Tag: Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving in the UK

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I’ve been doing Thanksgiving in the UK for years now. Partly it’s to indulge in my love of Americana, partly it’s to trial new dishes for Christmas, but mostly it’s to do a kind of Christmas with friends, which is not something that’s easy to do for a holiday that’s dominated by family. I like to call it Friendsgiving, and some people call it Friendmas, but either way, I can’t see how anyone wouldn’t want to get behind a day of fun, food and friends – no matter which side of the ocean you’re on!

I don’t have a lot of room for entertaining but I think that what’s part of the fun – a cobbled together table made partly of IKEA garden furniture, and mix and match plates; the Glitz design from Next and my Starburst set from Biba at House of Fraser… (I also picked up gold tumblers and cutlery from Next too!)

This year I used mini pumpkins left over from Halloween and used a gold Sharpie to initial the guests’ names on them – a last minute rush job, but it looks fairly decent considering I was in literal red alarm panic mode when I did it!

For my starter, this year I did a really simple cheese board. It’s so easy to throw together and gets everyone talking as they pass the crackers and talk about which cheese they like the best! I made chutney from The Spicery’s apple chutney recipe, and served Hotel Chocolat’s gorgeous new Christmas chutney too – it went down a treat!

I’m definitely picking another jar up for my Christmas cheeseboard! (Get yours here: mine was C/O Hotel Chocolat, usual RRP £5). Picking the cheeses was fun – you should get a mix of different textures and flavours, but always remember your audience. Experts say to select at least one from the four basic categories of blue, aged, firm and soft. I say, pick what you and your friends like – it’s easy to get bogged down in rules and forget the simple things!

I selected Cathedral City mature cheddar, Castello Danish Blue Extra Creamy Cheese, President Brie, Castello Pineapple Halo, white Stilton with apricots and Wensleydale with cranberries. The pineapple was an absolute winner served with crackers, and I also provided sundried tomatoes and olives.

I thought I was being a bit restrained with my main courses, but when I wrote it out it was obvious I was as crazy as ever. The day before I’d made Nigella’s ham in Coca Cola (forget the turkey – it’s not Thanksgiving or any kind of celebration in my house unless Nigella is involved somewhere) and started my dry-brined turkey. This was served with a cognac, cream and thyme gravy (and good old Sunday roast gravy too, which was far more popular!)

On the side was brown butter and pecan green beans, which was a massive hit and a new dish I will definitely be making again. I also made rosemary and orange cranberry sauce, cheddar cheese cornbread, creamed corn (if I don’t make this, I will be in real trouble with certain people!) apple, bacon and caramelised onion dressing (I think I’ll go back to Martha Stewart’s classic onion, sage and celery next time) roast potatoes, smoked garlic mashed potatoes, maple syrup and cracked black pepper carrots, and peas! And, my lovely foster-sister-cousin made mac and cheese!

Most of the recipes I make year after year come from two books – How To Cook A Turkey from Fine Cooking and Thanksgiving 101 by Rick Rodgers. I’ve got loads of Thanksgiving recipe books, but these two are the absolute best and I would recommend them to anyone!

Then, pumpkin pie, apple pie and chocolate cheesecake (all made by my lovely mum), followed by fireworks in the garden and roasted chestnuts and marshmallows around the fire. That’s because, unfettered by the American (and Canadian) constraints of time, I can have Thanksgiving whenever I like, and so I decided to have it on Bonfire Night in the U.K., to make a double whammy celebration!

I’d love to know your favourite Thanksgiving recipes and traditions – share them with me in the comments!

 

What to do with left over turkey at Thanksgiving

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Leftovers at Thanksgiving can be so much more than a simple rehash of that Turkey Day meal (although, let’s face it, that’d be pretty darn delicious anyway!). Try these recipes for delicious leftovers – I promise you, none of them will feel like second-best meals! In fact, you might be tempted to roast another turkey (or chicken) just to make some more!

