Ginger and Ginger-Vanilla Jelly

This is the feistiest preserve I’ve made in some time. Gingery heat with a lingering spiciness plus the aromatic allure of vanilla.  And to think it all started with a pile of unseemly scraps. Peelings and cores of apples that had been cut up for pie, half a vanilla bean pod scraped of its seeds for the same pie, a few lemon quarters that had given up their juice, and accumulated peelings and tidbits of fresh ginger. The makings of jelly rescued from the compost heap for now but later to return, their precious flavor and pectin rendered.

On Thanksgiving, when I make a couple of apple pies, I place apple and lemon peels in a large saucepan, cover them with water and simmer the mixture for 30-40 minutes. The batch is then poured into a jelly bag and left to drip for hours or overnight. Apples and lemon – particularly the peels and seeds – have a lot of natural pectin so all you have to add is sugar (in a ration of 1 liquid to ¾ sugar) and any flavorings you want. This year I included ginger scraps and a vanilla pod in the initial soak.  To intensify the ginger flavor, I simmered sliced ginger in the apple juice the next day and let it drain before combining with sugar to make the jelly.  Always ready for an experiment, I scraped vanilla seeds into some of the jars before I canned them. When suspending anything in jelly, let the jelly cool a bit before adding the ingredient so that it is suspended, and then stir again in a minute or two.

I’m still perfecting this recipe, but here’s last year’s Thanksgiving Jelly to get you started. This one’s got big plans. 

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Little Sweet and Sour Onions

I am always searching for something piquant to serve with Thanksgiving fare. Cranberry sauce fulfills part of this every year and this year, my discovery of boiled apple cider to glaze radishes and embellish roasted roots turned out perfectly.  Not being able to predict that in advance, I decided to make sweet and sour onions. In the past, I’ve cooked them sweetly with chicken stock and balsamic vinegar, but now, with the need for tang (not to mention the presence of vegetarians), I switched things up a bit. Here, they’re braised in olive oil and finished with red wine vinegar and sugar.

For years, I was buying small flat disk-like cipollini onions from a rickety farm stand up the road, run by an elderly women of Eastern European descent. She could be counted on for all kinds of produce that was not in the mainstream at the time. I fondly remember her kohlrabi and special varieties of peppers. Now the place is boarded up and the town has more tony places to shop. Our local organic grocery is spiffed up too but it’s still down to earth, offering a variety of small organic onions – no larger than an inch in diameter – in bulk.  These were surprisingly popular at Thanksgiving dinner, so next year I’ll crank up the volume. 

Little onions, including so-called pearl onions and cipollini, are a pain to peel. In the past, I’ve slit the bottoms, dunked them in boiling water and pinched them to release the centers before sautéing them in oil, adding sugar to caramelize them, and deglazing the pan with vinegar and stock. This time, I cooked them with the skins on in simmering water until nearly tender, cooled them slightly and stripped the skin off, before braising and glazing them in olive oil, red wine vinegar and sugar, tempered by the adding of a bay leaf. This was much less time-consuming than my previous peeling method.

Little Sweet and Sour Onions

1 lb small onions, one color or a mix

1 tbsp olive oil

Bay leaf

1 tbsp sugar

2 tbsp red wine vinegar

Trim the tops and bottoms of the onions and rinse off any grit. Bring a pot of water to a boil and add the onions. Reduce the heat to allow the liquid to simmer and cook until the onions can just be pierced with a turkey trusser. Remove the onions to a platter (dunk them in cold water if they’ve cooked until crisp tender or beyond).  Remove the skins and set the onions aside until you are ready to complete the dish.

Warm the olive oil over medium high heat in a sauté pan large enough to hold the onions in one layer. Add the bay leaf and cook for a minute. Add the onions and stir to coat. Add the sugar and continue stirring until the onions start to color. Add the vinegar to deglaze the pan, and pour the contents into a serving dish, removing the bay leaf. This dish can be made days in advance and reheated.

