Our main course for Thanksgiving was something different and delicious.  As with many dishes, there were definite advantages and disadvantages to this dish.

Let’s start with the disadvantages to homemade ravioli.  The preparation required for making this dish took a lot longer than putting a turkey into the oven.  Filling and sealing 24 ravioli took a decent amount of time, and that produced enough ravioli to feed only four people.  I can’t imagine making this dish for a crowd!  The flavors of turkey and cranberry are present in the ravioli, but if you really want the taste of Thanksgiving dinner, the ravioli will not provide that.

There were also certain advantages to this entree.  The clean-up after dinner was minimal, especially as there wasn’t a grease-splattered roasting pan to be washed.  Also, while the ravioli didn’t have the full flavor of Thanksgiving, the combination of the turkey, cranberry sauce, and cream sauce created a delightful cornucopia of flavors.  It also was a very elegant dish to serve that had beautiful presentation.

Having weighed both the pros and cons of Turkey and Cranberry Ravioli, it is a keeper in my recipe book.  However, it is an entree that I will reserve for small dinner parties (possibly just for 2!) and special occasions.

Turkey and Cranberry Ravioli

2/3 lb. ground turkey

1/3-1/2 cup whole berry cranberry sauce, preferably homemade

1/3 cup Asiago cheese, grated

2 Tb. bread crumbs

2 tsp. dried parsley

3 eggs

salt and pepper

48 wonton wrappers

cream sauce*

Combine turkey, cranberry sauce, cheese, bread crumbs, parsley, 2 eggs, salt, and pepper in a mixing bowl.  Whisk remaining egg in a small bowl.  Place one wonton wrapper on a cutting board (or other work surface), and brush all four edges with egg.  Place 1-1/2 tablespoons of turkey mixture in center of wrapper.  Top with another wonton wrapper, press from the center to the edges to remove all air pockets.  Seal edges well, and cut with a decorative pastry crimper, if desired.

When all ravioli are assembled, heat a large pot of salted water to boiling over high heat.  Add ravioli in small batches, so as not to crowd the pot.  Cook for approximately 3 minutes, or until the ravioli float and the turkey is cooked.  Place cooked ravioli in a serving dish, and sprinkle lightly with olive oil to prevent sticking.

Cream Sauce

6 Tb. butter

2 shallots, diced

2 Tb. flour

1 cup chicken broth

1/3 cup heavy cream

2 tsp. dried parsley leaves

salt and pepper

In a frying pan, melt the butter over medium heat.  Add the shallots and cook until tender.  Add the flour, stirring for one minute.  Add the chicken broth slowly, stirring constantly so there are no lumps.  Add the cream, parsley, salt, and pepper, and stir for 2 minutes while sauce thickens.  Serve immediately with prepared ravioli.

Typically, Thanksgiving dinner has so many dishes and is so filling that appetizers are kept to a minimum.  However, this year we served only three dishes as part of the main course, so heartier hors d’oeurves would not ruin our appetites.

With this in mind, I began to contemplate ideas for our pre-dinner snacks.  We didn’t need to consider how to please children (”We would like boxed, frozen mozzarella sticks.”) or how to make enough to serve a large crowd.  With those factors tossed aside, I decided to make a fruit-based appetizer.  Though with our celebration taking place in chilly New England, I wanted to serve warm snacks.  I also wanted to use a seasonal fruit.

These considerations led me to using baby pears as the base for this appetizer.  Cut in half, they would make nicely sized appetizers.  To balance the sweetness of the pears, a filling of cheese and a wrap of bacon seemed to make nice compliments. Fairly easy to prepare, they were enjoyed by all four Thanksgiving diners.

Having eaten these appetizers, I think that a drizzle of honey might have added another dimension to the flavors in this dish.  The next time I make them (which will be soon, based on their popularity), I will give it a try.

