The Economical Kitchen-Bountiful Baskets Edition

Yesterday, a friend of mine shared a link to an article that identified ten American foods that other countries have prohibited because much of our food, as we know, is total junk. Of course, everything we read on the Internet has to be taken with a grain of salt; however, we all know that the food situation in America is problematic on a myriad of levels. I've been thinking on the issue of sustainability, environmental responsibility, and most importantly, the health of friends and family due to food we eat.

The scene of the crime in a local elementary school parking lot.

So glory be! I finally got online at the right time to buy a Bountiful Basket! I tried a couple of times before my dissertation ate my life to get one, but the attempts were halfhearted at best. What's a bountiful basket? This is a co-op run by volunteers. Baskets cost $15 ($25 for organic) and you can add on other options from the website (40 lbs of honey crisp apples, anyone?). You will also pay a one-time fee of $3.00 for your first basket, and a small processing fee ($1.50-$3.50 ) each time (this may vary depending on what part of the country you're in). The fees are so that every penny of your $15 can go towards food. The point is Bountiful Baskets is three-fold: 1) To give people an opportunity to buy wholesale fruit and veggies, allowing folks to eat healthier for less money, 2) To include local and thus more environmentally responsible produce as the bulk of the food offering, and 3) To foster a sense of community and understanding where our food comes from.

It's a terribly dreary day (which I love), so I'm sorry the pictures aren't cheerier.

It's a pretty cool deal. You can go to their website (see the above link) to get the scoop, but basically, they offer baskets on Saturdays on a rotating basis. There are A groups and B groups that flip-flop every weekend (this weekend I'm going to an A group. I could do that every two weeks, or I could do a B group the weekend after if I wanted a basket every week). Check the website for locations (this co-op is all over the nation, btw, so check it out even if you're not in the Dallas area). I'm lucky enough that there is a pick-up site about five minutes from my front door. Basket buying begins on Mondays at noon. Some of the sites sell out quickly, which is why I missed getting a basket in the past.

This week, however, I was determined. So there I was at work, frantically grading papers with the BB website up on my laptop. I had my alarm set for 11:58 so I wouldn't miss the opening, but I also had a conference call to dial into at noon. Oh, THE PRESSURE. Anyway, it was fine. The leader for the call was five minutes late and the baskets did not sell out in the thirty seconds it took my to get my s@#$ together.

I was so excited to get my baskets (they sort everyone's produce into laundry baskets, but you have to bring your own baskets/bags to take things home in). And look at my treasures!

I think this is a great deal for $15! Six apples, 7 bananas, a cantaloupe, a big bag of grapes, 3 small potatoes, one large bag of Yukon potatoes, 3 huge onions, 3 cucumbers, one bunch lettuce, one big bundle of celery, a bag of carrots, and two giant sweet potatoes. It's kind of an adventure because you don't know what you're going to get.

I know right off that I wouldn't eat the cantaloupe before it went bad, so I found a recipe for Vanilla Cantaloupe Jam. Vanilla and cantaloupe together are a revelation! Who knew?

My little bountiful basket cantaloupe became a lovely pot of jam, which became this:

There was a bit more, but in all honesty, I ate it. With gusto. 

My sweet potatoes became the Rosemary Sweet Potato Gratin I linked to a few weeks ago. It was wonderful.

So here's my review: the people were really nice and I got a ton of produce that was in excellent condition. I like not having to pay the grocery store for being a middle man or taking home more plastic sacks. I did not love standing around for 25 minutes in the freezing cold waiting to get my basket, but I thought that overall, this is a worthwhile effort, particularly if your family is on a tight grocery budget but you really want to eat more fruits and veggies.

After the Fact: Thanksgiving Dressing on Black Friday

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday! Ours was full of the usual shenanigans. My dad walked in the kitchen a the crack of dawn, gave everyone their duties in drill-sergeant fashion, and then looked in my direction and made an announcement about no one getting sauced before lunch. Well, damn. So, as we careened from great successes (the scalloped potatoes were glorious, as was the homemade pumpkin pie from the puree I made last month) to some disasters (the convection oven dried out the top layer of turkey breast, which had to be surgically repaired by no less than five people before serving). However, we were only 45 minutes late in getting the meal on the table and no one got completely sauced before lunch. Promise. There's one area of our Thanksgiving dinners that remains totally unsatisfactory, however. Dressing.

