Hospitality for the Coming Age

27 November

On the day after Thanksgiving, when millions of people go shopping, Storycorps suggested a National Day of Listening. Read more about the conversation on Chris’ blog - read more here about the food!

Many of the 17 of us who gathered had eaten Thanksgiving dinner the day before, and several people brought delicious leftovers. Here are some recipes!

The “acorn squash” in this acorn squash soup recipe is actually some kind of fancy French pumpkin-squash hybrid that my parents grew.

I didn’t use chicken broth, of course, but mushroom broth instead. It was delicious! And I used orange marmalade instead of orange juice. Thanks to Cynthia and Chris for all their blending and washing!

This cous cous with cranberries, mint and pine nuts recipe (like all cous cous recipes, I imagine) is wonderfully simple. I’m not sure how much cous cous I used (more than 12 oz!) so I proportioned everything else by taste.

Again, I didn’t use chicken broth, but saved the water I boiled macaroni in (see below).

I used dry mint from my garden.

I used raisins instead of cranberries, since I had an unfortunate incident with an oven full of cranberries recently….

This macaroni and cheese turned out great! It was particularly inspired by the kids coming for dinner, but the crispy, browned top makes macaroni and cheese entirely adult-friendly. Cynthia made this, and adapted the recipe to be utterly delicious! We used whole wheat pasta, and a mix of cheddar cheeses.

We mixed it the night before, stuck it in the fridge, and cooked it the next day.

The cranberry rangoon were quite a hit! I love crab rangoon, but don’t eat meat, so this is a fun substitute. Still has the fried triangle shape and crunch, still the red color, still the warm cream cheese melting in my mouth…. I would’ve enjoyed them a bit spicier, but heard from several others that the spice level was just right. I think I’ll try adding ginger next time, too.

I cooked these in a small skillet in less than an inch of oil. Wonton wrappers are small enough that this worked quite fine. Deep frying always makes a mess, but the smaller and shallower, the better!

This cranberry bread was quite simple. I made a triple batch to put in two full-size (9×5?) bread pans.

Again, I used orange marmalade (this time instead of orange peel). I skipped the nuts, though they would have been great if finely chopped.

I used regular milk, not buttermilk. I used white wheat flour, as usual.

Chris made these fabulous muffins, using the same squash-pumpkin hybrid that we used in the soup. Cynthia created the pumpkin pie spice (ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice) so it was particularly fresh. We served them with butter, apple butter and peach honey (made by friends Jon and Janelle from their backyard orchard!).

Chris used turbinado sugar, not white sugar, since that’s the only kind we have in the house.

Now this simple, delicious cheesecake is one of my favorite desserts. If you have a food processor, it’s seriously simple to make.

I used store-bought graham cracker crusts, but this crust recipe is quite simple, too.

Once again, I used orange marmalade instead of zest,  white wheat flour, and turbinado sugar instead of white.

One I topped in canned raspberries (after draining off the syrup), which turned out just fine! It certainly would have been more delicious with fresh berries, but hey, this is November!

The other was topped with melted chocolate chips. I should have mixed them with something else (like peanut butter, which I’ve done in the past) because when they cooled down, it was pretty much impossible to cut the cheesecake without smushing it.

And finally, this fudge that my mom made was a hit! She writes, “I started with about 1 c. of Ghiaradelli 60% chocolate chips.  I added some 62% Nestles Chocolatier baking bar (broken up), and some 62% of the same brand of chocolate pieces, until I had about 3 c. of chocolate pieces.  Then I added the s. c. milk and used the microwave method.  I had a small wafer of white chocolate that I broke up into the mix, and then I added a 10-oz. bag of York Peppermint Patty mini patties, along with 1 t. vanilla (we have heavy duty stuff, not imitation).  I don’t think I put the salt in, but I don’t remember.  I think the white chocolate was immaterial in the results; what really made it good were the York Peppermint patties!  I’m sure that having darker-than-normal choc. chips made it good, too!”

If anyone else has a recipe from Friday that they’d like to share, please pass it on!

Tags: acorn, bread, butternut, cheese, cheesecake, cous cous, cranberries, cranberry, crock pot, fudge, jalapeno, listening, macaroni, mint, muffin, pine nuts, rangoon, raspberries, soup, squash, storycorps, thanksgiving, turbinado, white wheat, york peppermint patties

Trackback URI | Comments RSS