Baby Pears with Goat Cheese

6 oz. goat cheese

1 Tb. fresh chives, minced

1 tsp. dried parsley

1 tsp. dried thyme

Salt and pepper

6 Forelle pears*

6 slices bacon, cut in half

Combine cheese, chives, parsley, thyme, salt, and pepper.  Cover and refrigerate for an hour or two to allow flavors to meld.  Preheat oven to 375.  Slice pears in half, and remove stem and core.  Place a generous spoonful of cheese mixture in each pear half, and wrap with half slice of bacon.  Season lightly with salt and pepper.  Place on rimmed baking sheet, and bake for 25 - 30 minutes.

*Other small pears, such as Seckels, can be used.

Our Thanksgiving was quite enjoyable.  My husband and I spent the morning cooking and working at a leisurely pace.  Arriving at our friends’ house just before noon, we completed the cooking of appetizers immediately, as everyone was hungry.  Both the Spiced Cauliflower and Baby Pears with Goat Cheese were hits.  In fact, my husband thought the pears were the best dish of the day.

After our hors d’oeurves course, we continued work on the dinner dishes and placed the turkey in the oven for the late in the day dinner.  (Note that although we only needed turkey for sandwiches, my husband felt that a 13 pound turkey was the right size!)  The Turkey and Cranberry Ravioli and Pureed Caramelized Squash were exceptional, but I thought the Wild Mushrooms and Spinach needed a little revising.  The taste of soy sauce overpowered the red wine in that dish.

Once dishes were done, the guys headed to the living room to watch a football game (AKA take naps).  The girls decided to enjoy a little fresh air and embarked on a late afternoon walk.  Returning with chilly toes and fingers, it was time for some coffee and cocoa and a piece of Banana Cream Pie.  The pie was tasty, but I think I will work on a few improvements before sharing this recipe.

With full stomachs and warm fingers and toes, it was time for a cocktail and board games.  In a game of Apples to Apples played boys versus girls, the girls won handily.  Other games were played while the girls enjoyed Cranberry Coolers, but their victory was the news of the evening. After several rounds of games, some diners were ready for a late dinner.  The turkey was carved, and several unique sandwiches were made, though sadly I can’t report a first-hand account.  I was stuffed at that point!

As the group’s energy was renewed from the turkey sandwiches, more games were played.  Thanksgiving day was nearing its end as my husband and I finally decided it was time to head home.  Thankfully, home was only 10 minutes away.  Filled with wonderful memories and food, we put Thanksgiving ‘08 to bed.

Recipes from Thanksgiving will be shared in the near future.

This year’s Thanksgiving is much quieter than last year’s.  Last year, we had approximately 20 people at our home for a traditional dinner.  We made turkey, duck, cornbread stuffing, Parker House rolls, and much more.  It was a 2-day cooking event.

This year we won’t have any kids with us, as both sets are with their other parents.  It will be just my husband, myself, and our best friends.  As there are only adult palates to please, we have chosen a more gourmet and unique Thanksgiving menu.

Being the foodies, my husband and I have offered to cook the meal.  Both of us are excited to spend the morning cooking together.  It is a nice change of pace to focus only on food and not the other demands of the world.

Our menu consists of the following dishes:

Appetizers:

• Spiced Cauliflower
• Baby Pears with Goat Cheese

Dinner:

• Turkey and Cranberry Ravioli
• Wild Mushrooms and Spinach
• Pureed Caramelized Squash

Dessert:

• Banana Cream Pie

Late in the Day Dinner:

• Roasted Turkey Sandwiches with Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Yes, even though we are making a non-traditional dinner, there was a request for turkey for sandwiches later in the day.  So. . .we are cooking a turkey also!

I am hopeful that these recipes are a hit, as I have made only one of them previously.  If they prove to be as good as they sound, they will be posted on Tasty Thoughts in the coming weeks.

I hope all of my readers have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

I have a very dear friend that I have known for almost 20 years.  We worked together for about half of that time, so we had the luxury of seeing other daily and eating lunch together.  However, in the spring I decided to change careers, which has been great, but I don’t get to see my friend as frequently.

