Giving Thanks Sandin Style

In the world of retail the holiday of Thanksgiving seems barely a blip. After the Halloween displays come down it jumps straight to Christmas, which makes me sad. Mainly because we Chicagoans have a really loooong winter ahead of us, and while the holiday season is lovely, fall needs to be fall as long as possible!! But really it's because Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

First there's all the political incorrectness. It's just so fun! Small pox blanket anyone??

Second, there's being full of Thanks. I've got a lot to be thankful for, especially around this time of year as it's my anniversary with Chicago. Two years and we're still in love! And isn't the idea of a holiday completely devoted to counting your blessings a lovely thought?

Thirdly I could count all the crazy sales, but as I do not partake in Black Friday I wont.

So thirdly, and most importantly, it's about the food.

Duh.

Sandins are traditionally un-traditional, but for our Thanksgiving fare we actually pretend to be normal. Of course things end up a bit funny...take our turkey this year for instance. My parents ordered a 15 to 20 lbs turkey from the IGA and ended up with a whopping 27 lb bird! Twenty Seven Pounds of Meat. By my father's calculations (double checked by Mom I'm sure) it would take 8 and a half hours to roast. Almost two bags of stuffing were shoved up its cavity. It took up the whole of the oven. It was as big as my head.

We all came to the table with hearty appetites and barely managed to eat half of it. Though having a 19 yr old male to feed certainly helped!

Our post feast entertainment was watching Dr Karl bemusedly de-meat the bird.

But that didn't take too long so D and I had to entertain ourselves by doing finger tip/dead hangs from the grip tape he put above the door moulding. It's a climbing thing. Of course I am barely tall enough to reach with one hand while D...well, not much of a challenge for him. Do your family members climb doors? Oh, apparently the proper term is 'header moulding'. We have grip tape above our header moulding. Hah.

And then there's the left-overs. Turkey Sammitches. I love it. I never buy lunch meat so its really the only time of year that I'm going to eat a turkey sammitch. And I do it with bells on.

First there's the issue of bread. For some reason we've latched onto sourdough for turkey leftovers, I think there's a story there but I'm not sure what. I like mine toasted, because toast is amazing. Mayo on one piece, cranberry relish on the other. The middle consists of turkey (dark meat), mashed potatoes and perhaps a piece of lettuce. Because you probably need some lettuce by that point...or stuffing if you're not ready to be responsible yet. We take our sammitches seriously, especially Dr K. A remnant of his days lurking in Jersey hoagie shops. You should see him terrorizing the staff at Subway, it's hysterical.

This is his Serious Face.

This is Serious Business.

Ok now it might be 'lintel moulding'. The proper use of architectural terms is also Serious Business. Lintel moulding is both architecturally and structurally correct, we (Dr K) is still searching for the proper vernacular carpentry term. He has books in his office you see...

And on that note I'm declaring an end to the Thanksgiving post. It's after Boxing Day. And my father is reminding me of my duty to the blog reading public. That means you. Are you thank-full??!!

Eating Trees

Eating seasonally is something I'm trying to do more (along with drinking more water and eating better chocolate). Having to try to eat seasonally is kind of funny when you think about it. We have come so far in our ability to get food out of season that we forget that we used to be bound to the earth for when we could eat things. Eating strawberries in winter doesn't even make us blink. You can't cheer an unhappy Margaret with the prospect of strawberries from Col Brandon's greenhouses any more! No! But are they really worth it? Forced into ripeness can they really be as good as the first strawberry of summer? After all, anticipation is an important part of eating...thoughts, thoughts, thoughts.

Well, eating seasonally in winter means Cauliflower.

I have never been anti-cauliflower, just not particularly fond of it. Other than eating it raw with ranch dip I've never really known what to do with it...steamed cauliflower is ok just not...y'know...enough to make me want to eat it. While I was home in the fall my Mom had a copy of Donna Hay's magazine. Cauliflower was a featured item of that issue with recipes that got me thinking. White cauliflower pizza? Cauliflower puree? Hmmm.

However it wasn't until I was home for Thanksgiving that I actually got around to doing anything about it. It was after dinner that Friday, my parents and I decided to make a quick Dessert Run to the IGA and you have to pass through the produce section to get to the ice cream. That was where we saw it. The biggest head of cauliflower I've ever seen in my life. It was massive. Still encased in their leaves there were three of them taking up a whole stand. "Can we get one??!!" "Oh yeah." Ignoring the basket my Dad just carried it around like a baby while we made our ice cream selections. Once we were home we just stared at it for a while. I took pictures with a pint glass to show its size.

"What are we going to do to it??" The plan was to make a side dish for the dinner we were going to the next day. Recipe books and boxes were brought out, I consulted my Fearless Leaders of Food (Orangette and Smitten), but it was the recipe for braised cauliflower from that Donna Hay Magazine that won out.

I didn't end up making the dish at all (Bad Bear!). Mom made it while I went on a mission to Beverage Source with Dad so I'll post the actual recipe once I get it...but I did eat it! We had it with a delicious shepherds pie, greedily pouring the buttery juices over the braised vegetable and scraping our places. Even the small child ate all her vegetables! I officially love cauliflower.

I'm going to try my hand at this braising thing soon...but one of my favorite things to do in life is roast things. Anything really. You already know I roast beets and pumpkins but there's Tomatoes with coriander, eggplant for a sauce, asparagus, whatever.

I'm currently eating half a cauliflower that I've roasted to deliciousness. It's salty and savory and buttery. This is what I love about roasting. The ratio of effort to delicious is completely in your favor.

Turn your oven to 400 degrees. Grab a vegetable, chop, cover with olive oil and some salt and pepper. Place on a greased cookie sheet, or do as I do and put it on tin foil in a toaster oven (this is the way to go in summer or if you're just cooking for one). Set your timer for 10-20 min depending on what you're roasting and then walk away. Walk away! Clean up the kitchen, prep the rest of your meal, smells will soon begin to emerge and fill the room. Now is the time to peep at it once in a while, give a few stirs, and once you've reached your desired level of golden brown take it out and eat it. Soon you'll be like me, blinking sadly into an empty bowl and coming to the stunned realization that you just ate half a head of cauliflower.

Now I know that I promised Thanksgiving but eating that bowl of white awesomeness I just had to gush about it! Besides Thanksgiving is turning into a multi post monster so just hold your horses! So until next week, go stuff your faces! Oh and I put up two photos from the Beet Episode, check out the horror.