Thanksgiving 2011 II: Turkey Pot Pie from Leftovers

The reason I enjoy hosting Thanksgiving is that I love to cook.   But as much as I love preparing the staples for the annual feast day, I love even more repurposing the leftovers into something completely different from its original turkey day incarnation.  And this year I got big mileage out of my 18 pound turkey as my guest list dwindled from the expected fourteen down to just nine people, two of whom are barely 13 years old and not big eaters.  The best way to illustrate the meal and leftovers is with a PowerPoint slide actually:

 Thanksgiving Redux: How one meal was reinvented into six different incarnations (click to enlarge)

We always have a ton of vegetables at our table so soups, pot pie, shepherd's pie, etc. are a natural progression from the Thanksgiving meal.  Because I cut the backbone out of my turkey I had the back plus the neck to make turkey stock for the gravy.  There was so much stock, however, that Mom didn't use it all for the gravy, and I didn't even have to use any turkey bones to make the vegetable soup the next day.  In fact it's Sunday now, and I've just cleaned the carcass enough to make stock that I will freeze in ice cube trays for future use in soups and sauces that call for chicken stock.

From the diagram it's clear that the turkey pot pie was the catch all for the most ingredients and that the turkey itself was used in the most dishes.  No surprise there at all.  For some reason, it didn't occur to me to put any cut up turkey into the vegetable soup, probably my body telling me to keep things as light as possible the day after the big day.  I have to say though that as the primary cook, I had no time for breakfast as I was so busy from the moment I got up, so calorie wise I probably ate less on Thanksgiving than usual, even with pie and ice cream for dessert.  Certainly I was nibbling and tasting in the kitchen, but my other T-Day strategy was to fill my plate with vegetables on the first go round and then go back for turkey and stuffing and gravy.  Then we always take a walk after dinner and before dessert.

Missing from the menu side of the list are steamed broccoli (my aunt's must have vegetable), apple pie, and black pepper ice cream.  I gave my sister the vegan all of the broccoli to take home, but I wish I'd made it into a pureed soup of broccoli and potatoes.  That would have been so easy to have simply made in the blender and would have used the potato gratin that had been made with cream and spread the calories into a healthy soup.

My other imperative post Thanksgiving is to eat down the fridge as much as possible.  Leading up to the big day my fridge was packed with ingredients, then with leftovers.  I'm loathe to throw food away so even the meatballs my aunt insisted on making will probably be made into minestra mariata.  My freezer was quite packed to begin with, so some of the dishes, like the gumbo used a quart of creole sauce I'd made and frozen at summer's end, and the chilaquiles will be made from frozen homemade tortillas that didn't turn out so successfully.  I'm also going to use some fresh black beans that have been waiting patiently to be cooked.  The gumbo and chilaquiles are a good reminder that the leftover reincarnation should be something so dissimilar from the original dishes that the meal in no way feels like leftovers at all.

I've blogged on other occasions about chilaquiles and gumbo, so today I'll give the breakdown on my pot pie.  It works on many levels, one of which was preparing it in the same casserole dish that I'd used for the potato gratin, meaning I didn't even have to wash nor dirty another baking dish!  I'd also used frozen pie pastry from earlier in the year with the chocolate pecan pie.  There was a smidge leftover that was just right for topping the pot pie.  Since this dish is made of leftovers and who knows what you may have on hand, the instructions are more about the assembly and don't really contain precise measurements for some ingredients.  Everything is already cooked basically, so just taste your combination and adjust the seasonings as necessary.

Turkey Pot Pie

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  In a large mixing bowl combine
leftover veggies from Thanksgiving,
cut into similarly sized pieces if necessary (i.e. green beans should be cut to about an inch to fit on a  fork.  Large pieces of squash or fennel should also be fork sized.  I used carrots, brussel sprouts, radishes, turnips, sweet potatoes, fennel, green beans, mushrooms, scalloped potatoes, etc.)
a cup or two of cubed leftover turkey and
enough leftover gravy to moisten the mixture
(you may have to heat the gravy to loosen it enough to mix with the veggies).  Season to taste with
salt and pepper and
a couple tablespoons of chopped fresh herbs such as parsley, thyme, sage, etc (optional)
Pour the mixture into an appropriately sized casserole or baking dish so that the veggies almost reach the top rim.  Roll out a
portion of pie dough*
to cover the casserole.  The rolled out dough needn't completely cover the vegetable contents.  Bake your casserole in the oven for 45 minutes, checking at 30 minutes and rotating to ensure even browning.  When the gravy is bubbling and the top is nicely browned (whether using pie crust or mashed potatoes), your pie is ready.  Let cool slightly for maybe 10 minutes then dig in!

