Weekend Harvest

While I was out in the garden picking arugula for Sunday's soup, I decided it was time to give up on the carrots and beets I planted in August.  It's December.  I think that's fair.  I pulled a modest harvest, and we used what we had for dinner.

I had a chicken to roast, and thought we'd have some carrots, beets and leeks roasted alongside. The largest carrots were pretty small,

so I had to supplement with a few of the store-bought variety.  I also used the parsley and chives, which continue to grow gloriously, for an herbed quinoa that was delicious.

Oh why, oh why did my vegetables not grow?  I give up.  That's a problem I will try to understand next year.   We have more leeks and scallions and herbs to enjoy in the meantime, and in the Spring, maybe some parsnips. Fingers crossed.

Sunday Soups: White Bean, Potato and Arugula

It's December and we've still got vegetables in the garden, thanks to the mild weather we've been having.  I picked some arugula and decided it was time for one of my favorite soups.

I have never bothered to try the original recipe, but like the ingredients and find that it is delicious even with lots of short cuts.  I don't doubt that the real recipe is great, but I like a soup that I can make quickly, usually while I'm also making dinner.  The bottom line is, it calls for 10 cloves of garlic, so how can you go wrong?  (That actually seems excessive to me, and I love garlic, so sometimes I use a little less.)

White Bean, Potato and Arugula Soup
adapted from Bon Appetit

1 15 oz. can of cannelini

2 bay leaves

6 tablespoons olive oil

1 teaspoon fresh rosemary, chopped

2 cups Yukon Gold potato, cut into 1/2-inch pieces (I don't even bother to peel them)

10 garlic cloves, chopped

6 cups low-salt chicken broth

3 cups arugula, tough stems removed, chopped

1 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
salt and pepper to taste

Heat 6 tablespoons olive oil in a large pot over medium heat. Add potato pieces and sauté until brown in spots, about 8 minutes. Add garlic and rosemary, and sauté until garlic begins to color, about 3 minutes. Add 6 cups chicken broth and bay leaves, and boil until potato pieces are falling apart, about 10 minutes. Add beans and parmesan rind and bring to boil.  Reduce heat and simmer just until beans are tender, about 10 minutes. Season soup generously with salt and pepper. Stir arugula and crushed red pepper into soup, and simmer 5 minutes. Remove the bay leaves and parmesan rind.  Serve topped with parmesan, if you'd like.

Yum.

Sunday Soups: Spicy Turkey Posole

I know everyone is sick of turkey by now, but I hope you'll still appreciate this unexpected twist on the usual turkey soup.  On Friday, I made turkey stock from the remains of our 29 1/2 pound bird.  (I say remains because I hate the word carcass.  It sounds so vulgar.  Remains isn't much of an improvement, though, is it?)  I've learned over the last few years to break down the turkey soup process into stages, otherwise I find it to be overwhelming.  Getting the stock out of the way is a managable task the next day while putting things away and vacuuming up crumbs (and a few raw green beans I found in odd places?) and taking a nap on the couch, if you are so lucky.  I stayed out of the kitchen on Saturday.  On Sunday, I skimmed the fat off the top, and filled two large containers for the freezer, so over the course of the next several months we can have a quick turkey soup or minestrone or whatever else strikes our fancy.  The rest went into the Spicy Turkey Posole.

Before I get to the recipe, I want to mention that the highlight of Thanksgiving for me this year, besides the wonderful time spent with family, turned out to be my mom's biscuits.  We've been eating them for breakfast with butter and jam, and for lunch with turkey and cranberry sauce.  I don't think it's possible that we'll ever get tired of them.  I was looking for the recipe online so I could share, and I found that Deb from Smitten Kitchen uses the same recipe: James Beards' Cream Biscuits.  She recommends preparing them to the point of baking and then freezing them, so you can pop a few in the oven for fresh biscuits any time.  That is a dangerous piece of information.

