While I’m waiting for the back of the turkey to brown so I can turn it, I’m bloghopping, and found this at Jimmy Akin’s blog:

The Diet Coke and Mentos Experiments II

Way too cool. Can’t wait for the kids to come home from Mass and see it — the two little ones are sick in bed, so Mom’s playing nurse on Thanksgiving Day. Instead of serving the full spread at lunchtime, we are staggering the meal throughout the day. Or “Eat as I cook” as we call it, which we do here from time to time. It’s like an all-day dinner if you think about it.

Here’s what I’m cooking in the next week or so… before Thanksgiving:

Slow-Cooker Beef-and-Bean Burritos except hubby’s having it with rice and/or corn tortillas, and the “taco seasoning mix” will be homemade to avoid the wheat that they usually put in

Mango Mahi Ceviche except mine won’t be a real ceviche because I’ll poach the fish really lightly to avoid salmonella.

I’ve got a bunch of recipes I’ve been meaning to post. Hopefully they’ll be done by the weekend.

Last month, I ordered a case of yogurt, meaning to make a bunch of recipes with it. The same month, hubby had to be on recovery from surgery, complex recipes were put on hold, and we stuck with tried-and-true. Except for the occasional smoothie and bran muffin (the secret is the yogurt!) for me, I let the yogurt sit and wait. So now I *have to* use them up. I still have the recipes, but I’ve lost interest in most of them. However, I’d love to try *your* favorite yogurt recipe. I know this is supposed to be a dairy-free blog now, but I’m stuck with these tubs of yogurt and I’m the only person in the house who can really eat it — and I need to…. fast.

PS I’d eat it daily with some Greek honey but because it’s not Greek yogurt the taste is really off and they just DON’T go together. I’ve tried.

It’s that time again — planning the Thanksgiving menu. This year I’m making it easy on myself by going online and plucking out recipes from Epicurious. I’ve got a lot of these recipes in hardcopy, culled from the years that I subscribed, BUT, it’s so much easier to just go through their database so…. here’s what we’re having this year (subject to change until the actual week of Thanksgiving )

• Roast Turkey — I don’t really change this anymore from year to year. Once I found the perfect recipe (for me) I’ve stuck to it. It’s basically a brine-first recipe. I thought I was going to get a Heritage Turkey for Thanksgiving but guess what — I’m late again. The local farms that raise them are already out of stock. So I’m settling for free-range from one of the local farms (I’ve e-mailed two, waiting to hear back from them) or the free-range turkey from Wild Oats, which they say they get from Zacky Farm in California. I googled, and I’m not too happy with what I’ve found, plus I really would prefer to patronize our local farmers. I hope they call me soon so I can cancel my Wild Oats order if need be.
• Allergy-free cornbread from Jenn
• An apple crisp with homemade granola topping (I’ll post the recipe after I make it)
• Wild Rice Dressing with Sausage, Corn and Leeks — which I’m planning to make with homemade sausage mix instead of storebought kielbasa
• Cranberry Sauce with Pearl Onions and Golden Raisins
• Yams with Spiced Sorghum Butter, because I’ve got some sorghum here that’s been waiting for me forever to use — I’ll make this recipe using some Earth Balance un-butter that Jenn recommended
• Haricots Verts, Roasted Fennel and Shallots

And then I’m veering off course a bit to do two allergy-full recipes — which I’m planning to prepare in time for Thanksgiving, but make into bite-size bits for our coming holiday gatherings:

• May Bsisu’s Pull Away Cheese Rolls

and

• and this “Perfect” Pumpkin Pie which my 10-yo (very mild allergy-sufferer) has been asking for; he didn’t ask specifically for this recipe, but every year we try a new Pumpkin Pie recipe, looking for the perfect one — this may be it! Or then again, maybe this!

