Fall favorite - Roasted Red Pepper Soup

Roasted Red Pepper Soup, Make it one your fall staples for those chilly days.

Ingredients:

3 Roasted Peppers (see the previous post for roasting peppers)

1L of Low or No Sodium Chicken Stock

2 Tbsp Butter

1 Onion diced

3 Cloves of minced garlic

1 Parsnip roughly chopped

1 Carrot roughly chopped

1 Potato roughly chopped

1 or 2 Bay Leaves

1 or 2 whole sprigs of Thyme

Salt & Pepper to taste

Optional:

1 tsp Hot Sauce (of your choice)

Sour Cream

Chopped Chives

Method:

Melt the butter in a large saucepan over medium heat. Place onions and garlic in the saucepan and saute for a few minutes until the onions become translucent, add the carrots and parsnip, add a pinch of salt & pepper and continue to stir.

Now add the chicken stock, roasted peppers and potatoes, hot sauce and Bay Leaf & Thyme.

Bring to a boil while stirring well, reduce heat to low, cover and simmer for 30-40 minutes.

Remove from the heat and allow to cool for about 15 minutes, then remove the Bay & Thyme.

Now, either using an immersion blender, or transfer to a blender and puree until smooth.

Run the soup through a strainer and return the liquid to the saucepan over medium low heat. (OPTIONAL: Stir in 1/2 cup heavy cream) and the ground black pepper and allow to heat through, about 5 to 10 minutes.

Taste and season with salt & pepper to taste.

Serve and top with a dollop of Sour cream & some chopped chives.

Thanksgiving Part 3: Get to know your ROOTS

Get those Canadian ROOTS on the plate

Ingredients: Loads of chopped or cubed root vegetables (winter squash, celeriac, garlic, beets, parsnips, carrots, potato, sweet potato) All that good stuff that you never buy in the grocery store.

1/4 cup CANADIAN maple syrup (the real stuff)

1/4 cup olive oil (plus extra to coat pan)

2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

2 teaspoons fresh thyme leaves

1 teaspoon sea salt

1 teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper

a bunch of freshly chopped flat leaf parsley.

Method:

Preheat oven to 400°F, and toss the vegetables with the syrup, oil, vinegar, and thyme for an somewhat even coating.

Transfer onto 2 large baking pans (this is a good time to use parchment paper or a silpat), distributing evenly into one layer in each pan.

oast for about 1 hour, removing pans from oven every 12 minutes or so to stir; halfway through the cooking time, toss roots with the salt and pepper. Roasting is complete when veggies are nice and tender. Serve hot.

Thanksgiving - Cranberry Sauce

CRANBERRY De-Lish

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups orange marmalade - store bought, or even better from a farmers market.

2/3 cup orange juice

1 cinnamon stick, broken in half

1 12-ounce bag cranberries

1/3 cup finely chopped fresh Italian parsley

Freshly ground black pepper

Combine first 3 ingredients in medium saucepan. Stir over medium-high heat until mixture comes to boil. Mix in cranberries; return to boil. Reduce heat to medium; simmer until berries burst and sauce thickens slightly, stirring occasionally, about 5 minutes. Transfer sauce to medium bowl; cool completely. Mix in parsley; season with pepper. (Can be made 3 days ahead. Cover and chill.)

By making this ahead, it takes one thing off the list on Thanksgiving, and is so so so much more tasty.

Terrific Thanksgiving Turkey

Brine your Bird

Ingredients:

1 Turkey (12-25 lbs) - thawed if frozen

2 Cups Sea Salt or Kosher Salt

2 Cups Sugar

Method:

You will need an accurate meat thermometer to gauge exactly when the meat is done.

A typical 12 to 25 pound turkey you will need 2 pounds of salt, ideally sea salt and 2 cups of brown sugar. You need a picnic cooler large enough if you don't have one in your storage, but a styrofoam one, to hold the turkey when completely submerged in water.

Put the turkey, a layer of ice and the salt and sugar into the cooler and completely cover with cold (COLD being important), water and submerge the turkey upside down. Turn the turkey a few times to mix the salt and sugar. Put the cooler in a cold place for four hours for a smaller turkey and as much as six hours for a larger one, no more no less. If necessary to keep the brine cold replace some of the water with a few bags of ice or even throw in some freezer packs.

