Giving Thanks

Hey, I don't know if I mentioned this before, but thanks, dear reader. I'm greatful to have this forum to put out my ideas about cooking and gardening, and food is always better within a community.

One thing I do really love about holidays is the tendency for them to bring families together. We had a Thanksgiving dinner here at my parents' house this year, and though the ever-extending family was spread out over a few different cities, it was really excellent to see the members of my family that could make it. We had an enjoyable evening, with everyone lingering around the table after dinner, satisfied from a wonderful meal, to talk and talk and talk.

Above, you see my mother and I hard at work preparing the stuffing for the turkey. This year we used LOTS of mushrooms (button and shitake), lots of onions, celery that I grew in my garden, some locally baked bread and just about every herb that we have in the garden.

I can take no credit at all for these scrumptious looking pies, which my parents made the day previous. But let me assure you, they taste even better than they look!

Hope that you all had a delicious long weekend as well!

Chicken Salad, a la Wa

This one is for my grandmother, who gained the name Wa when my eldest cousin Simon started speaking. When I visited her last, we made a very similar chicken salad to the one I describe below, which was awesome. She's well known in her group of friends for a series of trademark delicious recipes, several of which I have now gotten her to teach me how to make. 

So last night I made the most basic, most delicious chicken salad sandwiches for dinner. Ingredients: half a roasted organic chicken (light and dark meats), a small head of celery, some mayo, and garnished with a few slices of cucumber. Also, salt and pepper. Chop, mix, spread on sandwiches. 

I like making simple recipes, and not just because I'm lazy. When you have delicious fresh ingredients, cooking something that's too busy or overpoweringly flavoured can be gilding the lily (or as Edgar Wright would say, over-egging the pudding). I wanted to really taste the celery, which is the first full head of celery I've harvested from my garden, so I made a meal where the celery was one of the starring attractions. 

Funny celery story - apparently my celery plants are home to a few dozen families of little grey spiders. They were none too happy when I uprooted their green condo, and I have a few bites to prove it. I'm rather proud of myself for handling it so well when I realized that the sensation of little spiders running all over me was actually the sensation of little spiders running all over me. 

I also caved and picked the first little tiny cucumber from my garden. It never got any bigger than my ring finger, but it was starting to look a bit off, so I picked it rather than let it die a slow death (bonus, because the other cukes on that vine pretty much doubled in size over the night). My sous-chef Hank actually dropped the cucumber when he first tried to pick it up because he didn't realize the spikes covering the fruit would be so pointy.