T&C: Thumprint Cookies

For this month's Taste & Create I was paired with Simran over at Bombay Foodie. I initially felt like I should do a fabulous Indian dish bust since I'm starting to plan for my holiday cookies I decided to try these delectable looking morsels which I knew would pair very well with my homemade jam. PLus I almost forgot to do my entry and I had all of the ingredients easily on hand. All that being said I'm glad I discovered these cookies and all of my friends should look out for them in their cookie tins this year. Don't forget to check out what everyone did here.




Thumbprint Cookies
from Bombay Foodie

60 grams butter - room temperature
30 grams superfine sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup ground almonds

1. Cream butter with sugar. Mix 1/2 cup flour with 1/4 cup ground almonds and add to the creamed butter. Mix to form a dough, then chill in the fridge for half an hour or so.
2. Preheat oven to 350F. Place small balls of dough on a baking sheet, and press with your thumb to flatten and make a dent in the middle of the cookie. Bake for 15 minutes. You can either fill these dents with jam before you bake (in which case it gets a bit chewy) or you can bake them plain then fill them.

Apologies for not converting the measurements, I used my kitchen scale so I didn't need to worry about it. I'm a little flat out getting ready to travel home for Thanksgiving. I used about 10 grams more butter that the recipe called for as I found the dough a bit too dry, but once I did these gorgeous little cookies were perfectly butter with a delicious almond flavor. The boy loves my jams and loved this cookie with them too.

Enjoy!

Sage Roasted Turkey

Here is my final Thanksgiving Day Feast recipe. I apologize in advance for no photo but I made this meal for a group of hungry people who had just spent a November day in and out of a cold lake in Central Ontario bringing the dock in for the winter. Needless to say when this meal was done not one person had the patience to wait to be served a hot meal and after all the work they did I didn't think they should. As you read the recipe you'll see why it was hard to even snap a quick pic of the bird or shall I say a pretty quick pic of the bird. Even though there isn't photographic evidence of this deliciously tasty bird. I urge you to try it, whether it's with a turkey or a chicken. It's the only way to cook them as far as I am concerned.

Sage Roasted Turkey

serves 8 with leftovers

1 12 lb turkey
1 stick of unsalted butter
1 tsp sea salt
12 fresh sage leaves
1 lemon - washed and quartered
1 small onion quartered
6 or more fresh rosemary sprigs
6 or more fresh sage sprigs
1 head of garlic

1. Make sure your turkey is fully defrosted and at room temperature before roasting. Remove giblets and neck. Rinse and pat dry inner cavity and skin.
2. Preheat oven to 325F. Place butter, sage leaves and sea salt into a food processor and pulse until sage leaves are chopped and combined with butter. Set aside.
3. Sprinkle sea salt and fresh cracked pepper inside the turkey's cavity. Stuff the turkey with lemon quarters, onion quarters, whole head of garlic and sprigs of herbs.
4. Rub the sage butter all over the turkey's skin. Truss up the legs and wings. For instructions on how to truss a turkey click here.
5. Place the turkey, breast down in a roasting pan and place in the heated oven. Roast for 15-20 minutes per pound basting every 30 minutes with the pan juices. As the roasting time winds down, test the thigh with and instant read thermometer. It is ready when the temperature is 170F and the juices run clear.
6. When done remove roasting pan from the oven and remove the turkey to a carving board letting rest under a tent of foil, breast side down for 15 minutes before carving. Turn the turkey over to carve and enjoy with your favorite gravy or jus and sides.

Roasting the bird with the breast side down, allows all of the deliciously rich thigh juices to run into the breast keeping it moist and tender. Resting it breast side down just continues the process. While it doesn't make for the most photogenic bird, the flavor speaks for itself. As I have never carved a bird at the dinner table, and I doubt most people don't unless they live in some Norma Rockwell alternate universe, I'd say forgo the gorgeously browned breast for flavor and tenderness. Instead of a traditional gravy I made a jus with the pan drippings and some red wine.

I have one great leftover recipe that I'll post on Friday, so in between all the Black Friday craziness, if you are looking for something a bit different to do with your turkey leftovers check it out.

Enjoy and Happy Thanksgiving!

Cornbread & Sausage Dressing

When it comes to Thanksgiving I feel like there are two camps, those who make stuffing that they stuff the bird with and those that make dressing which is served along side the bird. I grew up in a dressing home. As I began roasting my own chicken and turkey, I held to making dressing rather than stuffing as the bird roasts much faster not being stuffed. We generally have a more traditional dressing at Thanksgiving and in the spirit of trying something different I decided to make a cornbread sausage dressing.

Roasted Sweet Potato and Banana Mash

This dish came about as a result of my desire to do a potato side that was different from standard mashed potatoes, and while I LOVE candied yams they are not the most healthy option. Since I am ramping up on the whole getting into shape thing for my wedding next year, I am always looking for satisfying dishes that are a bit healthier. Sweet potatoes are generally better for you than plain old white, if you don't douse them in tons of sugar and syrups. I decided to roast up some sweet potatoes and banana, mix it all with maple syrup and voila, a healthier answer to candied yams and mashed potatoes and gravy.

