Walk in the Glow of Each Other's Majestic Presence

Fine Cooking had a lot of appealing recipes in their Thanksgiving issue, so I chose several of them. They require registration, so if you don't want to do that, but would really like any particular recipe, let me know and I'll get it to you.



( #43 Roasted Turkey Breast Porchetta Style )

( #44 Stuffed Turkey Thighs )

( Bread Stuffing with Fresh Herbs )



( #45 Jewel-Roasted Vegetables )

( Cranberry-Orange Relish with Ginger )



( #46 Pear-Cranberry Crisp )

( #47 Brown-Butter Pumpkin Layer Cake )

I also made mashed potatoes and Mom made gravy, Trish got rolls and made the sausage stuffing, and Anne made her Famous Cloved Yams (which this year was Roasted Pumpkin with Cranberries and Sage Brown Butter). And that was our Thanksgiving feast!

Before I get into Thanksgiving Dinner, I want to clear away some tabs.

( Yogurt-Marinated Roast Chicken )

( Chicken Posole )

While I'm giving myself credit for new recipes, I should go back and mention the ones that I did as part of the recent tasting menu:

( Cucumber-Dill Sorbet )

( Pear-Goat Cheese Crostini )

( Creamy Parsnip Soup )

( Celeriac Puree )

( Roasted Leg of Rabbit with Dijon Mustard Sauce )

( Apple-Porcini Pate )

( Maple Pots-de-Creme )

( Gingerbread Pear Cakes )

( Ultimate Vanilla Ice Cream )

( Nut Brittle )

This week, while Jason was away, Alice helped me make the following:

( Lemon-Thyme Mashed Potatoes )

( Chicken Marsala )

( Pear Crisp )

( Nutella Cookies )

I've been cooking some tasty things lately, mostly not new, or not very new. But these two were good enough to warrant posting.

( Roast Lamb with Lemon )

( Pan-Seared Pork Tenderloin )

Lately I've been really noticing the ways in which doing the 100 New Recipe Challenge last year has upped my kitchen game. Things that were daunting in the past are no big deal now (e.g. I used to dread peeling peaches) and I've gotten a lot faster and better at basic stuff like peeling garlic. I also got a much wider repertoire of vegetable recipes and my oven became an everyday tool, rather than a holiday event. My knife skills, which have always been pretty good (you should see me chop mushrooms) have taken another step up and while I am not and may never be comfortable baking, I've gotten past my aversion to the very thought of it to the point where, if I actually want the end product, I will make it. And while I'm clearly not going to make it to a hundred this year, I'm still regularly trying completely new things and new takes on old favorites.

At Masa they have this awesome appetizer of scallops and smoked duck with sweet corn cream sauce. I had some scallops from the farmers market and kept thinking about how well those flavors went together, but I wanted something more like a meal. I'd never made creamed corn before, but this recipe looked promising. Three large ears of corn yielded more than 2 cups of kernels, so I didn't halve the recipe as I'd planned to do. I added some fresh chives and some chopped bacon to give it that smoky flavor and it was very tasty, although I would skip the sugar next time around. It went well with the scallops, although the flavors were not enough of a contrast--I think next time I might dust the scallops with some of Penzey's Northwoods blend, to set them off a bit more. With a big batch of incredibly tiny and tender roasted asparagus, it was a lovely summer meal. Best of all, Alice helped by stirring the corn and put together the asparagus for roasting all by herself, with some direction.

I was thinking last night that it might be helpful to people if I indexed all my recipes and created an index post that would float at the top of my LJ. Would you find that useful?

In the meantime...

( Crispy Roasted Duck with Mustard Sauce )

( Blueberry-Peach Crisp )

We had a dish somewhat like this last month at Menton. It was delicious, but I thought it could be better. So when the Fish Ladies had striped bass at the farmers market today, I decided now was the time to see what I could do.

I worked from three different online recipes (one for cod with chorizo and a bunch of other stuff in clam broth, one for monkfish in saffron broth that lacked chorizo, and one for striped bass in ginger-miso broth), taking advice from each and coming up with the following:

( Recipe and photo behind the cut )

It was really awesome. The savory balance came out very nicely and the flavors worked together amazingly well. I am extremely pleased.

I know I've posted this before, but it's so good that I just had to share again!

( Recipe behind the cut )