Ch-ch-ch-ch Changes…

Yesterday marked the two-week countdown to Thanksgiving. By this time any other November I would have in my freezer: pie crusts, pitted cherries, at least two types of rolls, and cubed bread for my stuffing. Also about this time, I would have made room in my freezer for the large turkey I would be picking up this coming weekend.

Things look a bit different this year.

I am used to cooking large and entertaining large and eating large this time of year. But not this year. Thanks to COVID, our table will only be set for two. There will be a laptop in lieu of the extra place settings. I find myself in a struggle between how to scale back to cooking for two, and at the same time, how to have ALL of our favorites on our biggest eating day of the year. Every single time I go to scratch a recipe from the list I decide there must be another less-sentimental dish to take it’s place. So far, there hasn’t been.

I will still add festive touches no matter how scaled back we go. There will be flowers on the table. I will use my favorite dishes. The glassware will be polished and ready to receive a fine wine. Perhaps Thanksgiving will be more romantic this year. Having said that, we are planning to Zoom with our kids for at least the beginning of the meal…and also with our entire family earlier in the day. Thank you, Modern Technology!!

My eldest is in charge of the alcoholic cocktail – his usual holiday task – while I am in charge of our new tradition: the mocktail. We will send our chosen recipes out to the group in advance, and during our Zoom call we will partake in one or both versions. It will kinda be like we are in the same room.  Kinda.

We are toying with the idea of eating together as well. This will obviously turn our romantic dinner for two into a more family-friendly dinner. I’ll take that!! Either way is a win-win in my book.

I’m not a fan of Black Friday, so Pie Night is my invented holiday to take its place.

And.

There will be no Pie Night this year. No. Pie. Night. This pesky pandemic is really mucking up our traditions!!  I typically bake 10-15 pies for Thanksgiving. Obviously, that is a LOT of pie for one night’s dessert. In the past we have invited neighbors to join us on the night after Thanksgiving to aid in the ‘disposal’ of the excess pie. I’m not a fan of Black Friday, so Pie Night is my invented holiday to take its place. It goes like this: we spend the Friday after Thanksgiving decorating for Christmas. We eat leftovers for dinner…this might be my favorite benefit to all that advance time in the kitchen! That night our guests join us for Pie Night. If all goes well, we are left with very little pie by the end of the evening. This is a tradition I eagerly anticipate every year…such a fun way to bring in the holiday season! I’ll be sad to miss it this year.

Thanksgiving Tips

But we all gotta eat, right?

Just because things will be scaled back doesn’t mean you can’t do advance preparation. There’s no reason to stress yourself out on the big day, whether you are hosting dinner for 20 or dinner for 2…or dinner for 1. Below are my best tips on how I get through cooking such a huge meal while still enjoying my family and friends.

A Month Ahead:

• As I mentioned above, many things can be made in advance and frozen. Breads and rolls for dinner freeze very well. If you are making stuffing/dressing, you can cube your bread and freeze it. It’s not a huge timesaver; however, on the day every minute counts!
  Pie crusts can be made in advance and frozen, too. This is especially helpful if you make pies that use different types of crusts. The crust I use depends on the pie I am making. Apple and Cherry Pies get a cream cheese crust; Pumpkin gets a basic flaky butter crust; Pecan pies get a hazelnut crust. My Chocolate Ganache Pie gets a brownie crust. Advance prep here goes a long way to saving time later.
  Stock can be made and frozen as well.
• Cranberry Sauce can me made early (up to 2 weeks) and is super easy to make. It will hold for 10-14 days in the fridge, or up to 2 months in the freezer. I usually make a double batch. Leftover cranberry sauce is amazing added to lemon bars!

The Day (or so) Before Thanksgiving:

• I bake my pies the day before. It helps to have them out of the way so you can clean up the kitchen and begin fresh on Thanksgiving Day.
  **Take the frozen crusts the night before you plan to bake.
• Set your table the day or two before. It always takes me longer to set the table then I remember. I also make up my flower arrangements/centerpieces the night before. It looks so pretty when I wake up the morning of and motivates me to start in!

