The Halloween candy has not even hit the bargain bin yet and already the shelves are going red and green. Wait a minute. Where's Thanksgiving?
You know, the holiday created around sharing our blessings with family and friends, cherishing what you have, not shopping for more? Oh yeah. That doesn't sell on the store shelves. And that is exactly why Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. That, and it's a holiday with FOOD.
I will be working on a new menu for this year, but below are my favorites that I made for the last couple Thanksgiving meals. I hope you and your family are blessed this holiday season.
Thanksgiving Recipes:
Apple, Sausage and Sage Stuffing Cauliflower, Chard and Leek Gratin Cranberry Applesauce Basil-Orange Sweet Potatoes Sweet Potato and Aged Gouda Gratin with Sage and Thyme Roasted Green Beans Vanilla-Sweet Potato Pie with Pecan-Brown Sugar Crust Red-wine Caramel Apple Tart with Gorgonzola on a Walnut Crust Roasted Fig and Pear Crumble
Fall Menu Side Dishes Roasted Whole Pumpkin with Gruyere Winter Risotto Balsamic-Glazed Carrots Sesame Kale Polenta Cakes with Sun-dried Tomato and Spinach Collard Greens and Bacon Caramelized Onion and Chard Saute Carrot Orange Souffle Honey Sage Sweet Potato Pasta Apple Cider-Sauce Delicata Squash with Red Rice, Cranberries and Pecans Maple-Orange Sweet Potato Souffle Fall Menu Main Courses Pumpkin Gnocchi with Walnut Cream Sauce Turkey and Noodles Acorn Squash and Chicken Sausage Cassoulet Apple-Sage Roasted Chicken
Fall Soups Coconut Curry Pumpkin Soup Pumpkin, Lentil and Carrot Soup Pumpkin White Cheddar Soup Vegetable Soup, How to Make Broth-Based Soups Cauliflower, Carrot and Greens Soup, How to Make Cream Soups Fennel, Potato and Leek Soup Carrot Soup with Coriander Two Ways Other Maple-Sage Reduction Sauce Brown Butter Sage Sauce
The title may sound scary and the size of this bird was frightening, but Chickenzilla was easily the best chicken I have ever had. Three of three family members agree, including our child who was munching a leg in one hand and crispy bits of skin in the other, all the while calling for "More!"
Based on our great success in sourcing local beef, we decided to look for local poultry as well. I had met Marcus Moreland who had both chicken and lamb, and he sold me some of his chickens to "try." I meet him, he has two ginormous birds, two smaller ones and a pack of lamb shanks. He asks me for ten bucks. I tried to force forty on him. He met me at twenty.
"You're nuts," I said. "This is a hundred bucks worth of meat at Whole Foods."
He smiled. And just handed over the bag. He's won us over for good. We'll be buying lamb soon.
You see, the natural meats, even at Whole Foods, are not pastured chickens. They are cage free, meaning they have some access to outdoors, but not true pastured chicken. That natural diet of grasses and bugs supplemented with organic grains. For the first time chicken didn't have an indistinct flavor that could be any tasteless meat. Chicken really does taste like chicken. And, I tell you, it's not what you've been eating all these years. Wow.
Here's the menu for our feast:
Apple-sage Roasted Chickenzilla
1 large pastured chicken
1 apple cut in half
1 rosemary sprig
3 thyme sprigs
1 handful of fresh sage
olive oil
coarse sea salt
balsamic vinegar
pepper
rubbed dry sage
dried rosemary
Preheat oven to 350 degree convection roast if you have a convection oven.
Stuff chickenzilla with the apple and fresh herbs. Pour on some olive oil and balsamic and rub. Rub on some sage and dried rosemary, salt and pepper. Roast for about an hour for an average size bird, or 90 minutes for a chickenzilla. Use a meat thermometer inserted into the fleshy inside part of the thigh up next to the breast. This is the last part of the bird to get done. Temp should read 180 when cooked for safety. The balsamic will caramelize a bit and give the skin a deep golden brown crispiness.
I served this with Roasted Green Beans, and my husband brought home Sage Walnut bread from a local bakery. We also had some sweet potatoes, so I made a sweet-savory roasted blend.
Honey-Sage Sweet Potatoes with Shallots
3 large shallots, peeled and quartered
2 giant sweet potatoes (about 3-1/2 pounds) peeled and diced
2 tbs. olive oil
1 tbs. brown sugar
2 tbs. honey or maple syrup would be even better
liberal shot of fresh ground pepper
coarse sea salt
2 tbs. chopped fresh sage
Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
Spray heavy baking sheet with cooking spray. Roast potatoes for about 40 minutes, turning at least twice to avoid burning. Toss all ingredients together and spread into one layer on baking sheet. They will be dark golden and crisp when done.
