Turkey Soup
Recipe? Who needs a recipe? So after using the bones and other items still leftover after cutting off the meat from both the turkey and the smoked turkey to make stock, and then combined the stock (one had quite a smoked smell and taste). Using this combined stock I had Joseph cut up some veggies while I went shopping (I was running a bit late last week). I came home and was able to combine the onions, garlic, carrots, celery, potatoes, some spices (I don't really remember what) and eventually turkey (just to warm it up at the end). So it all came together very nicely and had some pretty good complements from Joseph and Shannon. I have to say that on Friday, it made me feel a bit better as a was struggling with my cold.
Orecchiette with Sausage and Cherry Tomatoes (p140 Food & Wine November 2011)
I didn't think I could find aged provolone, well I suppose I didn't really want to try, so I used parmesan instead. And it was quick and worked out really well. Though the cherry tomatoes...I miss the farmer's market.
Bacon Hamburgers with Catalina Dressing (p200 Food & Wine November 2011)
This was quite a bit of work (to make the dressing) that wasn't really worth it. The combining of the bacon and the ground beef was pretty good. Especially since the bacon is from Crooked Gap Farm, which basically turned them from burgers to the smoky bacony burgers. Quite a good addition both in the addition of fat and the addition of flavor. So I'd make the burgers again, but I'd skip the dressing.
Pizza
So after a week of classes and a bit of work it was nice to just throw together something. In my quest to adjust the sauce I went back to the whole tomatoes (punctured to drain more liquid) from the mixture of whole and diced. This time I added some tomato paste to the sauce mixture and it turned out pretty well. So I just need to figure out how much is the right amount. The combination of pepperoni and bacon came out of a bit of necessity. A desire to get rid of the pepperoni and there wasn't enough there to actually top the pizza, so there was some bacon in there, so there it was. It was ok. But I think this is leaded to a better path for the sauce, which leads to a better crust (sauce not leaking off to the side, etc). So we'll see. Once I'm happy and stop iterating I'll post my version of it.
Baked Mac & Leftover Cheese
Combo of leftover bits from thanksgiving and augmented with some other (cheaper) cheese. There was some blue, some goat and some other things that I cannot remember. I thought it was an ok mixture. I think the Cowgirl Creamery Red Hawk (I hope they are not to offended) kind of over powered everything else, but what can you do?