Turkey day in September

[altivo]

Realizing that between the rain and all Gary's away from home performances, we've hardly barbecued at all this year, so on Friday I pulled a ten pound turkey out of the freezer to thaw. Figured we'd roast it on the grill today. The weekend was beautiful, but of course today had to be thunderstorms and wind, so that killed the idea of grilling the turkey. I did it in the oven and we had Thanksgiving Dinner early. :) All but the pumpkin pie. I made a pie of strawberries, gooseberries, and raspberries instead. We had stuffing, mashed potatoes, jellied cranberries, and... ta-da

Zucchini au gratin (microwave style)

Take one medium sized (about two inches in diameter and a foot long) zucchini, wash and slice into rounds about a half inch thick. Spread rounds like fish scales, overlapping slightly, in the bottom of a microwave safe dish. Cover and microwave for four minutes or until they have started to soften. Drain any excess liquid. Spread some prepared pasta sauce over the top, and sprinkle with 1/4 cup freshly shredded parmesan cheese. Season to taste with Italian herb mix or pizza herbs. Return uncovered to microwave for about 90 seconds to melt the cheese, then keep warm until serving time. Makes 2 to 4 servings. Easy and tasty.

(And one less zucchini lying around. Of course, I get rid of one and Gary brings in four more from the garden.)

We also had a salad of leaf lettuce and cherry tomatoes from the garden. The tomatoes are sweet like candy. When we used to grow them between the back door of the house and the garage, it was hard to walk by with picking some and eating them. Now it's an eighth of a mile from the house to the garden, so that doesn't happen so much. ;p

Tomorrow is back to work day for me. Boo.

Comments

[kint.livejournal.com]

I'll move over here so as not to spam Miktar's LJ with chatter...

breadmaking isn't the busiest community, but there's nice stuff from time to time. food_porn is the other foodie community I frequent (and I'm sure there are many more I don't).

I actually ended up getting big, heavy duty Kitchen Aid 600 Pro for my home kitchen... http://kint.livejournal.com/262505.html ...and have been baking much more bread since http://community.livejournal.com/breadmaking/46341.html Definitely hope to see postings from you if'n you guys keep records of your endeavors :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

I'm glad I spotted you over at miktar's. :) Welcome.

We're purely amateurs at breadmaking, but pretty serious about it here. I've been doing it since I was in college, which means more years than I want to admit often (30+) but also means I have a fair amount of experience at least with what can be done at home. I have often wished I could take one of those professional classes just to get a chance to play with big brick ovens and forced steam and all that fun stuff.

Another librarian I worked with on my previous job had been a bakery worker part time when she was in school, and we used to make a lot of jokes about long peels and Hobarts, pretending they were pornographic and lascivious. It was amusing and kept anyone else quite in the dark about what on earth we were carrying on about. She and I had a lot of fun with it.

My mate caught the breadmaking thing from me. I like kneading by hand but often use a Kitchen Aid too. (Mine is a few years older than yours, but was the largest available at the time.) I also use the bread machine without shame, though often only as a dough maker. My current favorite is bagels, in all kinds of variations, and I let the bread machine knead up the dough in small batches before shaping, boiling, and baking by hand. Pizza is another specialty I've developed and my whole wheat crusts are very popular. I aspire to the hand made kaiser roll, but have never gotten the results I want with those. ;)

Gary got caught up in sourdough, and takes up way too much space in the fridge with his starters, but I have to say the bread he gets from them is wonderful. I keep trying to get him to use the baking stone and peel, but he's resistant to that and thinks it will be "too hard."

We do share recipes, though I'm often reticent to post them because I feel we are so amateurish compared to others. I'll be watching the breadmaking community now though, and I'm delighted to have met you.

Attack of the killer Zucchinis!!!

[bladehorse.livejournal.com]

And I thought the Tomatoes were silly enough! I think i need to send you some help controlling them. I have a ton of gophers and deer that like to eat anything green! (Even the evergreens:p, Well the gophers anyways) Im wondering what in the hell the kithen garden is doin an 1/8th of a mile away tho! Thats where the corn is supposed to be growing!
It does sound like that time o the year fur turkey dinner tho... YUM!

Re: Attack of the killer Zucchinis!!!

[altivo.livejournal.com]

So far the zucchinis are not posing any kind of threat. They just take up space and look green. It's not easy being green, you know.