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Waste Not Want Not: Restocking the Bird, Turkey Rice Soup

The bird was barely warm when we stripped it.  After the Thanksgiving feast, we quickly removed the turkey meat to cool and refrigerate it and placed the carcass in a deep stockpot.  After being covered with cold water brought to a near boil, the turkey simmered all night nestled in with the trimmings of onions, carrots and celery, heat adjusted to a low simmer. The result was a large pot of delicious stock. This is not like the stock of last weekend, made from fresh turkey legs and necks browned in the oven and similarly simmered all night with aromatic vegetables. That produced a gelatinous, deeply flavored stock that we used to moisten cornbread stuffing and to make deeply colored gravy. No, this one is light, not gelatinous, since the bones were already cooked. This is more like chicken stock and hence more versatile. 

This soup celebrated the flavorful stock and made a light lunch, refreshing after the excesses of Thursday’s groaning board. (Groaning board is an old English term for a buffet table laden with food to the point where the wooden tabletop creaks.  By stretch, it also describes how our Thanksgiving guests were acting by the end of an indulgent meal.)  

I simply sautéed chopped onions, carrots and celery in a little butter, added stock to cook them thoroughly, and then chopped turkey meat and a combination of pre-cooked white, red and wild rice.  If you don’t have pre-cooked rice, add a small amount of raw rice to the stock after bringing it to a boil. Turn down the heat and simmer, covered, until the rice is cooked. Then add more stock if necessary, seasonings and the turkey. It’s important to add the turkey at the end so that it doesn’t dry out.  Bon appetit.

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Waste Not Want Not – Getting the Most from Your Food: Apple Jelly with Thanksgiving Herbs or Spices

After peeling and coring eight organically grown apples for a Thanksgiving pie and sprinkling the slices with the juice of a fresh lemon to keep them from browning, I had a pile of leftovers that could have gone into the garbage can or the compost heap, but why? They make the perfect combination for jelly. Natural pectin is developed from the peels and seeds of both apples and lemons, so I simply covered them with water, simmered them with herbs until soft and drained the liquid in a jelly bag overnight. I used sage, rosemary and thyme as the flavoring but alternatively I could have used the peelings and scraps of fresh ginger, which I’ll do next time. With added sugar, and 5 minutes of boiling the next day, we had a gorgeous, aromatic and very tasty jelly for our morning biscuits (or in the case of the ginger, we would have a glaze for a fruit tart).

People often ask me how I have time to preserve so much stuff for my pantry. The simple answer is that once you’re comfortable with the technique, this type of jelly takes no time or focus. It took me longer to post this than to make it, but each under 15 minutes and while I was doing other things. Like toasting my homemade gluten- and dairy-free cornbread for stuffing, making turkey stock, baking pumpkin and apple pies, and otherwise preparing for the big feast.

I didn’t can this jar, which would have added 10-15 minutes’ more effort, but I am giving you the directions to do so.

Herb Jelly from Apple and Lemon Peelings

Peels and cores from 8 (or so) large apples

1 lemon and its seeds after juicing, chopped

Sprigs of herbs (sage, rosemary, thyme) or trimmings from fresh ginger

Water

Sugar (proportional)

Put the apple and lemon trimmings and the herbs or ginger in a large soup pot and barely cover with water. Bring water to a boil, reduce to a simmer and cook, covered, for 30-45 minutes or until very soft. Pour into a jelly bag suspended over a bowl (or a sieve lined with cheesecloth) and let the mixture drain a minimum of two hours or overnight.

If you are going to preserve the jelly via water bath canning, prepared the jars and lids.

Place a saucer in the freezer before you start so that you have a cold surface to gauge the gel.

Measure the strained juice and for every cup, add ¾ cup of granulated sugar. Combine the apple-lemon-herb liquid and sugar in a wide pot and bring to a boil. Boil rapidly for 5-6 minutes (or longer, not to worry) until the gel point is reached (when a drop placed on a cold saucer doesn’t run and wrinkles when touched).