Leftover mosaic

Week One: Feel Good Chicken Broth - Broth before stock

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: roast chicken risotto

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Risotto isn’t one of those quick and easy, on the table in 20 minutes kind of dinners. You have to stand there and cook and stir and add stock for a looong time. But you know, when it’s dark and wet outside and you’re kind of fed up with everything, that’s okay. Sometimes you just want to stand there and stir something.

This roast chicken risotto recipe used to be my number one method of disposing of a dead body. There’s nothing like it to get rid of the evidence you had a chicken for your dinner than using it up in this delicious, simple risotto. But now I’m cooking a chicken every week, it would get a bit samey. If you try this, though, you’ll see why it’s my number one chicken disposal plan.

Week Six : Leftovers - Roast chicken risotto

INGREDIENTS

  • Knob of butter and a splash of olive oil
  • 1 onion, finely chopped
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 350g risotto rice
  • 1 glass white wine
  • 1.5 litres simmering stock (chicken would be best)
  • Cup of frozen peas, defrosted
  • Leftover chicken – half a chook max
  • 50g grated parmesan

METHOD

  • Melt the butter and add the olive oil to a big pan. I use a giant saute pan to make my risotto.
  • Cook the garlic and onion together until translucent.
  • Stir in the rice until coated with the butter.
  • Stir in the wine and cook until evaporated.
  • Add a ladleful of stock and stir, stir, stir – ever so gently – until the stock is evaporated. Then, repeat the process until you have just one ladleful of stock left. This is boring and dull, but not all cooking is about flamenco dancing around the kitchen with sharp knives, slicing lemons and throwing them at a great distance into fiery cauldrons of magical stew.
  • At this point, add your chicken and your peas. I haven’t specified how much chicken, because this is a recipe for leftovers and that would, frankly, be madness. Who wants leftovers from a leftover recipe?
  • Cook for five minutes, then stir in the parmesan cheese and serve.

Serves four adults.

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: Miso-Chicken Ramen

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One of my favourite meals to use up chicken is now, officially, ramen. Not only does it make good use of all that chicken stock I’ve got knocking around the place (smug foodie moment! Ha ha, I have homemade chicken stock, ho ho!) but it’s also a quick and healthy meal, and you get to use up loads of veggies.

All you have to do is put some cooked, drained Chinese noodles at the bottom of a deep dish, and then cover it with toppings of your choice – in my case, shredded pak choi, boiled egg, wedges of red onion, beansprouts, bamboo shoots and cooked (leftover!) chicken. Then, pour over chicken stock with miso paste stirred into it. After that, eat it! The recipe serves one – but is easily doubled.

Week Four: Leftovers, Miso chicken ramen

INGREDIENTS

  • One sheet egg noodles
  • 500ml chicken stock
  • 1-2 tbsp miso paste
  • 1 head pak choi
  • Handful beansprouts
  • 1 boiled egg
  • Half red onion
  • 1 tbsp bamboo shoots (I used the kind in red oil)
  • Handful cooked chicken

METHOD

  • Heat the chicken stock in a pan. Meanwhile, boil water for your noodles.
  • While all that is cooking, prepare your veggies – shred the pak choi, cut the onion into thin wedges and rinse the beansprouts.
  • Cook the noodles according to the instructions on the packet, then drain and rinse. Place them in the bottom of your bowl.
  • Put all your toppings on the noodles, then stir the miso paste into your chicken to taste. Don’t let it boil because this will destroy the universe.
  • Once it’s stirred in, pour the hot stock over your ramen and eat!

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: bang bang chicken

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One recipe I turn to quite often for leftover chicken or turkey is Nigella Lawson’s recipe for bang bang turkey salad. You can find it online here.

Week Five : Leftovers - Bang Bang chicken

It’s delicious and spicy, and refreshing thanks to the spring onions and cucumber. You can serve it as part of a large party spread, using up other left overs like pie or quiche, and people will think you’ve gone to a lot of effort to create a brand new dish, when, really, you’re just sneakily feeding them your left overs. HO HO HO!

