Make your own Thanksgiving Dinner

It's Thanksgiving in Canada and the weather is amazing.
You don't have to wait for an invite to celebrate Thanksgiving or have a big family to enjoy it.

This week I have been feeling sick and super exhausted.  I think my stressful crazy month of September caught up with me.

Since I don't have family dinners anymore and my friends were either sick, working or busy with family I decided to get up and make my own Thanksgiving dinner yesterday.   I cooked all day and probably could have invited a few people over but I put all my energy into just making the food and cleaning up afterward so I didn't have any energy left to entertain anyone.

It started when I decided to get a Turkey Breast roll from Whole Foods.  I don't eat Turkey that often so it's nice to have some around Thanksgiving since I don't celebrate Christmas.  I thought it might be good to cook up the Turkey Breast and then have it for a couple of meals and sandwiches.


The MENU:

Rolled Turkey Breast Roast
Spiced Cauliflower
Basalmic Brussel Sprouts
Mashed Pumpkin
Stuffing
Roasted pumpkin seeds
Cranberry sauce
Gravy

Since the Turkey took up my whole oven because I only have one oven rack I had to do things in stages so it took me a few different tools and a whole day.  I decided to use my new T Fal Actifry XL to make Brussel sprouts and then I added spiced up Cauliflower.   They took about 20 minutes each without any fussing or turning. The Actifry did all the turning and timing.  It's really a great tool for a big dinner because it's like having an extra oven or fryer because it's a good substitute for frying and also works like a roasting oven.  It caramelized my vegetables beautifully.

I got a couple of small Squash Pumpkin's in my Fresh City Farms delivery so I decided to roast one and then I mashed it.  I also roasted the seeds.

I ate a bit of it but wasn't really in the mood to make Pumpkin pie but I would like to make a pumpkin loaf but need to get some flour first.   You go through a lot of flour cooking a lot of holiday types of dishes but I used up my flour making my no knead bread recipe.  I have posted the recipe I used before.  You can see it on a previous post, but I just used a recipe I got from Michael Smith.  It basically sits and rises for 20 hrs an then you bake it in a dutch oven on high heat for 25 min.
I also made cranberry sauce with the cranberries I had in the freezer from when they went on sale last.  I added star anise, a few cardamon pods and a cinammon stick to the simmering pot for extra flavour.  I would have used orange zest but I didn't have any oranges.   Don't buy the can, it's easy to make and you can add your own twists to it.

I made everything from scratch except for a little help from a bag of Ace Bakery stuffing mix which is just seasoned croutons.  I added fresh celery, carrots, onions and apple and fresh sage to the mix.  I cooked it on the stove and then finished it in the oven.


I added celery, carrots, garlic, onions, herbs and chicken stock to the bottom of the pan of the roasting turkey so I was able to make gravy from the flavours of the vegetables.  There won't be much turkey drippings because there isn't much fat and it's all light meat but using chicken stock added to the pan will give you enough to make a decent gravy.  I put all the stock and vegetables in a saucepot and reduced it down and added a bit of water and soy sauce and then thickened it up with a slurry of cornstarch and water.  I strained all the vegetables out but I think some people don't mind having chunky gravy.  I am not one of them.

I prepared the turkey by rubbing butter all over it and seasoning with salt and pepper and paprika for color and then added fresh sage sprigs on top.  I wanted to try the low and slow method of cooking the Turkey but it took too long so I cranked up the heat so that I could bake my bread.  However you cook your Turkey just make sure you use a Thermometer and cook it to 165ºF to be safe.  But be prepared to wait because Turkey is usually a lot of meat and if you cook it whole and stuff it that takes even longer because the heat doesn't circulate as well.  You could break down the turkey and roast it on a baking sheet but you will lose the presentation factor.  I liked the wrapped Turkey breast I found at Whole Foods.. nothing to do to it.  Just season it and pop it in the oven.

My food came from all over the place.  Some from Fresh City Farms, some from Whole Foods and the rest from Loblaws.  Try and get as much as you can that's local if you can since it's Agriculture Week but I know it can be hard if you don't have a good market near you but you can request local produce from your local grocer and if enough people ask they will add more.  Support your local farmers because they do their work so that you can eat well.   That's what I am thankful for this year.  That I have good food on my table and farmers who work hard for people like me who can't grow their own food.

Here is my finished plate.
Thanks to all the farmers and food workers that had a hand in the ingredients on this plate.

Is it worth it to do all this work?  Maybe not.  I spent a lot of time doing it and a lot of time cleaning up but there is a pride of making everything yourself and knowing what's in your food and also there's always leftovers and no big cooking the next day. Just warm it up and eat and relax you did enough work for a couple of days so you can have a rest now.