Spoon the jelly into prepared jars. If you are planning on inserting herbs, let the jars cool for 5 minutes so that the jelly becomes stiff enough to suspend them. Dunk the herbs in boiling water before inserting in the jars. And make sure that they are not trapping air at the edges. Cap with sterilized lids and place in water bath canner. Cook at a rolling boil for 10 minutes, then turn off heat, remove cover and let stand for 5 minutes until removing the jars to cool completely before storing.

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Cranberry Sorbet

Sometimes I struggle with the proportions of sorbet ingredients to be able to achieve a smooth, almost creamy texture rather than a block of ice. I made a yummy cantaloupe sorbet this summer that was great fresh out of the ice cream maker but froze to a poor consistency. I think it’s partly in the body of the pulp, partly in whether the ice cream maker will humor me long enough to aerate the mix, and partly in those little  “trucs,” such as adding (dreaded) corn syrup or a little alcohol.

Having to retreat from a certain mulled apple cider sorbet the other day, I decided to go for broke with the cranberries. They have a lot of pectin, I think, based on their gelling capacity when I make Thanksgiving relish, so that already bodes well for consistency. I also didn’t feel that I needed to process a whole quart of the sorbet mixture. To get to a quart, I would have added liquid and that would aggravate the ice factor. This turned out perfectly. Because of the concentration of berries, you can eat only a tiny amount at a time. We could have used this as an intermezzo at our abundant Thanksgiving feast, if anyone does that anymore. It cleanses the palate at any time.

Cranberry Sorbet

12 oz cranberries, picked over, stems removed and rinsed

1 cup sugar

1 cup water

½ cup additional liquid (water, orange juice, cranberry juice)

1 tbsp light corn syrup

Zest of 1 orange

2 tsp Grand Marnier liqueur (optional)

Mix the cranberries, sugar and water in a pot and bring to a boil over high heat. Cook until cranberries have popped. Add additional liquid and corn syrup and let cool. When cool, add orange zest and liqueur and chill in refrigerator until very cold. Process in an ice cream maker according to the manufacturer’s directions. Makes a pint and a half.

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Eternity: Two People and a _______, the Last Bite

There’s an old joke that eternity can be defined as two people and a ham. Now I can attest to an alternative: two people and a turkey. With the brood departing after the holiday weekend and not taking anything with them, there was a passel of left-behinds. A little of this and that and a mound of meat. The carcass had already been cooked down into golden, flavorful stock that made its way into turkey potpie, turkey soup with rice and vegetables, turkey chili. The white meat had been scavenged for sandwiches and salads, and then, finally, all that was left was a small bowl of scraps.

I had been interested in making croquettes for a while but never got around to experimenting with them, so this was the perfect opportunity to purge the pantry of potatoes and use up the modest morsels of cubed root vegetables along with the turkey. Because of the taste and color of the sweet potatoes and carrots, I thought that adding a little curry powder would complement the dish and I was right. These were delicious served on top of baby chard.  (Don’t worry that I posted this so long after Thanksgiving. We had this for dinner a week later.)

Turkey Croquettes

1 cup chopped turkey meat (pulsed in a food processor but not ground)

1 cup mashed potato and root vegetables

1 small onion, diced

Vegetable oil

½ tsp curry powder, or to taste

2 eggs, one for the croquette mix, one for the coating

Flour

Panko or bread crumbs

Prepare the turkey and set aside. Prepare an approximately equal amount of potato mixture, with or without the roots. Leftover mashed potatoes would be fine here. Combine them in a mixing bowl. Slowly cook the onion in the oil until translucent, then add the curry powder, and continue to cook, stirring, until aromatic. Add the curried onions to cool turkey-potato mix and thoroughly combine. Lightly beat one egg and add to the mixture. (I actually added a portion of the second egg since I didn’t need the whole thing for the battering.) Shape into patties

When ready to cook, dip the patties in flour, then in a beaten egg, and finally in panko or bread crumbs. Fry in vegetable oil (1/8-1/4 inch in pan) until well browned, and serve hot.Makes about 4 patties, more or less depending on how large you want them. Mine were 2 x 3 x 1/2 inches.