In lieu of the pie dough you could also make a shepherd's pie using  leftover mashed potatoes.  Warm slightly in the microwave to loosen the potatoes then top the vegetable and turkey mixture with a spread of mashers and dot with small pieces of butter.

Ina Garten's Chocolate Cupcakes with Chocolate Hazelnut Buttercream

The other day I offered to bring cupcakes to work for a co-worker's last day celebration. Volunteering for this duty turned out to be fortuitous on many levels as I'll explain below, but let me tell you that these bad boys turned out to be a frabjous (word of the day on my Droid dictionary app) treat enjoyed by all. Moist and chocolatey, they're a great thing in a small package, somewhere smack in the middle of cake-like and fudge-like, which is a description so often used to describe brownies. They're moist AND light without being dense. In fact, because the chocolate in this recipe comes from Hershey's syrup and uses only one cup of flour, the batter was much thinner than I expected,* but they came together just fine.

The cupcake trend--shops galore, cupcakes in lieu of wedding cakes, etc.--has more than worn out its welcome in my book. But because I get so tired of being subjected to the many store bought items that come into the office, and because the person leaving was someone I'd worked with closely over the last few months, I wanted to make the gift a bit more personal, and so I volunteered.

Mind you I was more than a bit tired perusing my cupcake repertoire after dinner the other night because I'd been out to the Washington Nationals' penultimate home game the night before in which they beat the Phillies the day after the Phillies beat the Nats to clinch the NL East title. I only had enough mojo to settle on a cupcake recipe of Ina's though I did not intend to make the chocolate ganache frosting (video here) she recommended to go along with them and couldn't even make her peanut butter frosting as we were out of peanut butter! Since my partner Brian warned me (correctly) that tahini might not be a good substitution for the peanut butter in this instance, I had to find an alternative that was quick and easy and wouldn't use an excess of butter since most of mine was frozen. I was too tired to find a frosting recipe to go with but resolved to find something on the web that would use chocolate hazelnut spread, i.e. Nutella, and went to bed, planning to get up at 5:00 the next morning to start baking. (Personally, I've always done better getting up early rather than staying up late when I need extra hours to get something done.)

Very often when I offer to bring something to share it's because I've a benign ulterior motive to make use of something at home that I have in excess or that I want to use before I forget about it and it ends up at the back of the cupboard, expiration date long since overdue! I went a bit crazy at Chocolate World at Hershey Park over the summer and hadn't used any of the special dark cocoa powder I'd purchased, not to mention the cinnamon chips! But the clincher for me was that this particular cupcake recipe uses neither cocoa nor melted chocolate but rather chocolate syrup, Hershey's recommended.

As it happened, I'd also purchased Hershey's special dark syrup and was dismayed upon first using it and looking at the ingredient list that it's sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. "Corn sugar" is not something we consume unless it comes with the corn itself, so I was more than happy to use up almost all of this chocolate syrup to make cupcakes for my co-workers. I'd never seen this particular type of chocolate syrup anywhere before which made me buy it, and according to some of the reviews on Amazon, it's apparently hard to find and somewhat expensive (I think I paid $3-$4 for 22 ounces). Even Wal-Mart won't tell you what the price is unless you're willing to go to one of their stores with the UPC in hand!

Reading some of the reviews, I wonder now if it was this special dark syrup that made the cupcakes so delicious. One person said of this syrup that it's "chocolate syrup for adults. It is not overly sweet, with a rich chocolate taste, but not bitter as you usually imagine dark chocolate to be." That is exactly how my cupcakes tasted. So I was definitely pleased that I was able to use up nearly all of this special dark syrup and I'm sure it made better cupcakes than the canned version of the syrup recommended by Ms. Ina.

