Leftovers - how to use up stuffing

I have an over-abundance of stuffing. This has nothing to do with the deliciousness of my stuffing. It was quite tasty. But when your mother-in-law brings a bathtub full of mashed potatoes, your friend brings corn pudding and you make a sweet potato casserole, there is bound to be leftovers. There is just so much starchy food that people can eat, particularly when they are saving room for pie and homemade vanilla ice cream.

Lots of turkey soup recipes say throw in some stuffing. I don't get this. I haven't tried that, mind you. It simply doesn't sound that appetizing to me. I would much rather put in wild rice (see last year's post on Turkey-Wild Rice Soup) or barley. Stuffing does freeze well and it's nice to have a stockpile for the rest of the comfort food season. But, my favorite way to use up stuffing is to cook it for breakfast. Heat it up in the microwave or oven. This speeds up the process a bit. Break up the stuffing in a skillet with a little butter or nonstick cooking spray. Make a nest in the stuffing and break an egg into the hole(s). This is not a particularly brilliant suggestion but it is one that I personally love. Stuffing is the perfect start for breakfast - it's got bread and usually some sausage. Isn't that the start of most great breakfasts? Just add eggs. Think of it as the Post-Thanksgiving version of Toad-in-the-Hole.

I included a link to the original recipe in my pre-Thanksgiving post. I made a number of adjustments, so here's a link to the PDF of my adapted  Apple-Sausage Stuffing.

Thanksgiving 2010

Here we are, on the eve of another Thanksgiving. Who doesn't like Thanksgiving? OK, the poor devil that gets stuck cooking everything. I'm not sure why anyone would want to cook everything on the table for Thanksgiving. Even as a professional, I don't want to be stuck with that much cooking. You can go commercial, buying some of the dinner. I prefer to enlist the help of my friends. I do the turkeys (see last year's Thanksgiving posts Turkey Brining and Turkey Cooking) and a few other things, which I discuss below. And I let my guests provide the rest. In my house, Thanksgiving is not when I impress folks with my cooking prowess. It's about sitting down to far too much food, and enjoying what everyone has provided. Kind of like the first Thanksgiving when everyone who attended reportedly brought something to the feast. Can't say I've ever been disappointed in this arrangement. Everyone brings something they are proud of, so everything is delicious.

Besides the usual turkeys, I am making a bunch of new recipes. Yes, I am a crazy woman who tries out new recipes on my guests at Thanksgiving. But, hey, if you can't try new stuff on your best friends and family, who can you try it out on?

Here's what I'm making:

From Epicurious.com: Apple-Sausage Stuffing but with my modifications.

From Anne Burrell at the Food Network: Sweet Potato Casserole

From The Pioneer Woman blog: Nantucket Cranberry Pie which was part of a Throwdown with Bobby Flay last week. Not really a pie. More like a cobbler. But, as there are two other pies coming from my guests, I thought I'd try a non pie dessert. I am making vanilla ice cream to go with it. Homemade vanilla ice cream. What can be better than that?

Hope everyone has a very Happy Thanksgiving especially my dear Pamela who will be spending her first Thanksgiving away from home with family in New Jersey and New York. Sweetie, we miss you!

Shrimp, Tomato and Avocado Salad

This appetizer came together at the last minute. I had some cooked shrimp and wanted to make a first course salad with them. Everything else in this recipe just happened to be lying around my kitchen. That's how recipes get created in my kitchen. I start with an ingredient and then figure out what other things I have that will complement it.

The tomatoes were the last of my ripe garden tomatoes. Not my favorite variety but with the other flavors, they were fine, which means this would work with your average dull supermarket tomatoes. Pomegranates are in season right now and they add a surprising crunch to this colorful salad. I've made a few modifications to the recipe I made for a dinner party, making the presentation more elegant.