I understand why single people don't cook at home.  It's not always as economical but don't lose your cooking skills because they really are skills for life.  Sometimes I choose to cook and sometimes I choose not to but at least I have a choice I can make a great meal or have someone else make one for me.    Don't let being alone on Thanksgiving stop you from having the Thanksgiving Dinner you want to eat.  Just get in the kitchen and make it for yourself.  You are worth it.

Enjoy

Happy Thanksgiving.

Sobeys Holiday Blogger Challenge

photo provided by Highroad

I got a very last minute invitation to participate in a Holiday Blogger Challenge at an event hosted by Sobeys.  I already had another event that I was planning on going to but couldn't pass up this invite to join an Ultimate Holiday Blogger challenge with fellow food bloggers and see what Sobeys had in store.

The event was held at the fabulous Cirillo's Academy on Dundas St. West on a snowy night this week.

I was the first guest to arrive, I left early because it was snowing and rush hour and I wanted to make sure I didn't get stuck in traffic.  I would rather have time then be stressed about being late.

I walked in to a beautifully decorated space with festive drinks like a cranberry and rosemary vodka I think.   I tried the pomegranate and mint gin drink and it was really pretty and great.  Really set the mood for the evening.

As other guests and bloggers arrived we were also treated to an amazing spread of cheeses and charcuterie that was explained by their "Cheese Strategist" as he was called.  There was also a "humane meat" expert there to chat with us about the Certified Humane meats that Sobeys carries.

We sipped on delicious drinks and nibbled on yummy bites while getting to know the Sobeys team, I have never met any of them before except for our new Food Revolution Ambassador Monika who wasn't there that night but other Food Rev Team members Carol (@greatmealideas), Mardi (@eatlivewrite) and Christine (@typeAconsult)  were there.   Thanks to Mardi for suggesting that they invite some of the Food Rev Ambassadors.

After we were warmed up we were then assigned the evenings mission of creating a Holiday dish from a "Chopped" style box of items.  No scary items in this box though.  We also had the use of a small pantry of extra Jamie Oliver and Sobeys brand items.

The Box contained the following items:

photo provided by Highroad

Kale,

Certified humane Pork Loin

Cabbage

Pomegranate

Clementine

Cheese

Wild rice

Orange Rosemary glaze

Parsnip

Dijon Mustard

Fennel

I was paired up with Isabelle, a food blogger that I don't think I have met before although I may have seen her at other events possibly.  Mardi and Carol were paired up and Christine was paired up with a blogger from Halifax, and the other 2 bloggers I didn't know were paired up.  Sobeys people chose the match ups.

We had about an hour to make our Holiday Dishes so we got right on it trying to come up with ideas.  I immediately thought of a kale salad since it was fairly simple and would fit with the box of ingredients.

Isabelle thought that we should swap the wild rice for Arborio rice and I like it better so I agreed.  We skipped the cheese altogether.

I made a vinaigrette with the pomegranate juice, clementine juice, mustard and oil and white wine vinegar and we added some shallots.  It turned into a beautiful orange pink color that I dressed the chopped Kale with.

Then I coated the pork loin in mustard and salt and pepper and sliced it into medallions and tried to pan fry it.  I wanted to get a sear but the pan wasn't hot enough.  Before I fried the pork I toasted quinoa, then walnuts and then fresh rosemary in oil.  I took out all 3 things and placed to the side and then added the shallots and then the pork loin.  We added Sriracha to the orange glaze and I added that to the pan after I cooked the pork a bit.

photo provided by Highroad

After madly chopping things Isabelle made the risotto with white wine, and she added some of the walnuts, green onions and some of the kale.  Remember that Risotto takes 20 min of stirring so that took a big chunk of the time.    

We had a food stylist on hand who went around helping everyone with their plating.  We had to make 4 plates for the judges.  Since we had a salad, rice and the glazed pork she suggested we put the salad in a bowl on the plate.  We madly tried to get all the plating done at the last minute.  I wanted to cook the pork as last minute as I could to keep it warm.

We put the kale salad in the bowl and then topped it with the popped quinoa, clementine segments, shaved fennel, the walnuts and the pomegranate seeds.  Thinking about it now I think I would have plated it different to show all the elements better.

I spooned the risotto on the plate in a row and then placed 3 slices of tenderloin to the side of the rice.

