We're about half way through all of the Thanksgiving left overs in our fridge. We've stuffed ourselves for the past couple days, overslept, and have been generally cooped-up in the house. The weather outside is cold and very wet - November is the rainiest month of the year in the Seattle area. I think we're all about ready to venture out of the house and brave the cold.
I can hear Fallon and Porter outside right now actually, running around with the neighbor kids (Jonathan and Krystal). Toni's at the end of the cul de sac with their mother. Undoubtedly they're anxiously catching up on the latest neighborhood news: Tent City 4 is due to come back to the neighborhood in Janaury for a winter's stay. Souris is down stairs nestled in a bunch of blankets on the living room couch.
We had a great Thanksgiving this year - probably our best so far. I decided to cook the meal in courses rather than try to time it all at once. The meal started with a baked French brie, stuffed with dried figs and walnuts, topped with dried blueberries and pumpkin seeds. Our neighbor, Carole, brought over a delicious blue crab dip to go with it.
The second course was a recipe that I've been making for a couple winters now. It's a spicy-sour chicken stock-based mushroom soup. Fallon absolutely loves mushrooms. She was in the kitchen with me "helping" me cook by sampling the musrhooms as I sauteed them in butter and a little dry sherry. Porter also loves the soup, but more for it's saltiness and sourness. He gobbled it down at the dinner table with lots of the usual mmm-mmm's that he makes when he gets something to eat that he really likes.
The main dish was cornish game hens. I think it was a full hour and half between this course and the previous - which was good because we were all pretty full after the soup and appetizers. The hens were baked at a really high temperature with lots of rosemary-thyme herb butter, fresh lemon juice, salt and pepper. Porter and Fallon were at the point of telling us every five minutes that they were hungry by the time the hens were served. Needless to say, their grumpiness quickly dissolved as their bellies filled.
We served the birds with a new dish (I like to try at least one new dish for Thanksgiving). This one was from Mario Batali's classic Malto Italiano cookbook. I needed a good starch to go with the meal and decided on polenta. I was able to find a really good polenta recipe in Mario's book for anchovy-stuffed polenta sandwhiches. They didn't turn out so well. Getting the polenta to dry out and have a consistency appropriate for making the sandwhich "ends" was a bit difficult. On my first attempt (I tried to make them again the day after Thanksgiving) the polenta was too liquidy and gooey, and the anchovy filling was a bit too fishy-tasting.
On the second attempt, I actually froze the polenta sandwhich ends, used a different brand of anchovy fillets and added chopped, brinded green olives to the filling. They were fantastic! After the kids and I ate our fill, I took one outside to Toni where she was raking up leaves from our little square of grass in our front yard. The crispiness of the olive oil-fried egg wash along with the slightly soft inside and salty anchovy filling made for a great wintery weather snack. Fallon, our little seal, loved the anchovy centers.
We also served baked yams that Carole also brought over with the hens. Porter sucked down a huge helping of them. Soon thereafter, he when to bed on his own and fell fast asleep. Fallon, stayed up with the adults for a bit and watched a little TV (Harry and Tonto, which was being shown on PBS).
Our last course, dessert, consisted of miniature chocolate brownies and a chocolate, bourbon pecan pie. Unfortunately, after settling down in front of the TV for a bit, none of us were really that motivated (nor did we have enough room) to eat dessert. So we agreed with Carole to meet up the day after, around lunchtime, to try out the last course (which we did...and it was very good).
Porter and Fallon were both very excited the day or so before Thanksgiving. Porter kept asking about when Carole would be over. We couldn't quite figure out why they were so excited. I guess they were just looking forward to a big family meal and having some company over for dinner.
Fallon said she was thankful for bunska (her stuffed bunny snuggly) and Porter said he was thankful for Jonathan, his neighborhood friend across the street. Speaking of, Porter has his first unofficial girlfriend, Krystal, Jonathan's sister. She's a year or so older than him. He told Toni that he was going to marry Krsytal. I think he also made her a small token of his affection and give it to her.
Fallon has taken to putting on lots of little "events" for us. She'll usually arrange a bit of ballet, some singing, and occasionally a pretend meal. For the past few days she's been demonstrating her new ballet moves (that she's making up on her own). This is almost certainly going to lead to some sort of ballet or gymnastics lessons at some point.
I'm very thankful for Toni and kids. I'm especially thankful for all the little changes that kids are going through as the get older and mature.