With two busy schedules, it can be difficult to find an evening to sit and chat.  Last week, luckily, we found a couple evening hours free of meetings, parenting responsibilities, etc.  As my new career is home-based, I offered to make a soup and bring it to her house.  I figured if dinner were ready, we could focus on conversation for two hours.  Plus, eating at a house meant no interruptions from waitstaff.

I wanted to bring a soup that was unique, but as I do have to accomplish work at home, I needed a soup that would be quick to prepare.  Having eaten many meals with my friend, I knew that she liked vegetables, which made this soup an obvious choice.

Arriving at her house with a pot full of warm soup and leftover Cheddar Cheese Biscuit Crackers, we immediately sat at her counter and began sharing stories.  Unfortunately, the time flew, and before we knew it, life’s commitments dictated that our evening together was done.  However, we did have a wonderful time, enjoying good food and each other’s company.  It was a terrific, albeit short, evening.

Butternut and Broccoli Soup

1-1/2 Tb. canola oil

1 medium onion, diced

1 Tb. soy sauce

1 tomato, diced

4 cups chicken broth

1 butternut squash, cooked*

1 Tb. maple syrup

salt and pepper

2 bunches broccoli florets

1/4 cup whole milk, warmed

Heat the oil in a medium stock pot over medium heat.  Add onion and saute until tender.  Add soy sauce and tomato, and cook until all juice has evaporated, about 5 minutes.  Reduce heat to low, and add broth, squash, maple syrup, salt, and pepper.  Mix well, and allow to simmer, stirring occasionally.

While soup is simmering, cook broccoli to crisp-tender, either by steaming or boiling.  Using a whisk or immersion blender (depending on how chunky or not you like your soup), blend soup.  When soup has reached the desired consistency, add broccoli.  Add milk, and stir well.  Allow to cook for another 5 minutes without boiling.

*Butternut squash

Preheat oven to 350.  Cut squash in half lengthwise, and place each half cut side down in a 13×9 baking pan.  Add 1/2 inch water, and cover tightly with foil.  Allow to bake for 1 hour or until very tender when pierced with a fork.  Let squash cool, then remove and discard seeds and peel.  Squash can be mashed in a bowl or added to the soup as is.

It dawned on me this morning that ours is a household of minis.  In addition to our vehicles (a minivan and a Mini), there are other minis.  My husband and I are both foodies, and thus, a couple of our children are mini-foodies.  They love to cook and critique new foods, be it at a restaurant or home.  We also have a mini-farm, with 15 egg-laying hens in a backyard coop.

When you have mini-foodies and a mini-farm, you sometimes need to find recipes that combine the two, which was the case last week.  With our chickens hitting a daily high of 9 eggs, I decided that we needed to make a dinner that incorporated eggs.  As two of the kids are on a cooking streak, I wanted to find a dinner that would allow for two assistant chefs.

Enter mini-quiches.  There would be plenty of chopping, egg cracking, cooking, shredding, and blending to keep everyone busy.  Plus, each person could create his or her personal mini-quiches, so everyone would be happy.  A winner of a meal!

With a dozen mini-quiche and four diners, there were some leftovers, which reheated very nicely for breakfast on a different day.  Perhaps this recipe could be considered a mini-victory for me.

Mix and Match Mini-Quiches

FIllings:

splatterless bacon, crumbled

baked deli ham, diced

crimini mushrooms, sliced and sauteed

red bell pepper, diced

sweet onion, diced

shredded swiss cheese (or cheese of your choice)

Base:

12 eggs

1/4 cup skim milk

1-1/2 tsp. onion powder

salt and pepper

Preheat oven to 350.  Prepare all desired fillings.  In large mixing bowl combine eggs, milk, onion powder, salt, and pepper, and whisk well.  Spray 12 cup muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.  Place desired toppings for each mini-quiche in individual cups.  (Do not fill more than half full with toppings.)  Using a ladle, fill muffin cup to brim with egg mixture.

Place muffin pan in oven, and bake for approximately 25 minutes, or until top is golden and egg is set.