This is an area of debate at my house. My mom likes her mom's cornbread dressing, but we can't ever get it quite right. We've tried a variety of bread dressing recipes, but someone always hates it. My dad has long since thrown in the towel and requests Stove Top purely out the desire for stress-less consistency. This year, we had a complete break down. Mom threw on three boxes of Stove Top at Dad's request, in all the chaos the burner got jacked up, and my sister and I kept looking at each other asking, "Is something burning?" as we poured another glass of wine. Well, gentle readers, the Stove Top was burnt tar-black to the bottom of the pot, and it was the proverbial blessing in disguise. I always feel obligated to eat a bit of it because I love dressing! I want it! I crave it! And then I elegantly spit it into my napkin and feed the rest to the small, prowling dogs under the table. Sigh. We had a dressing-less Thanksgiving meal, and our guests were too gracious to mention it.

Today is Black Friday, and I still want some freaking dressing. Everyone has gone, and it's just me and my parents at the house. I decided that today, today was going to be the day I would conquer the dressing debacle that has plagued us for years! So I surveyed the grocery contents and went searching online for a recipe. I adapted this recipe for Sage Dressing.

First, to survey the bread. On hand, we had a nice loaf of honey wheat and some leftover hotdog and hamburger buns. In the interest of economics, I cubed up about 6 slices of bread, two hotdog buns my 11 year old had mangled and left in the bag (sounds delicious, I know), and a hamburger bun. I sprinkled them with about a teaspoon fresh, chopped rosemary and toasted them in the oven until they were mildly crunchy.

I didn't have any leek or mushroom, so I chopped up about a 2/3 a cup of celery left over from the veggie tray, 1/2 cup of the worst onion I've ever cut up (picture me sobbing over the cutting board, the gases were so strong), and two cloves garlic. I sauteed the veggies in about a tablespoon of leftover orange-rosemary butter and about 3 tablespoons of fat I'd skimmed off the stock we made and reserved. When the veggies were cooked down a bit, I added salt, white pepper, and a half cup of white wine. I let it reduce a bit, and took the pan off the burner. To the veggies I added 1 t dried, ground sage, 1 t dried marjoram, 1T fresh chopped sage and 1 t fresh chopped thyme. Into the bread bowl went the veggies, which I mixed with as little handling as I could manage. Then I added two eggs and 1/2 t baking powder and gently combined them into the bread cubes. Over that, I poured about 2 1/4 cups homemade stock. You want the cubes well moistened, but not soupy, and don't overmix them into a concrete-like dough brick. The cubes should be able to maintain their original form. Sprinkle with 1/3 cup Italian-seasoned breadcrumbs. I think the 400 degrees the recipe calls for is really a recipe for dried-out dressing. I baked mine at 325 for a half an hour covered in foil and then another 15-20 minutes uncovered to crisp up the top. Be mindful this is totally dependent upon your cooking vessel. I cooked this in a deep dish with a small circumference, so it needed more cooking time. If you don't want a soft center but want more crunch, spread this on a cookie sheet with sides and cook around half the time, checking frequently for dryness/doneness.

By this point, I'm sure you've all realized that food photography is not my strong suit. I apologize. This shot is particularly unlovely because we fell on this dressing like ravening wolves the moment it emerged from the oven. It was just doughy enough for me, crispy on top, and light and fluffy. My mom thinks we should add some cornbread next time, as she does not care for all-bread dressing. I think you could do up any combination you wish!

Recipe follows:

"The Best Green Beans I've Ever Had." With Bacon.

I have to tell the truth. My sister is a better cook than I am. Her experiments actually turn out well the majority of the time, whereas mine, I must admit, are often zany with mixed results. So, I thought I would invite her to do a guest post on a Thanksgiving favorite at our dinner table. So, without further ado, my baby sister, Kari's, green bean bundles. They are full of win. And brown sugar.

Image courtesy of Jay Jacobson from Kinetic.org

From the kitchen of Roxie (Kari's derby name is Dirrty on the Rox, and Roxie has just stuck):
Apparently bacon wrapped ANYthing will make you famous amongst friends. Bacon wrapped jalepenos, bacon wrapped pork tenderloin, bacon wrapped scallops... I found this delicious green bean bundle recipe on Williams Sonoma and have tweaked it to make it perfect for me. It's so simple (no extraordinary ingredients or cooking techniques) and is not too time consuming. The time it does take up is TOTALLY worth it because everyone will go crazy over these bad boys. There are a few things I've learned serving this dish: They aren't the greatest leftovers, but don't worry, you won't have any left over! Save the bacon grease for future recipes or use to cook the green beans. You cannot have too much bacon grease. Serve the sugary, garlicy, buttery juice from the pan, just do it. It is great on mashed potatoes or sopped up with yeast rolls. You will be surprised with the different ways your guests will use it. This recipe should be titled "best green beans I've ever had."

