A Local Thanksgiving, Sort Of

We had a very local Thanksgiving. Sort of. We went to Maryland but brought a lot of veggies from the CSA with us.

The adventure started on Thanksgiving eve when we boarded an Amtrak train to Cumberland, Maryland - about 45 minutes from Deep Creek Lake, where we spent the holiday with my parents.

The overnight ride took about 15 hours, and it was mostly great. We met some amusing passengers (like this beefy ex-marine type who kept saying "Namaste, buddy" to the baffled snack bar cashier of South Asian descent), watched the snowy shores of the Youghiogany River drift by from the lounge car, and got cricks in our necks from sleeping in recliner coach seats.

We also hauled a bunch of food for Thanksgiving dinner, like sweet potatoes, cranberry relish, pie pumpkin, and potatoes and leeks for a soup the night after.

With a few feet of snow on the ground outside and a cozy fire going, we prepared a fairly traditional dinner that also included turkey, stuffing, green beans, and lots o' wine. I felt so thankful for the food on the table, for the family sitting around it, and for family and friends who weren't with us.

The leftovers were plentiful, and we took all the food back to Washington, DC, where we spent the rest of the weekend. But as fun as the train was on the way there, we flew home with lighter bags but heavier stomachs.

Fun with Sweet Potatoes

Starch City

I love french fries. Nothing says brunch more than an omelet with some hash browns. I'll eat potatoes mashed, sweet, roasted, or baked. Au gratin, boiled, seasoned, or in chips. You name it.

But I am maxed out. Despite weeks of making them, my cupboard overfloweth with potatoes.

On Thursday, I received my third and final winter share. It came with tons of potatoes: Austrian crescent fingerling potatoes, red and yellow flesh potatoes, and a mixed fingerling potato medley (which included Austrian crescent, baby blue, red thumb, AND Russian banana fingerling potatoes).

That's in addition to the potatoes that I still have left over from last month (sweet potatoes, and more red, white, and purple ones).

Potatoes are highly nutritious and tasty, but that doesn't mean I want to eat them every day. But I think I will have to if I hope to clear out my pantry by summer.

So if you have any good potato recipes, please, please, please send them my way.

Dueling Pizzas

My boss gave me a recipe for pizza dough, so I thought I'd try it out.

In anticipation I invited a friend over for dinner.

Since the dough takes several hours to rise, chill, and then thaw, I wanted to do part of this ahead of time. My first attempt failed miserably. The dough never rose.

After consulting with my boss and my mom (who makes bread all the time), they advised me to put the dough in a warmer place. The next night I mixed everything up and put the batch on top of my radiator for a few hours. It seemed to do the trick, but unsure of how it should look and might taste, I asked my friend to buy some back up dough at the store.

When she arrived, we decided to make both pizzas because we were hungry and we wanted to see how they would compare to each other.

As we heated up her pizza stone in the oven, we sauted sweet potatoes and onions, spread them over the homemade crust, and covered with rosemary, sage, garlic, crushed red pepper, and mozzarella and parmesan cheese.

Since the stone was so hot, it only took about 12 minutes before it was done. Here's how it turned out. Free to sing along or hit mute.



As the homemade crust cooked, we prepared the store bought dough with the same ingredients, plus a few heads of broccoli left over from some pre-dinner snacking.

Oddly it took on the shape of the state of Massachusetts (without Cape Cod).


Ten minutes later, we were ready for the taste test.

The homemade pizza looked the part. Imperfectly round, the pizza looked straight out of a wood-burning oven set in snow covered mountains.

The pizza had lots of flavor, especially garlic and cheese. In fact, I think we over-cheesed. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. The crust, made with whole wheat flour, was chewy with a hint of honey. The taste was natural and unprocessed.

Aside from its likeness to the Commonwealth, the store bought pizza had a more polished, professional look. The dough was like a fluffy pillow with a sweet taste.

The flavor in the rest of the pizza was more subtle. The ingredients seemed more evenly distributed with fewer concentrations of garlic and crushed red pepper flakes.

To sum up, they were both winners.

And so were we, since we got to eat them.

Pizza Dough [from my boss]

Put 1/2 cup warm water, 1 tablespoon honey, and 1 teaspoon yeast into a small bowl or cup and mix. Let sit for approximately 10 minutes.

In a separate bigger bowl, add:
1 1/2 cups flour
1 1/2 teaspoon coarse (kosher) salt
1 1/2 tablespoon olive oil

Pour yeasty water into mix, knead with hands or mixer, cover, and let rise for 1/2 hour or longer. Refrigerate dough, still covered, for about 2 hours

An hour before you're ready to eat, remove dough and let stand in room temp for about 1 hour
It is ready to be flattened, topped, cooked (at 450-degree oven) and eaten.

*Potato, Sage, and Rosemary Pizza [from epicurious.com]

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
12 ounces unpeeled small Yukon Gold potatoes, sliced into very thin rounds
1 (13.8-ounce) tube refrigerated pizza dough (or homemade)
2 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
2 teaspoons chopped fresh sage
2 garlic cloves, chopped
1/4 teaspoon dried crushed red pepper
1 cup (packed) grated whole-milk mozzarella cheese (about 4 ounces)
1/2 cup finely grated Parmesan cheese

Preheat oven to 400°F. Heat oil in heavy large skillet over medium heat. Add potato slices in single layer. Sauté until just tender, about 5 minutes. Cool briefly. Unroll dough on rimmed baking sheet. Scatter potato slices over dough, leaving 3/4-inch plain border. Sprinkle with rosemary, sage, garlic, and crushed red pepper. Sprinkle with cheeses to cover. Bake pizza until crust is crisp and cheeses melt, about 20 minutes. Using metal spatula, loosen crust from sheet. Slide out onto platter or board and serve.

*Variations: We preheated oven to 450 degrees for almost an hour with the pizza stone inside. It was so hot the pizzas cooked in 10-12 minutes. We also subbed sweet potatoes for the Yukons and added onions and broccoli.

Home Alone

It's often a big reason that I won't cook.

If I have no one to cook with or for, I'll just scrounge in the fridge or get takeout. It's a bad habit that I've been hoping to break with the CSA.

Aside from the roasted potatoes, my boyfriend has helped prepare and eat everything so far. A few nights ago he was going to come by for some curried lentils with sweet potatoes and swiss chard but decided to go home instead when an after-work event went late.

I had already started chopping, so there was no turning back.

Plus I knew this recipe would help me use up the rest of the sweet potatoes and finish off a few remaining onions, which was basically all I had left from the November delivery.

So I was motivated but daunted by all chopping and peeling I had to do. There were onions! Garlic! Sweet potatoes! Ginger root! Chard! It was endless and already after 8 p.m. when I started.

Opening a bottle of wine helped. So did a little snack, since I wouldn't eat until about 10 p.m.

As I began to put it all together, the smell was amazing. The curry and garam masala mixed with the onions, garlic, ginger, and vegetable broth made my kitchen smell like an Indian restaurant.

I was also excited to use my new wooden spoon, which I had bought at a store that sells hand-carved wooden items in Mt. Horeb, Wisconsin (down the street from the Mustard Museum).

It tasted damn good, and I had something that never happens. Leftovers.