We garnished with fresh rosemary and some of the fried rosemary and fresh ground pepper.   It needed more color on the rice and meat so I took some of the clementine slices and dragged it through the glaze sauce and put it on the plate.  It's hard to make it look and taste good with both hot and cold items on the same plate but this is what it looked like when we were done.

me and Isabelle with our finished dish. photo provided by Highroad

The judges really loved Isabelle's risotto but they found the plating not as great, saying they had to spin the plate around to eat it.   We were trying to keep the salad fresh and add height but I am sure there may have been better ways to accomplish it.  It seems like a few of the blogger teams made variations of the same kale salad so they didn't really say anything about the salad other than the fact that the fennel wasn't dressed because we placed it on top of the dressed kale.  We didn't want the dressing to turn it pink but I guess it would have tasted better if we had mixed it in.

Food is very subjecting.  Anyway.. an hour later we were done with the cooking challenge and since the judges ate the food we prepared they had lots of Sobeys food they wanted us to try.

We tried some Maple bacon which was a big hit with all of us.  They made little blt crostini's with it.

We also had little dishes of the 3 different ready to heat side dishes like a Spiced kale and Chick Pea Pilaf, Sweet Leeks and Mushroom Pilaf and Butternut Squash and Quinoa Pilaf.  I liked the Kale and Chickpea one the best, it had Moroccan seasonings.

I forgot to mention that we had some of their Maple Wood Smoked Trout on cucumber slices with cream cheese when we first arrived.  That was from Manitoulin Island  and made from sustainable trout.  It was delicious.

Then the meat guys had us taste some of their Pull-Apart Roast Pork and their Beef Pot Roast with a bit of potato on the side.

They finally rolled out dessert which I loved which was Jamie Oliver's Apple and Blackberry Crisp with Ice Cream on the side.  I love crisps in the winter months.

I have to thank Sobeys for being so generous and hosting a fun hands on event.  They even sent us home with a huge gift bag with some of the Sobeys Sensations products like Chocolate Truffles, Lemoncello Butter Fudge, Belgian Biscuit Collection and Compliments Dark Chocolate covered Marshmallows which I dived into and couldn't stop eating, I polished off that whole box in a couple of days.

You can participate in their Better Food For All Contest to win $1000 in Sobeys groceries by taking a photo of your best Holiday Dish and tagging it #betterfoodforall on Instagram and Twitter.
Follow Sobeys on Twitter here:  @Sobeys

Passover Seder Dinner- Jewish for a Day

My friend Brian decided that since both of us lost our parents we should find something to do for Passover this year.  He spent time with his sister on the first night but wanted to do something for the second night.  I haven't really done much for Passover in years.  Once in a while my cousins wife might do it but she is a busy working woman and I am sure she didn't have time to do anything on a tuesday night.  I suggested going to Caplansky's Delicatessen where Zane Caplansky has started an Annual Passover 2nd Seder Dinner.  He seems to be the only other Jew in town that understands Events outside of a Synagogue or Community Group.   My friend thought that $50 was kind of expensive for a meal.  But it did include a glass of wine.  I don't drink wine so that's lost on me anyway.  Somehow I came up with a stupid idea to maybe do it at my home.  And then my friend said we should see who else we can get to come instead of just the two of us.  I invited my Solo cousin who doesn't have any family here anymore and she was busy.  Her parents and sister have been gone for a long time so I guess she has found something to do over Passover for the past few years.   I just ignore it usually unless my other cousin invites me over.
When I was little my family would go to my aunt's house..  The solo cousin's mother and she would cook the whole meal and we would bring one or two things like my mother's red pepper salad or as she called it Salad de Pimente which my cousins called the red stuff.   Pictured above on the plate of various spreads.  I suppose my aunt had her daughters and husband help her make the dinner.  I was fairly young so I just showed up and ate and then left without having to do anything, so I never knew what went into doing the whole thing.   Later after she stopped doing it due to her health my mother started going to her best friends house on the first night to help her with her family's dinner.  They have a pretty large family.   My brother and I left to fend for ourselves most of the time on the first night.   Sometimes my mother would feel the guilt and make a big deal about having a Passover dinner on the second night after my dad passed away and would kind of do a half version of Passover.   She would make chicken soup, sometimes Gefilte fish, Chicken, potatoes and the red stuff and sometimes the odd other thing.  We didn't do any of the prayers we just ate what she made for dinner.  She would complain about how much work it was for weeks and would start the process two weeks before Passover.  We didn't really care about it as it didn't really feel like a tradition or an event but just to please my mother.   We would tell her not to bother if it was too much work.   I would help her with some of the things but some of it had to be made the day before or the day of so it was always a lot to do.  Lot's of dishes to wash with the salad plate, the soup, the main course and then dessert.  My mother would make a chocolate mousse or Angel Cake for dessert... the Mousse was my favourite.   She finally stopped doing it after we insisted it was too much and not necessary and we wouldn't care if she didn't do it.  It was never a big deal for me.   I liked the fish, and it was the only time of the year I ate chopped liver, sometimes bought and sometimes homemade.  My mother didn't make matzo balls but would use noodles mostly.   It wasn't so Kosher although she did use dishes we only used for company, but that's about it.  At my aunt's house she would have the full traditional meal with Brisket, although her Brisket was always charred to a crisp.  My cousin's wife on the other hand makes the most amazing Brisket and once she told me how she did it I understood the difference.

