Winter Holiday Week!

Wheee, it's Midwinter!

Whatever it is you celebrate this holiday as, we all know it's an awesome time of year. And one of the best things about this time of year is ... THE FOOD!

So without further ado, on to the food.

Roast Beast and Yorkshire Pudding, Green Beans, CranOrange Stuff, and Cranberry Bread
This is our traditional Solstice dinner. I'm pretty sure I've given the Cranberry Bread recipe somewhere in this blog, so I won't repeat it.

Roast Beast
You'll need 6 ounces uncooked weight of meat per person you're serving. A family of four, for instance, needs a roast that's about a pound and a half. Check your cookbook to find the proper internal temperature (and therefore the hours of cooking time) for your roast. Remember, POULTRY finishes at a much higher internal than beef, pork, lamb, or venison.

Take the thawed roast (or turkey or large baking hen) and rinse it well. Pat it dry.

Turn the oven on to the recommended temp for the type and size of beast you're cooking.

In a bowl mix salt, pepper, garlic powder OR crushed fresh garlic, diced onions, and possibly your fave "spice mix". In another bowl, soften 2 Tablespoons of butter, and then moosh it around with an equivalent amount of good olive oil. Now, rub this all over your meat. Then sprinkle on your spice mix.

The oven won't be ready yet, so get the pan you plan to roast this in, and a rack. If you haven't got a rack, then take some aluminium foil and make tight "snakes". Coil these in the bottom of the pan and you can put the beast on that. If you haven't got a lid or top for your pan, make a foil tent.

Stick the roast in the hot oven, insert a thermo if you have one (DO NOT rely on the "pop up" thermo in purchased turkeys. Really. Please dun't.) If not, get out your stick-in meat thermo and keep it handy by. When the specified amount of cooking time has elapsed, check the meat temp. If it doesn't match what the book says it should -- Leave the roast beast alone for another 15 minutes. You can repeat this process till the temp is right.

During the roasting time, you're going to make your CranOrange stuff and your Green Beans.

CranOrange Goo
For the CranOrange Stuff, take 1 cup of cranberries and chop or food-proccessorise them to a coarse grind. Scrub an orange, then zest the entire outside. Then peel off the weird white stuff, and squish up (but not "juice) the orange. Put the cranberries and the orange squish into a small pan and add 1 cup of water, and 1/4 cup of sugar. Turn the heat on low, and stir till your hands get tired. It will thicken and gel very slightly. When it has, turn the heat off, get a dish, and pour it into the dish. (I use a crystal bowl, cause I like lookin' at the Stuff). Put the dish UNCOVERED in the frige to chill and set. This will not taste like the strange stuff you get in a can. It's tonnes better!

Green Beans
Once the Stuff is made, toward the end of the beast-roasting, get out the green beans. If you bought them frozen, just run warm water on them to thaw, and don't tell anyone. If you froze them yourself, thaw them gently in slightly cooler water. If you just went out and picked them (Oh you lucky south-of-the-equator people), then wash them and snap the ends, but leave them long. Once they're thawed or washed, drain them. While they drain, cut up 2 slices of bacon into about finger-widths and fry them, then pour off MOST of the oil, and set the bacon aside. Fry the beans, very quickly -- you basically just want them hot all the way through, and want them to turn a beautiful bright green. Once they're cooked, sprinkle the drained bacon back on them, and cover to keep warm.

Gravy
Open the oven and check the roast beast. Pour off about a half cup of dripping (carefully). Heat this in a pan on the range top. While it heats, mix about 1/2 cup of flour, a pinch of salt, and about 2 cups of water together till smooth. Easiest way to do this? Why, in a jar with a lid! and shake it baby! When the drippings are bubbling, slowly pour in the flour-water mix, stirring like a madwoman the whole time. When the flour tastes "cooked", and not like flour anymore, turn the heat almost off, and use a "tamer" if you have one. Keep the gravy warm, and stir it once in a while to preclude lumpifying.