INGREDIENTS

  • 2 tbsp groundnut oil
  • 2 tsp sesame oil
  • 3 tbsp smooth peanut butter
  • 2 tbsp chilli bean sauce (buy in Asian groceries)
  • 1 tbsp caster sugar
  • 1 tbsp soy sauce
  • 1.5 tbsp black Chinese vinegar
  • 2 tbsp water
  • 250g shredded chicken or turkey
  • Shredded iceberg lettuce
  • 20g chopped coriander
  • 20g chopped mint
  • Half cucumber
  • 6 spring onions

METHOD

  • Make the sauce by heating the groundnut oil, allowing to cool slightly, then adding the sesame oil, peanut butter, chilli bean sauce, caster sugar, soy sauce, vinegar and water.
  • Mix the sauce with the shredded chicken meat and lay it over a bed of shredded iceberg lettuce,which has been covered with the mint and coriander.
  • Finely slice the spring onions, and cut the cucumber into batons. Arrange on the platter.

Week Five : Leftovers - Bang Bang chicken close up

Delicious, spicy, and satisfying!

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: hoisin chicken buns

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This recipe is an adaptation of the hoisin chicken buns recipe from Cooking Light, by way of Cooking Cute.

Week One : Leftovers - Hoisin buns

To make this recipe, you first need a batch of white bread dough (for rolls) – you can either find fresh dough in the chiller cabinet of larger supermarkets (make sure it’s just plain old white bread dough, not focaccia or anything fancy like that!), or you can make a batch in your bread maker. This part is a faff, but the finished product is such an interesting and unusual way of using up leftover chicken, that I think it’s worth going to a little bit of extra effort – plus, these are portable, and perfect for lunches on the go!

INGREDIENTS

  • 1 batch fresh bread dough (see above)
  • 400g (approx) dark turkey / chicken meat
  • 2 tbsp hoisin sauce
  • 1 tbsp oyster sauce
  • 2 tsp rice vinegar
  • 1 bunch spring onions, shredded finely
Hoisin buns on tray

METHOD

  • Shred the chicken, and mix with the rest of the ingredients.
  • Once you’ve made your dough, turn it out and cut it into eight pieces, and roll each piece into a size slightly bigger than your palm.
  • Place a spoonful of the chicken mix into the middle of the bun.
  • Pull four corners into the middle and pinch, then do the same again with the leftover tabs, which should fall in between the compass points of the tabs you just sorted out. (It’s helpful to rock the bun back and forth at this point to shape the top nicely.)
  • Set it on an oiled tray and put the rest together.
Hoisin buns on cooling rack
  • Cover and allow to prove for 20 mins in a warm place.
  • Preheat your oven to 190C and then brush the buns with beaten egg and sprinkle with sesame seeds.
  • Bake for 15 mins, or until golden. You can also bake them for a shorter amount of time (12 mins or so) and then freeze them to bake again another day. (There are great instructions here for freezing and then reheating the buns at Cooking Cute.)
Hoisin bun halved
  • Allow to cool slighty, then eat!

 

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: chilli chicken salad

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I may have mentioned before my love for the late Sheila Lukins’ USA Cookbook. Her chilli chicken salad is a delicious way of using up turkey or chicken from your left over holiday meal!

Week Two: Leftovers, Chilli chicken salad - the start

INGREDIENTS

  • Half cup mayonnaise
  • Half cup sour cream
  • 2 tbsp lime juice
  • 1 red chilli, finely chopped
  • 1/2 tsp orange zest
  • 1/4 tsp chilli powder
  • 1/8 tsp cumin
  • 4 cups shredded chicken or turkey
  • One diced red pepper
  • One diced green pepper
  • 10 pitted black olives
  • 2 finely sliced spring onions
  • 2 tbsp chopped coriander
  • Bed of lettuce
  • Cayenne pepper (for dusting)
  • 1 avocado, sliced
  • Bunch red grapes

METHOD

  • In a bowl, mix together everything from the mayonnaise to the cumin.
  • Add in the rest of the ingredients down to the spring onion.
  • Lay the salad on your bed of lettuce, and dust with cayenne pepper, and sprinkle with the coriander.
  • Serve with the avocado and red grapes.

