Back to the homestead for…

Thanksgiving Dinner





There was actually a second wave of food which came out after these pictures, but I forgot to take more pictures then.

Well, I’m cooking for just myself tonight, which means I get to make the meal extra spicy. A stop at the green market over the weekend provided me with nice baby spinach, and the meat store gave me sausage and mozzarella today.

Spicy Sausage with Spinach
	olive oil lots of red pepper flakes 1/2 head garlic 1 small white onion 3/4 cup water remains of can of tomatoes from Saturday night, with all of the puree/liquid cracked black pepper 1 tsp dry oregano 1 tsp dry basil 3 bay leaves 2 italian hot sausages baby spinach (from greenmarket) 1 pat butter 2 tsp water 3 shakes salt (I finally went out and bought a 50 cent salt shaker) 1 baby mozzarella
Saute red pepper flakes, roughly chopped garlic, sliced onion in olive oil. Remove casing from sausage, form into small balls. Brown sausage in pan. Add tomato, water, black pepper, oregano, basil, bay leaves. Simmer off excess liquid for 45 minutes or so. When liquid has thickened, melt butter in second pan. Add baby spinach leaves to butter, salt them, and add a few spoons of water. Slice mozzarella; add black pepper and olive oil.

This made two full servings, although I ate both of them. This whole cutting back on processed carbohydrates thing is kinda difficult. The second serving had more oil left in it though, so it was much spicier. Tasted like burning a little.

It’s almost time to leave the city for Thanksgiving. My refrigerator is very sad at this point. The onion and mozzarella went into the meal, so those aren’t even around anymore.

4 cloves garlic 3/4 white onion vegetable oil 1 chicken breast (2 halves) barbecue sauce salt water 2 heads broccoli

Marinate chicken breast in brine (salt & water) for about 30 minutes prior to cooking Saute garlic and onion in vegetable oil on low heat Slather chicken in barbecue sauce, grill in grille pan, approximately 10 minutes per side. Scrape off burnt excessive barbecue sauce; grille pan is not very conducive to sticky sugary sauces. Add enough water to cover the bottom of the pan after the burning gets annoying. Chop broccoli. Midway through second side, add broccoli to the vegetable skillet, add enough water for steaming and cover. Plate and serve.

We ended up adding cracked black pepper and grated romano cheese to the vegetables while eating, for maximum deliciousness.

I went to the open-air market today, so I have a bunch of new apples (as well as a few old apples from the Union Square market last week to eat up. And I’ve been wanting to try some of the meat store’s larger and more complicated cuts (meaning, anything including a bone) for some time now.

Baked Apple Pork Chops
	2 fuji apples 1 jonagold apple 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves 1 teaspoon cinnamon 1 cup apple cider (no preservatives, had been open in the fridge for a week) 1/4 water salt cracked black pepper 2 pats butter 1 sweet italian red onion (I don’t even know what this is, but that’s what the sign said at the produce stand this morning) vegetable oil 2 pork chops (1″ thick, with what looks like more fat than I remember being on a pork chop last time I had one, probably years ago) 6 tomatoes from a can of plum tomatoes
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Core and slice apples into fairly thin slices. Heat a little bit of vegetable oil in small skillet. Slice onion; salt lightly and saute on low heat in skillet. Salt & pepper one side of each pork chop. Melt butter onto the grille pan (on medium heat); grill pork chops seasoned side down for two minutes. While grilling first side, salt & pepper the other side. Flip pork chops, grill another 2-3 minutes on the second side. Remove pork chops from pan, and turn off heat. Cover bottom of pan with sliced apples. Cover apples with half of the cinnamon and cloves. Place pork chops on top of apples, then onions. Slice tomatoes in half lengthwise, place on top. Sprinkle on remaining cinnamon and cloves. Add apple cider and water to pan. Put pan in oven (the grille pan, unlike the rest of my cookware, is all metal, and therefore cool enough to do stuff like this) for approximately 50 minutes. Remove from oven, serve over rice.

This was sweet and delicious. I love being able to get fresh apples. Too bad that’ll only last another week or two, really. There was leftover juice, which I probably could have turned into gravy with a little flour. I threw it out, though, after some probably too quick consideration about whether I’d ever end up using it for anything.