Oh, these were good. It started innocently enough — I was at the store for something completely healthy. Perhaps it was broccoli or some wheat pasta. Or olive oil. Anyway, I passed the baking aisle and … oh. Mmmmm… Those look good. Huh, maybe I should just see if they’re any good.

Yeah…they were good. They’re gone now.

I want to make brownies from scratch sometime but until that time — the Ghirardelli ones will do. I was actually surprised at how good they were for a box mix and so was jwa.

In other news I am starting to freak out about Thursday’s dinner for 25. Except now it’s 29. And it’s supposed to snow. Wah!

More on that tomorrow.

I just made 58 of these for a work dinner on December 1. I love cooking but I’m glad that this is done! Oh, uh, I only have 58 because I baked two puffs already and jwa and I ate them to make sure they were okay to serve — they were. I froze the remaining 58.

Acorn Squash, Apple & Sage Puffs:
1 box puff pastry, defrosted
1 granny smith apple, quartered and cored
1 acorn squash
1 tsp olive oil
1 tbsp fresh chopped sage
1/3 block of cream cheese (the low fat kind works well)
1 clove garlic, minced
2 tbsp grated parmesan
salt & pepper to taste
flour for dusting work surface
small dish of water
a 3-inch biscuit cutter

Preheat oven to 425. Carefully halve squash. Rub the olive oil on the squash halves (concentrating on the cut sides). Sprinkle with salt & pepper and roast cut side down for about 30-40 minutes — until tender and caramelized.

When cool enough to handle scoop out flesh into big bowl. Add the sage, cream cheese, garlic and parmesan. Grate two quarters of the apple onto two layered paper towels. Squeeze out extra liquid and the add grated apple to squash mixture. Snack on the other two apple quarters.

Sprinkle flour on your work surface. I found it the easiest to break puff pastry along the perforated lines and roll out each rectangle large enough to fit ten circles on — five rows of two. Fill each circle with about one teaspoon of squash.

With dish of water, wet one edge of a circle with your finger, pull and stretch dough a bit to cover squash. Press down the edges to make a seal. Use a fork to crimp the edges. Repeat with all of the circles of dough. Each full sheet (three rectangles) of puff pastry will yield 30 puffs. A whole box will yield 60. Leftover filling makes a great dip or ravioli filling.

To bake:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange puffs on a baking sheet. Don’t crowd. Bake for about 20 minutes, until golden and puffed up. Repeat as necessary to bake as many puffs as desired. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

To freeze:
Arrange uncooked puffs in a single layer on a baking sheet. Cover well with aluminum foil. Put in freezer for one day. Remove and store in freezer bags. When ready to bake, preheat oven to 400 degrees. Arrange puffs on a baking sheet. Don’t crowd. Bake for about 25-30 minutes, until golden and puffed up. Repeat as necessary to bake as many puffs as desired. Let cool 10 minutes before serving.

This, for slashfood’s Lovely Leftovers Day.

This recipe came about because:
1. I wanted to do something for slashfood’s leftover day,
2. I have a ton of turkey to use (12 pound bird for three people!),
3. I had all the other ingredients on hand, and
4. While walking around Penzey’s with my mom, I picked up a recipe card for somthing similar to this (although their version was sans the coconut milk, veggies, tomato, ginger and brown rice).

I made the turkey stock Sunday afternoon by putting the carcass in a big stock pot, covering with water, adding half an onion, a bay leaf, a one-inch piece of ginger and three garlic cloves. I simmered about three hours and skimmed any icky stuff off the top. Then I strained the stock and refrigerated it in a ziplock bag. Now, it’s dinner time.

Turkey Curry Soup with Brown Rice:
1 1/2 cups chopped, cooked turkey
3 cups turkey stock
1 medium onion, diced
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup carrots, chopped
2 heads broccoli (or broccoli florets from a vegetable tray)
A handful of baby carrots, chopped (another great use for raw, leftover veggies — if you’ve got others — throw them in too!)
1 tbsp (or more) curry powder (I used about 2 tbsp)
1 tsp (or more) cumin
1 can coconut milk
2 tomatoes, diced
1 tsp minced fresh ginger
1 tbsp vegetable or peanut oil
3/4 cup brown rice
Salt to taste
Cilantro leaves and lime wedges for garnish

Heat the oil in a heavy stock pot. Add onion and carrot — cook until soft, 3-4 minutes. Next add garlic, spices, and ginger. Sauté for a couple more minutes, then add turkey stock, coconut milk and diced tomatoes. Stir in turkey. Add rice and let simmer until rice is tender — about 35-40 minutes. Clean broccoli and cut off the florets (if needed). Add to soup and cook until tender (4 minutes or so). Serve with chopped cilantro and lime wedges garnish.

