Thanksgiving

I can't wait.
What is everyone cooking?

so far:
french onion dip (requested by clyde)
cookies (chocolate chip, coconut, oatmeal)
stuffed mushrooms (haven't found recipe yet)
Macaroni and 4 cheese from ellie kreiger
potatoes rojo
eggrolls in filo dough we had last year (requested by rubbo)
mashed potatoes and cauliflower-maybe garlic and parmeasean
bring on the bread: regular loaf, a pumpkin loaf
last year I made a braided bread, I don't know about this year, maybe yeast rolls or something
pumpkin pie
broccoli and cheese casserole
whole cranberries (requested by clyde)
some kind of tofu clyde wants-but how to cook. tofurky is out of the question.

IDEAS???

baked pasta, better than normal

both boys liked it a lot
so you know its good

Baked pasta (yes, there are a lot of steps)
make sauce and tofu at same time with noodles while cutting up vegetables to steam. good luck.

Sauce
same sauce thats on here a hundred times. but this time I mixed it with a white sauce. here are both:
red:
2 cans chopped tomatoes magic bulletted
1/2 onion
3 cloves garlic
a bunch of basil from back yard, or just shake some in
salt and pepper
a sprig of rosemary from the back yard
1 teaspoon of sugar
a few shakes of parsley
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes

saute onion
add tomatoes and everything else
simmer until tasty

white sauce:
2 tablespoons butter
4 teaspoons all purpose flour
1 and 1/4 cup milk (I used rice milk, which takes longer to thicken and tastes sweeter in the end, your milk is up to you)
salt, pepper, 1 clover of garlic
melt butter (Med low heat)
put in flour and stir whole time, about 3 min
pour in milk, turn heat up to med high and stir
it will start to boil
keep stirring
add garlic and salt and pepper
keep stirring (seems like it should be getting thick by now...I get impatient, clyde comes and stirs for me, because I cannot wait. It takes a while)
should be getting thicker
Keep stirring
thick. taste it occasionally. I quit when its good

Tofu:
Clyde thinks the tofu in this dish wasn't suited. So its a work in progress. Its the same tofu I always make. Suggestions?

Then I cut up a pretty good amount of mushrooms, a lot of broccoli and cauliflower.
you want a lot
you can add squash, or eggplant. you know, whatever.
I put it in the strainer and put it over my boiling pasta water (I used penne for this dish) while boiling my pasta until its kind of soft.
giada puts her vegetables in a 450 degree oven with olive oil and roasts 15 minutes. I have done this and its good, but you know, time consuming.

Combine sauce, noodles (I used a whole box), vegetables, and about 1 cup of mozzarella cheese, and the not-fitting tofu. mix and put into a casserole dish. I put small chunks of butter spaced out on top and a layer of parmeasean on top.
bake in a 450 degree oven for 25 minutes.

french onion dip

I found this recipe and tried it. and it really tastes like French onion dip. But better than store bought. and its easy, too.

French onion dip:
1 med onion-cut into slices, not too big, not too skinny
1 tablespoon oil
1 tablespoon vinegar, I used red wine
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
1/2 teaspoon soy sauce
1/2 teaspoon thyme
12 oz sour cream- I don't know about this, I just put about 3 spoon fulls in and stirred it around until it looked right

So preheat the oven to 450 degrees
put onions in small casserole dish with oil, vinegar, salt, and pepper, cook about 20 minutes
let onions cool and cut them into pieces.
add rest of ingredients.

chowder

tonight was chowder. I haven't been making anything but repeats this last week. It was like a best of.
Veg. chowder

Ingredients:
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup flour
bulk of veggies- I like carrots, potatoes, squash, corn, white beans, broccoli, cauliflower
2 cloves of garlic
1 and 1/2 cup milk
1 and 1/2 cup water or broth
1 teaspoon basil
1/4 teaspoon dill
1/4 teaspoon thyme
salt and pepper

Melt butter in sauce pan
Stir in flour
stir in garlic-30 seconds
Add veggies (not beans yet), milk, and water/broth
add spices
simmer until potatoes are done
add beans before its almost done

Potatoes Rojo

mmmmm
This is really one of our favorites. Tonight I discovered a trick too.

