Bunny has started cooking again, sort of. She is tired of take-out and food from a box. This week with the holiday and all and the siren call of obscure pantry items such as pistachios, Bunny has tested out the oven and learned that it still works.
We had the usual Thanksgiving dinner. A good turkey, on the small side. Mashed spuds run through the potato ricer so the texture was extra refined. The ricer is a bitch to clean and mostly we don't bother with it, but it ensures a perfect mash with no lumps of not-quite-cooked enough potato. Stuffing--plain bread and herb stuffing with mushrooms and celery and extra sage. St. Julia's cranberry relish. Steamed haricots verts. Awesome pumpkin pie filling baked in a terrible pre-made crust from the freezer. I've resorted to scooping out the filling and leaving the crust behind.
And, for the first time ever, gravy. Gravy, for Bunny, is a why-bother proposition, but The Man likes it, so I bothered. And I finally know what all the fuss is about. I decided to follow St. Julia's guidelines, and went for it. First, I boiled all the grotesque turkey pieces parts (minus liver) in water to make a broth. Then, for the last hour or so of the turkey roasting period, I put some onion, carrots, an celery in the roasting pan with the turkey. When the turkey was done, I took the rack out of the pan and set the bird aside to rest. Then I put the roasting pan on the stove and started cooking down what was left. I've always been afraid to do this. I suppose I always figured I couldn't get even heat and I would probably ruin my pans or crack the glass on my stovetop. But this time, I threw caution to the wind. When the juices and fat and veg and bits an scraps of stuffing started bubbling, I poured in a couple of glugs of a decent white wine and started deglazing. And when that started going well, I poured in the strained turkey broth and cooked it until it looked about right. Don't ask me how I knew. Intuition, I guess. Then I poured the whole thing through a stainer into a bowl, and I pressed the remains in the strainer to extract out pretty much all the liquid. Then I poured the liquid into one of those fat-separating measuring cups (mine is cheap plastic) and let it sit for a minute or two until the fat rose to the top. Then I skimmed off two tablespoons of fat and put it in a saucepan with two tablespoons of flour, and whisked the hell out of it to make a roux. I browned the roux for about five minutes, then whisked in the liquid (but not the fat) from the fat-separating measuring cup in dribbles until it was all it. Then I cooked it until it thickened about the right amount.
It was awesome. The Man was so happy. Naturally, I pumped him for compliments the entire time. Isn't this the best gravy you've ever had? Do you like it? Really? What do you like about it? Parents: stop reading here! Then we realized the psychology behind all those insecure pestering questions and had a good giggle. Parents: it's now safe to read again! So gravy, yum.
And there have been plenty of left-overs. I've portioned out the cranberries and put them in the freezer. I've made my turkey stock from the carcass and have soup on the agenda for today.
And I got sick of looking at the left-over pistachios in the pantry, so I made pistachio-orange biscotti yesterday.
My goal is to make them last at least until the end of the week.
Don't worry. I'm still lazy. Yesterday's lunch was instant felafel patties from a box.
UPDATE: I'm still cooking. I made enchiladas for dinner. I'm sure there's nothing authentic about them, but we like 'em.