Wrapped with a strip of bacon, these green bean bundles add an elegant touch to the Thanksgiving table. To get a head start, you can trim and blanch the beans a day in advance, then store in an airtight container in the refrigerator.

Bacon Wrapped Green Bean Bundles

Ingredients:

8 thick bacon slices, peppered bacon preferred.  If desired, cook a few extra bacon slices to crumble over bundles when finished cooking

7 T. (3/4 stick) unsalted butter, melted

1  1/2 tsp. kosher salt

1 tsp cracked pepper

3/4 tsp. roasted garlic powder

2 garlic cloves minced

1 1/2 lb. green beans, trimmed and blanched (trim, rinse, place in boiling water for 1 min, strain, shock in ice water)

1/4 cup firmly packed light brown sugar

Tooth picks

9x13 baking dish or cookie sheet

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large nonstick fry pan over medium heat, cook the bacon in batches until the slices are just beginning to brown along the edges but are still very underdone and pliable.  Transfer to a paper towel-lined plate and let cool, then cut each slice in half to make two smaller bacon slices.  Reserve bacon grease.

In a small bowl, melt butter.  Then add salt, pepper, garlic powder and minced garlic cloves.  Whisk until combined. 

Melt one T. butter in 9x13 baking dish.  Add about 2 T. reserved bacon grease.

Gather about 6 green beans into a neat bunch and wrap a half slice of bacon around the center, toothpick through the center to hold or roll the bunch so that the bacon ends are down to hold the beans together.  Place the bundles on the prepared baking sheet or dish.  Sprinkle the brown sugar evenly over the bundles and drizzle with the butter mixture.

Roast until the bacon is cooked through and browned, 20 to 25 minutes. Let stand for 3 to 5 minutes. Transfer the green bean bundles to a warmed platter and serve immediately.  Pour juice into a ramekin or small serving bowl to serve alongside the bundles.  Serves 8 to 10.

Adapted from Williams-Sonoma Kitchen's Green Bean Bundles with Bacon and Brown Sugar

I will update this with pictures from the big day!! Happy eating, my friends!

Thanksgiving, Handled. Funnies, Links, and Recipes

The countdown begins. If you're like me, you're feverishly trying to figure out how you'll get everything together by Thursday. I did score with my Bountiful Basket and a visit to the White Rock Farmer's market yesterday, and I'll post about those soon. But for now, we all need to get our s#@! together for Thursday. 

I told you I was anti-stuffing. Happy Thanksgiving!!

•  Bread. We never seem to get this quite right at my house, as it's always an afterthought. This year, I'm determined to do better and was thinking I might try Happy Bread. I would love to try the actual recipe, but in light of all the cooking I'll already be doing, I thought I might try this with store-bought croissant rolls. I know, I know. But I'm trying to be realistic here. 

  

  Happy Bread via Foodiva's Kitchen.

• Looking for something new to add to the family's repertoire? Try these Crispy Polenta Chips with parmesan and sage. 

• My favorite Butternut Squash Soup. The juniper-infused cream MAKES this soup. You can make it all the day before and then just reheat it and have an elegant starter to your dinner. This would also work well with pumpkin puree.

• Another variation on cranberry--Spiced Cranberrry Jam. This post from Food In Jars also links to pickled cranberries and some other cranberry-related excitement.

Image courtesy of asweetpeachef.com.

• Green bean casserole. We all love it. However, with a bit of effort, homemade is so much better! Imagine fresh green beans instead of canned, your own white sauce with sauteed mushrooms, and freshly made crispy onion rings. Check out Alton Brown's recipe for Best Ever Green Bean Casserole. It's also quite good with just about a third of a red bell pepper slivered into the beans as well. If you really want to impress your mother-in-law (or just avoid canned cream of mushroom soup), here you go. 