Deciding to use the chocolate syrup and to make Nutella frosting were based on a similar line of thinking on my part of wanting to "eat down the fridge" as it were. I've always loved Nutella, especially after a trip we took to the Netherlands a few years back for a bike trip and learned to appreciate how the Dutch and other Europeans use it to spread on bread and bananas for breakfast and snacking just as we Amerians do with peanut butter. But the chocolate hazelnuttiness of it all just makes it seem so much more sophisticated! Still, I have been known to let it languish on the shelf and one time had to throw a jar away as it smelled and tasted way off. I think people let items in the pantry, fridge, and spice rack accumulate for fear that when something is needed it might mean a trip to the store. This "bird in the hand" mentality--which I first heard from my grandmother I'm sure--leads to holding onto things rather than letting them go so new things can come into your now opened hands. Besides, I know that I have a well stocked pantry/fridge/spice rack so I'm just not afraid of making substitutions.

In looking for the Nutella frosting recipe I found a website dedicated to this foodstuff that had numerous recipes in honor of World Nutella Day on February 5th each year. Who knew of this annual commemoration and didn't tell me? I've already marked my calendar though! I found one frosting recipe that only used 5 tablespoons of butter, a cup of Nutella, and a cup of confectioners sugar, as opposed to other recipes that used more sugar and butter. However, it also called for cream which I didn't have. Thanks to the internet, I learned that cream can be substituted in a recipe by using butter (I ended up using the whole stick) and whole milk. Voila!

As it happened, a friend gave us another brand of chocolate hazelnut spread that requires refrigeration so I was all too happy to use up all of the Nutella on hand plus more than half the jar of the other spread, which means I'm nearly ready to buy new when I see it on sale or I see another brand that I might like to try. So, here is my take on one of the many Barefoot Contessa cupcake recipes with Nutella frosting on top just for fun.

Chocolate cupcake by way of Hershey Park and Nutella.

Chocolate Cupcakes Made with Hershey's Special Dark Syrup

Adapted from the Ina Garten's recipe found on the Food Network

Makes 12 [my recipe produced 16 cupcakes actually*]

Ingredients
1/4 pound unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 cup sugar
4 extra-large eggs, at room temperature
11 fluid ounces chocolate syrup (recommended: Hershey's)
1 tablespoon pure vanilla extract
1 cup all-purpose flour

Directions

• Line muffin pans with paper liners. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.
  
• Cream the butter and sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment until light and fluffy. Add the eggs, 1 at a time. Mix in the chocolate syrup and vanilla. Add the flour and mix until just combined. Don't overbeat, or the cupcakes will be tough.
  
• Scoop the batter into the muffin cups and bake for 30 minutes, or until just set in the middle. Don't overbake! Let the cupcakes cool thoroughly in the pan.

Nutella Frosting
Courtesy The Unrepentant Carbivore for World Nutella Day
Makes more than enough for 16 cupcakes

Ingredients
1 cup confectioners' sugar
1 cup Nutella
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature [I used a whole stick...]
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt
1/3 cup heavy cream [...and used 2 tablespoons whole milk instead of the cream]

Place the confectioners' sugar, Nutella, butter, vanilla, and salt in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with a paddle attachment. Mix on medium-low speed until creamy, scraping down the bowl with a rubber spatula as you work. Add the cream and beat on high speed until the mixture is light and smooth.

* Egads! The cooking time to bring this chocolatey magic together was 15 minutes longer for me than the recommended time. But that's because I printed this recipe in 2006(yes that means I'd banked this recipe for four years!), and my printout says 16 ounces of chocolate syrup. However, on the FN website today 11 ounces of syrup is in the recipe. No wonder my batter was so fluid and I got four additional cupcakes out of the recipe! I even had to increase the oven temperature for the last 15 minutes and was going to therefore recommend 350 degrees for the duration rather than 325. However, with less syrup in the batter, the cupcake batter won't be so wet and might finish baking in 30 minutes. Still, no one complained about the results, which were more than worth the time and effort.

Absolutely the Last Gasp of Summer: Alexandra's Tomato Galette

It's completely inappropriate to blog about a tomato and corn recipe in November. I know. However, if you're a huge summer tomato fan and a lover of fresh corn--as I am as a proud New Jersey native--you love both of these foods and you seek to celebrate them, especially when they get together, as in this wonderful end of summer soup. But when I discover a recipe this good (even in the fall when even the farmers market purveyors will tell you that the corn and tomatoes are past their prime), I have to blog!

So what can I say? I'll start by saying, "Mea culpa," and then offer profuse apologies for recommending a recipe that you really shouldn't make until next July. Second, this is late because I'm backed up in my blog postings by about three weeks (you should see all my draft posts awaiting publication!). And third, I can truthfully claim that I made this recipe from ingredients bought at my local farmers market in mid October, thus allowing me to adhere to my locavore orthodoxy.

