Andrew Comes To Town

Thanksgiving In Review

Week of Thanksgiving p.2

The wind is howling outside and the temperature has dropped quite a bit since Monday, so there is no better day for Thanksgiving cooking/baking. Ian is sharpening his knives to prepare for tomorrow as we speak. Today, I whipped up some cranberry sauce (made from Oregon cranberries) with orange zest, made a pumpkin pie and brioche roll dough, which is now rising. Excited for tomorrow!

Week of Thanksgiving

On this balmy 62 degree day, Thanksgiving was officially kicked-off by the baking of cornbread (recipe here). After a few days of drying out, Ian will be using the cornbread in the Rogers family famous stuffing. Over the next few days we will be making cranberry sauce, brioche rolls, pumpkin pie and chicken stock. For now our 12.24 pound organic turkey waits in the fridge to be brined and cooked on Thursday. Updates to follow.

Swedish Pancakes

Swedish pancakes (similar to crepes) have been a long-standing tradition in my family. There is always the inaugural Swedish pancake in whatever new house you live in, and I just so happened to make them this morning. You can add fresh berries, syrup, or bananas and peanut butter, but I like just a little syrup. Delicious! They are very simple and only take four ingredients: eggs, flour, milk and oil.

I can't give away the secret recipe, but I am sure there is a great recipe online. The first pancake rarely works out, so don't feel bad if it comes out globby and strange.

Mayoral Candidate

The last few weeks have been a whirlwind, but they all led up to yesterday. Rahm Emanuel announced his mayoral candidacy for the city of Chicago.

"Because I love this city – the place my family came to and the place where I was born – I want to fight for a better future for all the people of Chicago. And that’s why, today, I’m announcing my candidacy for mayor." Rahm Emanuel

Pizza

Making my own pizza is a regular dinner event. I usually make the trek to Whole Foods to buy the organic thin pizza crusts, which are wonderful. The problem is, when you open the bag to make a pizza with one of the crusts the other one becomes moldy overnight. This happened to us the other night, so I decided to make my own crust from the Barefoot In Paris cookbook. The Whole Foods thin pizza crust's days are numbered. This seems like a much better deal.

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cups warm (100 to 110 degrees) water
2 packages dry yeast
1 tablespoon honey
Good olive oil
4 cups all-purpose flour, plus extra for kneading
Kosher salt

Place three cups of flour in the mixture first, and then pour in the remaining cup in slowly. I found that I didn't need to use most of the fourth cup. The crust should remain smooth.