Baked Cranberries

In honor of Thanksgiving coming I cooked up some tasty and easy dishes to enjoy along with a deliciously juicy roast turkey, a recipe I'll post soon too. The first of which is insanely easy and delicious. This dish was inspired by something a friend brought to a potluck I hosted a few years ago. It looked so beautiful in the glass dish and as I thought about it seemed so easy to make so I put together this version of my own.

A Fabulous Food Buzz Weekend Take #1

First off I'm so sorry for the delay of this write-up, catching up on real life after all of my travels of the past few months got the best of me. That being said I just had to share some of my experiences in San Francisco during the Food Buss First Annual Food Festival. I was fortunate enough to go to San Francisco for this event. Believe me when I say I was fortunate, not only did I get to visit this wonderful city and see my good friend Suz from You Can't Eat What but I got to spend the weekend with a bunch of other foodies eating and drinking twice our weight.

The weekend started on Friday evening, after registration and gift bag full of all kinds of swag, stay tuned for review of some of the products. We then went to the welcome cocktail party on the terrace at the Hotel Vitale, with a gorgeous view of the Bay Bridge and the Ferry Building. There were a few custom designed Sky Vodka cocktails, though I went straight for the bubbly. After some cocktails, Mac & Cheese with Bacon and meeting up with Jessica from A Fete for Food we headed on over to the Ferry Building for a fabulous Street Food Festival.

The Street Food Festival featured everything from delicious mini cupcakes (my fave was the horchata)
to deliciously rich and fresh organic vanilla ice cream,

to braised beef tacos, to delish cocktails. The favorite of the majority people of the night seemed to be the Porchetta Sandwiches and while they were great I was partial to the Kumamoto Oysters and The Pie Trucks Steak & Gruyere Pies.
I also had an awesome Basil Gimlet from the guys at Rye.

Filled to the brim and a bit jet lagged we decided to go to the Slanted Door in the Ferry Building for a cocktail I had a Ginger Limeade that was so perfectly balanced and exactly what I wanted. Of course me being me I completely knocked my own drink out of my hand, it hit the carpet and shattered! Big surprise to those who know me. The best and most surprising thing about it was that in 3 minutes flat the staff had cleaned the glass and gave me a brand new drink. Now I've drop alot of cocktails in my time and never once have I been brought a new one by the bar. Aside from how delicious the cocktails are, the Slanted Door is my new favorite spot, anywhere based on the graciousness of the staff. Did I mention that they use fresh and real cranberry juice too, not cocktail crap. That makes a real Cape Codder, deliciously ruby red and quite tasty according the Jessica who sampled one.

After a nice sleep, we were up and at it again on Saturday. First order of business was a trip to the Ferry Building Ferry Market. I'm a farmer's market junkie. This past summer the boy and I would take a different back road up north each weekend in order to discover a new hidden gem of a market. As much as we found some great markets, the Ferry Building Market put them all to shame.
From mounds of gorgeous multi-colored peppers to the St. Benoit freshly made Meyer Lemon yogurt, which I was too busy eating to photograph, to honey collected from hives strategically set up all over the region. The amount of delicious and farm fresh products was overwhelming especially considering in Toronto the Farmer's Market season has wound down.
This visit offered me my last fix before winter sets in. My one regret is that I wasn't staying somewhere with a kitchen to be able to by and use some of these fabulous products. The reality of having to pack anything I bought forced me to managed what I picked up, so I stuck to some posole, something I can't ever find in Toronto except at a specialty market, some honey collected from hives at the CIA in St. Helena and a jar of Strawberry & Ollalieberry Jam from Swanton Berry Farm.
The last thing for Saturday morning was getting to meet Pim from the Fabulous Chez Pim. I love her blog, her marmalade and jams and was very excited to meet here and have her sign my copy of her new book "The Foodie Handbook: The (Almost) Definitive Guide to Gastronomy." She was so lovely and gracious and completely encouraged me to use my love of jam making and start making marmalade this winter. I read the book on the flight home and it's great too. Stay tuned for a review in the coming weeks.

I'll end this first part of my write-up here. Stay tuned for more of Saturday's events from a Farm-to-Table discussion to the amazing Tasting Pavilion and Outstanding in the Field dinner. I am still smiling thinking about the weekend and can't wait to share more with you.

Enjoy!

Food Buzz Festival Day 1

Well as many of my other fellow bloggers here in lovely San Fran this weekend, I had every intention of posting day by day updates of the food I ate and the goings on. That would have been great had the oh so intelligent Ms Piccante Dolce not left the memory card reader and cable for her camera at home in Toronto!

So you get one pic:


The only photo I have is one taken with my phone of an oh so delicious Ginger Limeade cocktail from the Slanted Door in the Ferry Building. It's not great because it was taken with my blackberry, but let me tell you it was one fabulous cocktail. Even better because I dropped my first one and not only did the staff clean it up in a timely manner but they, without question, brought me a new one! It was awesome. The Slanted Door is a clumsy girl's savior, if you are a clumsy girl like me who managed to throw her cocktail no matter how sober she may be!

All in all it was great first day, I'll post about the food when I'm back in TO and able to post pictures. But it was a pleasure to meet some great FoodBuzz peeps (Ryan, Alexa & Dorian) and put face to Twitter Friends (@EatitTweetit).

Enjoy!