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Roasted Cipollini Onions

Cipollini onions are small, flat onions with a light golden color and a papery skin that’s hard to peel. I picked out a small bagful of equal size cuties to roast and serve at Thanksgiving, but they’d be good anytime. The trick is in the peeling.  As with tomatoes and peaches, a quick dip in boiling water allowed us to slip the slimy skins right off.  They were then coated lightly in olive oil, sprinkled with a little coarse salt and roasted in the oven at 375 degrees for about 15-20 minutes, until just starting to get tender. I added a few splashes of balsamic vinegar to the pan and finished cooking until tender but not falling apart. (Test with a turkey trusser or cake tester since a fork is too large and could break them apart.)

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Roasted Roots

I love roasted vegetables. There’s something about the concentration of flavors that feels homey. And the contrast between the slightly crispy outside and the soft, creamy inside adds a little complexity. Here I have a medley of root vegetables from our CSA farm: sweet potatoes, rutabaga, turnip and carrots. Parsnips would be a good addition, as would regular white potatoes. I take the simplest approach to roasting these types of vegetables. I toss them in a little olive oil, sprinkle with coarse salt, sometimes add a few sprigs of herbs (thyme here), and then bake them in a medium-hot oven. For some roasted vegetables, like beans and asparagus, I use a very hot oven, but roots take longer to cook so I slow down the cooking time. You can always crank up the oven at the end if things aren’t browning to your satisfaction. The other important point is that these vegetables may roast at different rates, so I separate them in the roasting pan. Parsnips, for example, cook very quickly compared to carrots. If I’m serving this as a side dish at room temperature, as part of a buffet for example, I add a little spicy vinaigrette of olive oil, lime juice and a pinch of chili powder or hot paprika.

Roasted Root Vegetables

A variety of root vegetables, peeled and cut into ¾ – 1-inch chunks

Olive oil

Coarse salt

A few sprigs of fresh thyme

Spicy vinaigrette (optional)

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. Toss the cut-up vegetables in a little olive oil, just to coat, arrange in roasting pan, keeping each type separate. Sprinkle with salt and roast for about 20 minutes – more or less depending on type – turning them part way through to brown all sides.

To make a spicy vinaigrette, combine 2 parts olive oil to 1 part lime juice (or a little more, to taste), add a pinch of chili powder, and a little salt. You can also add a tiny smidge of cayenne, but watch out – that stuff is hot!

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Gluten-free Dairy-free Cornbread Stuffing for a Turkey

The first year that we decided to be gluten-free and dairy-free for Thanksgiving, I gave up my longstanding tradition of making bread stuffing for the turkey and moved over to a more Southern approach based on cornbread. I had been researching gluten-free baking, so I knew cornbread would be a good option. I used the typical ingredients of celery, onion, thyme, sage, salt and liberal amounts of black pepper, and also added browned sausage. It was bound together by turkey stock that I had made a few days earlier from necks and backs. Some of the stuffing was cooked inside the bird and the rest in its own pan in the oven.  One of the tricks I discovered this year was to mix the stuffing a couple of hours in advance and let it sit, which allows the flavors to get acquainted. (Refrigerate it if the time’s lengthy.)

Gluten-free Dairy-free Cornbread Stuffing

12 cups dried cubed gluten-free dairy-free cornbread (see below)

1 ½ pounds mild or spicy bulk pork or turkey sausage

Olive oil and vegan spread (like Earth Balance, which has no dairy or gluten)

2 cups chopped onion

2 cups chopped celery

½-3/4 cup chopped celery leaves

½ cup chopped parsley

2 tbsp or more dried sage (leafy, not ground)

1 tbsp or more dried thyme

2 tsp or more ground black pepper

Salt to taste

1-2 cups turkey stock

Make the corn bread a day or so in advance so that it dries out. Cut it into 1-inch cubes and dry them in a low (275-degree) oven for 20-30 minutes or until quite dry and almost brittle. Break up the sausage into 1-inch chunks and sauté over medium high heat (so that it browns slightly) until cooked through. Remove and drain off excess fat. Melt some vegan spread with olive oil and sauté the onions and celery until softened.

