CORNBREAD TURKEYS FOR THANKSGIVING!!!

Cute.  That's the word for it.  Really cute.  Such a jolly thing to have at the Thanksgiving table!  It's cornbread baked inside a turkey-shaped mould. One corny turkey! I found this recipe in a Thanksgiving issue of Martha Stewart's magazine, and since I am too, too corny myself, I had to make it. First off I needed to buy a mould. I had no idea which store to visit that would still be selling one, considering we were really close to Thanksgiving. I thought of checking Amazon.com, and there it was! Amazon had the exact mould I needed! I ordered it and it arrived in three days, on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving.  

Here is a link to the pan I ordered: Nordic Ware 3D Turkey Cake Pan

It's a sturdy, heavy pan, no problem to deal with, and the cornbread did not stick to it at all. When the turkeys were made, I was able to easily stand both halves on their own, and they stayed that way, decorating the buffet table until the time came to eat them. 

Cute, very decorative, and very easy to make. Martha Stewart's recipe is wonderful! This is the best cornbread, with actual corns kernels in it, with chopped sweet peppers, buttermilk and cheddar cheese and thankfully, with very little sugar; I love the sweetness of corn muffins but dislike sweet cornbread. Here's a prerfect cornbread:

Ingredients:

Vegetable oil cooking spray
1 1/4 sticks unsalted butter
2 cups corn kernels
2 shallots minced
1 red sweet Italian pepper, minced 
1 cup plus 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
2 1/4 cups yellow cornmeal 
1 teaspoon salt 
3/4 teaspoon black pepper
3 tablespoons sugar
1 tablespoon plus 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
3 large eggs
2 1/4 cups buttermilk, well shaken
1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350.  Coat the pans with cooking spray.  Melt one stick of butter and let cool.

Melt the remaining 2 tablespoons of butter in a skillet.  Cook the corn, shallots and peppers, stirring occasionally, until soft, about 6 minutes.

Whisk together the flour, cornmeal, salt, black pepper, sugar, baking powder, and baking soda in a large bowl.  Make a well in the centre of the mixture and add the eggs. Whisk the eggs into the flour mixture.  

Whisk together the melted butter and buttermilk and then stir it into the flour mixture, along with the corn mixture and the cheddar cheese.  Mix until well combined.

Divide the batter evenly between the prepared pans.  Smooth the tops and place in the oven. Bake for 30 to 35 minutes, rotating halfway through.  Insert a cake tester into the centre and make sure it comes out clean before taking the cornbread turkeys out of the oven.  Serve warm or at room temperature.  

I'll say it again: Cute! And one more thing: Delicious!

ORANGES FILLED WITH SORBET, FOR HALLOWEEN OR FOR ANY TIME

On the menu at a favourite restaurant is an item I usually can't resist: a frozen lemon filled with lemon sorbet. Delicious! A refreshing dessert for sharing! I think it's also a nice idea to fill oranges with sorbet.

If  Halloween is close by, why not cut out jack-o'-lantern faces on the oranges before filling them up?  Big and little kids will love them, and little kids will find carving an orange is lots easier than carving a pumpkin!  The oranges will be my Halloween offering to my nephew Alex, who I am sure will be very happy to receive them.  

Ingredients:

1. 4 navel oranges
2. 2 pints softened mango or strawberry sorbet (or use another flavour you like)  
3. some mint leaves

Directions:

• Slice off the top quarter of each orange and reserve to use as a lid. Using a spoon or small knife, carefully scoop out the interior of the oranges. Reserve the flesh for another purpose.
• If you will serve the oranges for Halloween, draw a jack-o'-lantern face on each orange.  Cut out the features with a small, sharp knife.
• Pack each orange with sorbet, and top it with its "lid." 
• Transfer the oranges to a parchment-lined baking sheet, and place them in the freezer until they are firm.  This should take at least 30 minutes.
• Before serving, top each orange with some mint leaves.  These can be secured with toothpicks.

CRAB AND SHRIMP CASSEROLE

Often, back in the days when I was a college student, I would come home from class and throw together a quick dinner made of rice, frozen vegetables, a can of tuna and a can of cream of mushroom soup. It was easy to make and (probably?) healthier than the usual student fare of pizza and diet soda. The recipe for my "tuna casserole," had come from a magazine advertisement for a famous brand of canned tuna fish. Just recently, I remembered those meals ... and I decided to revamp the recipe by throwing out the canned ingredients and replacing them with fresh ones. The result was really good.  My recipe contains long grain rice and crunchy wild rice cooked in broth. I have some sauteed vegetables, crab and shrimp, and a delicious homemade bechamel sauce that holds all the ingredients together. The dish is topped with panko breadcrumbs and then it goes into the oven. It comes out bubbly, and delicious. I am glad I revisited and revamped this recipe. It took two tries. Version one needed further tweaking, version two was spot on.  You'll see that I did not use any salt, and that's because I thought that the seafood was salty enough to flavour the whole dish. Here then is my recipe for shrimp and crab casserole:

Ingredients and Directions:

For the seafood:

1 pound of cooked crab meat
1 pound of medium shrimp, cooked only until they just turn pink
Juice of one medium lemon

• Peel the shrimp and place it in a bowl along with the crab.  Sprinkle the lemon juice over the seafood and set aside. 