The garden is far from the house because of the layout of the property. Like many 5 acre plots in our area, this one is long and narrow (a quarter mile long but only 150 feet or so in width.) The end near the road is a grove of hundred year old oak trees, many of them 60 feet tall or more, so there isn't a lot of sun. That's where the house and barns are located. In back of the barns there are more oak and hickory trees before you reach the pasture areas which make up about 3 acres and are open to the sun. Gardens want sun, so we located ours there. The previous owners didn't garden at all, but someone did before them. There are established blueberries and raspberries on the edge of our garden plot that have been there for a couple of decades.

[alaskawolf.livejournal.com]

now you got me hungry :P

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Should be easy enough to fix that.

[avon-deer.livejournal.com]

You will have to excuse me, while I clean up the pool of my own drool. I foresee a trip to Sainsbury's tonight to pick up some parmesan and courgette. :)

[altivo.livejournal.com]

If they sell the courgette the way they are marketed here, probably the ones you can buy are smaller than we let them get in the garden. That's not a problem, just use two or three of them if they are small. The pasta sauce I used was a marinara with mushrooms and sweet peppers added to the tomato sauce. Definitely go for the lump parmesan that you grate yourself, it's infinitely superior to the pre-grated kinds.

[cabcat.livejournal.com]

After talking about nice food and making me drown in my own drool, I'm glad you're going back to work tommorow...you hear me? Glad!! Bwahahahaha!

God I'm hungry now.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Hop on a plane and come visit. There are plenty of leftovers from that meal.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

No commercialization, though I'm sure someone in some
board room will figure it out eventually and we will
get, what I've had for years, "Thanksgiving Cards" and
"Thanksgiving Ornaments". Its just a kind of, look,
we've been blessed. Yes, our soldiers have done good
work, and yes, we've not been, (and I'll fight you
over this), evil to others like say the Soviets or
the Maoists or even the French in West Africa...we
still have been blessed.

Primarily with food.

American's, even during the Depression, never starved
the way Stalin starved people, or how the Chinese
starved after the Japanese did such wonderful cultural
explorations in the east. America has always been
full.

Thanksgiving, of all holidays, should be a time when
we

GET ON OUR FACES ON THE FLOOR AND BEG GOD NOT TO HURT
US FOR BEING UNGRATEFUL, CELLPHONE WEARING, SUV DRIVING,
NOT INTERESTED IN SERVING THE POOR, NOT INTERESTED IN
DEFENDING THE WEAK, SELFISH LITTLE BASTARDS!

So, go your dinner, enjoy. I like how your doing it, I'll
try and make it as goodly this November myself.

^.~

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Oh, we agree. There's starvation in America, alas, though not very visible. You have to look at Indian reservations and real poverty areas to find it. Sometimes it's only a result of poor education and not realizing what resources are available (and therefore, a lack of social workers which has grown more acute under decades of conservative budget cutting) but it's still there. Nonetheless, you're right, there isn't much of it compared to other countries.

This turkey was given to me by the city government last Christmas, because I'm a proper civil servant or whatever. Actually, I think a private donor pays for them, and they are mainly intended for police and fire fighters, but we all get one. It's a nice gesture, and a lot cheaper than a cash bonus (not that I mind... turkey is good and they usually have some smaller ones so I don't end up with a 20 pound behemoth.)

As for the Depression, my dad had some real horror stories and I think worse that he never would talk about. But probably not many people actually starved to death. And I have some good recipes that came out of it because I really like beans and home made bread.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Ironically, many of those Depression Recipes are probably
more filling, and better for you, than our current
Drive Through goodies or prefab foods.

[altivo.livejournal.com]

Some have an awful lot of fat in them, but on the whole, you're right about that. My folks didn't have a lot of money, considering that they were raising five kids on one salary, so I ate a lot of that stuff in the 50s. We grew up on stuff that the other kids in school would have refused to eat, like beans cooked with the ham bone to get everything out of it that was possible.

Some people turn against "poverty food" that they had to eat, but I'm one of those who gets nostalgic about it and loves it. Navy bean soup? Yum. Spanish rice? Gimme! My mom was a genius with the pressure cooker and could make the stringiest piece of meat turn melt-in-your-mouth tender.

[pioneer11.livejournal.com]

Navy Bean Soup and Spanish Rice?

I'm there dude.

*comes over to your pen and feeds you tasty veggies and
hambones and rice*


^_^

[altivo.livejournal.com]

*scarfs it all up and either dies of colic or gets incredibly fat*