Yorkshire Pudding
Now, for the Yorkshire Pudding! In a bowl put 1 cup flour, 1 teaspoon of salt, and a PINCH, a bare pinch! of baking soda. Stir it up good. In a separate bowl, combine 3/4 cup milk, 1/2 cup water, and up to 3 eggs. Mix or beat or whisk this until it's a pretty sunny yellow colour. Now, stir it into your dry ingredients, just until everything is moistened -- do not over mix this, seriously. It's okay that there are little bumpy floury bits. Really. Trust me.

By now the beast should be done. It will need to sit for about 15 minutes before you carve it, or all the juices will ooze out and frankly, who wants a non-juicy roast beast? Take the beast out and set it aside. Turn up the oven to 400 degrees, and put an iron skillet on the middle shelf. If you haven't an iron skillet, you can use a pie pan or a heavy baking pan -- DO NOT use glass. After about 5 minutes, very carefully take the skillet out of the oven -- it's going to be hot! -- and remember the bacon fat you poured off earlier? Pour that carefully into the skillet, and be sure it covers the whole bottom. If it doesn't, it's perfectly fine to add a tiny bit of vegetable oil. Now, pour the Yorkshire Pudding into the very hot pan, and put it back into the oven for a good 15 minutes at 400 degrees. While it cooks, you chase the cats off the table, get out the china, and yell at people to start washing their hands, and carve the roast beast. (If you're doing a turkey, and you have the whole "carve at the table" tradition -- then just make the preliminary cuts at wing and drumstick.) Check the green beans; if they're not hot, zap them in the micro for a few seconds (about 30 for most micros). Put the gravy in a bowl or boat.

The Yorkshire Pudding should be done by now, the beans should be hot, and the Stuff should be cold. VERY CAREFULLY get that skillet full of Yorkshire Pudding out, and slide the pudding onto a plate (yes, I know. In some families, they put the skillet on the table. I do too, when there aren't small people running about) and cut it as you would a pie.

Make sure you've got out whatever wine you're using, or bubbly juice if your family doesn't do booze. Get everyone to the table, and serve -- Beast first, then Yorkshire Pudding, then Green Beans, then CranOrange Stuff, then pass the gravy round the table. Once everyone is served, say whatever grace or blessing you feel is appropriate, then pour out the wine or bubbly juice and start the toasting! But don't let the toasting interfere with the eating. At our house we generally toast the President of the US, the Queen, and each other.

Have a very happy holiday, and enjoy your meal!

Pumpkins!

It's pumpkin time! Finally!

Pumpkins rock. They're my favourite veggie, no joke. I like 'em even better than carrots or radishes for eating, or as the kids say for "nomming". (I'm told that comes from the programme Sesame Street -- it was the noise the Cookie Monster made as he ate.)

What pumpkin should you choose?

Well, what are you going to do with it?

It doesn't matter what variety the pumpkin is, nor what colour. What matters is the size. A bigger pumpkin will have less flavour to it, and may be tougher.

How you deal with the pumpkin depends on what you're doing with the pumpkin. For instance, most of the pumpkins people in the US buy are carved for jack-o-lanterns. The white pumpkins were developed to mimic the turnip and tater lanterns carved by people like my grandmothers years ago. The other varieties were hybridised to meet decorating needs, not eating needs. Go figure, huh?

What pumpkins aren't sold for decorating are processed into canned pumpkin, pre-made pumpkin pie "filling", commercially prepared pumpkin pies, and pumpkin seeds.
But guess what, you can do that stuff yourself!

If you are planning to carve the pumpkin for decoration, and are going to use the meat as animal food or compost, then it doesn't matter what size you get. Pumpkin skin, like any squash, is fairly tough. You may find it easier to use small saws, punches, and drills to do your pumpkin, instead of kitchen implements. If you want the pumpkin for eating, then buy pumpkins no bigger than your own head.

When you get your pumpkins home, hose them off outdoors. Let them dry a while. Then decide what you plan to do.

If you will be using the punkin for decorating, then you will probably cut off the BOTTOM. If you are using it as a bowl, you will probably cut off the TOP, leaving the stem intact if you can. If you are just going to use the pumpkin for eating, you will want to cut the pumpkin in half, watermelon-style.

Do this carefully. Pumpkin skin is VERY tough.

Once you have the punkin "open", then you need to get out all the seeds. Pull them out, sqoosh off any pumpkin "string", and put them in a pan of water. We'll get to them later.