• Great desserts. For something special, and pretty easy, try one of my favorite recipes. My parents refer to it as "compote" and you can make it in any variation. The three parts are fruit, wine, and spice. Begin with 1 1/2 cup water, 1 1/2 cup wine, and 1/3 cup sugar. Put over a medium heat and let this simmer until it reduces down a bit, about 12 minutes. Taste it to check the sweetness. Add more sugar if needed. Add fruit (about 2 cups, washed and cut into uniform pieces) and spices. Adjust your heat to a low simmer until fruit is soft. Fish out any hard spices like whole cloves or cinnamon sticks, and puree in a blender or with an immersion blender. Strain through a fine sieve and return to pot. Add the extract of your choice. In a small bowl, mix 1 1/2 T corn starch with 1 1/2 T cold water. Mix completely, add to pot, bring to a boil for about 30 seconds, stirring all the time. Here are some combinations I love: 1) a spicy red wine sauce I used in the pavlova recipe. Add raspberries, blackberries, and/or strawberries to this one. Sub in dark brown sugar for a very rich taste. 2) Use white wine and frozen peaches or apricots or fresh mango. For spices, use a pinch of saffron and 1/2 t. orange extract. 3)White zinfandel or rose wine with raspberries, almond extract, and brown sugar. 

You'll wind up with a lovely sauce that is great over cheesecake, panna cotta (I've used this recipe from Ina Garten many times with great results--just omit the balsamic strawberry part and sub in the sauce you just made), or ice cream. Or, you could take those black bananas your kids didn't eat this week, make some Banana Yogurt Bread, toast the slices in a skillet with a bit of butter and serve it with this sauce and some whipped cream.

The recipe for "compote" is after the break...

Talkin' Turkey

Is it just me, or is making the turkey sort of a dreaded task? Either you know you're just setting out to force twenty pounds of dry and/or greasy bird on friends and family, or, if you're like me, you pretty much know you got assigned to turkey duty because no one else wants to take the blame if it sucks.

 Well, suck this, turkey haters. Orange-Rosemary Turkey will never fail you. My dad found this recipe in Bon Appetit in the '90s, and we've used it every year since in some variation. No lie. When I get to the homestead next week, I will take a picture of the well-worn, dog-eared, spattered copy that is kept with the cookbooks. Here's a link to the original recipe. This post will be without a whole lot of pics, which I will take next week to update, but I really felt like it was more important to help save your bird this year, if you belong to a family whose bird is in need of saving. You know who you are. (Allow me to wax poetic here for a moment. Even if you just run down to Wal Mart and grab whatever frozen bird they have there, it's still an animal. One that probably led a pretty s@#tty life until it was sacrificed for your table. I strongly believe that if an animal gives up its life so we can eat it, we owe that animal the best preparation we can muster.)

Hence this simple but delightful turkey makeover. I like to vary this up a little bit, however. Personally, I think you need to make about double the Rosemary-Orange butter. I tend to stuff more  butter in the turkey than this recipe calls for, plus you want some left over for dressing, gravy, and dinner rolls. Because once you taste it, you'll want to smear it on anything that will stand still. Thank goodness, your turkey is probably standing still.

This little tool is the easiest way to get pretty consistent orange or lemon zest. You can then chop with a knife if you want it in smaller pieces.

 So double the butter recipe described in the original. I usually add a bit of black pepper to my butter. This year I also added some frozen grated ginger as well. Mix this up the night before, divide in half (so you have a designated turkey bowl and and everything else bowl. No salmonella for us this year, thank you very much), and refrigerate. You can even make this two days in advance.

 On the day you're cooking your turkey, **GET THE BUTTER OUT OF THE FRIDGE EARLY.** It's a lot easier to stuff the bird with room-temperature butter. And don't lose your mind and microwave the butter to soften it, because it also sucks to try to stuff your bird with completely melted butter.

My parents have seriously held onto this magazine since 1989.

A note on turkeys. There's no sacred Thanksgiving writ that says you have to cook a whole bird if you have a small number of people, no one eats dark meat, or you're having multiple proteins. You can easily just buy and prepare the breast if you like. I usually do this at least once between Thanksgiving and Christmas when, inevitably, my husband casts sad eyes at me and says, "I really didn't get much turkey this year. I don't feel fully satisfied in the turkey department." This is not a dirty metaphor; he just wants me to cook another turkey. So I make him a breast, and everyone is happy.

So here we go. You've made your double batch of butter a day or two in advance to let the flavors meld together. You've taken it out of the fridge to warm to room temp. Now, to prep that turkey. I hope, if you bought a frozen turkey, that it's been thawing in the fridge for a couple of days. If not, you may want to put it in a sink of cold (NOT HOT) water to defrost.