For soup night this week, our 12 year old chose corn chowder.  As it is a heavier soup, we didn’t need bread to go with it, but it seemed that some sort of cracker might work.  Thinking about our options, I decided to try making cheddar cheese crackers.

So, on Tuesday night, my 10 year old daughter and I worked together, making the dough.  The dough was too dry without any liquid added, so we used a little skim milk to help the dough bind.  In hindsight, this addition produced crackers that were a little bit on the soft side.

Even though the crackers lacked a hearty crunch, they had an interesting texture, kind of like a combination of a biscuit and cracker.  And the taste was amazingly good!  In fact, not only did I enjoy them, but both kids did also.  (It’s not often that everyone finds something new pleasing.)

The next time we make crackers, we plan on making a few changes so that they have more crunch.  First, we will use water instead of milk.  Second, we will try 2 tablespoons of liquid instead of 3.  Third, we will cut the dough into thinner slices.

While this recipe doesn’t make perfect crackers, it does make a perfect side, useful for accompanying a chowder or hearty salad.

Cheddar Cheese Biscuit Crackers

1-1/2 cups flour

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking powder

1/2 cup chilled butter, unsalted

2 cups cheddar cheese, shredded

3 Tb. skim milk

Sift flour, salt, and baking powder into a large bowl.  Cut butter into tablespoon size pieces, and add to dry ingredients.  Using a pastry blender, combine until butter is the size of rice.  Add cheese, and mix well.  Add milk one tablespoon at a time, mixing with your hands until dough clings together and forms a ball.  Roll into 2 logs with 1-1/2 inch diameters.  Wrap in plastic wrap, and chill for 30 minutes in refrigerator.

Preheat oven to 400.  Cut dough logs into 1/4 inch slices, and bake for 10 minutes.  Flip crackers, and bake for another 10 - 15 minutes or until golden brown on both sides.

As the cold weather has arrived, and is staying, soup night has returned to our house.  So, each week, one person in the house gets to choose the soup du jour.  This week was our twelve year old son’s turn to choose.

JP is the biggest foodie of our four kids, so you never know what he might request.  This week he kept his choice simple and asked for corn chowder.  However, he did have a request.  He asked that I make the soup like my grandmother and add bacon to it.

I honored his request, though I did it with a twist.  The bacon was offered as a garnish, so it could be added or not and in the amount that each person desired.  Also, although he requested my grandmother’s version, I used skim milk, keeping the soup lighter.

As a fun addition to this meal, we tried our hands at homemade crackers.  For our first attempt, they were pretty good.  I’ll be posting that recipe tomorrow.

Hot soup, homemade crackers, good company.  What more could anyone want on a cold fall night?

Grandma’s Corn Chowder

1 Tb. canola oil

1 small onion, diced

1 potato, peeled and diced

2 cups hot water

2 chicken bouillon cubes

3 cups frozen corn

1-1/2 Tb. flour

1-1/2 cups skim milk

salt and pepper

cooked bacon

Put oil in medium-sized stockpot over medium heat.  Add onions, and saute until tender.  Add potato, and stir for 1 minute.  While potato is cooking, combine hot water and bouillon, stirring to dissolve.  Add chicken bouillon to pot, and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat, and allow to simmer for 10 minutes or until potatoes are tender.  Add corn, and stir occasionally for 5 minutes, allowing corn to heat through.  Combine milk and flour by whisking, and add immediately to soup.  Stir continuously while soup comes to a boil.  Stir for a minute while soup thickens.  Add salt and pepper to taste.  Garnish soup with crumbled bacon, if desired.

Makes 4 servings.

I have to confess that I have a slight bit of an addiction to. . . smoothies.  If you had told me a few years ago that my daily breakfast would be a smoothie, I would have laughed.  Not that I ate big breakfasts, but a bowl of cereal usually was my thing.  So, to go from a breakfast that involves chewing to a breakfast of drinking only seemed like it couldn’t be very filling.