As mentioned in my previous blog posting, I have a few new favorite blogs, among them Alexandra's Kitchen, which was mentioned in the Bitten column as (drum rolls please) "The First Featured Reader Blog." I clicked on over and was seduced by the beautiful photography and immediately wanted to make the quiche (and homemade creme fraiche) but then I realized I had on hand the corn and tomatoes to use and settled on the tomato galette with cornmeal pastry while my creme yogurt-ized itself into creme fraiche. Of course then I saw a link to the artisan bread and I thought, "Thank God it's the weekend otherwise I'd have to lose sleep to get through all these recipes that are on her first page alone!"

So Friday night a couple weeks ago was devoted to making the galette and the bread dough, which worked out fine really. Once I'd made the corn meal pastry, I switched to the bread dough while the pastry rested, and then let the bread dough do its rise while I went about sauteing the onions and corn for the galette. By the time the galette came out of the oven, the dough had completed its rise and was placed in the fridge to rest until baking the next morning. (Incidentally, you know you're more than slightly food-obsessed when you're glad to have no plans on a Friday night so that you can have an intimate evening at home with both pastry and bread dough.)

Since I'd a mind to make the quiche that Sunday, I doubled the corn meal pastry dough rather than make dough from scratch twice in the same weekend. (Unless I have dough in the freezer I usually double any pastry recipe to save time when I next want to bake something that needs a crust.) The recommended quiche pastry does not have corn meal in it all, but I had every confidence that the galette recipe would be perfectly fine for both preparations since I love corn meal biscuits and cobblers and such. Turns out my corn meal had some critters growing in it, so I had to throw it out. I don't blame the producer at all just because I haven't been making enough polenta and corn bread lately. My fault entirely! But fortunately I had some masa harina which I used in the same proportion and it provided the same corn flavor. The dough seemed a bit wet, but once it rested for an hour (or more actually as I was multitasking away), it rolled out beautifully.
I almost wasn't going to reproduce the recipe here and just direct you to Alexandra's recipe. Her writing is witty and her photos are amazing. But I feared my gentle readers might abandon me for greener pastures. So you may click over to her space if you promise to click back. (Just kidding.) So here is a recipe that I would ask you to make next summer if you can wait! It really is so delicious with heirloom tomatoes, corn, and the corn meal crust that you'll be glad you decided to wait. I promise!

Tomato and Corn Galette
Adapted from Alexandra Stafford's adaptation from Fine Cooking, August 2000

Heirloom tomato slices in place atop the corn, onion, and basil mixture

• 1-1/4 cups (5 oz.) all-purpose flour
• 1/3 cup (1-1/2 oz.) fine yellow cornmeal [I used masa harina]
• 1 tsp. sugar
• 1-1/4 tsp. salt
• 6 T. (3 oz.) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and chilled
• 3 T. olive oil
• 1/4 cup ice water

In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, cornmeal, sugar, and salt. Cut in the chilled butter using a stand mixer, a food processor, or a pastry blender until it’s evenly distributed but still in large, visible pieces. Add the olive oil and ice water and mix until the dough begins to come together. Gather the dough with your hands and shape it into a disk. Wrap the disk in plastic and refrigerate for at least 1 hour.

• 2 Tbs. olive oil
• 1 large white onion, thinly sliced
• Salt and freshly ground black pepper
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped finely
• 1/2 bunch basil or tarragon, washed, dried, and coarsely chopped, (to yield about 1/2 cup); plus 10 whole leaves
• Kernels from 1 ear of corn (about 1 cup)
• 1 recipe Cornmeal Galette Dough (see above)
• 1 large or 2 medium ripe tomatoes (about 3/4 lb. total) cut into 1/3-inch slices, drained on paper towels
• 3 oz. Comté or Gruyère cheese, shredded [I used manchego actually and I'd be hard pressed to think of a cheese that wouldn't work well here.]
• 1 large egg yolk mixed with 1 tsp. milk or cream