Carefully, using a sturdy big spoon -- NOT a knife, and not some silly "pumpkin scraper" from a kit, scoop out the pumpkin guts.

*If you are not going to use the pumpkin, but only the insides, then you would cut the pumpkin into slices, again melon-style, and with a sharp knife, going slowly, you would peel the pumpkin.

Next, rinse off the guts. Make sure you have gotten all the seeds out, and gotten out any of the "slimy" bits. Slimy bits aren't bad or rotten, they're just the parts where the seeds were attached.
Put the guts into a pan and barely cover with water. Turn on the heat to the absolute lowest setting, and leave it alone for a while. You will want to check it every now and then, to be sure there's still water in there. Eventually, the guts will change to a deep rich golden orange (about an hour or two, depending on how much you've got.) At that point, turn off the heat.

Meantime, you have your hollowed out punkin now!

If you're using it as a serving bowl, then go around the inside again and scrape carefully. Remember to leave the BOTTOM fairly thick and unscraped. Slide the pumpkin onto a baking pan; later, half an hour before serving, you'll put it into a 300 degree oven and bake it for 20 minutes to soften it -- but be careful, you don't want it so soft that it won't hold the soup you're ladling into it!

If you're using it as a jack-o-lantern, then go over the inside again, scraping very carefully. You want the pumpkin to be fairly thin, because this makes it much easier to carve your designs.
Once you're finished with the inside, rinse the punkin and dry it again.

Set it on a sturdy work surface, and with a marker, trace your design. Or, take a printed design and lay it on your punkin, taping it in place. With a toothpick or a large sewing needle (like a darning needle) go over the design, punching in carefully -- like making a "connect the dots" in reverse. Take the pattern off, and very lightly dust over the punkin with flour. This will make the dots stand out so you can see them.

Now, using a sharp knife, small saw, punch, and heck I've seen people use their craft drills like Dremel tools -- now cut out your design. Be very careful, and supervise small children. Please!

It's traditional to use candles stuck into a pool of their own melted wax to light your lantern. But I find it more practical to use votive candles in glass holders, or little tiny lights sold for this purpose. I mean, come on, look at the size of my dog, and calculate the average windspeed of her tail wag.... Little lights are safer than candles sometimes!

Punkin Seeds
Now... remember your punkin seeds? Clean 'em good, get all the slimies off them, and rinse them. Bring about 2 cups of water to a boil, stir in about 4 tablespoons of kosher salt and maybe a sprinkle of seasoning salt. Put the seeds in that. Leave them alone for 2 hours. After two hours, pour the water off, spread the seeds on a baking sheet, and roast in a very slow oven for four hours.
OR
After you pour off the water, heat a heavy pan on the range, pour in about two tablespoons of your favourite oil -- barely enough to cover the bottom of the pan -- and drop in your seeds. Stir! Stir, stir, stir! When the seeds begin to sort of "puff" and "pop", you are done. Turn off the heat, cool the seeds, and seal them up in a jar or bag for snacks.

Note -- if you are doing this to make birdseed or small animal seed, don't use the seasoning salt, and cut the kosher salt back to two TEASPOONS.

Preserving Punkin
After you cooked up all your punkin (see above) and cooled it, you'll need to strain it. If you have a fine seive or colandar, use that. If yours isn't so fine, just lay a piece of muslin, or cheesecloth, in the bottom of the colandar and drain that way. Save what you drain to water the houseplants with. It makes them happy.

Once your punkin is drained, you can have some fun, mooshing it up with your hands. Or you can use your blender or food processor. Hands is more funs, as my Nana used to say.

Once it's drained, can it as you would jam or jelly. Or, you can put it into zip-top bags to freeze.
But what are you going to "do" with your punkin? Well....

Pumpkin Soup

Pumpkin Bread

Pumpkin Cookies

Apple Crumble and A Cat

Baby Visions, sunbathing after a hard day of getting in my way while I un-make the old ramp.
And, two little Apple Crumbles.


Click Here for the Apple Crumble Recipe


You're supposed to let it cool before you eat it, or scoop it onto your ice cream, or spoon whipped cream onto it.... S'yeah, riiiiight!

Enjoy!