[very] belated thanksgiving post

so, yeah, it's been a few months since thanksgiving aaaand i still haven't managed to blog about it. well, that's until now, cause i managed to upload photos over the holidays and decided i might as well get it over and done with. since my school schedule was so ridiculously busy, i couldn't make it home for thanksgiving, so julia and i decided to make our own student version of thanksgiving. i made the white turkey chili, and she made the yum yum treacle tart. we also made some cute little turkey cookies! they're basically a tradition for thanksgiving at home, and since our landlords were nice enough to invite us to their proper thanksgiving dinner, i thought it would be nice to make some for the kiddies.
so, let's get on with things.

thanksgiving recipe #1:
white turkey chili (makes 8 servings)
what you need:
2 packs of lean ground turkey
1 yellow onion
2 tsp olive oil
4 cloves of garlic
2 stalks of celery
1 jalapeno
3 small cans of diced green chilies
2 cans of navy beans (can substitute white kidney beans as well)
1 tbsp cumin
2 tsp oregano
2 tsp cayenne
6 cups chicken broth
1 tbsp cold water
2 tsp corn starch

step 1:
set a large pot on to medium heat and add in olive oil. dice your onion and celery and add to the pot when hot. let that cook down for ~10 minutes, and then add in crushed garlic. saute until fragrant.
step 2:
add in your ground turkey and cook until no longer pink. add your spices, finely chopped jalapeno, strained navy beans, green chilies (with juice) and chicken broth. let simmer away for ~60 minutes. if it hasn't started to thicken, make a slurry with cold water and corn starch and add to pot. stir, then you're done! easy peasy!


thanksgiving recipe #2:
angelopoulos turkey cookies
what you need:
lots of candy corn (extra for munching)
lots of caramels
box of hershey kisses or neilson golden buds
box of cookies

step 1:
microwave 1 piece of caramel for ~12 seconds, depending on your microwave. this will take a lot of trial and error. immediately squish caramel on top of your kiss/golden bud, then take a candy corn and squish it down on top of the caramel. then, take your cookie and squish it onto the back of the caramel.

yes, i realize that wasn't very precise but this is what it should look like. that's it! i know, this is awkward timing considering thanksgiving was many eons ago, but hey... at least i got around to it, eh?

self-control at its finest

butternut squash is pretty much one of my favourite foods of all time. i have been meaning to make butternut squash soup for almost a year now. i just can never get it to that part... this is where the whole lack of self control comes in. i always end up nibbling on the deliciously sweet and caramelized bits of roasted butternut squash.. and then.. they're all gone and there's no more for soup. every. time. people! this time though, i was committed to it and controlled my nibbling urges. that's because i just had to try out my new awesome kitchen aid immersion blender i got for christmas! even more, i added my second favourite thing in the world: chorizo. OH YEAH I DID! seems like a combo made in heaven, right? naturally sweet squash plus spicy chorizo? salivating. right. now.

because i made this at home during the holidays, chorizo was really easy to find at the thrifty foods by our house. in vancouver however, it took me over a year to find some. every time i went to safeway i would ask and never receive. this year i managed to find some at the IGA so the world is safe again. i now know where to go when i need to fill my chorizo craving.

what you need:
1 large butternut squash
3 celery stalks
1 carrot
1 onion
1 tbsp cumin (or to taste - i added lots)
1/2 cup skim milk or cream
3 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1 chorizo (mexican or spanish works fine)
olive oil and butter for cooking

step 1:
preheat oven to 400 degrees. quarter and scoop out the seeds and icky bits from the squash. roast on a pan with olive oil for ~1 hour or until tender and a bit caramelized. add oil, butter and onion to a big pot and saute until nice and caramelized. then add the chopped carrot and celery and cook down for ~10 minutes. add the cumin.
step 2:
when squash is ready, take the skin off and add chunks into the pan. cook and stir until everything is evenly incorporated. then add the stock and bring to a boil. turn down and simmer for 5 to 10 minutes.
step 3:
while the soup is simmering, slice your chorizo and brown in a separate pan. let it get nice and crispy. you can also take it out of the casings and crumble it up as another option.
step 4:
take mix off the heat. blend in the pot with an immersion blender, being careful not to scratch the bottom of the pot (in this case a le cruset!). you can also blend small ladelfuls into a regular blender, being careful not to let it explode everywhere. add back to pot.
step 5:
put on low heat add the cream to the mix. depending on how big your squash was, you may need to add more liquid. it's best to start slowly with small amounts as it's harder to add squash back to make the soup thicker.

