I’ve been busy.

Thanksgiving is here!  Huzzah!   What was consumed at my house?  There were two major food-related parts of the day, and both were delicious.

For noshing earlier in the day, we had a cheese board with smoked Gouda, unie kaas, a summer sausage and a sliced cameo apple.  Wine was Yalumba Muscat, an Australian dessert wine that was perfect with the cheese!

For dinner?  Goose!  The menu was goose (stuffed with apples and onions), stuffed pumpkin (stuffed with stuffing), mashed potatoes, mashed yams, green beans with garlic, roasted beets, cranberry sauce, and pumpkin pie.  The beers for today were Stella Artois and Smithwick’s, although I’m not sure either of us drank an entire beer.

The goose looks kind of creepy, doesn’t it? “Hello, Clarice.” Anyway, here’s dinner:

The verdict on goose?  It was alright!  The preparation is different from a turkey, and the overall flavour is a bit more gamy, but it was a nice change.  (Edit:  it turns out goose is really good when it’s cold–come to me sandwiches, I am going to eat you now…)  I would probably choose a turducken or another festive meat over this in the future, but it’s good to have a new thing in my kitchen repertoire.

We haven’t gotten into the pie yet…I’ll put up a picture of that when I get to it.

Heated a ham steak in a skillet until just starting to brown (normally I would let it go a bit longer, but I was hungry and impatient). Added butter to the pan (kind of deglazing, I guess) and softened up zucchini and onion in the brown buttery hammy magical goodness.  I wept salty, ham-scented tears of joy whilst eating this. Every bite was perfection.

Yummy!  I used four pickling cucumbers, 1/2 white onion, a green pepper, and 1/2 a yellow carrot.  Apple cider vinegar, sugar, salt, and the fridge.  Good stuff.

*Edit:  I keep going to the fridge for forkfuls of these.  They are so tasty.

Sounds kind of gross, eh?  But oh so very tasty.  I got some lamb neck bones from the store for a buck and some change.  Coated in flour, salt, and pepper and browned in some olive oil.  Once the neckbones were nice and brown, I added in beef broth, a half-liter of Warsteiner, carrots, potatoes, and a large can of diced tomatoes.  About a teaspoon of dried basil, a half teaspoon of rosemary, and salt and white pepper to taste.  Simmered for a few hours on the stove.  Rich and delicious.

Rather, to Today’s Menu! Here are the tacos of celebration!

Cold and refreshing.  Frozen corn, one English cucumber, 1/2 sweet onion, one red bell pepper, 1/2 jalapeño, dressed lighly in red wine vinegar.

I had some cranberry beans in my cupboard that needed to be made, and what better time than 4th of July weekend?  I cut up some bacon and let it cook, added about 8(!) cups of soaked beans, water, a generous squeeze of ketchup, a generous squeeze of mustard, about a cup of brown sugar, some whole peppercorns, a can of green chilis, and some cayenne pepper.  Let it hang out on the stove for a few hours, and enjoyed with a vengeance.

Oh yes. Chicken stuffed with a lime and a head of garlic, seasoned lightly and roasted. I cannot begin to say how delicious this chicken is just by itself. Sauce made of 4 plums, 1/4 sweet onion, 1 habañero pepper, 1 can tomato paste, 1 heaping teaspoon mustard powder, blackstrap molasses, red wine vinegar, and a sprinkling of cayenne pepper. Oh and ketchup. I hadn’t meant to include ketchup in the sauce, as I wanted it to be from scratch, but then there was an…incident…with the molasses. Anyway, the sauce was saved by Heinz and turned out hot, sweet, and delicious.

Here’s this guy right out of the oven.

And here it is with the sauce!

A while ago I made a whole bunch of little bean burritos and froze them.  Today, strapped for lunch ideas, I grabbed one out of the freezer, scrambled some eggs while the burrito was warming in the microwave, and enjoyed my lunch topped with some hot sauce.

First pizza of the summer! The crust was a little thicker than I’d like, but it was still tasty.