Remove the turkey from the brine and rinse well under cold running water. Let rest uncovered overnight in the refrigerator. This will drain any excess moisture and help dry out the skin so it will brown better.

Rub the turkey with butter, ground pepper and a spice mix if you so chose. Stuff the turkey with fresh herb sprigs, garlic cloves and large chopped pieces of carrot, celery and onion. Place breast side down on a clean well oiled roasting rack in a roasting pan. Add about 2 cups of water to the pan, and throw in some dried Bay leafs if you them.

Place the turkey in a preheated 400° oven. Roast one hour then, without opening the oven, turn the heat down to 250° and continue roasting for two hours longer. For a 20 to 25 lb. turkey or larger roast for three more hours. If you have a convection oven only roast for 45 minutes first before turning down the oven heat, no other adjustments are needed.

Flip the turkey breast side up and baste it thoroughly. Add 2 cups of water to the roasting pan. Turn the oven back up to 400° and continue roasting until the breast meat is exactly 165° and the thigh reads 170°. Baste and check the temperature every 15 minutes or so. This finishing heat will help brown the skin. Let the turkey rest covered with foil for 20 to 30 minutes before carving then serve immediately.

Gobble Gobble.

Mise En Place

Todays Tip of the Day:

Mise en place

It's just a French term meaning, “everything in place,” and you hear it most often in relation to cooking and on every cooking show. The idea is that you do all your prep work first, so you are not scrambling around your kitchen looking for the next thing that goes into your dish. This is pretty simple, have small bowls or ramakins and pre-measure everything that goes into your recipe.

Being organized not only saves you time, but it also ensures you don't forget anything.

Before I start a dinner, I love to focus on putting everything in place. You still have to do the work but you can do most of it well ahead of time. , but clearing out the details and having what I need on hand allows me to minimize distractions and keep the kitchen workspace clean, because I'm not constantly prepping as I go. OH, and I don't look back and think "D'oh, I forgot that".

Cold Cherry Soup

Ingredients

2 Asian Pears, peeled & chopped

2 pounds cherries, chopped

1 tablespoon cornstarch

2 cups nonfat buttermilk

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1/4 cup Crème fraîche (a dollop for each bowl)

Method:

Place the chopped Asian pears and cherries in a medium saucepan with water to cover by an inch. Bring to a simmer over medium-high heat. Cover and reduce the heat to medium-low. Simmer until the Asian pears and cherries are soft enough to puree, about 30 minutes.

Puree with a food processor or immersion blender and return to low heat. Transfer 1/4 cup of the puree to a separate bowl and whisk in the cornstarch until the mixture is smooth. Whisking constantly, pour the cornstarch mixture into the saucepan. Continue whisking until the mixture thickens, about 7 minutes. Turn off the heat and let the mixture cool to room temperature.

Stir in the buttermilk, cover, and chill thoroughly, at least 3 hours. Ladle the soup into 4 soup bowls and sprinkle each serving with lime juice and add a dollop of Crème fraîche.

Roasting Red (or any colour) Peppers

Oven Broiler Method:

Cut out the stem of each pepper and cut it in half lengthwise. Remove and discard the stem and core and any seeds and white membrane. With the skin-side up, use your hand to gently flatten each pepper half. You can cut off the end bit to help flatten them, if you want. Repeat with all peppers and lay them flat, skin-side-up, in a single layer, on a baking sheet lined with foil.

Heat a broiler. Place the peppers under the broiler and cook until the skin is charred pretty much all over. Since most broils are not 100% even cooking, You may need to turn and rotate the pan a few times to get them evenly charred. Watch them carefully, while you want the skin charred, you don't want to burn the whole pepper. Some will cook much more quickly than others, remove them, and place them in a plastic ziploc baggie, or a bowl and cover with plastic wrap. but continue cooking the not-yet-done ones.

Once you have all the Peppers out of the oven, let the peppers sit (in a plastic baggie or a covered bowl) about 15-20 minutes for the skin to separate from the pepper a bit more, and allow them to cool for easier handling.

After the peppers have sat, simply peel off the blackened skin - it should slip right off. For less mess, you can do this under cold running water.