When it's defrosted, remove the neck and giblets. You can use these in gravy, if that's how your family rolls, or you can make an excellent stock from them. However, if your turkey comes with a package of pre-made gravy frozen up in there, do your family a great service AND THROW THAT PAP AWAY IMMEDIATELY. Don't even handle it too much, lest you get bad cooking juju on you. Rinse your turkey well. Leave in that little thermometer button that pops out when it's cooking. You don't want to use this to measure when the turkey is done, but you don't want to leave a gaping hole for the juices to run out of either. Make sure you pull out any stray feather ends that may have been left behind.

I stuffed that giant turkey until, as Stanley Tucci said in Julie and Julia, "she just couldn't take it anymore."

Now for the fun part. I'd roll my sleeves up and remove jewelry if I were you. First, you need to gently separate the skin from the muscle of the turkey without shredding it. Slowly and gently, work your fingers in between the skin and muscle, loosening the skin without tearing it. Loosen the skin all over. When you're done, stuff 3/4 of the bowl of turkey butter (so 3/4 of 1/2 of what you made) under the skin, smooshing it around until it's fairly evenly distributed. Then spread the remainder on top of the bird all over the skin to make it crunchy. Stuff the cavity full of onion, garlic (you can just take a whole head, cut it in half through all the cloves to expose them), celery (use the leaves! They're more flavorful than the stalk!), carrots, orange wedges. and rosemary. Make sure your turkey is elevated on a rack.

A note on dressing versus stuffing. "Dressing" is served on the side; "stuffing" is actually stuffed in the turkey to cook. I'm in the anti-stuffing camp. You really have to be careful to make sure the stuffing is heated to a high enough temp so as to not poison everyone with raw-bird juices, and usually, by the time the stuffing is cooked, the bird is overcooked (your stuffing must reach 160 degrees F). I'm not a fan, though I know some people who swear by stuffing and do it well.

Do tuck in the wings so your bird cooks evenly and no floppy bits incinerate in the oven, but don't worry about trussing. It takes longer to cook a trussed bird, and then the breast is dry. 

A note on cooking turkey. This is not an all-day event unless you've stuffed it. It's usually a 2-3 hour event AT MOST, depending on how large your bird is. A breast will take less than half that time.

We had a little disaster with the convection oven being too hot, but we figured it out in time to save the bird. Next time, I think I'll take my blow torch to get a nice, even golden color. 

Your breast meat needs to reach 150 degrees, and the leg meat (it has more connective tissue) needs to hit 160 degrees to be safely done without being overdone. Use a thermometer rather than relying on a set amount of time. Let the turkey warm to room temp before cooking. It will cook more evenly that way. You want to start at a high heat to kill all the surface bacteria and brown the skin, loosely tent some foil over the breast so it doesn't brown further, and then lower the heat for the rest of the cooking time. When I lower the heat, I add a couple of cups each of water and white wine for moisture and to keep my drippings from burning. We usually start ours at 375 degrees until the breast is browned and then reduce the temp to a little less than 325 degrees for the rest of the cooking. But you know what? Screwing up the turkey isn't the end of the world. I accidentally cooked the turkey breast down the entire time one year, and it was awesomely tender. It didn't look pretty, but it was juicy. Undercooked turkey? Slice it and put it in a pan in its own juices to finish cooking it. Overcooked turkey? Slice it and put it in a pan in its own juices over super low heat. Pour your guests another round, and let them eat cake. Or pie.

Another note on cooking turkey. Put the baster down. All it does is make that lovely, crunchy skin soggy. If you don't overcook the turkey and you let it rest for at least ten minutes, it will be juicy.

I don't usually brine my turkeys because I really like to use the drippings, and the drippings from a brined turkey are too salty. To make gravy: in a pot, add 3T Rosemary Orange butter and/or drippings. Let it melt. Whisk in 3T (maybe a bit more) flour to make a roux. Let it cook a minute to get the flour taste out. Slowly,whisk in about 2 cups stock. As you start whisking, it will look like crap, but eventually, it will even out (sprinkle flour, don't dump in one place, and don't use cold flour to prevent clumping).

 Another fun thing you can do is make pretty butter for the rolls.

Use a pastry bag to pipe pretty butter shapes onto parchment paper. 

Pipe some of your fancy Rosemary-Orange butter onto parchment paper and put it in the freezer to set. Arrange it on a plate and set out on the table for buttering rolls.