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It's Thanksgiving!

Organic turkey and squash and other lovely gluttonous things.

Lots of cooking tonight and tomorrow for a friend's housewarming party. Making:

Boozy Whiskey Cake - http://orangette.blogspot.com/2008/12/like-winter-and-warmth.html

Cheese Straws - http://smittenkitchen.com/2009/06/cheese-straws/

And Furikake Chex Mix - Based on these recipes - http://beanpaste.blogspot.com/2007/12/furikake-snack-mix-youve-been-warned.html and http://www.eanet.com/jkodama/misc/home/recipes/fchex.htm

(I'm using Crispex, Honeycomb, Wheat Chex, Pretzels, Bugles, and Peanuts)

I also might try to make a batch of italian prune plum jam on Sunday. Big cooking weekend! :)

I'm celebrating (Canadian) Thanksgiving at a potluck, but trying to roll in last week's (Chinese) Midautumn Festival at the same time. I'll be making a bbq duck, but also need a veggie side.....any suggestions?

Happy Thanksgiving, Canadians!! Hope it's wonderful.

I'm thinking about pork chops and roasted vegetables for Saturday dinner, and a big Malaysian curry for Sunday, with plenty of leftovers for lunches. I'll also be making and freezing a ton of pizza dough for my birthday pizza party next weekend!

I got the idea for a pumpkin quiche. I've added some leeks, bacon and a soft bleu cheese. I did a simple crust with added roasted flax seeds.

trying my hand at some vegan recipes, no-meatballs and spaghetti squash with tomato sauce is first on the list

I'm craving pumpkin! Tomorrow morning will be pumpkin bread and then some butternut squash risotto later that evening for dinner.

I'm making the char siu bao from the LA Times food section this week.

Vegan mushroom ceviche and a maple-pecan cake for my birthday!

I enjoyed the Emily and Jacob's house tour with the wonderful recipes. Thanks for the sharing! Granite CounterTops

Cook's Country apple slab pie (but halving the recipe, I don't really need to FEED 20 PEOPLE, just two): found lovely Cortlands at the market this week.

Dorie Greenspan's simple brioche from the October Bon Appetit.

Last night, made Molly W's spaghetti with braised kale (from the page before the Dorie article in the October BA). Holy cow, it was better than it had any right to be. What a great more-than-the-sum-of-its-parts recipe.

The baked ziti from Cook's Illustrated. It smells delicious.

We are getting our first snow of the season last night and today. It definitely is kitchen time. Preserving apples, pole beans, and basil. Making kombucha and some sort of legume dish. And biggest of all, going through the freezer to make sure nothing is past its ideal date as well as organizing bulk dry items in the pantry.

Happy Thanksgiving to our neighbors to the North!! Hope you have a deliciously wonderful day :)

Making onion confit--right now.

Having dinner at friends tonight, and I'm letting them do everything! We're having homemade surf & turf and I'm sure it's going to be great.

Last night I made a gratin of brussels sprouts with some delicious bits of gorgonzola. Perfect autumn food.

I'll be stuffing acorn squash with beets, beet greens, winter wheat, sage, and goat cheese. Why? That's what I have in my hands.
Once again, I will wish I had a record-keeper if it's a success and a memory vaporizer if it's not.

Mmmmmm, what incredible sounding weekend cooking ideas here!

We are doing a massive house purge (yes, gearing up for The Cure) and meeting a kitty we might adopt today, so grilled cheese sandwiches dipped in homemade bbq sauce will be the extent of our cooking today. Tonight: Thanksgiving (Canadian) dinner at a friend's - we are taking it easy and bringing champagne and a gorgeous local Blackberry port.

There's a huge flank steak defrosting in the fridge and I will whip together a Korean inspired marinade at some point today, to eat for dinner tomorrow night if no last minute Turkey invites come along. The marinade is a version in the current issue of Food and Wine, sweet and salty, perfect with simple rice and crisp veggies.

I have a dear friend visiting who I haven't seen in 10 years! I initially thought we'd go out, then realized, I love cooking and want to make her something special. I'm doing Dorie Greenspan's stuffed pumpkin (I have been counting down the days until fall for this recipe alone - it is an absolute favorite). Before hand we'll have prosecco and gougeres (I just stocked the freezer full of them, also from Dorie's site).

I cook all the time for myself and my husband and I'm good at it, but for some reason I'm not especially confident cooking for others, so I figure this is a good step, and low pressure. And I'm so excited!

Well, I felt like a pork stew dish, so looked back through my old recipes to find a favorite from 2003 for a green chili pork stew using pork shoulder.

Except I am using roasted pasilla peppers instead of green chili and old Farmer's Market tomatoes and some Yukons. Canadian air is making an early appearance in Seattle, so a stew will be nice. Because pasilla peppers can pack unexpected heat, I am seeing how this works before serving it to others.

I have a wind fall of quince sitting in my kitchen (the house smells divine!) So, I'm working on preserving it all. I've made up a batch of quince brandy to steep (a Nigella recipe,) tracked down suet to make "quincemeat" for Christmas (another Nigella recipe) and I'm planning on making jelly with the rest.

As far as eats for this weekend, I'm making a green tomato chard gratin tonight (http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/health/nutrition/27recipehealth.html) and carne adovada for tomorrow. I'll be in the kitchen all weekend!

Oops, link didn't work:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/27/health/nutrition/27recipehealth.html

We're having a little RIP Gourmet Magazine dinner party. We'll all make recipes from their pages and we'll wear black.

I'm almost having a weekend of no cooking at all, as it was Canadian Thanksgiving last night with one set of relatives, a family dinner tonight with a second set of relatives, and Thanksgiving again tomorrow night with my partner's family!

However, I muscled in and was permitted to make dessert for tonight's dinner: one Dutch apple pie, and one gingery plum cobbler (using Rose Levy Berenbaum's recipe for rich and creamy ginger scones for the topping).

I had a cooking-heavy Friday--brownies, pizza for lunch, risotto for dinner, and beer bread. Today, the Mr. made apple pancakes and I made cheddar and tomato grilled cheese on beer bread; for dinner, likely pasta with arugula, tomatoes, and cannelini beans.

Vegan maple-almond birthday cake!