Shrimp, Tomato and Avocado Salad
(serves 4)

4 martini or wine glasses, chilled

12 oz cooked shrimp (small shrimp are fine)
3 medium tomatoes
1/4 cup pomegranate seeds
1 medium avocado
juice of 1/2 lime
2 tbl lemon olive oil OR 2 tbl extra virgin olive oil and zest of 1/2 lemon
2 tbl chopped cilantro
salt and pepper
large pinch of mild or medium pure chile powder, such as New Mexican red Chimayo
4 sprigs of cilantro for garnish

1. If the shrimp are 31/40's or larger, cut into bite-size pieces, about 1". Place in a medium bowl.


2. Dice the tomatoes and combine with the shrimp. Add the pomegranate seeds, season with salt and pepper.


3. Add lime juice, lemon oil, cilantro, and chile powder to shrimp-tomato mixture and toss gently.


4. Dice the avocado. Season with salt and pepper.


5. To assemble, place 1/8 of the shrimp-tomato mixture in each glass. Then place a small layer of avocado pieces followed by 1/4 of the remaining shrimp-tomato mixture. Finish off with remaining avocado.


6. Chill in refrigerator for 30-60 minutes. Garnish with cilantro sprigs and serve.


Note: Do not chill much longer than 1 hour because the shrimp is likely to get mushy from the lime juice.


Link to PDF of Shrimp, Tomato and Avocado Salad

Baked Penne with Butternut Squash and Turkey Sausage

Here's a recipe to use the tomato sauce that I posted in my previous blog post dated October 27. This is a tasty fall pasta dish. It uses butternut squash, a beautiful seasonal ingredient. Adding the squash up's the nutrition and makes the pasta very filling with a relatively small portion of sausage. And this is quite filling - it's a grand meal served with a mixed green salad.

The cinnamon is an interesting addition. It evokes Greek pastitsio more than Italian. Greek pastitsio and Italian pasticcio are similar and a bit more complicated than this recipe since they use a bechamel sauce. Both are delicious but this is a lot easier.

Baked Penne with Butternut Squash and Turkey Sausage
(serves 8)




1 Tablespoon Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 medium Onion, chopped
2 cloves Garlic, minced
½ cup Dry White Wine
¾ pound Sweet Italian Turkey Sausage, without casings
½ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1 pound Butternut Squash, ¾" dice, about 4 cups
2 cups Tomato Sauce
1 cup Vegetable Broth
⅓ cup Heavy Cream
Salt And Black Pepper
1 pound Penne Pasta
3 ounces Soft Mild Goat Cheese (Such As Montrachet), crumbled
3 ounces Shredded Part-Skim Mozzarella
¼ cup Grated Parmesan Cheese

1. Preheat oven to 450℉. Coat a 13"x9"x2" baking dish with cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large Dutch oven, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the onion and saute until golden. Stir in the garlic and saute 1 more minute. Pour in the wine and cook until it has evaporated and the onion is browned, about 8 minutes. Add the sausage and cook, breaking up into chunks with a spoon, until it is no longer pink. Add the cinnamon.

3. Add the squash, tomato sauce, broth, and cream. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the liquid boils. Reduce the heat and simmer, covered and stirring occasionally, until the squash is tender, 15 minutes. There should be plenty of liquid. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Set aside.

4. While the squash is cooking, bring a large pot of water to a boil. Cook penne according to package directions until al dente. Drain well.

5. Combine goat cheese and mozzarella in a medium bowl.

6. Add the pasta to the sauce and stir. Add ½ of the cheese and mix well. Spread the pasta in the prepared baking dish, smoothing out the top. Top with the remaining cheese mixture and the Parmesan cheese.

7. Bake until the cheese melts and bubbles, about 15 minutes. Let sit 5 minutes before serving.

Adapted from The Essential Best Foods Cookbook by Dana Jacobi, Rodale, 2008.

Homemade Tomato Sauce

I have never much liked canned tomato sauce. It's aggressive - overly tart and one-dimensionally tomato. Homemade tomato sauce is a totally different flavor. It captures the sweet freshness of ripe tomatoes without being too sweet (like many a jarred spaghetti sauce). It is fresh tomato transformed into something that you can stow in your freezer. When you pull it out to use in the dead of winter, you will think of beautiful summer tomatoes.

