Day Two Ninety - Thanksgiving Leftover GCF

I hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving meal shared with friends and family. We certainly did. My mother outdid herself, each dish was better than the last. Of course she made her fabulous homemade bread. Then for the first course there was a puree of parsnip and celeriac topped with a quail egg, sauteed duxelles and brussel sprout leaves -- decadent, sensual, smooth, earthy, and truly fabulous. The following course was beet risotto topped with sauteed butternut squash and chestnuts and fried sage leaves -- nutty, aromatic, herbal and fantastic. Next up was a nice salad, homemade cranberry walnut biscuits, homemade cranberry sauce and homemade quince paste to pair with the cheese.

Why beet risotto? Well that's because my family spent a Christmas in Rome one year and we discovered that beet risotto was a traditional New Year's/celebratory Roman dish and yesterday certainly was a celebration.

And of course homemade desserts -- pecan sandies, decaf espresso cheesecakes, pumpkin walnut cakes, and a dark chocolate tofu cake, all served in individual cupcake portions.

Overall, a truly fantastic meal! Totally inventive and unique but above and beyond fantastic.

First course

Second course

So what's on the docket for our GCF this week? Let's use some of that quince paste and go from there?

Apple pies, pumpkin pies, one or the other tend to find its way onto the Thanksgiving table, so why not take the apples that go into making that pie and turn them into something else and use those plus some quince paste for the base of our sandwich.

Grab some nice McIntosh apples and slice them thinly and throw into a saute pan with some EVOO, raw honey, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger powder, and some sea salt and cook over low heat till the apple slices are golden brown. Pull out and place on some nice simple whole grain bread, great for its rustic nuttiness here. Top the apples with a nice amount of the quince paste and then some of yesterday's Lively Run Cayuga Blue which will add a nice salty cheesy side to the sandwich. Toast away and have this with a nice glass of Sparkling Cider, like Eve's Cidery's Bittersweet.

Enjoy folks and I hope everyone has a lovely holiday weekend.