 Cranberries and Dumplings Sometimes the best laid plans…
We were supposed to be at a party tonight. It was a combined cookie and dumpling party. I’m sure the food and the company were amazing. But it’s been a long week and a long weekend and we had exactly enough supplies to make this dish for 4 people. And the party was a good 20 people. Plus, we were exhausted. So we sent our regrets and stayed home. Since I needed to use up the cranberries that we had leftover from Thanksgiving anyway, I figured we’d have our own little dumpling night at home.
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 Cranberry Apple Compote Let me start by saying that this isn’t your mother’s cranberry sauce. With all apologies to my wonderful mother, I’m not a huge fan of molded cranberry sauce or cranberry jelly. I’ll make it, mostly because it is easy and because when Mom spends holidays with us, she expects it. The flavor is always good – sweet, with the hint of bitterness that you associate with cranberries, and a texture that sort of melts in your mouth. If you want her standard molded cranberry sauce recipe, leave a comment. I’ll be happy to send it to you and we’ll certainly post it before Christmas.
Now that I’m cooking my own Thanksgiving dinners, though, I prefer a bit more… variety to my cranberry sauce. I also prefer a bit more spice. So when thinking about what sort of sauce I wanted for Thanksgiving this year, I went chunky and boozy. The results were fantastic and so I bring you Spiked Cranberry Apple Compote.
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Mr. Local here.
I have a problem. I like spicy food. Not necessarily hot, but I like my food to virtually explode with taste sensations.
 A mix of chipotle honey sauce, bread crumbs, squash and cheese. I want the food I make to be like a party in my mouth, and I want EVERYONE to be invited.
It is one of the reasons why I make savory desserts.
And it is because of this that I looked at the Pan Roasted Delicata with a Kick and thought ‘I’d like to make that even better.” And what would make it better?
Cheese. And crunch.
I have another problem. I have a bizarre love affair with ramekins. Or those Staub cocottes. Or the … err…. item pictured in the pictures here, since I can’t find it on Staub’s site for some reason.
I like the idea of single serving dishes that go from the oven to the placemat (more or less, anyways). It is so… compact, handy, utilitarian. One of my favorite things, really, utilitarianism. That would be my religion, if it could. Utilitarianism.
Anyways, back to that Pan Roasted Delicata. I wanted to take it and turn it into a gratin, some cheesy, crunch goodness.
Continue reading Spicy Delicata Squash Gratin
 Smoked Flagship and Potato Puree Every cook has their nemesis. The one food that despite how hard they try, they just can’t get right. Despite my love of smooth and creamy mashed potatoes, every time I tried to make them at home, they were lumpy and bland. I tried peeling, not peeling, boiling whole and boiling in chunks. I tried mixing in cheese, cream, sour cream, butter, and stock.
One thing I never tried though, was a food mill. A food mill is generally used to separate a tough part of a food from a tender part. for example, separating out the cranberry skins from the pulpy insides. Since the entire potato is edible, I never thought about using one to make mashed potatoes – or rather, pureed potatoes.
Recently, we’ve spent a couple of lovely evenings at Ventana. Ventana is a new Belltown restaurant headed up by Chef Joseph Conrad, formerly of Qube and half of Secret Stash Salt. When we checked out Ventana during their soft open, one of my favorite dishes was the New York Strip with Cheddar Potatoes. The steak was lovely, of course. Perfectly cooked, flavorful, and just the right size. However the potatoes were out of this world. They were rich, smooth, melt-in-your-mouth delicious. I’ve been thinking about those potatoes for weeks now. So when I started working on Thanksgiving recipes, I knew these were the potatoes I wanted to serve. Since I had no idea how to make them, I went right to the source and asked Chef Joseph himself. Lucky for me (and you) he was willing to share.
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 Nightwatch Stuffing Ever since I started cooking Thanksgiving dinner, I’ve been searching for “my” stuffing recipe. Mom’s stuffing was always good and of course it had that “I grew up with this” charm, but I wanted my own recipe. (Mom’s uses items that are decidedly not local, so that’s another reason to find my own recipe). I’ve tried several different recipes, and so far, this is what I’ve come up with. This recipe (or a close approximation) will be what we use for our local Thanksgiving this year.
We’ll also have John’s Merme’s stuffing, which uses Bell’s Poultry Seasoning. Luckily, Bell’s is from New England, and that’s exactly where his parents are flying in from in just a few days. So we’ll ask them to bring us a box.
