Sunny Thanksgiving In Phoenix

For the Turkey, I did a Dry Brine overnight from the Bon Appetit November 2013 Magazine that had black, pink, and white peppercorns, coriander seeds, bay leaves, salt, sugar, lemon and orange zest.

 For the turkey legs and thigh I used the Braised Turkey Legs recipe from the November 2013 Bon Appetit Magazine as well.  I used a turkey stock, that I had previously made, to braise the turkey in.

With the homemade turkey stock and braising juices, I made the Hard-Cider Gravy taken from November 2013 Bon Appetit Magazine.  It was delicious!

I used Bobby Flay's Wild Mushroom-Bacon Sourdough Dressing from November 2013 Food Magazine.  I had made my sourdough bread to use in this dish.

From the same Food Network Magazine, I made the Cranberry-Orange Sauce.

Here are some more side dishes-
Brussels Sprout Gratin and Braised Collards From Food Network Magazine Nov. 2013 Booklet "50 Vegetable Sides"

I roasted Sweet Potatoes with some olive oil and butter and tossed it with Pomegranate Seeds and Honey.

Sour Cream Mashed Potatoes from November 2013 Bon Appetit Magazine

Gratefruit-Poppy Seed Salad from November 2013 Food Network Magazine

Pumpkin Cheddar Muffins from http://katieatthekitchendoor.com/2012/09/20/pumpkin-cheddar-muffins/

Now for Dessert-
Both of these recipes are from the Cooking Light November 2012 Magazine,
Pumpkin Pie Ice Cream and Honey-Pecan Tart With Bittersweet Chocolate.
I made the tart with a graham cracker crust instead of the traditional crust and used a pie not tart pan.

And I believe that was it, it was delicious!

Dinner in Seattle

We all met up in Seattle this summer at the Wilson's Phinney Ridge house for another dinner adventure.  The theme?  Grilling!  Our high hopes for grill marks, however, were unfortunately not fulfilled. A mere few minutes into getting things on the grill we realized we had run out of propane, and quickly changed gears and finished everything inside.  The meal still turned out great, just not quite what we had intended.

We made BLT Bread Salad from the July/August Food Network Magazine, and replaced the ricotta salata with queso blanco from Cornerstone Dairy.

For the bread we used Essential Baking Company's Rosemary Diamante

For another non-green salad we made Bobby Flay's Grilled Sweet Potato and Scallion Salad, which recipe was also from the July/August issue of FN Magazine.

Since we were supposed to be grilling, we figured why not make two kinds of meat?  First, grass-fed beef steaks from Cornerstone using the recipe from the July/August FN Magazine for Simple Sirloin Steak with Chimichurri.

The second meat dish was Herbed Grilled Chicken Wings from the July Bon Appetit.

All components of the dinner tasted great, despite the glitch in the plans!  After the stress of the grill not working, Wesley decided to relax in the hot tub for a while...

For dessert we made Miette's Miniature Cheesecake from Hummingbird High.  We encountered a couple set-backs with this as well.  We made it with homemade cream cheese and creme fraiche (for the topping) from Cornerstone, and the batter for the filling kept separating while mixing it.  It also came out much flatter than the photos from the recipe.  Our makeshift hot water bath (since we didn't have a large enough pan to put the springform pan in) didn't work out very well either, and some water got in and made the crust kind of soggy.  The cheesecake still had a nice flavor, it was just less than ideal in texture all around.

Indian Dinner

For dinner this time we decided to go with the theme of Indian food (with the exception of dessert).  Dinner was made in Olympia, where Bethany stayed the night, and the next morning Jeanette, Wesley, and Bethany drove up to Seattle.  We ate breakfast at Hot Cakes.  We tried their oatmeal/raisin/bacon cookie, bread pudding (with maple clove butterstoch, sauteed apples and pears, and vanilla ice cream), and apple/cardamom/ginger pocket pie.

Back to dinner...

In lieu of a green salad, we made Carrot Salad with Yogurt and Coriander from the January 2012 Bon Appetit magazine.  In place of Greek yogurt we used raw milk yogurt from Frisia Dairy, and we used red wine vinegar instead of Sherry vinegar.  This photo does not do justice to this salad--it was really good!

For the Indian-Spiced Chicken with Chickpeas and Spinach (January 2013 BA), we again used the yogurt Jeanette had in place of the Greek yogurt, and we left the skin on the chicken instead of removing it like the recipe says.

The broth was homemade, and our dish turned out to have more liquid than the pictures in the magazine, possibly due to a little extra broth being used because the size of the pan required more to cover the chicken.  However, it had great flavor!

On to the next dish - Saag Paneer from the March 2013 Food Network Magazine.  We made the cheese, which was then tossed in flour and fried in grapeseed oil.