1. Heat the olive oil in a sauté pan, preferably nonstick, over medium heat. Add the sliced onion and cook, stirring frequently, until lightly browned, about 10 min. Season with salt and pepper. Add the garlic, chopped basil, and corn and cook for 30 seconds. Transfer the mixture to a bowl and set aside to cool.
2. Adjust an oven rack to the center position and heat the oven to 375°F. Line a baking sheet, preferably one without sides, with kitchen parchment. (If your baking sheet has sides, flip it over and use the back.)
3. Roll the dough on a floured surface into a 15-inch round, lifting the dough with a metal spatula as you roll to make sure it’s not sticking. If it is, dust the surface with more flour. Transfer it by rolling it around the rolling pin and unrolling it on the lined baking sheet.
4. Spread the onion and corn mixture over the dough, leaving a 2-inch border without filling. Arrange the tomatoes in a single layer over the onions and season them with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the cheese over the tomatoes. [Here's where Alexandra's pictures don't match the recipe instructions as her beautiful heirloom tomatoes are clearly visible in the finished product. I followed her written directions and topped the tomatoes with the cheese.] Lift the edges of the dough and fold them inward over the filling, pleating as you go, to form a folded-over border. Pinch together any tears in the dough. Brush the egg yolk and milk mixture over the exposed crust.
5. Bake until the crust has browned and the cheese has melted, 35 to 45 min. Slide the galette off the parchment and onto a cooling rack. Let cool for 10 min. Stack the remaining 10 basil leaves and use a sharp knife to cut them into a chiffonade. Cut the galette into wedges, sprinkle with the basil, and serve.

Happy 4th of July: Rose Levy Beranbaum's Hamburger Buns

I confess I am a frustrated bread maker with aspirations of greatness (delusions of grandeur?). With my usual kitchen confidence, I've tried to approach the making of yeast breads just as I do other kitchen endeavors: If I see someone else make homemade pasta, pie crust, or focaccia, I'm thinking, "If he/she can do it, so can I!" And yet with the yeast breads I haven't practiced enough to the point that when I start out to make pizza or something, I approach it with the confidence that comes with experience. That sort of realization that comes with, "Well, maybe I've never made borscht before, but I've cooked soup so many times, how hard can it be?"

Sure, I've made pizza with dough from scratch--both in the oven and on the grill--and I've generally been pleased with the result, but I want to become a confident bread maker, thank you very much! I so admired a friend I met while teaching English in Japan who grew up on a farm and even in her tiny Japanese kitchen regularly baked her own bread in a countertop oven. That's the kind of confidence that comes when you're at someone else's house and you move into the kitchen to "whip something up" and you amaze friends and family with your proficiency. That may sound like a high bar, but preparing food is all about sharing with friends and family (not that one shouldn't treat oneself with the same high regard as one would treat a guest) and nothing shows the love more than taking the time and effort to make something for friends that you know they'll love.

Three things occurred about two years apart that put me back on the path to moving from breadmaking apprentice to journeyman. Prior to Memorial Day in 2007, there were the usual articles about making hamburgers in the Washington Post food section and included was an article by Rose Levy Beranbaum on making hamburger buns from scratch. At the time, I scoffed at the notion! Even if you don't want to buy the wonder bread white hamburger rolls that we all grew up with, nowadays there is such an assortment of whole wheat, potato and other rolls, why bother making them from scratch?

I had fallen into the typical line of thinking held by those who are outside another's zone of passion. As anyone who pursues a hobby knows, there will always be detractors questioning the value of the effort versus the value of the result. Needlepoint may be the last hobby on earth I'd choose to pursue, but I hope we can all admire a beautifully crafted endeavor by someone else even if it's not something we would pursue ourselves. Nigella Lawson has the best refutation for such detractions you might encounter: if the process of doing something gives one pleasure, that is reason enough to do it. And because breadmaking is so tactile and of course the aroma of bread in the oven will lift anyone's mood, what could be more pleasurable?

Fast forward to Memorial Day 2009 when we were staying with our friends at Rehoboth Beach, Delaware and planned to barbecue turkey burgers one night. My friend John is the master bread baker. In fact his partner Colin has long since forgotten what a sandwich on store bought bread tastes like because they always have a bun in the oven (or in the freezer). He has a KitchenAid mac daddy stand mixer at both of his homes and makes bread as easily as other people make a bowl of cereal. Naturally there would be no store bought hamburger buns that night! And as with watching the cooking shows and thinking I can do anything just as well as any of them, the spark went off and I knew I'd be making homemade hamburger rolls myself this summer. Plus I know he swears by Ms. Beranbaum having adopted her breadmaking technique from The Bread Bible, which differs quite a bit from the simpler technique published in the paper. Having successfully pulled off these delicious buns, I know that store bought buns are just not in my future anymore.