Dessert? No, we just had chicken skin for dessert. It was that good. The only problem now, I muttered to my spouse over a bite of chicken, is that we can't ever get chicken out again. We're ruined. Sad, but so true.
A couple weeks ago we went to pick up our CSA bag. Part of the week's harvest included an small melon with a light green rind. It smelled crisp and citrus. I can't even remember the name of it. As we placed it in the car, the farmer said, "Hey, be sure to save the seeds on this for me. They cost me a dollar each."
He gave my husband instructions on how to save the seeds. When my husband cut into the melon, the texture and flavor were just like the smell. It was a very interesting fruit. He did as the farmer asked, and saved the seeds. When he counted them, he said, "You know, there's like $150 in here." The next week we returned the seeds to our farmer, keeping a few to try and plant ourselves.
Seed saving has been in practice for far longer than glossy seed catalogs. For many heirloom varieties, this is the only reason they have survived and been passed along for generations. When you consider that the diversity of our food crops have been reduced by 75 percent since 1900, it really becomes critical to preserve that 25 percent we have left.
You can learn more about how to save seeds and about the history and importance of seed saving at my post for this September's Eat Local Challenge.
An interview with Tim Schlitzer, Executive Director, Food Routes Network and Buy Fresh Buy Local.
Chances are if you live near one of its 50 chapters in 17 states, you've seen a "Buy Fresh Buy Local" sign. Sighting one of these is a great way to know you are near a source of an active local food network.
"It's not a brand," he says. "It's just continuity that can be identified." You see, brands, according to Tim, mean a label. A set definition. Rules. Eating local is for a person and a community to define for themselves. An approach not unlike that of the Eat Local Challenge.
An example of such interpretation, he said, is the hundred-mile diet. A hundred miles of choice is a lot different for someone in Kansas compared to someone in New Jersey. People have to be able to localize their approach.
Thus, the Buy Fresh Buy Local program exists to help insure that there are local choices, and that consumers can find them. The program includes everything from creating "feedability guides" that identify new opportunities for growers and producers based on an individual community's needs, to assisting with grant proposals, to helping raise awareness of endangered foods and the importance of seed banks.
The program also provides marketing materials and the "continuity" of the Buy Fresh Buy Local program that can serve as a guide for consumers. At the heart of all these different activities, the organization serves as a liaison for sharing information on what programs work and what kinds of solutions are working in other chapters.
Each of the 50-plus chapters then determines its own needs and can use the support, marketing materials, and shared knowledge to succeed in recreating its local food system.
Tim uses the analogy of microbreweries to help people understand what has happened to local food systems. As he explains, small, quality-driven breweries used to be the norm. Larger breweries with a standardized, cheaper product then took over. People since realized that the beer just wasn't as good, Tim says, and now you see the rebirth of microbreweries. Local food needs to experience the same rebirth.
Tim also advocates the rebirth of dialog with regard to food. As individuals we need to stop being complacent and take an active role in learning more about where our food comes from, he says. And, while the journey for each of us to define our local food may be complex, starting that journey does not have to be.
"I would say [for a consumer] to start with one thing rather than trying to broadly replace it all," Tim advises. Try sourcing that one thing, and the rest will grow from there. This is sound advice given that many local food systems can't offer all of the local items needed to sustain their surrounding communities. By starting small, demand and supply can grow together.
As the executive director for the program, it's likely Tim has seen his share of both successes and, well, not successes. Despite this, he remains optimistic when asked about the next ten years ahead for his organization and the long-overdue "consumer-driven food revolution."
"I'd like to see local food systems to be recreated in every state," he says. Currently about two percent of foods are sourced locally. Tim's goals include raising that percentage to ten or even twenty-five percent. "Communities will learn to feed themselves again."
Tim seemed less optimistic about the pending farm bill.
"Too much politics. We can't wait. The public has to stop looking to government for change." There is a certain irony in allowing a centralized government define "rules" for local food systems. These systems are unique and can only be understood by the people in them, Tim explains. "Local chooses local," he says.
Despite the overall optimism, Tim advises others not to take the fragility of our food systems for granted. It only took fifty years to get to the current state of a highly centralized and industrialized system. It's the goal of Buy Fresh Buy Local and Tim Schlitzer — as well as the responsibility of each of us — to guarantee that when we choose local, we will have that choice.
More information on Buy Fresh Buy Local can be found at foodroutes.org. Kansas City residents can learn more about our local Buy Fresh Buy Local Chapter through Bridging the Gap's site.
