Menu:

• Roast turkey
• sous vide mashed Yukon gold potatoes
• oatmeal stuffing (see recipe)
• green salad
• corn
• cranberry sauce
• boysenberry pie
• vanilla and Jack ice cream

Turkey Brine:

• salt
• brown sugar
• pepper corns (smashed)
• cloves (smashed)
• bay leaves
• loganberry concentrate
• 1 lime (juice and zest)
• 2 cinnamon sticks

Just a few ingredients and a jar.  I now keep these perpetually on-hand for sandwiches and salads and whatever else.  So good.

Ingredients:

• Onion (red)
• 1 C water
• 1 C vinegar
• 1 t salt
• 1 T sugar
• some crushed red peppers (I usually omit this as I don’t find them much a contribution)

Directions:

• Warm the water and vinegar enough to dissolve the sugar and salt.
• Fill a seal-able jar with thinly sliced red onion.
• Pour the cooled liquid mixture into the jar, covering the onion slices.
• Seal jar and place in the refrigerator.

Go forth and make sandwiches!

I wanted to try something different for stuffing this year, so I surfed the Web and cobbled together several stuffing recipes to form this delicious mess of brown.  It does contain some pretty classic elements (dried fruit and sage, for example), but using oatmeal as the base instead of toasted bread as well as punching it up with dried Bing cherries should set this apart from the competitors.  (In my mind, when a recipe I create turns out well I imagine myself having done well in a contest.)

Anyway, here are the important bits.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb sausage (I used hot Italian because that was available)
• 2 shallots diced
• 2 or 4 celery stalks diced
• 2 or 3 leeks sliced maybe half an inch thick
• 8 oz dried Bing cherries
• fresh sage (I probably added around two of those plastic fresh boxes from my garden so maybe a quarter cup?) (this is the only herb so don’t skimp unless the sausage you use is sage forward, in which case go easier I guess)
• salt and pepper to taste
• cayenne to taste
• 1 cube butter give or take very soft
• 5 cups rolled oats + 1 cup steel cut oats (one could alter the ratio as desired)
• 3 or 4 cups chicken stock (I make my own; be careful if you use store bought because they tend to be salty)

Directions:

• Brown the sausage (it will cook together later so concentrate on browning only)
• (I use a pastry knife to break up the browned sausage once browned)
• transfer sausage to very large bowl
• In the same pan and beginning with the shallots and then in order the celery, leeks, and cherries
• add the oatmeal(s), sage, and the soft butter to the bowl; mix let macerate for ten minutes
• add maybe half the stock to the bowl; mix
• When the vegetables are softened add them to the bowl and mix thoroughly
• Add salt, pepper, and cayenne tasting as you progress
• Add up to the remaining stock (not too wet but not too dry) and continue to mix thoroughly
• layer the mixture into your smoking pan(s), cover in foil, and transfer to smoker
• smoke for a good 90 minutes repositioning as necessary (my smoker only goes to 275f so that’s what I used)
• uncover and smoke for another half hour (adjust covering and uncovering to get your desired smokiness

Something like that.  I didn’t take notes.  Or these are my notes just several days after the fact.  Probably the next batch will be even better!  This is likely the best stuffing I’ve ever had so that’s something.

My mom made a pretty authentic goulash in certain respects.  In certain other respects it wasn’t really goulash at all.  I’m now making something somewhere in between.

The Hungarians would make a sort of soup called goulash and serve that with or over cubed boiled potatoes.  The Germans like a thicker version and serve that over spaetzle.  My mom used elbow macaroni.  I have a spaetzle maker but usually just reach for a nice orzo lately.

My mom used a combination of tomato juice and tomatoes.  I skip the juice.  Feel free to include some to make a thinner version.  You could also add chicken stock to take it more into the soup dimension.  My mom used stewed tomatoes but I use just diced.  She also added “a little sugar”.  I’ve dropped this as well.

My mom used ground beef, but I’ve gone more traditional here and cube nice beef and brown that.

Finally, my mom didn’t use paprika (I know!) and I use a lot.  If I can brown the beef and sauté the onions over fire I use Hungarian sweet, but if I can’t I use Spanish smoked paprika instead.  Or maybe a combination.  I’m not too picky about this detail.

Ingredients:

• 1 lb beef (browned)
• 2 large onions (sautéed but not browned)
• 1 T garlic (optional, I usually skip but sweat these after the onions)
• tomatoes (2 x 28 oz cans of Muir Glen diced is typical for me)
• salt and pepper
• ¼ C paprika (yes, a lot)

Directions:

• brown beef and set aside
• sauté onions in whatever fat remains, scrap up the bits, and let them go translucent (take your time)
• add everything into the pot (except the pasta) and let that simmer for a long while, relax
• cook the pasta you chose (or potatoes or make spaetzle) (1 box of orzo is a good portion for the above)
• you can combine the starch and sauce together and server or serve portions (I usually combine in the pasta just prior to serving time so it’s a one pot stop)

That’s it.  Basic.  Easy.  Fucking delicious.

My mom makes chocolate zucchini bread.  Well, she did when we were kids.  I don’t think they eat so much dessert foods now that we’re grown.  Regardless, I asked her to send me the old recipe.  The poor card has seen better days!

I’ll do my best to get those interpreted correctly here.

Ingredients:

• 2 ½ C flour (unsifted)
• 2 C sugar
• ½ C cocoa [presumably Dutch processed but certainly powder]
• 3 eggs
• 2 ½ t baking powder
• 2 t vanilla
• 1 ½ t [baking] soda
• 2 t orange peel (grated) [zest]
• 1 t salt
• 1 t cinnamon
• 2 C zucchini (shredded)
• ¾ C butter or margarine [seriously, butter though]
• ½ C milk
• [ewe] 1 C pecans or walnuts (chopped) [No nuts!  obviously optional]

Directions:

• Pour [something] greased and floured [something] [maybe cake] pan or Bundt pan
• [over]
• Bake 350° for 1 hr
• Cool in pan for 15 min
• Turn out on wire rack
• Cool thoroughly
• Glaze

Glaze:

• 2 C powdered sugar
• 3 T milk
• 1 t vanilla

I have no specific memory have actually eating it, but I know we greatly enjoyed doing so.

Enjoy!