Week Two: Leftovers, Chilli chicken salad

Creamy, zingy, spicy… this is not leftover chicken as you know it!

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: hot and numbing chicken salad recipe

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If you feel like you need an unusual recipe for leftover turkey this Thanksgiving or Christmas, look no further! This recipe is from the excellent Sichuan Cookery by Fuchsia Dunlop, which has about four or five easy and tasty recipes for cooked chicken at the front. This hot and numbing chicken mixes spicy chilli oil and toasted, ground sichuan pepper together with soy sauce and sugar to create a really delicious cold dish.

Week One : Leftovers - Hot and numbing chicken and cucumber

INGREDIENTS

  • 300g left over cold cooked turkey or chicken, white or dark meat
  • Bunch spring onions
  • 4 tsp granulated sugar
  • 2 tbsp light soy sauce
  • 2-4 tbsp chilli oil (depending on how spicy you like it – best to start small and add more later!)
  • 1 tsp sesame oil
  • 1 tsp Sichuan peppercorns
  • Cucumber, to serve
METHOD
  • Dry roast the peppercorns in a frying pan, then grind them to produce 1/2 tsp of ground spice.
  • Cut the chicken in slices, and cut the cucumber and spring onions into elegant diagonals.
  • Create the dressing by dissolving the sugar in the soy sauce, then adding in the chilli and sesame seed oil.
  • Arrange the chicken and spring onions on a plate, then sprinkle over the Sichuan pepper.
  • Drizzle over the sauce, and tuck in!
Serve with salad, or white rice.

What to do with leftover chicken and turkey: red Thai curry

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The best leftover recipes don’t taste like leftovers. This recipe totally exceeded my expectations. I think the secret is poaching the chicken at the end very gently just to warm through. It actually tastes better than the curry I make from raw chicken, as the meat is very soft.
Red Thai curry
Ingredients

  • 1 tbsp vegetable oil
  • 1 inch ginger
  • 2 cloves garlic
  • 1.5 tbsp red Thai curry paste
  • Can of coconut milk
  • 2 lime leaves
  • 1 stick dried lemongrass
  • 1/2 tbsp fish sauce
  • 1/2 tbsp soy sauce
  • 2 tsp sugar
  • Leftover chicken

Method

  • Finely chop the ginger and garlic.
  • Heat the oil in a frying pan and add the garlic and ginger. Fry for a couple of seconds and then add the Thai curry paste.
  • Allow to cook for about a minute, then add the rest of the ingredients except the chicken.
  • Allow to simmer for 20 minutes until the texture is slightly thicker.
  • Dice or shred the chicken, then add to the curry and poach on a simmer for five minutes.
  • Serve with Thai jasmine rice.

Things to do in autumn / fall

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Now, this isn’t so much related to cycling, but I thought I’d post it here nevertheless – and it’s also being posted on my food blog, Distracted Gourmet (check it out if you haven’t already!).

Autumn is my favourite of all the seasons – and I love all of them already! But there’s so much great stuff you can do in autumn that I can’t help but love it. In order to help me get the maximum out of the season, I’ve created a check list for myself. I’ll be heading back every now and then to check my progress, too!

New Forest Autumn 3

The beautiful autumn colours of New Forest - by stevestreet

Autumn to do list

  • Have Halloween party
  • Have Thanksgiving dinner
  • Make pinecone decorations
  • Make a leaf wreath
  • Make jam
  • Walk through the leaves
  • Gather chestnuts
  • Make Christmas pudding
  • Celebrate Bonfire Night
  • Carve a pumpkin
  • Cycle down a hill with my scarf flying behind me
  • Make the best hot chocolate
  • Make pickles

What’s on your to-do list this autumn?