Combine the cornbread, sausage and vegetables in a large mixing bowl, add the celery leaves, parsley, sage, thyme, salt and pepper. Add turkey broth, a little at a time, until the mixture is moist but not soggy, being careful not to break up the cornbread too much (some will crumble, but you will want some cubes to stay whole). Taste and add more seasonings if needed. Let sit for a couple of hours before stuffing the turkey.

This made enough to stuff a 15-pound turkey and to fill a 7-inch shallow baking dish. I added extra turkey stock to the dish (since it wouldn’t get the basting from the turkey) and baked it at 350 degrees for 35-40 minutes.

Gluten-free Dairy-free Cornbread (based on a recipe by Gluten-free Girl)

¼ cup sorghum flour

¼ cup tapioca flour

¼ cup potato starch

¼ cup sweet rice flour

4 tsp aluminum-free baking powder

1 tsp xanthan gum

1 tsp salt

¼ cup sugar (omit if making it for stuffing)

¼ cup vegan spread (like Earth Balance, or use Crisco)

2 eggs, slightly beaten

1 cup lactose-free milk (or use rice milk)

1 cup fine yellow cornmeal

Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Grease a 7 x 10 ½-inch (or 9×9-inch) pan. Sift the dry ingredients (other than cornmeal) so combine them well. Cut in the shortening like you were making a pie, until it reaches a sandy texture. Combine the slightly beaten eggs and milk and pour into the dry ingredients, stirring just until combined. Then quickly stir in cornmeal and pour into prepared pan. Bake for 20-25 minutes.

One recipe makes about 8 cups of cubed cornbread. I made two of these, one with sugar and one without and reserved half of the one with sugar for another use.

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Something for Everyone: Thank Goodness, Thanksgiving

We’ve always come together as a family around the table. Dinners whenever more than one is home, breakfasts on Sundays mostly, lunches on holidays or weekends when we find ourselves in the same place. We’ve shared our lives over many a meal, the meal being a means to bring us together as individuals and as a unit. That’s why we have a round table… no hierarchy… everyone face-to-face.

When kids are little, parents choose the meals and we chose balanced, organic, local produce, but also dealt with the green phobia (nothing green please), the white obsession (only pasta please), and all of the other picky practices. Then, as time goes on and people disperse, get exposed to new influences, develop their own habits, bring in friends and lovers, the diversity of pet peeves and personal preferences explodes. My family is now a cast of characters when it comes to food. We have the meat lovers, the vegetarians, the wheat-free and dairy-free, those who want to lose weight and those who want to gain, those who like things mixed up and those who zone the food on their plates, those who like things cooked and those who prefer things raw, plus the dogs who like everything, anywhere, anytime.

My goal in cooking a multi-dish meal such as the Thanksgiving feast, a holiday lunch for our extended family, a reception for a crowd (think post-game tailgate) is to create a menu that hangs together, even though the individual pieces may cater to one person/preference or another. All diners should find several dishes to their liking and the groupings should make an interesting meal, with tastes, textures and colors that work together. Everyone should feel as if that meal were made just for him or her.

So, this year, like last, we have a gluten-free, dairy-free base with only one dish off limits — conventional apple pie — which she doesn’t like anyway.  And the vegetarian has plenty of choices. All the others are on their own. This rant is not really about recipes but more about menu planning, so this is what we ate. The leftovers created some interesting opportunities, as we’ll see in the coming posts.

Roasted organic free-range tom turkey from a nearby farm

Homemade gluten-free cornbread and sausage stuffing

Gluten-free gravy (use rice flour and pre-made homemade turkey stock)

Mashed white potatoes (lactose-free)

Roasted roots (sweet potatoes, turnips, carrots, rutabagas)

Roasted Brussels sprouts (minis, from our mini-garden, a garnish amount)

Balsamic-glazed cipollini onions (also a garnish amount)

Cranberry sauce (simple, a preference)

Steamed broccoli with lemon and olive oil

Radicchio salad with oranges and pomegranate seeds

Gluten-free dairy-free pumpkin pie in a gingersnap crust

Apple pie

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