Thanksfooding

Hi.

I was hoping to post this around the time of thanksgiving, but unfortunately I wasn't so on the ball :P.

But I remembered this morning when I finally sat down and actually made some food. Not leftovers or things in the freezer or basics or snacks or things I picked up from outside. I finally did some cooking - It really felt like it had been awhile.

So before I get into my own Thanksgiving awesomeness - let's share some stories shall we?

Delicacies of the fungi

I realize, as I go to restaurants and food markets and all these special grocery stores, that lately, there are a lot of things with mushrooms - and not just the usual portobello or button kind. The wild, local kind.

Me being me, I'm not likely to go off into the woods to find some - too many risks. But since of course there are people that do - and I know I've appreciated the rich flavor they have, it's nice to see that there's a book out there to help with that.

But since I'm not likely to pick it up anytime soon, I just absorbed what I could from this interview. But I did hear recommendations on how to figure out if your harvested mushroom is in fact edible.

A few things I found interesting are that fungi are a huge section on their own of the plant phylum. And there are so many factors that differentiate them - which means just because they look the same, doesn't mean they'll be the same. In fact, if one is a delicious variety from one region of the world, another that looks exactly the same could actually be a viciously poisonous little guy.

And the actual structure of a mushroom is often much bigger than we even realize - because most of it is below the ground or surface. The parts that we pick and eat are literally the flowers of the fungi. The body of it is hiding underneath like the body of an iceberg is hidden below the surface of the water. There are legends of the size a single mushroom could be!

Another cool fact is that the texture of mushrooms is not much like that of plants - in fact you'll be more successful at extracting the flavor if you cook the mushrooms like they are meat! 

Listen HERE.

Not the REAL sugar

Now this isn't the first episode about artificial sweeteners, but it is the most recent, based off of a report from Nature. And it turns out that they found that it confuses the body - especially the microbiome.

Turns out that using artificial sweeteners don't stop the body from absorbing sugar - but could increase the likelihood of a tendency of diabetes and the like.

What really made me laugh (not so nicely) are the folks I've come across (not so nice people) that go on and on about how they cook so much healthier than the rest of us because they even use artificial sweeteners when they make sweets. Not only would the sweets taste horrible, they were only ruining their own health... so joke's on them...

Ok, now that I'm done being vindictive... Listen HERE.

Crazy for fall = Crazy for apples

So we're supposed to blame the foodie revolution for making us confused, by waaaaaaaaaaaaay too many types of apples.

Not that I'm blaming them, cuz well, I love apples.

So aside from the unusual names that pop up for the various types and local varieties (because the out-cross) apple growing is one of those things that uses both science, and old fashioned techniques.

First things first, apples cannot be regrown by using the seed - because they are heterozygous! So every apple that we eat is a hybrid and is grown from a tree cutting. And just like there are "seed" libraries, they are building a library of tree cuttings (5,000 so far if I remember correctly) of all the unique varieties that have grown - which originally started out as a compilation of watercolors (starting in 1887) of different varieties of apples!

Clearly I straight out dove into the science part. In fact, according to a guest (an apple grower) they use genetics (molecular markers) to mix and match apple types - trying to breed the best characteristics: crispness, tart or sweet, skin type, etc.

But you can't just cross breed and go with it. You have to wait for at least 4 years for the seedling to grow (a whole bunch of them, like thousands) and go out and taste every single one. You know, the apple version of wine tasting - bite and spit.

So sure, they cut the timeline down from about 40 years down to 4 (yay science and advanced farming techniques!). But you can't successfully grow apples without spending that time to taste and savor the old fashioned way.

But of course you should listen to the experts for ALL the fun facts (like the history of the fuji apple, and how to stop them from spoiling): Listen HERE.

And now, we'll get to my thanksgiving this year - most of it was made my brother and I (with a bit of help from mom). 

The entire spread (minus the dessert)

The Menu:

Sweet potato and Cranberry steamed dumplings -

with a Spicy coconut milk dipping sauce

Pan-fried tofu, Tangerine, Fresh tomato salsa and Quinoa topped salad -

dressed with a Parmesan-cilantro dressing

Black bean chili soup

Bake Rosemary potatoes

Pomogranate and Mango Mojitos

Apple Pie topped with Homemade custard based Cinnamon and Vanilla-bean ice cream 

The stuffing and and
pre-steamed dumplings

So my brother and I contributed to the dumplings, tofu, potatoes, mojitos, and ice cream - and everything but the pie we made fresh!

Of course I took before and after pics - but I forgot to take the after pictures of the ice cream >.< Too focused on actually serving and then quickly eating it - we had apple pie a la mode for every day after till the weekend was done ^_^.

Dumplings arranged with the peanut
sauce

We of course decided to steam the dumplings (all about being healthy of course), and as we were making them, they were just so adorable! Hence the photo taking ^_^.

In the stuffing, we also added a broccoli slaw to give it crunch (I think we probably could have used just a tad more crunch in the end).

The SALAD!!!

We ended up having extra coconut milk left over from making the peanut sauce (and we made a whole lot of that too - there was enough to use for a stir fry later on and then some) - so instead of using yogurt or buttermilk on the tofu before coating it in the flour mix, we used the rest of the coconut milk. I think it turned out quite well if I say so myself ^_^.

For the mojitos, we managed to prepare a mix prior, so that we could pour them easily - which definitely was the case. We used fresh lime juice (squeezed by my brother) and mint which made the drinks super awesome.

Soup, quinoa, potatoes, & salsa

The dressing for the salad, one of my mom's classics, and the black bean soup, also another classic, were under my mom's domain and were wonderfully delicious as always.

My brother was in charge of the potatoes in it's entirety. And they totally worked, and were the necessary grounding dish for the rest of the meal.

Ice cream pre fridge time
wth the cinnamon bark and
vanilla beans

And finally, the ice cream! I won't go into the recipe here (comment if you'd like me to share it) but I will share the process. So my brother and I ended up only waking at 12:30pm that day, but of course we started with the ice cream. We don't have an ice cream maker, so I figured that a custard base would make the dish creamier. It was definitely very rich (all that yolk, cream and whole milk will do that), but it had an awesome flavor, as we used cinnamon from Kerala and whole vanilla bean. 

Unfortunately, it did not keep it's solid state too well by the time we got to it that night. But after leaving in the freezer over night, that was definitely fixed. One thing to note, is that even if it seems hard, you don't need to rest the ice cream at room temp - that only makes it melt >.>

I love thanksgiving because we get the chance to try out some new things with the food (and some not so old things). This year was fun in a new way - you know since my bro and I had rule of the kitchen for most of the time haha. And since we didn't need to worry about anyone coming over, we didn't have to rush anything. Maybe we might get the chance to try making a pie one of these thanksgivings ahead!

I'll leave you with this song from a favorite artist: