Turkey v3.0 and 4.0

It's been a few days since Thanksgiving and time to feed on more turkey. I considered the turkey sandwich the day after as version 2.0 so time now for the third release.

Take (another) handful of leftover turkey, chop into bite size pieces and set aside. Make a white sauce... a little flour, a little milk, flavour with sage and thyme, season with salt and pepper. In a separate pan, fry some onions until translucent, add some chopped carrots, some beans (mushrooms would have been nice, too, but I didn't have any), then add the chopped turkey. Fold the turkey and vegetables into the white sauce and spread evenly at the bottom of a nice oven-proof container. Top up with leftover mashed potatoes, dot with butter and bake until heated through. This version of a turkey pot pie was especially awesome because Tim made garlic mashed potatoes!

It is day 4 after Thanksgiving dinner. I think this is the last of the turkey except of course for this weekend when I boil down the bones into stock and make some soup.

About Turkey 1.0

We had a wonderful turkey dinner on Sunday night. Eight people for dinner including my nephew Tim, who endured a five-hour Greyhound ride from Ottawa to join us for Thanksgiving.

I love cooking a turkey dinner -- the ceremony around it: making the stuffing, prepping the bird, making the cranberry sauce, the smell of cooking turkey, the frenzied 20 minutes just before everything is ready. I love the yams, the cranberry sauce, the boiled vegetables, the stuffing and the heaping servings of turkey on top of a volcano of mashed potatoes, smothered with thick gravy. Hmmm. I even love the satisfying feeling of exhaustion after everything is all cooked up and ready to go. Everything turned out okay this year and I was thankful that I was surrounded by family, good friends and neighbours and eating a feast. It was a happy day overall.

The only sad thing was the memory of Syd and Tyson. They loved Thanksgiving, too, because they knew they got to eat some after everyone else has gone home. Maybe in doggie and kitty heaven they get to smell cooking turkey all the time.

Knitting

In addition to food, I have a new interest: knitting. Every Thursday, I rush home from work, change into my jeans, and trade in my briefcase for my knitting bag. I walk the five blocks or so (down the street, hang a left, go under the bridge, then walk up another five minutes) to get to my knitting class. It's a drop-in class run by a nice woman at the Wool Mill. There's usually about four or five of us and we work on our own projects at our own pace.

The first class, I learnt how to cast on and how to knit and purl. By the second class, I made a swatch then started my first project: a baby outfit with sweater, bonnet and booties. See, we only do baby outfits at the beginner class. How useful is this, you ask? This is actually pretty good because (a) I finish a project fairly quickly and (b) I learn how to read patterns.

That was about four months ago and since then I've been a regular knitting granny with a growing stockpile of yarn in my collection. Everyone is getting scarves for Christmas this year.

Coffee Roaster

With the success of roasting our own coffee in the oven came the next dilemma: should we or should we not buy a roaster? This question was finally resolved last weekend when we committed to our latest new kitchen appliance: a spanking new coffee roaster. This new addition displaced our infrequently-used cappuccino maker (now moved to a shelf downstairs).

There are three main parts to the roaster: the base, the glass roaster no bigger than a juice glass, and a cover that traps the paper-y coating on the beans as it roasts. When we purchased the roaster, we were given a quick "how to" lesson. Easy-peasy and a more predictable, even roast than the oven and cookie sheet method! First you turn on the machine which whirrs into action. You remove the cover and pour in just enough coffee until one or two beans ripple and float at the top (you'll have to experiment). You cover it up again and watch the beans swirl around getting their even tan. (This part reminds me of watching popcorn pop on those old popcorn poppers.) You listen for the first bit of popping, then wait for the next. As soon as you hear the next set of pops, your coffee is pretty much done. You need only decide whether you want a light, medium, or dark roast. The whole thing takes less than 10 minutes even with the dark roast.

This morning, Jon roasted Costa Rican beans with divine results. He left the beans to roast a little darker than usual and it brought out the rich, complex flavours of the beans. For the first time, we also saw the slight oiliness coming out of the beans. We waited for the beans long enough to cool, then ground them up for a super fresh cup. One sip and I had to say, "My god, I must be in Santo Domingo."