Thanksgiving 2011

A yearlong hiatus, huh?

Since the last time I wrote here, a year ago, I’ve finished the Bachelor’s degree in Physics that I started eight long years ago before interrupting my studies to take a trip to Iraq. I’ve started a new job, while studying full-time towards a graduate degree. I’ve cooked nearly every night, and I’ve brewed almost 200 gallons of beer (most of it good). I’ve been too busy to write, but not too busy to cook.

I figure that Thanksgiving is as good a time as any to get back into the swing of blogging. After all, I’ll have plenty of late nights with which to stay caught up once the baby arrives! Oh yeah, that was the other thing that happened since last I wrote…

We also started a food coop with two other couples among our friends. We make enough to feed six, with leftovers, and deliver it to their houses once a week. We’ve been going for about a month, and it’s been a lot of fun so far. I think the trick is to find other people who are also excited about food. We’re going to start group blogging that venture, of course, and you can find it here: This Ain’t Your Mother’s Food Coop!

This Thanksgiving was the first in a while for which we did not do a majority of the cooking. We still made our “classics”: the Balsamic-glazed Brussels Sprouts and stuffing with mushrooms and plenty of herbs. We have another 28-pound turkey in the fridge to cook later this weekend, and a pot of chili to keep my friends and me warm as we brew a collection of holiday beers tomorrow.

Life is good.

Thanksgiving 2010

Mmmm… winter holidays!

This cranberry cider was Beth’s Thanksgiving invention- it’s simple and tasty at half cranberry juice, half sparkling cider, a shot of light rum and cranberries and maybe a cinnamon stick to garnish.

Stale

Stale like this bread that I turned into croutons to perch delicately atop this caesar salad accompaniment to a delicious french onion soup topped with more stale bread and some defrosted comte.

Stale like this blog which at last update belonged to March and now belongs to November, having seen a late May marriage and no small part of business and bustle since.

Squash

We grew a bunch of it this year. We had squash vines exploring the sidewalk, wrapping around the mailbox, and climbing the neighbor’s apple tree. We stored some dozen or so large winter squash in Beth’s garage this winter- pumpkins, sweetmeats, galeaux d’esine, delicata… They’re about at the end of their collective rope now, though. Mold spots were starting to appear on the hard rinds, and the stems were loose. The obvious solution was to eat a lot of squash, which was no great hardship for either of us.

This is the first of several winter squash recipes that I’ve made over the last few weeks. The inspiration came from 101 Cookbooks and a few idle moments in the WinCo bulk aisle. See, Beth and I both have a tendency to taste new things. She found adzuki beans in the bulk bins- I typed their name into a couple favorite food blogs, and found a tasty looking recipe on 101 Cookbooks. A few tweaks later, I had a new favorite soup.