Thanksgiving feast!

I really enjoy making much of the typical Thanksgiving fare, and when I go to family meals, usually only get to contribute one or two dishes... This year I decided to invite friends over to continue the tradition. luckily I was able to sneak in some family too since my dad's family was doing it on Friday and only live an hour away.

So, I had 2 Americans, a Canadian and 3 Swede's over for Thanksgiving. Everyone brought something to share - names in italics - and our menu ended up being:

Stuffed Mushrooms (Dustin)

Turkey (only a little guy) w/gravy
Quorn "turkey" roast
Stuffing
Cranberries (Jocelyn)
Roasted Yams (Jocelyn)
Mashed Acorn Squash with Walnuts and Maple Syrup (Jocelyn)
Jansson's frestelse (Jonas and Frida)
Endive, Parsley, Radicchio and Pear Salad with Roasted Walnuts (Matthew)

Caramel Apple Pie
Pumpkin Pie with Whipped Cream

Hot Winter Pimms Punch
Limeade (Dennis)
Watermelonade (Dennis)

I forgot to take pictures :-( Bolded items have recipes to follow.

Stuffing
Cube one loaf of bread of choice, spread on a cookie sheet and bake on low temperature until stale, or leave out for a few days if you have time.
Saute diced onions, celery and mushrooms over low heat in some olive oil until translucent and tender. Mix with bread pieces in a bowl. Add diced fuyu persimmon pieces. Pour in enough stock to just get moist, unless you like mushier stuffing. Pour all into a greased casserole dish and bake until hot!

Cranberries
1 bag fresh cranberries
1 cup water (or enough to cover the cranberries)
1/2 cup sweetener (white sugar works well)
juice of one mandarin orange
Place all in a pan and simmer until thick. Sweeten to taste...

Yams
Cube yams. Toss in olive oil, thyme, garlic and salt. Roast at 350 until tender

Acorn Squash
Cut squash in half, place face down in a pan and bake until soft. Scoop out the meat and mash until smooth. Add maple syrup, toasted walnuts and salt.

Pumpkin pie filling
1.5 cups pumpkin puree
1.5 cups evaporated milk
3 eggs
2 tsp cinnamon, ginger,
1 tsp nutmeg, allspice
Or a bunch of pumpkin pie spice...

Mix all together and pour into a partially baked pie shell at 350 for 20 minutes with the crust covered, 15 minutes uncovered. Insert a toothpick, if it comes out clean, it's done.

Caramel Apple Pie Filling
5-6 Granny Smith apples cored and cut up
20 caramel candies, cut in half (I recommend Werther's brand)
Taffy (1/2 cup brown sugar, 1/3 cup butter, 1/4 cup butter, melted)
add into bottom shell in layers. Cover with top layer, poke a few air holes, brush crust with milk. Make sure to bake on a junky cookie sheet or over tin foil since it has a tendency to overflow.
Bake at 350, covered for 20 minutes, 20 minutes uncovered.

Hot Winter Pimm's Punch
1 part pimms
2 parts ginger ale
cinnamon sticks
cardamon or cloves
Heat in a pan and enjoy!

Biscuit Variations

Biscuits are a family staple of both sides of my family. Every time the family gets together at the G&G Evans' house we have them for breakfast. On the other side, my mom often makes them for dinner to go with soup. Since mom's girlfriend is vegan and Grandma Luna is wheatless, I've included both versions.

Grandpa's 4-3-2-1 Biscuits (Mom's wheatless, vegan version in italics)

4 tbls Unsalted butter (imagine's non-hydrogenated shortening or olive oil)
3 tsp Baking soda
2 C All purpose flour (use Barley Flour)
1 tsp Salt
2% or non-fat milk or plain yogurt (Use plain soy milk /yogurt or even water)

Preheat oven to 425F. Combine dry ingredients thoroughly. Cut in butter with pastry blender or two knives. Once the butter pieces are pea sized starting adding the liquid little by little until you have the desired consistency.

For drop biscuits, you'll want it to be sticky and fairly wet, so that you have to use a spoon to scoop the dough. Grease a square or round glass baking pan. Using a tablespoon, place dalops of dough into the pan so that they are all touching. Once baked, they will break apart easily, so don't worry if you have to squish them in. Bake until the tops are brown and they tear apart easily. (About 20-25 minutes)

For rolled biscuits, you'll want the dough to be fairly dry. Grease a cookie sheet. You should be able to handle it without too much sticking to your hands. Flatten onto a floured surface and roll out with a rolling pin. Use a round cookie cutter or jelly jar to cut biscuits. Don't twist the cutter - that will seal the edges of the biscuits and they won't rise as much. Just go straight in and back up. Place on the sheet and bake until golden brown and not doughy in the middle. (about 15-20 minutes)

Yummy additions:

Diced Fuyu Persimmons - I diced 1 whole Fuyu into small pieces and mixed in before baking.