Spicy Turkey Posole
from Food and Wine

Carcass from one 13-pound turkey, plus 6 cups shredded turkey (about 2 pounds)
1 medium yellow onion, quartered
1 carrot, chopped
1 celery rib, chopped
1 bay leaf
Two 15-ounce cans yellow hominy, drained
3 tomatoes, seeded and diced
4 garlic cloves, very finely chopped
1 large jalapeño, thinly sliced crosswise
1/4 cup coarsely chopped cilantro leaves
Salt
Avocado chunks, shredded Monterey Jack cheese and warm corn tortillas, for serving

1. In a large stockpot, cover the turkey carcass, onion, carrot, celery and bay leaf with 16 cups of water and bring to a boil over moderately high heat. Simmer the turkey stock over moderate heat until the broth is flavorful, about 2 hours. Strain the broth through a coarse sieve into a large heatproof bowl.
2. Return the broth to the stockpot. Add the hominy, tomatoes, garlic and jalapeño and cook over moderately high heat until the broth is reduced to 6 cups, about 30 minutes. Add the shredded turkey and chopped cilantro and simmer until the stew is heated through. Season the posole with salt, ladle into deep bowls and serve with the avocado chunks, shredded Monterey Jack cheese and warm tortillas.

Note: The turkey broth can be made up to 2 days ahead.

To the best of my knowledge, this was the first time I've tried hominy.  I wasn't even sure what it was.  (If you don't know, allow me: It's dried maize, treated with lime or lye to remove the hull and germ causing the grain to puff to twice its size.) The taste was mild, but it added an interesting texture, and the jalepeno and garlic brought plenty of flavor.  I thought this soup was an outstanding use of leftover turkey.

I've noticed that our neighbors have put up Christmas lights, but I haven't been able to wrap my mind around the idea that we have legitimately entered the holiday season.  The weather has been so nice, and I took advantage with several walks by the water over the last few days.  Otherwise, I spent a lot of time in the basement, exercising patience while removing thousands of staples and upholstery nails from the antique chairs, now in progress. 

How was your holiday weekend?  Did you discover any creative uses for leftover turkey or find any Black Friday deals or start any tedious projects? 

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm back!  It's been a busy few of weeks, and blogging has once again taken a back seat to life.  Also, while I'm making excuses, I dropped the camera and it now needs to be replaced.  The retractable lens is crooked and no longer retracts.  All I can get the camera to do is tell me there is a lens error.  So, I'm in the market for a new camera, but, in the meantime, I've borrowed my mom's, so I can share a few pictures today.

We are geared up and ready to host the big event tomorrow.  We will be 22 for dinner, 26 or more for dessert.  The house is clean and the tables are set.  We've got to split people into two rooms- the kitchen and dining room.  I dream of opening up the dining room to the living room some day so we can have one long table, but until then...

I've brought in a few bits of the outdoors to provide some simple decoration.

There is a 29 1/2 pound turkey in the refrigerator.  It fits in the oven.  I checked.  According to a calculator on Butterball.com, it will take 4 1/2 to 5 hours to cook the turkey, unstuffed.  We want to take it out at 1:30 to eat at 2, so I guess I'm going to put it in at 8:30...? 

Here's what's on our menu.  It should be noted that I'm only responsible for the first four items, and my sister is doing me a huge favor by cutting the five pounds of carrots.  Everyone comes together to make this delicious feast!

Turkey
Cornbread and Sausage Stuffing
Carrots with Shallots, Sage and Thyme
Roasted Butternut Squash
Green Beans
Roasted Brussel Sprouts
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potatoes
Biscuits and rolls
Cranberry Sauce and Gravy
Apple Pie
Pecan Pie
Pumpkin Cheesecake with a Gingersnap Crust
Nantucket Cranberry Pie

For me, Thanksgiving is all about the stuffing.  And the family togetherness.  But the stuffing is so good.  I should make it more than once a year.  I don't know why I don't.

What's your favorite part of Thanksgiving?  What's on your menu?

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday!  And, if you're heading out on Black Friday, good luck and be careful.  I'm more of a Cyber Monday girl.  I'll be hanging out at home, making turkey stock on Friday.

Potted Herbs

I decided to try bringing some herbs in for the Winter. 

The rosemary won't perennialize in these parts anyway, so I have nothing to lose there. I also dug up some chives and mint, because one of my handy garden books listed them as easy to bring indoors.  (They also recommend parsley and marjoram.)  I put them in a little potting soil, and watered them really well. 

And, I painted some basic terra cotta pots with chalkboard paint, for fun, because it's not so hard to tell these three apart. We'll see how long it lasts.

Have you had any success growing herbs indoors?

Our Biggest Project Yet

We've been talking about it since before we moved in four years ago, and it's finally time to begin.  Before Thanksgiving?  After Thanksgiving?  Actually, we're not sure exactly when to officially begin, but we're gearing up for a really big project. 