So there you have it… if you’ve cooked/plan to cook any of these, let me know so we can compare notes!

from

Paraphrasing here:

1 1/2 pounds butternut squash (or use summer squash), peeled and chopped
3 leeks or 1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons olive oil
4 cloves garlic, chopped
3 carrots, sliced en paysanne (I didn’t bother with this and just sliced the carrots straight through)
3 cups cooked dried beans (James Peterson suggests cranberry beans or boiling potatoes, I used navy beans)
3 pounds fresh tomatoes, chopped, or 2 cans tomatoes, drained seeded and chopped (I don’t bother with that except with the chopping — but I put the tomatoes in, sauce and seeds and all)
1 pound string beans, cut into 1/2 inch lengths (I used regular organic green beans as there were no haricots verts available, the only time I use this for cooking is when I grow them myself, as they can get horribly expensive here)
1 cup dry small macaroni (I omitted this for obvious reasons — but adding these in would bring this closer to a minestrone, which is hubby’s favorite soup — maybe next time I’ll add Ener-G rice-elbows)
salt and pepper to taste
1 recipe pistou (basically pesto sauce, but the French version) — and again, did not use this because of the cheese — I did make a garlic-basil-salt-pepper-olive oil-anchovy-pine-nuts-sauce, and forgot to take a picture of the soup topped with that!

Heat olive oil in 6-quart saucepan or pot and stir in leeks or onion, garlic, carrots and squash. Stir over medium-to-high heat, until leeks or onions are translucent, about 15 minutes. Add water, bring to a boil, then immediately bring down to a simmer. Stir in beans, potatoes, tomatoes, and simmer 15 minutes. Add string beans and pasta and simmer 10 minutes or just until cooked through. Season to taste with salt. Grind pepper on top and add pistou at the table.

It’s 11/15 as I write this and I’m just now telling you about these lovely scuppernongs we received from JMom. Early in the year I wrote about how my daughter wants to eat scuppernongs, after reading about them in .

JMom promised to send us some and she did! They are so fragrant and sweet that the kitchen smelled like scuppernongs for a few hours — until they were gone, that is. We did peel them, and yes, like a commenter in my previous post said, they are a bit more gelatinous than regular grapes. The seeds were bigger too. But they were a pleasure to have and I wouldn’t mind growing them in my yard at all. I gotta find me that farm first.

There’s a similar recipe here, but this one comes from , a Christmas gift from my brother 5 years ago.

From the book:

Pozole is a hearty rich main dish soup, that originated in the state of Jalisco. The main ingredient is hominy — dried white or yellow corn kernels that have been boiled and soaked in slaked lime to remove the hull, and then drained, rinsed, and cooked for about 2 hours.

I was introduced to pozole by my friend Angie. I had never heard of hominy until she told me about it — and I was so excited when I got some and saw that it’s the closest thing we have here in the US to our Filipino binatog. (More info on binatog here, here, and here. I’ve made binatog using hominy — it’s not perfect, but to someone who can’t have the real thing, it’s good enough.) At any rate, the recipe for this soup:

Pozole Rojo de Puerco

6 boneless country-style pork ribs, trimmed of excess fat, and cut into 1-inch pieces or 2-inch pieces for bone-in meat
7 cups homemade chicken broth (the recipe specifies canned, but I try to avoid those like the plague)
2 tablespoons canola oil
1 large white onion, chopped
6 large garlic cloves, chopped
3 medium carrots, peeled and thinly sliced
2-3 tablespoons ground pasilla or ancho chile
1-2 tablespoons chili powder
1 1/2 tablespoons Mexican oregano
1 tablespoon ground cumin
1 teaspoon dried thyme
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 15-ounce cans white hominy, drained and rinsed
2 14 1/2-ounce cans peeled and diced tomatoes
1/2 cup loosely packed chopped fresh cilantro
1 1/2 tablespoons masa harina (flour for corn tortillas)
Finely shredded cabbage
Diced avocado (which I ran out of before I could make this recipe — it would have been a lovely addition!)
Fresh lime wedges

Put pork pieces in a heavy pan. Add 1 1/2 cups chicken broth and 1 cup water. Bring to a boil over medium heat. Reduce heat to low, cover, and cook meat until tender, about 40 minutes (mine was more like 30). Remove from heat and set aside. Remove meat from bone if desired, discarding bones.

In a large heavy pot, heat oil and fry onion 2 minutes. Add garlic and cook until onions and garlic are softened, 2 to 3 minutes. Add carrots, ground chile, chili powder, oregano, cumin, thyme, and salt. Cook, stirring, 30 seconds.

Add remaining chicken broth, hominy, tomatoes, cilantro, masa harina, and reserved meat and its broth (de-fatted if you like — and I do). Bring to a boil and cook over medium-low heat, covered, 25 minutes to blend flavors. Adjust seasoning. Serve in soup bowls garnished with cabbage and avocado. Pass the lime wedges at the table.