Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoying Thanksgiving today with family and friends (over the river and through the woods...oops, wrong holiday), making sure to provide a small gift to the hostess, a jar of homemade cranberry sauce, so easy, yet homey and personal at the same time. Very thankful for those family and friends, although we sometimes have our, ahem, moments. Hope your Thanksgiving is as fantastic!

Just around the corner...

Thanksgiving, that is. This is the last week of the regular harvest season at Clagett; late next week begins gleaning. At this point in the season, there are pumpkins, sweet potatoes, even peppers, aplenty, as well as greens, glorious greens, which do quite well when washed, torn, and frozen--makes them quicker to cook. (Hint for Thanksgiving!)

Of course, I'll miss walking back from various fields and seeing small delights such as:

Spicebush?

and

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The brouhaha from Jonathan Safran Foer's book, Eating Animals, includes many people proclaiming that if we'd all just eat grass-raised beef and other animals, all would be well. While I respect that position, the fact is that for most people, eating grass-raised animals is even less practical than going vegan.

Clagett itself demonstrates the impracticality of humanely-raised meat for most people. The simple fact is that raising critters this way requires lots of land, and time--time for little calves to grow up. This inherently limits the amount of such meat that can be produced, keeping the price of such an item a luxury. Add to that increasing demand for same meat, and prices go even higher. Organic meats, dairy, and eggs are MUCH higher in price compared to conventionally raised animal products, a much greater price differential than that between organic produce and grains and conventionally raised grains and produce.

Because the supply of such meat will always be low relative to demand (which is why the list for the meat at Clagett is closed, while there are probably slots available for shares for next year there), even people who have no problem with eating meat will be eating it a lot less frequently, if determined to only eat humanely grass-raised meats. Just sayin.'

(I'll be the one avoiding cooking, as well as eating, turkey carcass this holiday. I'll be fixing a vegetarian roast instead, and fending off the meat-eaters in order to eat some myself, as on holidays past!)

Jennifer McCann of the Vegan Lunchbox blog has a wonderful Magical Loaf Studio, where you can insert your favorite ingredients to come up with your own recipe for a vegetarian roast. Stupendous!

Post-Thanksgiving "Feed" (aka dogblogging)

Yesterday's yummy Thanksgiving feast (followed this morning by the greatest breakfast in the world, a slice of sweet potato pie!) just might mean that today becomes a small timeout from the gorging, a mini-detox, if you will, for the system.

Of course, any true detox course will include plenty of water--assuming that you drink most of it! (Shorty below seems have forgotten the basic need to drink for a few moments. Oh well...)

More Pre-Thanksgiving Prep...to put some pep your holiday step!

Having people for Thanksgiving--been there, done that. Actually, I enjoyed having people over, but then, I planned ahead. Probably what kills many people is trying to do everything in too short a period of time, like the day before as well as Thanksgiving. A more rigid schedule for cooking on Thanksgiving week is listed on FoodieView, but my less structured schedule is below.

Note: One type of modern technology that comes in handy, particularly when cooking on Thanksgiving itself, is the alarm clock feature on your cell phone!

If I'm a cookin' for Thanksgiving, my (extremely rough) schedule resembles:

• Sunday--the bulk of the shopping is done today; the only Thanksgiving cooking to be done this evening is making the cranberry sauce. Even if I'm not hosting Thanksgiving dinner, I'm making the sauce tonight to take to the host!
• Monday--if having homemade rolls, make them today, and refrigerate them until the big day. (Storebrought bread for that day already be refrigerated [if yeast bread] or frozen if some other type of bread.)
• Tuesday--purchase or make desserts today. The great thing about desserts (besides the yum factor) is that they can be stored away from the other foods--in a cake pan or something, as most pies don't require refrigeration for a couple of days--so they don't take up refrigerator space, which will be at a premium this week! If cooking a turkey carcass, you should have bought it by now, so that you can begin to defrost it in the fridge.
• Wednesday--prep day! This is the day to either bake most of your side dishes (except for mashed potatoes and greens), or cut up vegetables for dishes to put together quickly for tomorrow. For instance, roasting and cutting up pumpkin if making, say, a pumpkin soup (and cleaning out the seeds beforehand to have roasted pumpkin seeds--umm, umm, good!), making macaroni and cheese, which can then be cooled and reheated on Thursday. If cooking turkey, the deceased critter should be in the process of thawing out by now. Any non-turkey entree should be in the process of being prepared today (thawing out overnight in the fridge, if necessary, etc.).
• Thanksgiving Thursday! Begin cooking at around 10:30 am--preheating the oven, preparing the main event, setting out the desserts and decorations, etc. If cooking greens, they should be in the pot on top of the stove while the entree is in the oven. After the turkey or other entree comes out of the oven, the other baked items should be put in the oven. Also, cut potatoes should be put in boiling water during this time, so that they can be ready to be mashed in 20 to 30 minutes, as fresh mashed potatoes are best made soon before eating. Begin to make the gravy around this time, as well. (This is where your cell phone's alarm clock feature comes in extra handy--to allow you to nap during the time the entree is resting and the sides are baking!)

Whew! What an accomplishment--a great feast, good company, as well as some rest and sanity.

Easy pre-holiday prep..the sauce!

Homemade cranberry sauce is akin to a chutney, and is just as versatile, post-Thanksgiving, because it's easy to handle--just spoon away! It's also easy to make (takes only about an hour to prepare, then let it cool off), doesn't require precision, and is even better after sitting overnight in the fridge. This makes it great if you are doing the holiday cooking, because you can make it a couple days ahead, sparing yourself much aggravation. If you're going to someone else's home, it makes a great gift for the host. Its jewel-like appearance, with chunks of fruit, makes it a grown-up holiday delight!

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Um, thus is born this cranberry sauce "recipe," if you will...a new family favorite! The following makes enough to take some to your host, and some to keep for yourself as well.

• 2 12-ounce bags cranberries (it's OK if you froze them beforehand; no need to defrost frozen ones before cooking, but give a quick rinse first, to remove any stems)
• 1/2 cup or more juice
• an orange, lime, grapefruit, or lemon (zest the fruit first; add the rest of the fruit to the sauce, if you prefer)
• 2 1/2 cups sugar (may need to add more after tasting)
• ground coriander (or ground ginger, ground cardamom, or ground nutmeg--cinnamon, allspice, or cloves are too overpowering to fruit flavors, in my opinion)
• one pear or apple

In a Dutch oven or large saucepan, over medium heat, add the juice, the rinsed cranberries, sugar, then stir. If mixture seems a bit dry, add more juice--any juice is fine.

Add the citrus zest, then chop up the rest of the fruit, and add it to the sauce, if using the entire citrus fruit, then add the spice(s), and stir some more. Finally, chop the pear or apple and add it to the sauce, and stir again.

Stir the pot occasionally to keep it from sticking. The sugar should soon begin to melt within the sauce; after you see this, the berries should soon start simmering, and popping open. (You can assist the process of popping those berries with a wooden spoon, if you're impatient!) Turn down the heat a bit, to keep the sauce from spilling out of the pot.

The sauce is done when it's noticeably thicker than when you began; dip a spoon in it--some of the sauce should remain on the spoon. Taste it at this point; if you think it needs more sugar, add another 1/4 to 1/2 cup, and stir again until this sugar is fully melted into the sauce.

After turning off the heat, let the sauce cool in the pot another hour before spooning it into glass jars and refrigerating; theoretically, it keeps a few weeks, although it's usually eaten up within a couple of weeks!