Turkey Day!

Cranberry sauce:

-Bag of cranberries

1 orange

3/4 cup sugar

Salt and black pepper, to taste

Add bag of cranberries to saucepan, reserve 1 cup and set aside. 

Peel an orange and add the peel to the cranberries. Slice the orange and juice it. 

Add 3/4 cup sugar to the cranberries and about 2 tbsp orange juice to the pot. Simmer on medium low stirring for 10 minutes. 

 Increase the heat and cook until cranberries burst, then add the rest of the reserved cranberries and reduce the heat until they are just about to burst. Remove from heat and season with salt and black pepper. 

You can set it in the fridge until ready to serve (the next day for instance) and simply let it come to room temperature before serving. 

Roasted vegetable casserole:

Use all the vegetables you prefer, I had

Brussel sprouts, sliced in half 

small candycane beets, sliced in quarters
Heirloom carrots, cut accordingly
Parsnips, sliced
Sunchokes (or Jerusalem artichokes) chopped

Red onion, chopped in quarters

small pearl onions, peeled and set whole

Drizzle all with a good olive oil and season with salt and black pepper or Herbamare

Bake on 400 F until tender. You can toss with butter, if you choose. 

Sweet potato casserole with mini marshmallows was a new dish on our table this year, it's as simple as candying the yams by baking cubes or slices of yams in a casserole tossed with a bit of oil (400 F oven) Once roasted season with salt and black pepper then drizzle some maple syrup and brown sugar over top. Return to the oven for another 10 minutes and then when ready to serve add baby marshmallows to top and broil until toasty.

Pear and walnut stuffing: 

2 cups celery heart, fine dice

2 cups yellow onion, fine dice

1 cup leek white, fine slice

2 tbsp fresh thyme, minced

2 tbsp fresh sage, minced

2 bay leaves

to taste flaked sea salt

to taste fresh ground black pepper

1 cup walnut halves

1 cup D'Anjou pears, core, fine slice

4 tbsp butter

Chicken stock

Favourite bread, I use a loaf of rye, chopped in cubes and left out overnight or you can drizzle with a tiny bit of evoo and toast in a 400 C oven for about 10 minutes. 

Steps:

Sautee chopped veggies (leek, celery, onion)  Add herbs and season with salt and black pepper. 

Chop pears and mix with walnuts, add to the pan. At this point you can mix all this with the bread and set aside in the fridge until ready to use. 

When you're ready to bake simply set it all in a casserole dish and drizzle the stock over top, dot with butter and bake on 350-375 F for about 20 minutes.
 If you want to add an egg to bind it a bit, you absolutely can. 

Dessert: Easy Italian Plum Clafouti 

1 pound Italian prune plums (freestone, from your farmers market) 

1/2 cup flour

3 tablespoons + 1 tablespoon sugar (reserve the 1 tbsp) 

Pinch of salt

2 eggs

2 heaping tablespoons sour cream

2/3 cup milk

Freshly grated rind of 1 lemon

butter (to butter your baking dish)

Confectioner’s sugar for dusting

Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees.

Cut the prunes into quarters and remove the pits. Do not peel them.

In a bowl, combine the flour, 3 tablespoons of sugar, salt, eggs, sour cream. Mix until smooth. Add the milk and lemon rind and mix well.

Butter a 9″ pie plate. Pour approximately 1/3 of the batter into the pie plate and bake it until it’s set, about 10 minutes. You do this so that the fruit won’t sink down and stick to the bottom of the pan. Remove the dish from the oven when the batter is set and arrange the fruit, in concentric circles on top of the batter. Sprinkle the fruit with the remaining tablespoon of sugar and then pour the remaining batter over the fruit. Return to the oven and bake until set and lightly golden, approximately 40 minutes.

The rest of the recipes are here in my harvest dinner post

Lasagna!!