I was wrong.

When I first tried smoothies as a breakfast, I would have a few sips of my husband’s smoothie and then make something for myself.  But the more that I tried these drinks, the more that I discovered I enjoyed the taste and felt full.  This led to me making smoothies for myself, which I now do daily.  In fact, although I enjoyed all of the indulgent breakfasts while we honeymooned in Hawaii, I was ready to return to my regular breakfast at home.

About a year ago I shared my recipe for Peanut Butter & Banana Smoothies.  However, if you dislike or are allergic to peanut butter, there are plenty of alternatives.  One of my favorites is a Banana-Berry Smoothie, which can be made with an assortment of berries.  When berries are in seasons, choose the ripest.  However, for the rest of the year, frozen berries work.  (My personal choice is blueberry.)

As a note, a blender can be used for this recipe.  However, if you have a Magic Bullet, it works very well.

Banana-Berry Smoothie

1 ripe banana

1/3 cup skim milk

1 Tb. flax seed

1/2 frozen unsweetened berries

3 ice cubes

Break banana in half, and place in blender or Magic Bullet mug.  Add milk, flax seed, berries, and ice cubes.  Cover securely, and blend well.  Enjoy!

A little food and math equation for the day:

Monday night at our house = Late dinner night for the adults

As I am the adult at home with the kids on Monday evenings, I am the planner of these late night dinners.  Quite frequently I make a dinner of smaller dishes or tapas.  This past Monday I felt inclined to create an Italian style dinner that consisted of bite-sized food.

So that there would be a decent amount of variety without too much food for only two people, I created three dishes.  For one dish I chose to make a simple pan of Italian sausage bites with peppers and onions.  The second dish was Italian style stuffed mushrooms.  Sadly, I have tried making stuffed mushrooms twice, and neither has been a “Wow!” dish to my mind.  (When it does achieve that status I will post the recipe!)  The last dish was the hit of the evening, sweet potato gnocchi.

The gnocchi did take a bit of time to make, but they were well worth the effort.  Tender to the bite, they had a nice contrast in flavors, with a mix of cheese and sweet potato in the gnocchi and a blend of maple syrup and sage in the sauce.

Sweet Potato Gnocchi

2 sweet potatoes

6 oz. ricotta cheese

1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, grated

1 Tb. light brown sugar

1 tsp. & 2 Tb. salt

1/4 tsp. nutmeg

1-1/3 cup flour

1/2 cup unsalted butter

10 fresh sage leaves, minced

1 tsp. cinnamon

2 Tb. maple syrup

salt & pepper to taste

Wash, dry, and pierce sweet potatoes, and cook in microwave until tender.  Allow to cool.  Scoop flesh out of sweet potatoes, and mash.  (You need to have 1-1/2 cups of sweet potato.)  Add ricotta cheese, Parmesan cheese, brown sugar, 1 tsp. salt, and nutmeg.  Stir well.  Mix in flour, 1/3 cup at a time.

Place dough on a floured surface, and divide into 3 sections.  Roll each section into a 2 foot rope, adding flour if the dough becomes sticky.  Cut each rope into 24 1-inch pieces.

Fill a large pot 2/3 full with water, add 2 tablespoons salt, and bring to a boil over high heat.  Once boiling, add batches of gnocchi (not so many that they are crowded in the pot).  Boil for 5 - 6 minutes, or until the gnocchi float.  Remove gnocchi, and place on a waxed or parchment paper lined cookie sheet.  Allow to cool, flipping once so that the gnocchi are not too moist.

Once the gnocchi are almost cool, melt the butter in a frying pan over medium heat.  Add sage leaves to the melted butter, and allow to cook for a minute or two.  Remove the pan from the heat, and add cinnamon, maple syrup, salt, and pepper.  Stir gently, and add gnocchi.  Toss gnocchi to coat fully with sauce.  Serve immediately.

*If desired, you can roll each gnocchi over the tines of a fork to create indentations.  However, to save time (as I did) this step can be skipped.