Leftover turkey enchiladas with salsa verde (tomatillos mostly from farm share but a few from the garden). The turkey is from Paula’s uncle. Refried beans (“red beans” from the farm share. Pozole made from Rancho Gordo hominy from our Bean Club membership days and is topped with garden cilantro. Paula has vowed we will not let it take over and shade our other things again unlike in spring.
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!
Before the hard freeze I cut down all the pepper plants (plus a few stray and unfortunately sized okra) and put them in the garage. The next day when I had time, I sorted and weighed them. we got a good last bunch of all our pepper varieties for this year! Paula notes of the sweet peppers, the apple peppers were sweetest when both red and green. The California wonder bell and chocolate bell were both more bitter when young/green. The Chef likes the thin and easy to cut corbaci peppers.
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.
Paula and The Chef collaborated on tonight’s dinner. Larb (or laab) is a meat salad. We used the lettuce leaves as little scoops/wraps and put rice with each scoop. Very tasty. From the garden, the larb contained Chimayó peppers and mint. It was delicious.
Briar was delighted, honored, and thrilled to be allowed to escort Shackleton on a leashed walkabout. Shackleton was less thrilled about Briar, but finally got some good dust rolls in and sampled various lush grasses. He also hissed at Briar every time she got too enthusiastic about her adoration.
Paula made this Thai dish, rad nah. It has garden garlic in it. The chef made the broth from scratch, from chicken and turkey bones. He also provided Paula with the hearty noodles. It was delicious!Earlier in the day, Shacks watched the herb garden for skinks and grasshoppers.
Paula took Briar out on Wednesday night and she found a possum. The possum says “nobody home! Ignore my tight grip on the bird bath!!” it worked though. Briar wandered off. After Briar wandered off to drink water and Paula got this lovely picture of the goofy young creature. They were gone by the time we humans checked again for the young friend. A great bit of possum theatre with Briar none the wiser!