So fast forward to this year.  I probably wouldn't have tried to get some fish for myself and lately I have been making chopped liver trying to perfect it because it's cheap to make.  I probably would have made a chicken soup and probably would have made matzo balls since they are easy and it's the right time to eat it.   I wouldn't have done a full production for myself for sure.  I make chicken soup all the time when I have leftover chicken bones and vegetables I want to use up so that's no big deal for me.  I will freeze the rest and use it when I need it.

Well... so after I agreed to do it at my house and invited my cousin who couldn't make it but said it would probably cost me more than going to Caplansky's... I told her she was probably right but I didn't realize how right she was until I got in further.   My friend thought we should invite some of our friends from our Film Festival Group.  I didn't think many would be able to come since it was a tuesday night but 2 non Jewish friends decided to come and see what it was all about.  One is Irish who doesn't have family here and the other is English and something else but I can't remember what.  They never went to a Passover dinner so I decided to do it as close to what is normally done and the way my family did it.

That meant making

1. Brisket, I didn't want to make chicken because it's easier just to cook one piece of meat and then cut it up.
2. Chicken Soup from scratch but Matzo Balls from a Manichewitz Box.
3. Babaganoush
4. Roasted Peppers
5. Chopped Liver
6. Roast Potatoes
7. Roasted Brussel Sprouts
8. Cucumber, Tomato salad
9. Gefilte fish roll (bought from Metro) and Horseradish
10. Macaroons made from scratch for the first time.

and then I had to put the Seder plate together so I had to make sure I had an Egg, and a Shank Bone for the plate.  Not that we did that properly but I tried to get everything together.

Well the end result was that everyone loved the food and my friend said the food was better than the food he had the night before.  My other two friends weren't fans of the fish roll though..  but I didn't make it so that's ok.   My friends brought wine and one brought some fresh fruit.

All in all I spent probably just under $200 for everything and I went to 4 grocery stores and started cooking from Saturday to tuesday.  When I told my Jewish friend he said he never realized what it involved.  He's a guy so he probably just shows up to a fully blown meal and leaves after it's done and never has to help do anything.  That's how it was in my family although my cousin does cook and help his wife when she does it.  My brother never lifted a finger in all those years.   My friend finally realized that the Caplansky's dinner was probably a bargain, all things considered.  Although I am sure it wouldn't have been as much food or variety of food.   My friend said he would chip in $40 and appologized profusely and said next year we go to Caplansky's.   His other option was to go to some family relations of his that i don't even know.   That's not an option for me to show up at some strangers house and wait to be served.  It's not my thing.

Well all I can do at this point is reap the rewards of having some leftover Brisket and Macaroons and writing this Blog Post to encourage, warn or explain to people that don't know about Passover what it is.  It's really about a lot of traditions, prayers and history but when you are the one cooking for 3 or more days it becomes about organizing, timing, cooking, cleaning etc.   I worked so hard that I was in pain going to work on the monday and tuesday all day.

I insisted that my friend do the cleanup because I said I wouldn't do that too after working all day and then cooking as soon as I got home and getting things on the table.  I was wiped out.   He ended up standing around for a bit while the girls jumped right into getting the dishes started until one finally said he could jump in anytime.  I think both men and women should both understand what the WHOLE process is.  What it costs,  what it is, what it takes, how long it takes and what you have to do to organize it.   Everyone would appreciate it a lot more.

I found myself constantly wondering how my aunt and mother did it.   In my mother's case she had me as her sous chef and to pick up any ingredients from the store she needed but she spread it out over days to manage it.

What made it tough was using brand new dishes that had to be unpacked and all washed and repacked, and all the large heavy pots and pans that were needed.    You can see the results of my labour in the photos above.

I may never do this again unless people pay me to do it so this may be the only record of it.

My friend that convinced me to do it said I did a good thing and it was Karma.   I told him Karma isn't going to pay my grocery bills.  Did I mention I will be unemployed in two weeks... so probably not the best time to do this.... but I have to look at it as a learning experience and good content for this blog too.

P.S.  I took the rest of the Macaroons to the office I am working at and the disappeared pretty quickly.  One of the guys told me he loved them.   That was the first time I ever made them so at least I know I can cook food for Passover if I want to now.

And my 2 non Jewish friends became Jewish for a Day!