Cheese and Herbs - Jack, asiago, mozzarella, cheddar, etc. I did a blend of jack and asiago with thyme and oregano. Mix into flour before adding butter. It was scrumptious!

Cinnamon and Brown Sugar - Mix together about 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/4-1/2 c brown sugar and 1/4 butter and a pinch of salt. Spread mix on rolled dough. Roll up into a log and cut into slices; place them in a buttered glass baking pan so that they are touching. Bake until bubbly.

French Almond Macarons 2

Success! Well, for the most part. I forgot to take pictures of the finished product, so I have no true proof other than happy friends, but let's just say I got as excited as Veronica when my macarons developed their "feet". Here's the only picture I have:


This time I used the same recipe that she used that can be found here.
- 1 ¼ cups icing sugar
- 4 oz (1 cup) almond flour or finely ground almonds
- ¼ cup plus 2 tbsps egg whites at room temperature
- pinch of salt
- ¼ cup granulated sugar

Interestingly, this recipe has less almond meal and maybe less egg. Hard to say: 1/4 c + 2 T v. 3 egg whites. I guess it depends on the eggs.

I quadrupled the recipe, using almond meal from Trader Joes ($3.99 for 16oz)! Who knew? Thanks to my friend/neighbor Diego for that hot tip. It was actually finer than the meal I bought at Whole Foods made by Bob's Redmill ($9.99 for 16oz). I called Rainbow to check if they had it and they do in bulk, so that's an option too.

I let the eggs sit out (covered since we have fruit flies, ewww) for over 48 hours. They were hard to scoop and measure, so I think I had a little less than the recipe called for.

I split the finished batter in half and put pink color in one and yellow in the other. I tested the letting them sit once piped trick and it worked. At first I thought it was the fact that I was using two different pans (one double insulated and the other just your basic cookie sheet). Once I let them both rest, both pans produced equally feet-y cookies.

I used Martha's Swiss Meringue Buttercream recipe.

• 4 large egg whites
• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1 1/2 cups unsalted butter, (3 sticks), softened, cut into tablespoons

Whisk whites until stiff, slowly adding sugar until forms stiff peaks.
Switch to paddle and slowly add the softened butter.
At this point I divided the frosting into two and added pink food coloring gel and rose water (about 3 tsp) to one and yellow food coloing gel and some safron honey from Italy to the other. I piped the pink into the pink cookies and the yellow into the yellow.

They were so cute and so delicious! I love anything rose or violet flavored, so this little trend will likely continue.

Scones for Keenan and Jeff

My friend Keenan and his brother Jeff decided to bike over for dinner... from Alberta. ha. just kidding. I mean, they really biked but not to see me or just for dinner. They're en route to Argentina on an epic trek down the West coast of the Americas. I am serving as their pit stop for a few days in San Francisco. They have a website and a blog and a facebook group you should check out.

Anyhow - being me, I had to bake them something. I had left over lemon curd and cream cheese frosting from Matthew's cake, so I made some scones.

Basic Scones

3 C Flour
1.2 C Sugar
1 T Baking Powder
1/2 t salt
3/4 C butter
1 Egg
3/4 C Milk

Mix dry ingredients together, cut in butter until pea sized.
Combine egg and milk and add to dry ingredients. Add a little more milk if necessary. It should be stickier than pie crust, but less sticky than cookie dough.

Form into a round shape on a floured surface and cut into equal sized scone shaped pieces. Roll in sugar for a pretty finish. Bake at 400F until golden brown about 20 mins. Use tooth pick or something to test. If any dough sticks to it, bake a little longer.

Variations:
Add orange zest and cranberries
Add almond extract and sliced almonds
Add poppy seeds and top with lemon icing
Add blueberries and white chocolate chips

Attempt 1 at French Macarons

I absolutely adore french macarons. They are so cute and delicious and girly. But also come in such a variety of flavors. How hard can they be? ha.

I did a little research and should have paid closer attention. I used Martha's recipe and for the first time was disappointed.

Next time I'll try this one and actually follow her advice.

Things I didn't do:
- beat the eggs enough. Martha's recipe said medium soft peaks. It sounds like they should be a bit more stiff.
- fold the almond/sugar in gently enough
- measure with precision (one of my weaknesses as a baker)
- let them sit for 30 minutes after piping before baking
- pay attention to what I was doing

I should know better than to bake when I'm feeling overwhelmed.

They turned out to be too flat and too dry. Probably due to over mixing and over baking. Shoot.
The good thing is that they still taste delicious but they are more like meringues in consistency.