Happy Thanksgiving!

Oh, Thanksgiving. As much as we love visiting the people, we also like just chilling at home. This was a just-us year, and I didn't feel like doing the whole production of Thanksgiving food, so figured I'd do just the essentials: strawberry-rhubarb pie, cranberry sauce, roasted acorn squash. Well, this menu was fatally flawed, as far as Jer was concerned, because there was no dead animal, so we ended up with a roast chicken and some stuffing, too. Overall, very nice.

We started the day with piña and oatmeal. Yum! Then we moved some boxes around, I cooked, and Jer steam cleaned the floors.

Piña!

Some glistening glop

The meal

A beautiful pie

Alas, it turns out I've reached the limit on photos in blogger (1GB), so I'm now placing the images on photobucket and linking them over here. It has a limit, as well (2 GB), so I'm going to have to be more judicious in posting photos. I had the whole "making a pie" series of photos, but only put up the finished product here.

no knead bread

No knead bread happened a bit ago. It results in a moist, holey, crusty, artisanal loaf of bread. It's quite delicious, but perhaps a little bland. I discovered, after trying it a few times, a recommendation (that I can no longer find) to add additional flavour to the bread is to let it rise at room temp overnight, and then put it in the fridge for a few days for a slow, cool ferment. This allows the yeast to do what it does and add some flavour.

 

I've been feeling like having some lately (maybe with a nice, hearty soup *), so decided to whip up a batch. It's quite simple, really.

Flour

Sugar and salt and yeast

Water

Mix

Add more water (this isn't usually necessary)

Rise

A surface of tiny bubbles is what you're looking for

Rest

Warm up, re-rise, salt and then bake

Uncovering

Cooling

Hello, gorgeous!

This time, I decided on a whim to use part whole wheat flour (1 c), just to give it an earthy flavour and some actual nutrition. I guess the ww flour sucks up a bit more water, as I needed to add a smidge more water to make it the right consistency, maybe another tablespoon or two.

Also from my previous tries, I determined I was simply no good at using flour to shape an amorphous mass. I ended up incorporating too much additional flour. I also determined the whole thing was in desperate need of more salt, but you can't add too much salt to the dough or you inhibit the growth of the yeast. I solved this problem by sprinkling the dough blob with sea salt just before baking, and folding some in. I then just pour the whole mess into the heated dish and bake. Delicious.

No knead bread:

3 c flour

½ t salt

¾ t sugar

¼ t yeast

1½ c water

Mix together the dry ingredients, then mix in the water. Allow to sit/rise for 12-18 hours (I usually just do overnight). When ready to bake, heat oven to 450°F with heavy, lidded dish (like a dutch oven) inside. Shape dough, using a minimal amount of flour, as necessary. Place dough in heated dish, cover, bake ~30 minutes. Remove lid and bake an additional 15 minutes until golden brown. Remove from oven, cool on rack. All bread recipes say to let it cool completely before cutting into it, but I have a hard time doing this. Devour.

* this soup was very good! And it even looks reasonably good for you. Jer even liked it (he put cheese on it, too). I omitted the olives (Jer doesn't like them and I'd have ended up eating a whole jar of [fatty, fatty] olives) and added some chopped crimini mushrooms (sauteed them up with the onions at the beginning) because mushrooms are delicious. I think, in the future, if I serve it with bread like this time, I would omit the grain/starch. I also wasn't in love with the quinoa in it, so if I made it without bread, I'd probably put some small pasta (orzo, acini de pepe) in it. But really very good. The mushed up butternut thickens it up nicely.

Between the soup and the chicken salad, I was having some serious cooking win, which was nice after the semi-failed short ribs.

fruited, curried chicken salad

I love chicken salad. Or turkey salad (I often pick apart the turkey carcass after Thanksgiving and, instead of making the more traditional turkey soup, make turkey salad). I always put lots of celery and usually a lot of fruit in it. It ends up crunchy with sweet bursts in it. I had chicken out for something else, but it was too much for that application. I went ahead and cooked the extra up and shredded it.

I chopped up a bunch of celery, apple, and grapes. I mixed the chicken with some mayo to get it nice and lubed up (I do this separately from the veggies/fruit so I can smash the chicken around some without overly damaging the vegetation). Mix the chicken into the vegetation with some garlic powder, onion powder, salt, pepper, and a little bit of curry powder. Add more mayo, if necessary, to get it to the right consistency. I did the curry powder on a whim. My fall back position is that, even if I don't like it, Jer will eat almost anything. Though usually he makes due by covering the food in question with cheese, and we're trying to get away from that.

It actually turned out fabulous. I happened to have some wraps on hand and some fresh spinach, and it was a wonderful lunch! Jer liked it a lot, too. I see more of this in our future. After hanging out in the fridge overnight, the flavours had melded some and it was even more delicious. It did not last long. I think the curry adds more scent than taste, but you definitely get the sense of it.

Approximately what's in it:

~2 cooked, shredded chicken thighs
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 apple, chopped
grapes, cut

~½ c mayo (enough to make it desired consistency)

½ t each: salt, pepper, onion powder, garlic powder

¼ t curry powder

This would be a good way to get rid of stuff in the fridge. If Jer and I liked more veggies, the options would be endless. I can see adding some chopped onion, chopped bell peppers, chopped cucumber (I actually like cucumber and would like it in this, but Jer doesn't), shredded carrots - whatever! Raisins and/or dried cranberries would be a nice addition, as well as some nuts.