Soon after my dear, sweet husband introduced me to beer, I decided that one of my favorite beers was Nightwatch from Maritime Brewery. I like my beers dark and toasty. But lucky for us, Nightwatch is a local beer so it fits in very nicely with any Thanksgiving planning. The second component to today’s stuffing is a bag of stuffing mix (read: stale baguette pieces) from Tall Grass Bakery. You can pick up a big bag of stuffing mix at the University District or Ballard Farmers Markets this weekend for only $5. Add in some carrots, celery, an egg, and a bit of seasonings, and you’ve got yourself some stuffing.
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 Pumpkin Pie Cinnamon Rolls There’s just something about an ooey gooey cinnamon roll. Well, besides the fact that ooey is a hard word to spell. Or possibly easy, but it isn’t actually in the dictionary and ooey just looks wrong. But I’m sure you know what I mean. Just look at this roll here. Glaze dripping off the fork and the roll, flecks of cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg begging to be savored.
Confession time. I’ve NEVER had a Cinnabon. Double confession time. I never liked cinnamon rolls. Until now. Now I want them All. The. Time. I just had one literally five minutes ago and already I’m looking at the pan calculating how many more I can eat before I gain five pounds. This is why I bring my baked goods into the office on a regular basis.
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 Pumpkin Pie From Scratch
Solid Pack Pumpkin. Solid. Pack. Pumpkin. If you’ve been cooking Thanksgiving dinner for years (or in my case, helping to cook Thanksgiving dinner with my mother for years), you’ve probably seen those words. Solid. Pack. Pumpkin.
When I was growing up, it was Libby’s solid pack pumpkin or nothing at all. There was a store brand, at one point, but I remember mom trying it when dad couldn’t find Libby’s and she hated it. It just wasn’t the same. Dad, of course, had to go right back out to a different store and buy more Libby’s solid pack pumpkin.
Ok, so this is sounding a bit like a rant against solid pack pumpkin. And I promise it really isn’t. What it is however, is a plea to just once, try making a pumpkin pie from scratch. I tried for the first time this year and now I’m sold. You can really tell the difference in taste and texture and other than taking a bit of time, it is very easy.
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 It is finally November. Well, ok. Who am I kidding. Finally isn’t the right word. It is ALREADY November. I’m still not sure where July went and already we’re into November. But since it’s now November, we can start talking seriously about Thanksgiving recipes.
I love Thanksgiving. What can be better than a day centered completely around food? Well, how about a day centered completely around local food? I hope you’ve ordered your Thanksgiving turkey already. If not, there are still a few options, including Bill the Butcher in Woodinville.
Continue reading Emmer Bread and Sausage Stuffing
 Sweet Potato Souffle Thanksgiving is one of my very favorite holidays. No gifts to buy, very little (if any) decorating to do, and the only real expectation in my family has always been just good food, good wine, and maybe a movie or a walk towards the end of the evening. There are a few foods that really say Thanksgiving to me (or that represent Thanksgiving – I haven’t yet gotten to the point where the food actually talks to me. Yet). Those foods are turkey, stuffing, and sweet potatoes.
Now, we have a ton of potatoes in Washington. Red, yellow, white, blue, purple… there are potatoes everywhere. But sweet potatoes are just not something you see at the farmers market on your everyday Saturday. Lucky for us though, all of that oppressively hot weather we had this summer gave us one incredible benefit this year – a halfway decent sweet potato crop. We’ve been getting sweet potatoes in our CSA box for a couple of weeks now, but we have heard rumors that you might see them at the Alm Hill Gardens stand sometime in the next few weeks. We’ve also heard rumors that you can find them at the Bainbridge Island Farmers Market.
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 Freshly sliced Pumpkin Hazelnut Bread Last Friday was a beautiful day. The sun was shining, the leaves were turning all sort of bright fall colors, and it was cool enough for me to switch to my long sleeved running shirt and consider digging out my knit cap. After a very pleasant 4 mile run, all I wanted was to bake. Luckily, with the day off, I could indulge that desire. I have a weakness for bread, particularly sweet breads like zucchini bread. Since I had a big batch of pumpkin puree leftover from the Winter Luxury pumpkin I picked up from Local Roots Farm, I went on a search for a pumpkin bread recipe.
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