For the rice:

3/4 cup uncooked long grain white rice
1/4 cup uncooked wild rice
3 cups of vegetable broth
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
about 3 sprigs of thyme
1 bay leaf
dash of black pepper
2 tablespoons olive oil

• In a medium-sized bring the broth to a boil and add all the ingredient. Bring back to the boil, lower the heat to simmer, cover the pot and let the rice cook until the liquid is absorbed but the rice is still moist. Remove the thyme sprigs and bay leaf and set the rice aside.

For the Vegetables:

3 tablespoons of olive oil
1 cup fresh or frozen corn kernels
1 medium or 1/2 of a large red sweet pepper, chopped
3 ribs of celery, chopped
1 shallot, chopped
2 scallions, sliced
4 mushrooms, sliced

• Cook the corn and set aside.
• Heat the olive oil in a skillet over medium heat. Add the celery, pepper, and shallots and cook until the vegetable begin to soften (about five minutes). 
• Add the mushrooms and scallions and saute for three minutes.   

For the Bechamel Sauce:

2 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons flour
2 cups of lukewarm milk

• In a saucepan over medium heat melt the butter. 
• Lower the heat and add the flour, mixing it with the butter.
• Add the milk slowly, whisking constantly.
• Keep whisking after the milk is added. Whisk well, until the sauce thickens and is ready to use. The sauce starts to thicken from the bottom of the pot where the heat is more intense, so make sure that you stir the thickened sauce from bottom to top in order to incorporate it well.

Now, preheat the oven to 350° F/180°C.

To assemble:

1 cup of panko breadcrumbs
1 or 2 tablespoons of butter, cut into small pieces
a few dashes of cayenne
black pepper to taste

• In a baking dish large enough to hold all the ingredients fold everything together: the rice, the seafood, the vegetables, the bechamel sauce, and the black pepper. 
• Smooth the top and cover it with the breadcrumbs.  
• Sprinkle some paprika over the breadcrumbs and dot with butter.
• Place in the oven and cook for twenty minutes until the top turns golden brown.
• Serve right away! We had leftovers and the flavour was still great the next day. Enjoy!

EGGPLANT SALAD GREEK STYLE (MELITZANOSALATA)

Every summer our love affair with eggplant is renewed.  Grown in backyard gardens and sold at vegetable stands all over the world, eggplants come in various sizes, shapes and colours.  Bake them, stuff them, fry them, grill them, or even make sweet preserves out of them (yes, very small eggplants can be turned into a spoon sweet, a type of Greek dessert).  One of the most popular ways for Greeks to cook eggplants is to turn them into this luscious salad.  It's served as an accompaniment for drinks or as a starter to a meal. You can spread it on a piece of bread or eat it plain.  Either way, it is a heavenly summer treat.  Its texture is that of a spread or a dip, but Greeks simply refer to it as a salad. 

There are two types of eggplant salad:  One is really smooth and is made with grilled or roasted eggplant which is pureed with just some olive oil, lemon juice or vinegar, and a touch of garlic.  The other type, the one I prefer, is country-style rustic and chunky.  Its ingredients depend on regional interpretations.  For example, southern Greece produces a tremendous amount of tomatoes, therefore tomatoes tend to be added to just about anything, including eggplant salad. In Macedonia, where peppers are really plentiful, roasted peppers are added, and in Thrace, folks like to add walnuts. You could say that just about every Greek cook has his or her own version of this  salad. Being descended from Macedonian and Thracian stock, I add peppers and walnuts. That's how my grandmother made eggplant salad, and I follow suit.
  

The key to making a great tasting eggplant salad is to get fresh off the farm eggplants. Not long ago I bought some from the supermarket; they wound up tasting like cardboard. This time around I drove the two extra miles to a wonderful farm stand and there I found some really cute, and as it turned out great tasting minuature  eggplants. They were turned into a delicious salad. Here's the recipe:

Ingredients:

1/4 cup olive oil

1/2 teaspoon salt

 black pepper to taste

1 teaspoon white balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons lemon juice

1 shallot or the half of a small onion

1 small clove of garlic 

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

1/2 teaspoon dried oregano

2 Italian frying peppers or 1 large sweet pepper
2 tablespoons walnuts to make walnut butter

1 tablespoon well crumbled feta cheese 

5 or six baby eggplants

Directions:

• Prick the eggplants with a fork, set them on a baking sheet and roast them in a 400°F /200°C oven until the skins are wrinkled and the eggplants have collapsed. This should take about 40 minutes. 
• During the last half hour place the peppers in the oven and let them roast. 
• Remove the eggplants and peppers from the oven and allow them to cool until they are safe to handle. Peel the skin from the peppers and remove the seeds.
• Slice the eggplants down the middle and remove their flesh. Chop it up, chop up the peppers too, and place everything in a large bowl. 
• Chop the onion and garlic and throw that in the bowl as well.  
• Add the parsley, oregano and crumbled feta.
• Place the walnuts in a food processor and grind them until they are smooth and begin to release their oils. That's the walnut butter. Add it to the rest of the ingredients. If you don't want to go to all the trouble of making walnut butter, just chop the walnuts really well and use them that way. I alternate between the two methods, depending on my mood. If I feel that I'll enjoy washing the food processor, I'll make walnut butter.  If I want to stay away from suds, I just chop up the walnuts, and that's that!
• Now add the olive oil, lemon juice, vinegar, and salt and pepper. Mix all the ingredients well.  You may need to play around with the amount of oil you're going to use.  Sometimes eggplants want just a bit more oil, sometimes they don't.
• I hope you love this recipe. The salad will keep covered in the refrigerator for about three or four days. But the longer it hangs around, the more potent the taste of garlic becomes (keep that in mind when you are adding garlic to it). If you're having company, the eggplant salad will be polished off, no worries! 

CREAMY AND CHEESY ARBORIO RICE WITH ASPARAGUS AND ARTICHOKES

How about a cheater's risotto? Here's a recipe for it, boys and girls! If you would rather not stand over the stove to keep adding liquid as the rice cooks, here is an alternative method of making risotto. The rice is left to cook on its own, and then cream, Gruyère and Pecorino are added to make a good, creamy rice. 

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons olive oil
1 cup arborio rice 
3 and 3/4 cups no-salt vegetable broth 
1 lb asparagus trimmed and peeled

1 cup frozen artichokes, thawed and sliced into quarters
2 tbsp unsalted butter plus one tablespoon olive oil
2 shallots, chopped 
2 cloves garlic, chopped
1/3 of a cup grated Gruyère cheese

1/4 cup Pecorino Romano cheese 

1/4 cup heavy cream
2 scallions, white and light-green parts only, sliced
some herbs: 

fresh parsley, fresh chives, fresh dill, chopped well

some dried tarragon
pepper to taste

Directions:

• In a medium pot heat the oil, add the rice and stir over medium heat for about three minutes. 
• Pour in a quarter of the broth and cook, stirring until the broth is absorbed. 
• Add the rest of the broth, bring to a boil, and cover the pot. Lower the heat to low and cook for twenty minutes. Turn off the heat set the rice aside, letting it finish cooking on its own. 
• Cut the asparagus into two-inch pieces and reserve the tips. 
• Bring a small saucepan of salted water to a boil. Drop in the asparagus and cook for two minutes. Scoop it out and reserve.
• Throw the asparagus tips in the water. Allow them to cook for two minutes and drain. 
• Over medium heat, melt the butter and add the shallots and artichokes. Cook stirring for about five minutes. Halfway through cooking add the garlic. 
• Stir in the asparagus pieces (not the tips) and remove from the heat.
• Over low heat, stir the cheese into the rice. 
• Add the heavy cream.
• Add the shallot and asparagus mixture.
• Mix in the scallions and herbs. 
• Season with pepper.
• Place into a serving bowl and top with the asparagus tips.

SHRIMP WITH RICE

 

 Here is one of my favourite recipes for shrimp and rice, easy to make any time. It's my idea of comfort food. Try it, it makes a great dinner! It has a nice mixture of vegetables, and the tomatoes and broth make the rice taste wonderful.  Peas are a nice addition here, and I usually include them, but this time we did without because I forgot to buy them. I think the best part about making this dish is having leftovers. They make an excellent non-liquid nightcap!

Ingredients:

1/2 cup olive oil
1 large onion, finely chopped
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 
2 celery stalks, chopped
1 green pepper (or red if you like), finely chopped
1 cup of sliced mushrooms
1 cup frozen peas
1 1/2 cups long-grain rice
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon black pepper
1 cup white wine 
3 cups hot vegetable broth
2 tablespoons chopped parsley
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves
1 small bay leaf
1 cup of tomato sauce
1 tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped.
2 pounds shrimp, peeled, deveined.

Directions:

• In a large skillet heat the olive oil and add the onions, celery, and green pepper. Cook until the onions are soft, about ten minutes.
• Add the rice and cook while stirring, until the rice turns golden in colour.
• Add the garlic and stir for about a minute
• Add the wine and the mushrooms, stir, and then simmer for five minutes.
• Add the broth, tomato sauce, tomato, parsley, thyme and bay leaf. Cover and cook for about twenty minutes or until the rice is soft, stirring occasionally.
• Add the shrimp and the peas. Simmer about 6 to 7 more minutes, until the shrimp are done.
• Remove the bay leaf and serve.