Then the cheese was tossed in a sauce made with lots of spinach.

The saag paneer was served on top of Lemon-Cumin Rice from the March 2013 FN Magazine.  We sauteed the onion with ground cumin instead of cumin seeds because that was what we had.

The final component of dinner was Indian Flatbreads from www.foodnetwork.com.  They are indeed very flat, but still taste good and serve the purpose of helping scoop up other items and sauces.

And now for the non-Indian dessert!

On the menu was Fallen Chocolate Cake from the March 2013 Bon Appetit magazine.  Here it is before it "fell":

Not until after dinner, Wesley! ;)

Once the center has fallen, that space is taken advantage of by filling it with a mascarpone whipped cream.

Last Meals of 2012

This dinner includes some dishes that we considered making for Thanksgiving, but that didn't make the menu for one reason or another.

We had a simple caesar salad with dressing that Jeanette had made the day before.  Also included in our dinner that had been made the day before by Jeanette was Wild Mushroom and Cauliflower Lasagna from the December 2012 Food Network Magazine.

Now for the rest of the meal that we made together--first, Prosciutto-Stuffed Chicken with Mushroom Sauce from the November 2012 Bon Appetit magazine.  Here it is after being baked (we didn't have twine to tie it with, so we secured it with skewers):

And here it is sliced...

...and ready to be topped with the mushroom sauce

Prosciutto was also used in Roasted Green Beans with Pancetta and Yogurt (Nov 2012 FN) in place of the pancetta.  Instead of Greek yogurt we used yogurt from Cornerstone Dairy.  The caraway seeds added a surprisingly pleasant flavor to the dish, along with the saltiness of the prosciutto, the tangy and creamy flavor of the yogurt, and the crunch of the almonds.

We also made the Holiday Breath Wreath from the November 2012 FN Magazine, but used Jeanette's sourdough bread instead of following the recipe for the dough.  Because of the way the dough was shaped, the bread had a wonderful texture and stayed very moist!

For dessert we made Sugar Cream Pie, also from the November 2012 FN Magazine, and served it with Jeanette's homemade eggnog ice cream.  Unfortunately we don't have pictures to do justice to how good it was, because the filling wasn't completely set, so once the pie was cut it became a mess!  It probably just needed to be cooked a little longer...however it was still delicious!

Sticking with the post-Thanksgiving theme, for breakfast the next morning we made Spiced Sweet Potato and Pecan Pancakes from Tasty Kitchen, and served them with maple syrup and a raw cream sauce, and hot drinks with steamed eggnog!

They were really good, and didn't last long!

Thanksgiving 2012

It was another great Thanksgiving at Cornerstone, but a smaller group than in most past years.  The people there were: Luke and Natalie, Brandon, Lauren, Wallace, and John Luke, Ian, Jeanette, and Wesley, and Bethany.

Wesley came to Cornerstone with Bethany on Wednesday for the day and spent the night while Ian and Jeanette celebrated Ian's birthday in Seattle.  Then everyone gathered at Cornerstone Thursday morning and began cooking!  In the afternoon everyone went for a walk, except for Jeanette and Bethany, who stayed back to keep things going in the kitchen.  This was a good amount of food--not too many things to make that it felt overwhelming, but still lots of leftovers to enjoy!

Like last year,  we chose to just list all the dishes that were made without any pictures, so here it is!

• Beef Roast made by Brandon, with grass-fed beef provided by Ian and Jeanette
• Cassoulet made by Brandon with chicken from Cornerstone, beef from Ian and Jeanette, and pork from Farmstead Meatsmith
• Gravy made by Brandon
• Stuffing made by Lauren with her homemade sourdough bread and sausage from Farmstead Meatsmith
• Mashed Potatoes made by Bethany with dairy products from Cornerstone Farm
• Guy Fieri's Whiskey Glazed Sweet Potatoes made by Bethany from the November 2012 Food Network Magazine
• Creamed Peas and Onions made by Jeanette from the November 2012 Bon Appetit magazine
• Slow Roasted Green Beans with Sage made by Jeanette from the November 2012 Bon Appetit magazine
• Cranberry Serrano Relish made by Jeanette from the November 2012 FN Magazine
• Parker House Rolls with Sea Salt made by Bethany (and Wesley) from the November 2012 Food Network Magazine
• Bourbon Pumpkin Pie made by Bethany from A Cozy Kitchen
• Salted Caramel Apple Pie made by Jeanette from the November 2012 FN Magazine (in the booklet with 50 pies)
• Homemade Raw Whipped Cream made by Bethany
• Homemade Vanilla Ice Cream made by Jeanette