Ate the last of the leftovers (except for some ham), thanks to the gang last night!
Now on with the regular meals! I’m DONE with turkey until Christmas!!!
I know some folks like turkey year round, along with pumpkin whatever, but I’m not one of them. Meat and potatoes, and fish for me. And shrimp… and fried catfish…
Funny how our upbringing seems to ‘drive’ what we like to eat. And how much of an impact a military career can affect that, especially when one gets to travel. The problem with that is that you get to eat the foods in their ‘natural habitat’, then come back to the states and try to find ‘authentic’ dishes…
Which is usually a failure of epic proportions! In a way, we’ve been lucky out here, because we’ve got a base here with foreign students, so good actual Greek, Italian, and we used to have good German restaurants in the area.
What was/is your favorites???
I grew up eating German-Irish food, and then spent 6 years serving in Germany. Why, oh why is it so difficult to find real dark rye bread here in the USA? The heavy, dense, sweet, caraway-free deliciousness that I came to know and love so much?
I married into a Lithuanian family and they are also solidly AGAINST caraway in their rye bread! Their recipe calls for mixing and fermenting half the rye flour for 1-3 days before combining with the rest of the flour (on bake day) for a two-loaf recipe, so it almost comes out like a sourdough.
We haven’t been able to finish leftovers for a few years. We started going to a family restaurant on holidays, but thanks to covidiocy, it closed this past summer. Now that the family is smaller by one we had chicken for Thanksgiving. And thanked God for blessing it.
You all be safe and God bless.
Korea and Japan were the only places I was stationed overseas. Loved the clam chowder at the NCO club on Kadena.
Other than that, I suppose yalitori in Okinawa was a favorite.
Not the same here, when you can find it.
Sorry my comment is not linear. The joys of commenting on mobile phone.
My mother would turn the turkey carcass into turkey soup, and freeze it for future meals in one gallon jars. I’d get tired of it, since it was a go-to meal when time was tight.
One jar, for some reason, when opened smelled like sun baked road kill. That ruined it for me, and turkey soup will probably always remain as a last resort meal only when facing starvation.
Used to like the green bean “casserole” with the processed onions, won’t touch it now. Yams will always be on my plate.
My late mother (d.1988) was a dyed-in-the-wool French Canadian separatist. I even got to shake hands with Rene Levesque as a boy. She *HATED* American Thanksgiving and did not celebrate it for YEARS. (“It’s a Protestant English Colonist holiday,” she’d begin, and then delve into Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, the Seven Years’ War, and Gens. Montcalm and Wolfe falling at the Plains of Abraham. American schoolkids learned John Paul Jones’ “I have not yet begin to fight;” we grew up with Governor-General Frontenac telling Sir William Phips to go stuff himself: “I will answer your general only by the mouths of my cannon…”)
Only late in her life she came to feel that it was a mostly time to gather family and friends and cook your FAVORITE foods. On her first try, she cloved the turkey…
If I am cooking for friends I will make tourtière (meat pie of mixed game meats; I use store-bought bison, lamb, pork, and turkey) and fèves au lard (baked beans in salt pork, brown sugar, and maple syrup, bay leaf, savory, stone-ground mustard and 2 whole onions, bake 6hrs at 325F.) If y’all want detailed recipes, I’ll come back and post them.
McC- Sigh… unless you can find a German bakery, I’m thinking you’re out of luck.
Linda- Understood, no problem!
Jess- Thankfully, my mother never did that.
Grog- Ouch, I still like that as a go to veggie.
Coureur- Interesting, and yes, definitely interested in both recipies. My baked beans I use black strap molasses.
My dad would never eat Chinese food in the US, he had served in CBI during WWII. He said the food tasted so much better over there. I as a kid thought he was nuts.
I had dinner with some friends from Taiwan and lo and behold he was correct. The sames dishes taste very different when prepared for Asian taste buds.
Love leftovers. Gotta have 4 days of leftovers as it makes fixing food real easy.
Used to save the carcasses from Thanks and Christmas to boil down into stock for turkey pot-pies, but wife would get ill over the smell, so just use the pan drippings to make stock from.
As to German food, yeah, why is it so friggin hard to find a German restaurant?
Well I’m just an unsophisticated red neck from East County, San Diego, El Cajon (the box). Typical middle American up bringing. After getting out of the military in ’73, I discovered hole-in-the-wall Mexican restaurants in El Cajon, they’re everywhere, all good, hardly ever go out of business. Anyway, it was AWESOME food, great variety!
Been in western middle Tennessee for 9 years now, we’ve found a half dozen good Mex restaurants within 70 miles, some last and some GOOD ones close up.
Fortunately, my Hungarian, English wife makes DYNO Mexican food (and lots of other types too). I’m lucky.
Hey Old NFO;
I do graze on the leftovers just to save money, but my comfort food is Meatloaf, mashed taters and sweet peas.
Fèves au lard (Quebec-style baked beans)
Here I use HALF the sugars and fats of the “official” recipe and it comes out fine.
