It all started the weekend before Thanksgiving when Jonathan was in town. He was here for a work training deal and stayed over the extra weekend to hang out with us. Fantastic. A new person to cook for! I was in the mood to cook scallops again after the great Charleston scallop sucess. But most of the recipes I found were of the same variety. But then Epicurious saved the day with this fantastic Nantucket Scallop Chowder recipe. It's like clam chowder, but with scallops and bacon. So, yeah, it's delicious. (Cook's note, I added corn, and next time I'll use my immersion blender and add in some more potatoes that have been all creamed together to add a little more of that chowder thickness... but it was still amazing.)
The finished product with some lovely paprika and bacon all over it
The best part of that meal, though, was the appetizer. I've made quite a few caprese salads in my day. My roommate in college, Elissa, taught me the beauty and deliciousness of them in college and I've loved them ever since. What's not to love about tomatoes, mozzarella and basil? But this caprese was the absolute best caprese I have ever had in my life. Everything was perfect. Heirloom tomatoes (on sale at Whole Foods), buffalo mozzarella, and Thai basil (a little spicier than regular basil). Mmmmmm mmmmm mmmmm. I could probably eat this every day. And the heirloom tomatoes looked really cool too with their scalloped edges and such.
And what's the fun in having heirlooms if they aren't different colors? Bring on the yellow tomatoes!
The next couple dinners that week were just fun, easy dinners. I knew I'd have more cooking than even I would want to do on Thanksgiving, so I took a bit of a break.
Here's one of my favorite things, breakfast for dinner!
And here's a great chicken corn salad that's one of my go-tos whenever I see boston lettuce in the store. It's based off this recipe, though it's been modified a bit over time.
And last, but not least, was the turkey tortilla soup that I was forced into post-Thanksgiving. So, as you know, I didn't roast a huge turkey for thanksgiving. I did this Turkey Osso Bucco recipe instead. It turned out wonderfully. But I way overbought on the turkey parts. We just used the turkey breast pieces I'd gotten, and so I had these two gigantic turkey legs left over that I didn't know what to do with. (Those large dinosaur legs in the boiling pot of water in the Thanksgiving post.) So after some thought and worry, because I didn't want them to go to waste, we finally hit on a spin off chicken tortilla soup, just with turkey. I boiled those legs for almost an hour, forgetting that this was not the most efficient or effective way to deal with really large pieces of meat. But they finally got cooked, and they were shredded into a lot of spices and goodness and topped with tortilla chips. It worked out. But I'll try and not recreate that next year...
Phew! That's all of them! Have a great week! And for all you west-coasters out there, just know that we had the first legitimate snowfall of the year over here! So it's awesome for now, but I'll soon be rather jealous of you all. :-)
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