The Chef and Chef Paula made a lovely Thanksgiving dinner they considered simple but they were actually having a good time in the kitchen all afternoon. I kept out of the way and napped with cats on the couch. The turkey was raised by Paula’s uncle. The dumplings are cream cheese and onion pierogis. The Brussels sprouts are from the farm share and caramelized in crabapple syrup (jelly that didn’t jell). Our sparkly beverage was 2021 vintage neighbor crabapples with added cranberry, bottled in 2022. Cheers everyone!
Shakshuka is a Mediterranean/North African dish that uses a lot of bell peppers in the tomato sauce. We had frozen slices of bell peppers from the last harvest this year before first frost. Yum!
Today we found there were eight flowers in the backyard saffron, which at three threads each gave us 24 saffron threads! Now they sit in a jar in the plant window, with a loose lid to protect from cat ideas. This lets them dry out a bit before they join the spice cabinet. Very few bulbs are blooming so far, which I suspect is because I divided them extensively this spring. Probably next year we’ll have a lot!
The pesto settled overnight and needed the giant whisk.Half of pesto prepared for freezer. The last half of pesto. Freezer full of pesto. The Chef stored the pesto in a five gallon bucket before dishing it out to freeze next day. 30 pounds is almost two Grams or definitely over three Tuqus!
So, in spite of rain all day and temperatures in the 30s F, I went out and cut all the plants. That’s the giant pile of cut basil on an overflowing Rubbermaid tub and assorted cut off pepper plants nearby. The rest of the day was getting basil leaves off the stems. The basil stems were so big I had to use the loppers to cut them at the base.3608 grams of basil leaves. This is 7.95 pounds. Yes, we did tare the tub weight. Yes, it is a lot of basil. No, I don’t even know what’s going to happen. LeafhopperTrue bug nymphJumping spiderPraying mantisWe had several little friends come in on the basil. All were released back into the shelter of adjacent plants outside.
Paula made refried beans with bolas maycoba beans from last year as well as some Rancho Gordo beans of some variety. The Chef made a pepper hot sauce from all the ripe Chimayó chile peppers in the garden plus everything pepper leftover in the freezer, including farm share jalapeños, two year old poblanos from the garden, and assorted mystery peppers.
Credit for fancy salad to Paula. The Chef made the bacon cheese chicken rounds and sautéed veggies. All of us and our guest rolled out potato gnocchi. The potato gnocchi is topped with pesto made with garden basil. the sunflowers are the ones from the garden from two days ago. Our guest brought this exquisite chocolate flourless cake topped with chocolate ganache. Paula added the edible flower of Texas mallow. (It tastes… like a plant haha.). The cake was DIVINE.