And finally, the New York Times had its July 4th food article breaking down the elements of the perfect burger to its three primary components: the burger, the bun, and the condiments. Their conclusion about the best hamburger bun was that a brioche bun was best. Their recipe for the brioche bun called for bread flour whereas Ms. Berenbaum's uses the ubiquitous all-purpose flour. I've no doubt though that I'll be returning to the brioche recipe sometime soon.

Rose Levy Beranbaum's Best Buns
adapted from the Washington Post, May 23, 2007

There's little that I can add to Ms. Beranbaum's instructions since I'm rather a bread novice. I love how she gives such detailed and descriptive instructions. I can say that I consulted other bread recipes to see what proportion of flour would be used if I used an envelope of yeast--which is what I had on hand--instead of the instant rapid rise yeast she recommends. Some day when I really get into making the yeast breads, I may start buying different kinds of yeasts that I might measure with the spoons, but for now it's an envelope at a time.

Makes 8 hamburger buns but also makes a mean turkey sandwich as well!

Ingredients:

• 3 cups plus 2 tablespoons flour, plus more as necessary


• 1/4 cup whole-wheat flour


• 1 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast, such as rapid-rise or bread machine yeast [I used one envelope which is equivalent to 2 1/2 teaspoons, which John says is the typical amount used for most bread recipes]
  


• 1 1/2 teaspoons fine sea salt


• 1 1/3 cups room-temperature water


• 1 teaspoon mild honey, such as clover [I used maple syrup]
  


• 1/4 cup olive oil


• 3/4 cup toasted mixed seeds, such as cracked flax, sesame, poppy, sunflower and pumpkin (optional, and I didn't use)
  


• Milk or water, for brushing the tops of the buns (optional, I used half and half)


• 1 tablespoon sesame seeds for the topping (optional, but I used)
  

Directions:

In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, whole-wheat flour and yeast, then the salt. Add the water, honey and oil. Using a mixer with a dough hook on medium speed, or by hand, knead the dough for 7 minutes (10 minutes by hand) until smooth and springy. The dough should be soft and just sticky enough to cling slightly to your fingers. If it is still very sticky, knead in a little flour [I kept checking mine and added about 1/4 cup additional whole wheat flour in three or four increments]. If it is too stiff, spray it with a little water and knead it. Allow the dough to rest, covered, for 20 minutes and then knead in the seeds, if desired.

Set the dough in a large, lightly oiled bowl and lightly spray or oil the top of the dough. Cover tightly with plastic wrap and set in a warm spot. Allow the dough to rise for about 1 hour or until it has doubled. (The indentation from a finger stuck into the center of the dough should remain.)

If you plan to bake the hamburger buns the next day, press down the dough and place it in a large, oiled resealable plastic food storage bag, leaving a tiny bit unzipped for the forming gas to escape, and refrigerate it. Take it out of the refrigerator about 1 hour before shaping.

When ready to shape the dough, set it on a very lightly floured work surface and form it into a log. With a sharp knife, divide it into 8 equal pieces. (If you prefer very large buns, you can divide the dough into 6 equal pieces.) Shape each piece into a ball by cupping your hand over the dough and rotating it. It works best if you use only as much flour as you need to keep the dough from sticking. A little resistance helps to form a round ball. Keep the balls of dough covered with damp paper towels to prevent drying; allow them to rest for 5 minutes.

Transfer the dough balls to a parchment-lined baking sheet or inverted sheet pan, leaving enough space between them to allow for a 4-inch bun. Flatten the balls to a height of about 1 inch. (If the dough is very elastic, you can flatten them again after 15 minutes of rising.) If using the sesame seeds, brush the dough lightly with milk or water and sprinkle with the seeds. Cover the balls with a large inverted plastic box or with plastic wrap lightly coated with baking spray, and allow them to rise for 1 to 1 1/2 hours, or until almost doubled; when the dough is pressed gently with a finger, the depression should very slowly fill in.

While the dough is rising, set the oven rack toward the bottom of the oven and place a baking stone or baking sheet on it. Set a cast-iron skillet or heavy baking pan on the floor of the oven or on the lowest shelf. Preheat the oven to 425 degrees for 45 minutes or longer.