Since I find that I've got a lot of times on my hands during Ramadan I attempted to try my hand at fresh pasta lasagna for the very first time!   The only other time I recall having a lasagna with fresh noodles is when I was really young, and it was mostly due to the fact that we were begging my mother for lasagna when we lived in Northern Iraq where they did not sell dry lasagna pasta sheets.  My mother made the dough and I vaguely remember having pasta sheets all over the front guest living room where it was half drying.

Elements: 

- Meat sauce
- Noodles/Pasta

- Bechamel Sauce
- Roasted vegetables

- Tomato sauce (for top)
- Cheese


Meat Sauce: 

This sauce contains very little tomato, so here it goes

- 2 tbsp good olive oil

-1 1/3-1/2 lb ground beef (your choice of blend, I used one pound lean and another 1/3 of medium) 

- 2-3 tomatoes (cut X in the bottom, place in a metal strainer and in the sink. Add boiling water from the kettle over them)  remove skins and core, dice to a medium chop.
- Salt & black pepper

Heat olive oil and brown the meat nicely on medium high then reduce to medium low allowing them to develop brown bits at the bottom of the pot.  When it can't brown any more (after about 15 mins) add chopped tomatoes and all the liquid from the tomatoes, this should create steam that will remove all the delicious brown bits off the bottom of the pot and create a nice sauce.  Lower heat while adding the tomatoes so it doesn't splatter on you or remove hot pan from heat completely.

Cover and set aside.


Roasted vegetables: 

- 3 Zucchini - slice in thick rings 

- 3 Eggplant - sliced into thick rings 

- 2 Red onion - chop into thick wedges

Salt the eggplant heavely and set in a strainer in the sink. Allow to sit for about 10 minutes.
Salt the zucchini lightly over a large casserole.  Set onions aside.

Preheat over to 400 F and set out a large baking tray lined with parchment.

Squeeze the eggplant with your hands to remove any moisture, rinse with water to remove excess salt and continue to squeeze the liquid out until they look grey (and kinda ugly)

Set all the vegetables in a bowl and toss with olive oil.  Place on a tray in an even layer and roast until nice and golden (turning them from side to side often) 

Bechamel sauce: 

Follow this recipe 

Set the bechamel in a bowl and cover with cling wrap until ready to use.

Cheese:

- Freshly grated Parmigiano Reggiano (about 1 1/2 cups!)
- 1 mozarella de buffala (fresh mozarella), totally optional! Thanks Country Cheese Company!

* Do not worry about the fresh mozarella, the liquid from this cheese will be absorbed by the fresh pasta so it will not be watery as it would it a traditional lasagna.


For the topping:

- 1 cup passata (strained tomato puree) 

- Salt & black pepper

- 1 tbsp good fresh olive oil (From Olive That!!)

Pasta: 

This is a fresh pasta lasagna so either you can purchase the sheets from the store or you could make them like I did!

2 cups flour

4 eggs

Pinch of salt

In a large bowl add the flour and salt, mix, create a well in the center. Crack the eggs in and blend with hands bringing in the flour slowly to incorporate with the eggs.

Knead until it's a nice smooth dough, form a disk and cover with plastic wrap. Allow to rest for about 15 minutes.

Using a pasta machine or a rolling pin and large work surface dust the dough and begin rolling it as flat as you can (you should be able to almost see through it)

Depending on what shape your casserole dish is either cut long strips or in a square/rectangle (or even circles like I did! Circles can be wasteful though, just a heads up)

You will need several layers of dough to create your lasagna, at least 5.


To assemble: 

Reserve some cheese by setting it aside. 

Add meat sauce to the bottom of the pan (a thin layer) 

Lay in a sheet of fresh pasta and from that point layer on everything else: 

- Meat sauce

- Pieces of roasted vegetables

- Grated cheese ( including soft pieces of mozarella de buffala lightly torn by hand or cut into slices)
- Bechamel

..... do several layers like this until you end with a piece of pasta and  pour over the passata fresh tomato puree.  Drizzle with the olive oil, season with salt & black pepper and sprinkle with cheese.

Bake in a preheated 400 degree F oven for about 45 minutes to an hour.

I hope you enjoy this recipe!