Behold, The Turkey Sandwich:
Also, in the true spirit of Thanksgiving leftovers — here is my lunch Sunday afternoon: a turkey and smoked gouda sandwich with spinach and honey mustard on a leftover dinner roll. Mmm!

So, I pretty much stuck to my Thanksgiving schedule (posted here and here), although I omitted the squash and added some roasted vegetables. The big surprise, though, was the turkey. It turned out so well. I tried the America’s Test Kitchen recipe last year and wasn’t crazy about it but this time we used my mom’s turkey chart from an old cookbook and wow — it was amazing!

& then we cooked the hell out of it…
I brined the night before and then before sticking it in the oven, I stuffed and then used a combination of one stick of softened butter (!), a head of roasted garlic and about 2 tablespoons of fresh, chopped sage and rubbed that creamy, buttery mixture under the skin of the breast meat. The extra, I rubbed over the top of the turkey — “oh, why not?” I thought.

Then, the turkey went in the oven at 11:15 AM, with aluminum foil wrapped over the pan both horizontally and vertically. Wwe also added about one cup of water to the bottom of the roasting pan. The temperature was set to 325 degrees. We cooked it until 2:00 pm (2 hours and 45 minutes) without touching it, then removed the foil, basted and added the vegetables to the bottom of the pan. We basted again at 2:30 and again at 3:00. It came out of the oven at 3:15. The temperatures were about 178 in the breast and stuffing cavity and 200 in the thigh, which freaked me out, as I thought it would be way overdone. But wait. We basted it again really good after it came out of the oven and then lifted it out of the pan and let it rest, wrapped up very well in aluminum foil, for about a half an hour. And it was the moistest, most tastiest turkey ever. Seriously! Go crazy 70’s cookbook, go!

My mom and jwa carved while I got everything else served up and on the table.

The sides:
The sides were great too. They are usually my favorite part of the meal. This year the stuffing had one cubed granny smith apple, 1/4 cup of pecans, 2 tbsp fresh sage, 1 stick of butter (!!), 1 1/2 cups chicken stock, one egg, one tsp poultry seasoning and one tsp rubbed, jarred sage. And, yes, we stuffed.

The stuffing — removed from the bird and ready for consumption.

Goat cheese rosemary mashed potatoes. (I used half and half).

Giblet gravy.

Cranberry orange relish.

Individual green bean casserole.

Oh and the roasted root vegetables. When I posted earlier, I wasn’t sure if I was going to put those in the bottom of the roasting pan — well I did and it worked great. They went in for one hour and fifteen minutes. Then, while the turkey rested, I put them on a baking sheet and turned the heat up to 425. After 15 minutes of that, I turned n the broiler and let them caramelize for about 3 minutes. Mmm!

& then there was pie…
Yes, pie. That was pretty good too. I followed the recipe I discussed before, except I made a different pie crust because I was tired and lazy that night and this crust seemed simpler.

Here’s the new crust recipe:
1.5 cups flour
3/4 tsp salt
1/2 cup vegetable shortening, chilled
2 tbsp unsalted butter, chilled
1/4 cup milk, chilled
1 tbsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Mix flour, salt, brown sugar and cinnamon together in a large bowl. Cut in shortening and butter with a pastry cutter, until it resembles coarse meal. Sprinkle milk over dough and work in with your hands until it sticks together. Shape into a disc and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate for at least an hour. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface into a 12-inch disc. Place in 9-inch pie pan and crimp edges. Prick dough with a fork and refrigerate at least 30 minutes.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line bottom of pie pan with foil or parchment and line with pie beads or dry beans. Par bake for 45 minutes. Let cool and fill with pumpkin filling and bake.

Oh and another thing I changed — I put a layer of crushed ginger snap cookies on the bottom of the pie crust before filling with the pumpkin. Then, I added pecan pieces to the top (which also helped hide any cracks). Sneaky!

All in all, I am very pleased with how everything turned out! Next year, however, I think I will drop the green bean casserole from the rotation, just because there was so much of everything else and that’s the one item that we all pretty much forgot to eat!

So, my mom is staying with us and the “guest room” is my office with the computer and all. No real update this AM.

This afternoon, however, I will be making the pumpkin pie and will try to take photos of that process and post them later today!

Edited to add — yeah, that didn’t happen…