Potatoes Rojo
Ingrediants:

A mixture of 2 pounds of potatoes and carrots ( I use sweet and regular, but I use the purple sweet kind that is grown here, I don't know about yam kind) cut into 8ths (meaning I cut the potatoes in half. The halves in half. and then those halves in half.
cut carrots in to half too lenghtways and midways.
The veggies should be the same size

For sauce:
6 tablespoons of butter
3 tablespoons of oil
3 cloves of garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup of basil leaves
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme
1 and 1/2 teaspoon paprika
dash cayenne
1/4 teaspoon pepper

Melt butter and oil. Add spices. Cook briefly. Pour over potatoes in a casserole dish.

Cook on 375 until done (takes about 40 minutes, sometimes less, depending on size of potatoes) open every 15 minutes to baste potatoes in sauce.

Breadsticks

Well I tried Minestrone and breadsticks.
Only the breadsticks are worth commenting on.
I guess I wasn't trying them. We eat these all of the time.

Breadstick Ingredients:

1 and 1/4 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons of sugar
1 and 1/2 cup baking powder
1/2 teaspoon of salt
2/3 cup milk (rice works fine)

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl.
Stir in milk.
This dough is very wet at this point, so put it on a surface and kneed in a lot more flour, until you can work with it.
Roll it out (might still need to add flour) I find a little thick is better. Skinny ones get really crisp quick
cut into breadstick shapes and put on baking sheet.

Topping:
I like to mix 2 tablespoons of softened butter with
2 cloves of garlic chopped and
1 or so tablespoons of Parmesan cheese (fine, I just pour it in)
I mix this inside my magic bullet and make a spread that I put on top of the sticks.

They go into a 450 degrees oven for about 10-15 minutes depending on thickness, check the bottoms

Lasagna rolls

First the sauce
Ingrediants:
2 cans pureed chopped tomatoes
2 cloves chopped garlic
1/2 onion
1 teaspoon sugar
salt and pepper
about 10 leaves of basil
1 teaspoon dried parsley
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon

Saute onion until clear. Add tomatoes and spices and let sit with top on for at least 1/2 hour.

Next the tofu:
Take firm/ extra firm tofu, drain in sink.
I find that cutting into strips helps when pressing, and the less water in the tofu in this dish the better.
To Press: take baking pan, put big clyde shirt in it, lay strips of tofu down, lay bottom half of clyde shirt over it, put another baking pan on top, and add weight.
About 1/2 hour later take tofu out, and mash with hands until tofu is consistency of ricotta cheese.
Add 1 teaspoon of garlic powder, salt, pepper, and about 1/2 cup of tomato sauce.
Set aside until its time to put it together.

Its up to you for filling. This time I steamed Broccoli and Mushrooms over my pasta water. but all veggies are good in this. The more the better.

Cook 8 lasagna noodles until done, they will not cook longer in the over.

Assembly and Ingredients of Lasagna rolls

8 cooked lasagna noodles cut in half
Tofu filling Mixed with cooked (or raw) veggies, and 1/2 cup of mozzarella cheese (or more if your like rubbo)
The rest of your sauce.
1/2 cup of mozzarella and 1/2 cup of Parmesan for top
Take casserole dish and pour about 1/2 cup of sauce on the bottom, so sauce is covering the bottom.
Take half noodle, put filling on one side, wrap the other side around so you have a tube. Finish filling up the noodles and line up the pan as tightly as possible. I just put extra filling right on top.
Put the rest of the sauce on the top
put the Mozzarella and Parmesan cheeses on top
bake at 350 degrees for about 30 minutes until that parm is golden