Excerpt from the Market Newsletter originally published on 17 Nov. 2010. View the full newsletter for all the photos and links.
About that food...
My family was always very traditional about our Thanksgiving dinner -- right down to the jokes about the Candied Yam. Mom only cooked one yam, you see, because it had to be there -- marshmallows and all -- for the meal to be complete, but Dad was the only one who would actually eat any. I grew up thinking I didn't like sweet potatoes and yams, then a few years ago someone served me mashed sweet potatoes. I had a spoonful to be polite and discovered they're actually quite good without the marshmallows. Of course, doing them that way means there's no bag of slightly stale marshmallows to roast in the fireplace on a cold January evening....
There is a lot of information about roasting turkeys around this time of year so I'll just give you a couple of links and get on to a less thoroughly discussed facet, one that is becoming increasingly important as families grow smaller: what to do with the leftovers. The first thing I think of for using up leftovers is soup.
...
Turkey and sweet-potato soup
2 Tb butter
1 onion, in thin slices
1.5 tsp dried sage
1 lb. sweet potatoes, peeled and cut into 1/2-in cubes
1.5 qt chicken broth
2 tsp salt
1/4 lb green beans, in 1/4-in. pieces
1/4 tsp pepper
1 lb turkey cutlets, cut into ca. 1.5 x .5-in strips
Melt butter in large pot over med-low. Add onion and sage; cook, stirring occasionally, until onion is translucent, ca. 5 min. Add sweet potatoes, broth, 1 t salt. Bring to boil. Reduce heat and simmer until sweet potatoes are tender, ca. 10 min. Transfer half the soup to a food processor or blender and puree. Return to the pot and add beans, remaining salt, pepper. Simmer until beans are just tender, ca. 8 min. Stir in turkey; cook until turkey is done, ca. 1.5 min.
From: Quick from scratch : one-dish meals. Food & Wine Books, American Express Pub., c2004.
Turkey, carrot, and apple stew
olive-oil nonstick spray
1.25 lb boneless skinless turkey breast slices, in strips
2 onions in wedges
14 oz chicken broth
1 rib celery in 1/4-in slices
1/2 c raisins
6 carrots in 1/4-in slices
1 tsp brown sugar
1/2 tsp curry powder
1/8 tsp ground turmeric
1.5 c chopped apples
2 Tb cornstarch
3 Tb cold water
1 tsp Louisiana hot sauce, or to taste
Coat a nonstick skillet with the spray and heat over med. Add turkey and onions and cook, stirring, until browned, 4-6 min. Combine turkey mixture, broth, celery, raisins, carrots, brown sugar, curry powder, and turmeric in a med. crock pot. Cover and cook on low 6-8 hr, until turkey is cooked through. Stir in apples. Cook another 1-2 min. to soften the apples. In a small cup, whisk together cold water and cornstarch and add; cook another 1-5 min. until sauce is thickened.
From: Essential slow cooker recipes / Carol Heding Munson. Main Street ; Sterling, c2002.
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Manifest plainness,
Embrace simplicity,
Reduce selfishness,
Have few desires.
-- Lao-tzu --
It is better to die of indigestion than of starvation.
-- Cicero --
