A few years ago, I worked at Phillips Exeter Academy here in NH. I loved my job in Health Services and what I loved even more was the daily salad bar. Exeter, as the Academy calls itself, offers all employees lunch on the house everyday and the choices are plentiful and delicious. I ignored all the hot dishes, sandwiches, desserts and soups and went instead for a huge salad with a protein to go with it. Exeter didn't skimp on the size of the salad bowls either; they were mixing bowl sized and I appreciated that - room to pile it all in, toss the dressing and not have it spilling/falling all over the table. I liked eating a LOT of veggies every day. I first placed in my bowl an enormous serving of raw spinach and other greens, then tongs full of all the other raw vegetables you can imagine, and perhaps a tiny handful of nuts and maybe crumbled feta. And always, whatever meat was at the hot table, I would cut up into my salad. I ate the same thing 5 days a week, every week for the 5 1/2 years I worked there and I never got bored with this routine. Since I "retired", I have tried to eat salads like that at home as often as possible but it is a real pain putting one together like I did at Exeter. You know, getting out all the bags and packages, cutting everything up, cleaning up the mess, etc. Last week when my husband and I were joyfully munching on breakfast breads and pastries in NYC, we discussed the salad dilemma. How do we make it more convenient and doable? Inspiration hit. We decided to buy a rotisserie chicken and cut it up and also roast/slow cook some other red meat and cut that up too for variety and put these in containers. And buy all the veggies we love, cut them up in one fell swoop, put them in individual containers, and keep it all in the bottom crisper drawer in the refrigerator. So last Saturday we carried out our plan and this week we have eaten killer salads everyday with little fuss. I'm so happy right now - I just ate a huge salad and although it was a little less convenient than the Exeter salad bar spread, we found a solution.
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| Some of the containers of veggie plus the leftover pork roast from a few days ago for the protein |
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In the bin ready go.
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| Ready to eat salad - and in a mixing bowl. |
After tomorrow, we won't eating salad bar for a few days, it will be Thanksgiving leftovers like the rest of America. Here's my menu, developed around the requests of three of our kids attending and my husband's too. The recipe for the turkey and stuffing is my request - and I'm making it.
Southern Style Roasted Turkey (I read the recipe in a doctor's office years ago, couldn't write it down or rip the page out so I just memorized what I could - essentially it's a homemade cornbread type dressing stuffed into a turkey that gets raw bacon wrapped around its back and periodically basted with a mix of pan juices and real maple syrup. This pan juice combo makes an amazing gravy!
Hand Mashed Potatoes with milk and butter
Homemade gravy described above
Sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows; the topping is butter, brown sugar, pecans, etc)
Skillet green beans with feta cheese, herbs, shallots
Creamed Corn casserole(with corn cut off the cob from this summer that we froze)
Oven Roasted Brussels sprouts (from our harvest of last week)
Homemade cranberry sauce by Emma
Homemade rolls by Emma
Razzleberry Pie
Pecan Pie
Chocolate Cream Pie (all these pies were requests - no pumpkin in there this year)
I don't generally make hors'd oeuvres when I'm in charge of the meal because personally, I don't want anything in my stomach until I sit down for the Meal. But I am going to make one cheese ball that I made last month for a church event that was so good I want an excuse to make it again so we'll eat it with the Meal. Here's the recipe and picture:
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The crackers are Triscuit Sage and Cranberry - they are fabulous!
Cranberry Chutney Cheese Ball
8 oz. soft cream cheese
2 cups sharp cheddar cheese
3 T soft butter
2 T any flavor chutney
2 t. lemon juice
1 t Worcestershire sauce
1 dash Tabasco sauce
¼ t white pepper
¼ t salt
Beat with mixer, form in ball,
wrap in plastic, chill, then roll in ¾ c dried cranberries
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| Getting ready to harvest the last crop - and what do you do with the giant brussels sprouts on the top of each plant? |
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Our home under a November sky and before the leaves have been cleaned up
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Happy Thanksgiving!!
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