I have made a number of fresh tomato sauce recipes from Marcella Hazan, the queen of Italian cooking. Nowadays, there are other Italian queens but Hazan is still tops in my book. At the release of her The Classic Italian Cook Book, it was said that she did for Italian food what Julia Child had done for French food. In 2010, it's hard to read it and think of it as revolutionary, but in the 1970's, when originally released, Italian food in the US did not include pesto, polenta, arugula or broccoli rabe. Not unless you happened to be part of an Italian-American family and lived in a major city like NY or Boston.

This recipe, which I made recently when Roma tomatoes were cheap and field ripened, is great for freezing. I used it in a baked penne dish and it was so much better than anything that came out of a jar or a can.

Fresh Tomato Sauce adapted from Marcella Hazan's The Classic Italian Cook Book
(makes 6 servings, about 3 cups)
This recipe can be doubled or tripled and the sauce freezes very well.

2 pounds fresh ripe Roma tomatoes, cut in half lengthwise
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/3 cup finely chopped yellow onion, about 1/2 a medium onion
1/3 cup finely chopped carrot, about 1/2 a medium carrot
1/3 cup finely chopped celery, about 2 stalks
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon sugar

1. Cook tomatoes in a covered 2 quart saucepan at a steady simmer for 10 minutes.
2. Uncover and reduce heat to hold a gentle simmer. Cook for 1 1/2 hours.
3. Run the tomatoes through a food mill to remove the skins and seeds.
4. Rinse and dry the saucepan. Add the olive oil and lightly saute the onions over medium heat. The onions should be translucent but not browned.
5. Add the carrot and celery and saute for another minute.
6. Add the pureed tomatoes, salt and sugar. Cook at a gentle simmer, uncovered, for 20 minutes. Stir occasionally.
7. Sauce can be used for pasta immediately, or frozen in 1 or 2 cup containers for a touch of summer in the middle of winter.

Note: If you don't have a food mill, you can skin and seed the tomatoes before cooking. You'll lose some of the flavor but it will still be far superior to canned sauce.

Link to PDF of Fresh Tomato Sauce

A couple of new things at World on a Platter

You may have noticed the Foodie Blog Roll on the right hand side of my blog. There are tons of food blogs listed here. Maybe you'll find some new interesting food blogs using it. For me, it increases traffic on my blog and so far it's given me the opportunity to meet some other fun food bloggers out there. Us foodies are one big hungry community and we love to chat and share. It's kind of cool!

The other thing you will notice are links to pages on Foodista.com on some of my blog posts. Foodista is a nifty food wiki. If you look at my recent blog post on cucumbers, there is a link to the Foodista page on cucumbers. It contains a lot of useful information about cucumbers, like growing, storage, and seasonality. I think these links will help my readers learn more about ingredients, techniques and tools I mention in my posts. I think it's a pretty spiffy site.

Thanks again to all my loyal readers and keep on cooking!

Why do we love cooking?

I have been spending a lot of time thinking about how to get young adults excited about cooking. Statistics show that Americans spend little time cooking. How little? In the 90's, on average, we spent 15 minutes a day cooking. Not per meal, per day. This is incredibly sad for those of us who love to cook and appreciate that cooking for yourself is key to both your spirit and your health.

As part of my continuing research on this subject, we are going to have a little bit of class participation. I hope you are willing to indulge me with this parlor game. Most of you reading this like to cook. Why? What happened in your life to turn you on to cooking?

To start things off, I'll give my story. My mom didn't trust or like processed foods. And she definitely had a knack for cooking (which she presumably got from her mom, also an excellent cook). Growing up, my mom cooked almost everything from scratch. She also believed that her kids should know how to cook. We joined 4H and learned basic cooking skills. We helped at home. In high school, my mom started catering out of the house and we all pitched in. Oddly enough, I was the pickiest eater in the house and often refused to eat the food my mom cooked. But, I liked cooking it even if I wouldn't eat it. How crazy is that? In college, my eating patterns broadened quite a bit. Certainly not because the food was so good there! I finally came to appreciate how fantastic the food cooked by my mom really was. After that, I was totally hooked on cooking and eating great food. It's only become a bigger and bigger force in my life.

What's your story? I can't wait to learn something new about my friends and get more further insight into why we love to cook.