The Day Of:

• MAKE BREAKFAST THE MORNING OF THANKSGIVING EASY! I typically buy bagels and put together a platter with all of the fixings the night before. Maybe I’ll have a bowl of mixed fruit to set out with it. I have OJ (and Prosecco for those partaking) and coffee/tea. I set up a “breakfast station” with plates, toaster, napkins, flatware and glassware. My platter of fixings goes on the table when the first guest pops downstairs. As the rest roll into the kitchen, they are able to fix their own bagels and stay out of my way.
  **my bagel fixings usually include cream cheese, hummus, sliced red onion, capers, sliced tomatoes and lox.
• ON THE BIG DAY (and day before depending on how much you do in advance): I ALWAYS BEGIN WITH A CLEAN KITCHEN AND A SINK OF HOT, SUDSY WATER. The sink part – for me – is critical. Whenever I have an extra minute or so, I will wash a few dishes or wipe down counters. It may not seem like much, but this makes a huge impact. Huge. HUGE! 
• To go with the above tip, invest in a comfy pair of gloves for washing dishes to keep your hands from getting to water logged and eventually chapped and red. Despite all of my years prepping for Thanksgiving, I have only recently embraced this tip. Before that I suffered for years with chapped hands from all of the dish-washing.
• TAKE BREAKS! Set a timer if you find you go for hours on your feet without a break. Maybe schedule in time for a walk outside. Or just sit every so often. Your back will thank you!!

MY BIGGEST TIP:

• The biggest lesson that took me YEARS to finally ‘get’ is that in the end, as pretty as the table setting may be, as tasty as the food may be, as clean as your house may be…the most important part of this day (and every day) is taking time to appreciate and spend time with your family and friends. Accept help when offered, even if it means the potatoes are not mashed the way you like them or the flowers aren’t arranged how you imagined. Sometimes you learn new ways to do things.One year we had family from Italy…2 women who wanted to learn about our holiday traditions, and who wanted to help prepare the meal. I had never accepted help in the past (other than anyone willing to wash dishes LOL). I was a bit panicked at the idea of help. But…they INSISTED. And in the end: IT. WAS. FUN. And helpful. I learned to let go a bit that year and a bit more in each year since.
  

  ---

The holiday season looks different for many of us this year, but hopefully next year the pandemic will be long gone and we can get back to old traditions. Or, just maybe, we will invent some new traditions to add to our old ones.

Whatever your holiday season looks like, I wish you health and peace. Stay safe out there…

Buon appetito, y’all!

Fall has arrived. With it, my sense of wanderlust has strengthened. My husband and I typically travel this time of year, and much of our travel involves Italy. Italy is never a bad idea, but Italy in the fall is an especially grand idea. We have family there, and over the years it has become more or less a tradition to visit in September or October. There are fewer crowds than summer, and the weather switches from hot to mild. And if you have never driven the Dolomites as the leaves are turning, you are missing out on one of nature’s most spectacular color shows I’ve ever witnessed. I felt like I was traveling through one of the world’s most exquisite paintings.  Breathtaking!

Italy is never a bad idea, but Italy in the fall is an especially grand idea.

Alas, there will be no autumn excursions to Italy this year. No fun European adventures lie in store for us in the foreseeable future. Dreams of any other faraway countries are also off the table at the moment. This pesky pandemic has created all sorts of havoc in the world. I feel certain my travel days have not ended, but they have been temporarily curbed. But only temporarily so!

For now I must invoke my sense of creativity for any international travel I plan to take. No, I still cannot leave the country at the moment. But ever the rebel, I have decided to travel anyway. I plan to do it through food. Yes, you heard me. While apparating “Harry Potter style” may not yet be a thing, traveling via my taste buds is. As such, I will be choosing meals in the coming days and weeks based on places I have either traveled or wish to travel. I am meal-planning at the moment, so stay tuned for “Cindy’s European Vacation!!”

No, I still cannot leave the country at the moment. But ever the rebel, I have decided to travel anyway. I plan to do it through food.