– 4 cups dried Great Northern or Navy beans or a mix of these (Or use 8-10 cans if you want to skip boiling from dry)
– 12oz salt pork
– 1 cup each of brown sugar, dark molasses, and dark, strong maple syrup
– two med onions, whole, peeled, STRONG flavor (not sweet)
– 3-4 bay leaves
– 4T summer savory
– 3T stone-ground mustard (or 1.5T mustard powder)
– 2T coarse ground black pepper
– 1T coarse salt
– 1/2T white pepper
Soak beans overnight in fridge, then boil 2hr. Strain and save the “bean water.” Cut the salt pork into 1/2″ cubes. Place half the salt pork into the bottom of a clay bean pot. Add boiled beans to halfway, then place the 2 onions, the rest of the salt pork, and all the dry spices at this level. Fill the rest of the bean pot with the beans and add enough “bean water*” flood but NOT cover the beans, then pour the sugars on top. Bake covered 5hrs at 325F. Check in at 2 1/2hrs and top off with “bean water” as req’d.
Remove lid at 5hr and leave ajar, raise oven to 375 for 1 more hour to boil down to the bean level. (Don’t let the top level burn, keep ’em flooded.) The fats melt from the bottom and float up, and the sugars percolate down and everything turns out delicious!
*Optional – sneak in 1 bottle of light beer, like you would for chili.
Tourtière (French-Canadian meat pie)
Similar to “Cipaille,” which came from “six-pates” (“six paws,” meaning ALL kinds of critters can end up in THIS meat pie – everything that the he-man of the house brought in hanging off his flintlock. Anglos may spell it “sea-pie” but there is NO seafood in it!)
IF you can make whole wheat pie crusts, DO IT. I’ll omit the pie crust recipe, but you will need 4-6 shells AND top crusts.
– 3lbm ground “dark” meats: beef, bison, venison, elk, lamb
– 3lbm ground “light” meats: chicken, turkey, pork, veal
– 1/2lbm salt pork
– 2 large potato, finely diced, WITH skins
– 2 large strong onion, finely chopped*
– 2 head of garlic, peeled, crushed, and minced
– 4T summer savory
– 1 1/2T ground clove or about 25 coarsely crushed cloves
– 1/2T nutmeg (or mace)
– Optional pinch or two cinnamon
– 1/2T white pepper
– 2 eggs
– 1/2 cup breadcrumbs
Grill the onions in butter in a skillet until glassy, dump into large mixing bowl. Dice the salt pork and sizzle to about half-done in the same skillet, (you want to extract some of the grease, but NOT all the way to cracklins) and fry the diced potatoes, stirring to keep it broken up. Add a little olive oil if req’d to keep the potatoes from sticking. Dump the potatoes into the mixing bowl. Fry all the ground meats to about half-way, leaving a little pink in each meat as you transfer to the mixing bowl. Proceed from fattiest to leanest meats, adding butter or oil to prevent sticking. Add spices, bread crumbs and raw eggs into mixing bowl and get in there with your hands and fingers and mix everything until evenly mixed. Fill each pie shell from the mixing bowl and freeze any extra pie filling. You can add in corn to the extra filling some other day and make a kind of shepherd’s pie. You can also overfill a little and make domed pies. Seal the top crust perimeters by crimping with a fork, and decoratively vent the crusts with patterned fork perforations or a fleur-de-lys cutout if you are “patriotic” (in a “Je me souviens” kinda way.)
Bake 45min at 400F until crusts are golden.
*Onions have been bred weaker and milder over the years; you may have to use 4-6 shallots.
Gerry- True, they use a LOT of MSG over there!
Beans- Yep!
Tree- Yum, the Mexican restaurants down in El Cajon are legendary!
Bob- I’ve been known to eat that too… LOL
Coureur- Thank you!!!
After 2 years in Korea and a fair amount of TDY to Japan I love food from both cultures. I cook several Japanese dishes, but my favorite is a Korean one I’ve never really mastered — bibimbap, preferably with radish and cabbage kimchis in the banchan. Yeah, I know, simple, but mine has never come out the way I prefer it because of the ratios. I have to drive 45 minutes to get to the restaurant when I like it.
On the other hand, time at Zweibrucken has made me really appreciate a good wienerschnitzel. Reminds me of losing my naïveté upon learning I’d pay for each pat of butter and each roll. 🙂
“good German restaurants”
The best good restaurant in Germany I ate in was in Wiesbaden and it served Balkan food.
I did like eating Rouladen and Schnitzel. What else is there?
The Italian I eat here is every bit as good as the stuff I ate in Italy, but I normally ate in Tratorrias.
Paella in Ann Arbor every bit as good as in Spain.
The only Greek food I remember was Gyros, Souvlaki and Calamari. 🙂
I make our family holiday rolls from Mom’s side. And it’s 50/50 whether I’ll remember to add the salt because it’s added at the end of the first rise, before kneading. I usually write “SALT” on my palm in sharpie, but I didn’t even think of doing that this year until it was far too late. They still came out well, though.
Bob- I can do that, but NOT kimchi…
Ed- Interesting…
Tuvela- LOL, if it works…
For me, the cranberry sauce and stuffing really make my holiday meals special. Love the oven cooked stuffing with crispy (but not burnt) top and cranberry sauce with chopped pecans, pineapple bits hits the spot.
Like you, I appreciate turkey but sparingly. Though I do love a good turkey or left over ham sandwich made with fresh bread.
New England seafood. Because I’m an escaped mass hole. THAI, because 22.5 months. Korean, kimbap, bulgoki, because 3 tours. German, Schell Imbis bratwurst mit brotwurst und fries, Schnitzel mit champions und fries, German potato salad, because 3 years. Portugal, Baby clam or mussel stuffed mushroom caps, baked in garlic butter, Brazilian steak house, steak served on a roof tile, because 3yrs.