What are you Cooking the Week of November 26, 2023?

[Mike Nolan]

I need to make turkey stock so I can make my turkey pot pie, but I'm out of celery so it'll have to wait until later this afternoon. We got 2 inches of snow overnight but it is melting quickly.

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[BakerAunt]

I froze my turkey remains, since I am short on freezer space right now.

Before the freeze in October, my husband picked the remaining green tomatoes. At my insistence, he picked the green cherry tomatoes. I told him to cut the vines, so that the cherry tomatoes remained on the cut vine. The larger tomatoes have turned red, as have some of the cherry tomatoes, although I had more orange one, and a couple of yellow ones. I cut them up on Sunday morning and made my usual sauce with olive oil and garlic, as well as a tsp. of sugar, since these tomatoes would be lacking in sweetness. It will make a decent sauce. My plan is to use it to make my spaghetti squash "lasagna," which is really more of a casserole. I cannot put in any of the Italian spices, as my husband's gut has issue with them, but I hope the larger amount of garlic, which will get dissipated by the blandness of the spaghetti sauce, will give it enough flavor for me. That cooking project will be after the Thanksgiving leftovers have been finished.

Its a good day for cooking and baking projects, as it began snowing mid-morning. So far, the snow consists of large wet flakes, and the ground is warm enough that it is not sticking.

[chocomouse]

BakerAunt, I have not tried making a "lasagna" in the squash. I assume you use the usual egg, ricotta cheese, etc. Do you try to "layer" the spaghetti squash strands? I serve mine straight from the oven, in the shell, and do not attempt to shred the squash strands - I leave that up to the person eating it.

[Mike Nolan]

Tonight we took a break from turkey and had tomato soup and fried cheese sandwiches.

[BakerAunt]

Sunday night's dinner was another experiment that went rather well. I wanted to see if I could use leftovers to make some kind of turkey pot pie. I used 75% of my oil-buttermilk crust. Two-thirds of that I used to line two Emile Henry 5-inch pie dishes. I own three of those pie dishes, which I bought at Tuesday Morning years ago and had not used until today. I divided the remaining third in half and rolled each into a circle about 6-inches wide. I refrigerated the two crust-lined pie plates for an hour. I put the parchment with the two top crusts, covered by saran on a baking sheet and put them into the refrigerator for an hour as well.

For the filling, I used leftover green beans from Thanksgiving. There were more than I would have liked, but I needed to use them up. I also put in some cubed cooked potato that I had saved from when I made mashed potatoes last night. I sliced some small carrots. In retrospect, I should have par-cooked them first as they stayed slightly crunchy. I then mixed in some cut up turkey. I combined the filling in separate bowls, so that each pie would have the same amount of vegetables and meat. I warmed up ½ cup of broth (from when I cooked the giblets on Thanksgiving) along with about a generous tablespoon of gravy for each.

After an hour, I blind baked the pie crusts. (I used coffee filters to line them and hold the beans) for 8 minutes at 400F convection. After taking them out of the oven, I sprinkled a bit of panko on the bottom of each to absorb any excess moisture. I put the turkey-vegetable mixtures into each crust. I poured the broth-gravy combination over each. I used a small heart cookie cutter to make a hole in the center of each of the top crusts, then I laid them over the filling. It is not possible to seal the edges, so I did not try. I put the cut-out heart decoratively to the side of the hole. I baked for eight minutes at 400F convection, then turned the oven down to 375F convection and baked for another eleven minutes.

The pies came out very well. Next time, however, I would make a thicker sauce for the filling, and I would par-cook the carrots.

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse--I do not make it in the squash. I actually remove the squash strands from each half, then I layer it in the pan, starting with a third of the tomato-ground turkey and mushrooms sauce, half the spaghetti squash, then the tomato meat sauce, then the other half of spaghetti sauce, then the rest of the meat sauce. That is topped with 4 oz, cubed or shredded mozzarella cheese and Parmesan cheese. It is covered with foil and baked for 30 minutes, then uncovered and baked another ten until the cheese melts. I usually let it rest for 20 minutes before cutting.

If the recipe interests you, I can post it, but I will need a couple of days, since I have not typed it into the computer yet.

[Mike Nolan]

I used to make individual sized pot pies in a cupcake pan with only a top crust of laminated dough and freeze them, but I've pretty much switched to using a hot water pastry crust and doing it in a 9 inch or larger pie pan. I always pre-cook the onions, celery, carrots and potatoes a bit. The peas I throw in frozen just before the top crust goes on. I always make extra gravy because a little gravy on top of the pot pie makes it so much better.

[cwcdesign]

Last night I made chicken salad from the leftover chicken breasts that Will made for Thanksgiving.

Tonight will be chicken salad, Ina's tomato soup from the freezer and blueberry corn muffins.

[BakerAunt]

We had leftover turkey and gravy, microwaved fresh broccoli, and the last of the muddled mashed potatoes for dinner.

[chocomouse]

Thanks, BakerAunt. I don't need the recipe. It does sound delicious. I was curious about layering it inside the squash half. I think that's half the fun of eating spaghetti squash - eating it right out of the shell.

cwcdesign, do you make any changes to Ina Garten's recipe? I have a standard tomato soup that I like, but this afternoon I decided to try her recipe at the end of the week.

Tonight my husband had a turkey sandwich and I had a huge green salad.

[Mike Nolan]

We had more of the turkey ala king on biscuits. I'll make the turkey pot pie tomorrow, I made the hot water pastry dough today.

[cwcdesign]

Chocomouse - is it the Easy Tomato Soup with the orzo? I leave out the orzo and use 2 teaspoons Italian herbs in place of the saffron. I add 1 teaspoon of sugar to cut the acidity and use 2 teaspoons of salt instead 1 tablespoon. Also, be sure to use crushed tomatoes - we were out the last time I made it when I only had a can of whole tomatoes - even smashed with my hands, the soup wasn't as creamy. FWIW, I never tried it with the orzo, as we wanted a simple cream of tomato soup and that's what we got - so much better than Campbell's😁

[Mike Nolan]

That's what stick blenders are best at, CW. They make doing something like potato soup a snap, you just blend the potatoes right in the pot. I personally prefer the Bamix stick blender (they invented them.)

[cwcdesign]

Mine died - or should I say Will killed it off using it for smoothies🙄 I was too lazy to use the blender or the food processor, but I do like the texture from the crushed tomatoes- I always buy a better brand for this recipe but also pick which one is the better price at the time.

[Mike Nolan]

Over about three years I went through 4 or 5 stick blenders costing anywhere from $30 to $90 before I bought the Bamix, which I've now had for something like a decade. Built to last and easiest to clean of all the stick blenders I've had since the part that goes in the pot is all stainless steel, no plastic housing. It's also long enough that I can use it to blend 8-10 quarts of soup right in the pot. (Commercial kitchens sometimes use the industrial size stick blender, which will fit a 48 quart pot, most cooks call it the boat motor because it looks and sounds like an electric trolling motor for a fishing boat.)

This is one of those cases, IMHO, where paying the higher price is well worth it.

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