In the meantime, we did manage a bit of a getaway a couple of weeks ago. We drove to Yellowstone. We arrived as the first snowfall hit.

It. Was. Magical!

We had visited one other time, in the summer of 2002. It was quite crowded then, and with two young boys added to the mix, we did not see as much as we had hoped. For this visit, the combination of it being post-Labor Day and the fresh snow meant minimal crowds. No bumper-to-bumper cars and trailers and campers. I highly recommend! We brought much of our food with us (I pre-packaged our breakfasts and made up sandwiches for the week in advance…plus brought along fresh fruit and other healthy snacks), and we ended up ordering take out only twice for dinner. We spent our days driving the park in search of wildlife and visiting geysers and hiking. Wifi connection was minimal at best, and all of this added up to one economical yet relaxing getaway.

Here are a few of my favorite shots:

Hope you all have found creative ways to get through life these days. I will be sharing my outside-the-box travel adventures in the coming weeks, and I would love for you to travel along with me!

Buon appetito, y’all!

Strange times we find ourselves in these days…

I admit that I don’t mind the staying home as much as some might. We’ve stocked up here. We are fully loaded on cleaning supplies, pantry staples, and the ever-elusive toilet paper. There is a calm over my soul knowing my husband is working from home, not traveling all over the place picking up who-knows-what germs. It’s still early enough that the novelty of being together 24/7 has not worn off. Yet.

Was it only this week the stay-at-home order went into place? Feels like it’s been ages.

This world has gone crazy overnight, with lots of anxiety floating around. I’m doing my best to keep from absorbing it, by looking in the areas I do have some control and influence. News intake is one place. I have chosen to limit how much I watch, and certainly I don’t have the TV on right before bed. I’m also doing what I can to help out smaller local businesses and restaurants. If ordering online is an option for a local business, I’ve been doing so.

Same goes for restaurants. Most of those in our area offer take-out with curb side delivery. One has paired with local farmers and offers “quarantine packages” in lieu of their regular menu. Each day the package has been slightly different based on what they get from their suppliers, but usually includes several types of meat (uncooked but sometimes marinated), a gallon of milk, a pound of butter, 15 eggs, some sort of vegetable, and 2 rolls of toilet paper. They are able to help local farmers get their products out to others and stay up and running. Each order helps multiple local businesses stay up and running. Beautiful!

I find myself leaning toward comfort foods and have been cooking most nights. Somehow that helps get me through. Most nights it’s basic stuff or meals that can be thrown together quickly. But many nights I’ve slowed things down and fired up meals that simmered much of the day. We had a corned beef hash with eggs fried on top on St. Patrick’s Day. Another day found me searing beef cubes for a hearty Guinness Stew, ultimately served over creamy mashed potatoes.

Some of my comfort food favs: Pork Ragù over Creamy Polenta; Spaghetti served with Meatballs and Italian Sausage on the side; A bowl of fresh picked red ripe raspberries, still warm from the sun…[sigh]

I for sure find myself grabbing for ice cream more frequently after dinner. As a child I often spent the night at my grandparent’s. My grandmother would bring me ice cream before bed.  Just a little mind you, but she topped off the rest of the bowl with Love. I suppose it’s only natural that I reach for a scoop – or two – when feeling a bit anxious.

And finally, roast chicken. Just the aroma wafting through the house creates an instant zone of zen. Add a little gravy made from the drippings for your mashed potatoes, and suddenly everything feels so much better! Bonus: the carcass can be used to make a hearty stock…and what, my friends, puts the word ‘comfort’ in comfort food more so than homemade chicken soup?

Tonight, I’m making halibut for dinner and will be serving rice and a tossed salad with it. My husband was in Alaska last summer for a fishing trip and brought back a variety of fish to fill our freezer. While salmon was in short supply at the time he went, halibut and rockfish were not. I’ve been using this recipe from Epicurious quite often. It is simple, tasty, and can be assembled in advance.

Hope you are all finding your own ways to work through any anxiety or boredom or pent up energy during these trying times. I invite you to share your own comfort foods or any other ways you are coping in the comment section.

Until next time, stay healthy! Bon appétit, y’all!