happy holidays!

happy holidays and happy new year everyone! i hope everyone had a good christmas and enjoyed their time at home! christmas break is over and i'm back in vancouver :(  i thought i'd do a little updating as to what exactly went down during my looong 3.5 week christmas break. i had planned to do some hot yoga during that time... but clearly, making and eating copious amounts of food is such a better option. this is a very photo-filled blog post, so it might take a while to load!

first up and completely unrelated to food... phyllo the puppy looking so cute at christmas time! he's grown so much since we first got him and it's kind of scary. i can see the awkward sheltie stage starting to appear!

now for the real cooking stuff: a shout out to my apprentice, dad. he's my slave and i made him help me with basically everything (cleaning... holding.. lifting). i like to think i've taught him how to be better in the kitchen, but who knows.

the apprentice: seen here with pomegranate macaron shells

next up, the french macarons. i made two flavours: vanilla with pomegranate white chocolate ganache, and pomegranate with a white chocolate ganache. i used a turkish pomegranate syrup to flavour the shell and the ganache because i couldn't find powdered pomegranate.. no surprise there... now, they didn't come out perfectly, but the texture was still ommidy ommidy as it should be! i made the pink pomegranate ones first, and taking the advice from my first batch in the summer (pistachio ones here) i used a proper piping bag and nozzle. they turned out pretty well, i think i mixed the egg whites too much while trying to incorporate the food colouring and syrup in the pink ones. for the vanilla macarons i didn't add any food colouring and was careful to not over beat them, but i may have under beat them.. who knows. they all had their little feet, and all tasted yummy so it's all good!

so pretty!

next, and not quite as exciting, came the macaroons. sometimes i crave these like mad so i just had too. the tin of condensed milk was a bit old and had a weird colour, but i used it anyways.

after that came the himalayan pink salt caramels. it seems everything i have made so far has this weird white or pink colour scheme... and i don't even like pink. meh. anyways, these were super gooey and didn't stick to your mouth! i followed a recipe for nigella lawson's fleur de sel caramels but substituted the pink salt cause we had just bought some. super yum yum!

then we made some gingerbread cookies. christina and i used a new recipe for icing and... well it didn't turn out so well. some were too thick, some too thin, and by the end of it we were too annoyed to try and fix it. so, we decorated our cookies with crappy icing and it glooped everywhere. oh well.

christmas dinner started off with baked brie topped with caramelized onions and shrimp dip for appetizers. we had intended to do a roasted beet, goat's cheese and pecan salad but we were a bit behind on timing, so we left it for the next day. for the main we had turkey with stuffing, sweet yams, mashed potatoes and cranberry sauce. to go with all this om nomness, we made mulled wine or gluhwein, reminiscent of our holiday trip to germany, belgium and the netherlands a few years back.

for new years, we had vasilopita, a greek cakey-bready thing. i kind of ruined it this year because my curiosity got the best of me and i found the coin by using my physics smarts. as you will notice, the star in the middle is spread out and weird looking due to all my finger pokes. whatever, i still found it! the best way to eat this cake is to heat it up in the microwave, put a big scoop of vanilla icing with it, and mush it up with a fork. sounds gross but it's oh so delicious. i tend to eat a lot of things mushed up like that... awkward...

i also had a chance to use my new immersion blender (from santa) to make a delicious butternut squash soup with spicy chorizo bits. i am going to devote an actual blog post to this so... check back soon!

would you look at that colour!

well, that was a little snippet from my holidays. i hope everyone is settling back into school smoothly and that you all have a great year ahead!