in homemade aioli. This was seriously one of my favorite courses of the evening! The salt and garlic drizzled on the artichokes during grilling paired wonderfully with the smokiness of the artichokes dipped in the creamy, garlic aioli.

Above. Does this look unfamiliar to you? To me it looks oddly like a gooey duck, but it is in fact horseradish! It was grown in my Uncle's backyard. He made a delicious sauce from it for our steak.

Above. Who needs coffee, when you can grate horseradish! If anything, it will wake you up in the morning. It's fresh and spicy and pairs well with sour cream and chives.

Above. We made a lovely caramelized apple bread pudding with a loaf of brioche. Our caramel sauce topping failed, but it was delicious without it!

Above. One more nod to my delicious artichoke. I peeled off each leaf one at a time, dipped them in the sauce, and stripped the flesh off the ends with my teeth. It is a process but it is worth it. And what is left at the end? The artichoke heart!

Above. This soup was amazing. It's a tomato soup pureed with chickpeas with some added spice. It has substance and a lot of flavor. I used the chickpeas I bought from the Palouse last fall, a can of tomatoes, chicken broth, and some crushed red pepper flakes.

Above. I bought red and golden beets at Pike Place Market and created this delicious salad with fresh greens, goat cheese, bacon bits, and a bacon vinaigrette dressing.

Above. I guess I'm not as sophisticated as I thought! To cleanse our palate, Kathy made us mint lime sorbet. To me it tasted like a mojito and I wished I would have had a couple more bites!

Above. And finally, the grand finale, our main course. We had grilled filet mignon with Michael's homemade horseradish sauce, steamed green beans with a balsamic cherry dressing, grilled pears with feta sprinkled on top, and roasted potatoes.

As I mentioned above, we finished the evening with bread pudding (no picture unfortunately) and some great conversation. We also passed around a bottle of wine Michael made himself. I couldn't of asked for a better day! And my Dad had a fantastic time. Happy Birthday, Papa!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas All!

Wishing you all much peace and joy as we enter the Christmas season. I am excited to have family and guests over for Christmas at my Dad's house including my Sister in New York, my Grandparents, and my Boyfriend and his Mother. Of course, I always get excited at the holidays because I get to cook a gourmet meal and I love entertaining and hosting visitors. Instead of the traditional turkey, ham, or roast (which are all delicious), I suggested fish. For our Christmas dinner we will be enjoying macadamia nut crusted seared halibut steaks with a citrus butter made of orange, lemon, and lime juices. We will also have sauteed green beans, a sweet potato wild rice pilaf, and baked red potatoes. For dessert we will have an apple crisp and sweet potato pie. Eating seasonally over the holidays can be difficult but I tried to incorporate items like fish and potatoes into the menu to offset some of the long distance ingredients like citrus and macadamia nuts. But then again, it's Christmas! If there is ever one day to splurge on the menu and be festive it would be then. Pictures of our dinner will appear in the coming days. In the meantime, I would love to hear what is on the menu for your Christmas dinner!?

Thanksgiving Blessings

I am back from a wonderful Thanksgiving break. I spent four days with my family in Gig Harbor. We enjoyed good food, fun games, enjoyable company, and lots of relaxation. Usually I spend a lot of time planning the Thanksgiving meal, but this year I wanted to keep it fairly simple but just as delicious as ever. So, what was on the menu? First, we spent a fair amount of time primping the turkey. But before I get into that, let me tell you where our turkey grew up. Nestled somewhere in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains in northern California at the Diestel Family Turkey Ranch, our turkey as far as I can tell, had a good life. She had plenty of space to roam around on the range, ate vegetarian meals, and lived at least six whole months (I know, I thought that was short too, but that is a longer life than your average commodity raised turkey). It is a good thing she lived that long because it gave her the time to develop great flavor! Her life began at the Ranch, ended at the Ranch, and soon after she was shipped to Metropolitan Market in Tacoma where my Dad picked her up with a big smile, knowing how happy we would all be to eat her.

But our turkey's story does not end there. To ensure she would be tender and juicy on Thanksgiving day we gave her a salty bath and brined her. To create the brine, we diluted 2 cups of salt in two gallons of water and added brown sugar, chipotle peppers, coriander seeds, a cinnamon stick, and plenty of bay leaves. We put the turkey in a brine bag (a giant turkey sized Ziploc) and secured it with a concoction of bungee cords to keep it in place and soaked her overnight. By doing this, we allowed the meat enough time to absorb the brine before cooking. The brine was drained and rinsed off and the turkey was rubbed down with butter before placing it on the BBQ to slowly cook over several hours. When it reached temperature, we removed it from the BBQ and let the meat rest, to give all the juices in the meat one last chance to redistribute creating a tender and moist turkey. The turkey was a success. It was smokey from the hours spent on the BBQ with a sweet and smokey undertone from the brine infused in every bite!

In addition to the turkey, we passed around cornbread stuffing with roasted garlic, spicy sausage, and sauteed vegetables with sage and butter. We had steamed green beans with garlic and lemon juice, gravy made from the brown bits of the turkey neck and giblets, sweet potatoes, and cranberry sauce with cinnamon and orange zest. For dessert, we enjoyed lemon meringue pie, pumpkin pie, sweet potato pie, and an apple crostata with a cheddar crust. For drinks, we had hot apple cider and a cocktail (Bug Juice) made of apple cider, cranberry juice, 99 Apples, Buttershots, and Bourban.

I am so thankful for my family, for a place to call home, for warmth, fresh air, freedom, faith, health, love, and for our feast featuring our delicious turkey! In life, there are so many blessings all around and this Thanksgiving reminded me that they are never too far away. Appreciating life as gift, there is no greater blessing.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Easter Menu Planning

I know it is Good Friday and I am planning a lavish feast! I should say a couple extra prayers tonight at mass. But in preparation for the feast of Easter, I better start planning the meal early. Two days early should be good enough ;) After all, I shop at too many different places, so I have to gather things along the way. First order of business is the menu planning. I am making every possible effort to eat with the season, buy my supplies as locally as possible, and if no other possibility exists- buy organic or from California! Do you think I can do it?

Here is what I am planning. Grilled salmon with a creamy leek sauce. Leeks are in season. Have you tried one before? They are like giant green onions but their flavor and fragrance are more subtle. The sauce for the salmon will be prepared by sautéing the leeks in dry white wine, then adding heavy cream, fresh chives, and chicken broth. These ingredients will be pureed until smooth and set aside for serving with the salmon. My sides will include a salad and potatoes. The salad I am choosing to make is a fresh herb salad with sliced red onion, and then tossed in a red wine vinaigrette. The potatoes will be roasted with garlic and salt and pepper, and then at the last minute, tossed with finely chopped lemon balm (which I am hoping has already started growing in the herb garden)!

I've already purchased the fish from a vendor in Pike Place Market. I bought fillets of fresh Columbia River King Salmon, caught yesterday. Then I walked around the vegetable stands throughout the market to purchase the herbs and potatoes but was disappointed to find that all of it was being shipped from California. My goal is to find produce from Washington State, preferably grown on the west side of the mountains. As local and seasonal and delicious as possible. I will be visiting the Proctor farmer's market in North Tacoma tomorrow. We will see what I can find. Stay tuned!...

A Close Look at a Seasonal Menu

I walked by Fresh Bistro today, a restaurant in West Seattle, just a few blocks from my house. I occasionally walk by and stare at the menu in their window. They are one of the unique restaurants in Seattle that use seasonal ingredients in their meals. From a creative standpoint, I am always curious about how they incorporate produce that is in season into their menu. So, I took a closer look and here is how they are being creative this month.