We have two full bathrooms in the house- one up, one down.  The downstairs bath is in good shape.  It had a little makeover earlier this year.  The one upstairs supports four bedrooms, but is less than four feet wide.  There are a whole host of other things wrong with it that I will explain in great detail in a later post.  Today, I'm just going to share our plans on how we're going to take three feet out of the closetless bedroom next door to make a more spacious bathroom, meanwhile adding a linen closet on the bath side, and a closet to the closetless bedroom.

I used this free tool on floorplanner.com to map it out.  Once I played around with it for a while, I figured out how to create a basic floor plan.  I am sure there are much greater capabilities available than I've utilized in the free version.  There's also an upgraded service you can pay for, but this will do for now.  Here's the before and after:

See how tiny it is?  We're not actually making it that much bigger, but an extra foot and a half is going to make a world of difference.  (It should be noted that my floor plan failed to include the width of adding a second wall.  We may take a little more out of the bedroom to accomodate that.  Pesky details.) Our original plan was to put in a tub, but we've decided to build a spacious shower instead, since we're not bath people and we have a tub downstairs. We are also going to maximize space by using pocket doors to get into the bathroom, and the linen closet.  And we're going to bump out the ceiling and install a skylight, so we can get some light and air flow. 

So, as you can see, there's a wall that needs to come down between the bedroom and bathroom, and then two will be built back up, with closets in between.  My hero, Matt, has knocked down one wall to date, but this will be the first time he has built a new one.  He has expert guidance and is ready to accept the challenge.  I am available to assist, but I've also got the unfortunate task of removing wallpaper from the bedroom next door.  We will need a plumber and electrician along the way, but our plan is to do most of the work ourselves.

This is going to be a long project.  I'll try to share one update each week, so it's not all bathroom, all the time.  Next week I'll show you some pictures of the sad, sad rooms and what we can't wait to change about them.  Go team!

Have you ever remodeled a bathroom on your own?  Words of wisdom are welcome.

Tricks and Treats

We went for a walk by the water on Saturday morning, anticipating that a big Nor'Easter was going to keep us indoors for the rest of the weekend.

But the storm just brought rain and wind to the coast.  A lot of our neighbors to the West got a foot of snow, and a few places got as many as thirty inches.  Two days before Halloween??  Mother Nature is tricky.

There were also treats.  We had a beautiful sunny day on Sunday, we harvested some arugula (no holes!) for a perfect salad (olive oil, salt, pepper = perfection),

and we got to enjoy our newly delivered stove and microwave. 

While it's not the most fascinating story, I thought I'd explain a little about our stove/microwave decision process.  Here's a before photo:

Aside from the appliances appearing dated, some of the finish was peeling on both.  More importantly, there were a few cooking problems.  The oven door did not open all the way.  You could still get big things in and out, but there was delicate maneuvering involved.  Also, the two large burners were starting to go, so I'd be waiting and waiting for a pot of water to boil, only to find that the burner wasn't hot at all.  Sometimes I could jiggle the burner and get it to start up again, but the process was getting old. 

I did look at replacing the burners, and the receptacles, which connect the burner to the electricity, because it was really those that had corroded and were causing the problem.  It was going to cost $100.  That would be reasonable, but then we had to consider how old our stove was.  We didn't know for sure, but once I found out that Caloric ranges stopped being made in the early 90's, I was convinced it was not worth the repair.  This was confirmed with an estimate that the average life expectancy of an electric range is 17 years.  It would only be a matter of time before the oven went, and one of my greatest fears was that it would be on Thanksgiving day, when we had over 20 people at our house. 

With Thanksgiving in mind, I wanted to maximize our cooking ability with the new appliances.  I went for a double oven, and a microwave with a convection feature, so we could be cooking things at three different temperatures all at once. Luxury!  I also knew I wanted to update with stainless steel.  If I had all the choices in the world, I would have selected a gas stove over electric, but we don't have gas in our house, or our town for that matter, so that will remain a dream.  I used Consumer Reports to narrow it down, and wound up choosing the Maytag Gemini and matching microwave because, while the ratings were similar, the Maytag appliances were more affordable than their GE counterparts.  I also liked the appearance better, and our less-than-a-year-old refrigerator is a Maytag, so there would be no issue with matching the stainless.

Without further ado, here it is:

Pretty, right?  Don't look to the right, because you'll see our antique dishwasher with a peeling finish, and the windows above the sink that have been taken apart and cobbled back together while waiting for a new window unit to arrive.  After Thanksgiving.  Oh, well. We are happy with the new appliances.

Wishing you a happy Halloween, with lots of treats!