Mist the dough with water, quickly but gently set the baking sheet on the hot stone or hot baking sheet, and toss 1/2 cup of ice cubes into the pan beneath. Immediately shut the door and bake 15 minutes. Rotate the pan front to back and bake for 3 to 5 minutes or until the buns are golden brown and a skewer inserted in the middle comes out clean. (An instant-read thermometer inserted into the center will read 200 to 210 degrees.) Transfer the buns to wire racks until they are completely cool or barely warm.

TIP - Food Processor Method:
Refer to the instruction booklet for your model to determine the maximum amount of flour allowable. Chill the water. Place the whisked flour mixture in the work bowl fitted with the steel blade. With the motor on, add the cold water and oil. If the mixture doesn't come together after 10 seconds, scrape down the sides and scrape the dry part into the moist part.

After the mixture comes together, continue processing for 1 1/2 minutes until a smooth, elastic dough is formed. If it does not clean the bowl, pulse in a little extra flour. Transfer the dough to a counter and knead it for 10 seconds to equalize the temperature. If adding the optional seeds, allow the dough to rest for 20 minutes and proceed as above.

Chicken Chilaquiles: How to turn leftover chicken and tortilla chips into a Mexican casserole

For me half the fun of cooking is the clever re-invention of a dish into something totally different using leftovers. For this reason alone, though I'd been cooking half the box of pasta long before Mark Bittman said to, I've started cooking the whole pound knowing that with what's left over I can use other leftovers like chicken or vegetables to make soup or a frittata or a simple side or whatever. That's why it's particularly great to make something in the beginning of the week knowing you'll have enough left over to create another meal from something you've "prepped" in your own kitchen earlier in the week. This was the original premise of Quick Fix Meals with Robin Miller on the Food Network, though she's deviated from the original format these days.

In this vein, I confess that half the reason I volunteer to cook Thanksgiving dinner is that I know I'll get at least two meals out of that leftover turkey (chili, pot pies, shepherd's pie, turkey divan, etc.) before I even make the turkey soup from the bare bones of the carcass! And besides even though you think you'll never want to eat again after stuffing yourself at Thanksgiving, you and yours will need something to eat on Friday too! So get comfortable with making leftovers. Not every delicious meal has to be made from scratch, but the satisfaction of making a delicious meal from leftovers is a timesaver that every cook should embrace.

Which brings me to the purpose of this post: chilaquiles. The Italian dish panzanella, though it has been dressed up by all manners of chefs into something approaching high cuisine, was originally conceived as a way to use up stale bread. As the Italians don't want to waste their day old bread, Mexicans don't want to waste their day old tortillas. When the cook finds herself with leftover tortillas from the day before, it's time for chilaquiles. Unless you've recently made enchiladas, you probably won't have enough corn tortillas left over to make this dish, and when making a dish from leftovers, it should not be necessary to go the store for any additional ingredients. But I wouldn't use fresh tortillas to start with anyway because it requires an added step of frying the tortillas to make them crisp, which drags out the whole process and seems inherently messy and unappetizing. The really quick way to make this leftover dish is with your favorite brand of plain old tortilla chips, all the better if they're a bit old and stale and not suitable for dipping into guacamole. I searched my usual sources and discovered that chilaquiles can be made with eggs as a breakfast dish, which reminds me of another dish I learned to make--called migas--also from Mexico. It's another great way to use stale tortilla chips or the broken bits at the bottom of the bag by simply adding them to scrambled eggs. You won't need any salt and you won't believe how delicious this dish will taste. Thanks to Rosa Mexicano for that recipe and teaching me about the genius of la cocina Mexicana.

So consider making this dish when you have leftover chicken (or turkey or chili or pork roast, etc.), a nearly full bag of tortilla chips, some salsa, some sour cream, and some cheese (five ingredients). Done. Finito. Bastante! My recipe is closest to Rick Bayless's from Mexico One Plate at a Time, but uses the bag chips in lieu of the fresh tortillas. He uses salsa verde from tomatillos rather than using the typical tomato salsa. I happened to have some salsa verde frozen from the last time I made Rick's grilled chicken with salsa verde, which is a foundation sauce of Mexican cuisine and a great alternative to salsa roja. Here, Joy of Cooking style is this twenty minute meal.

Chilaquiles Verdes
Four Servings

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. In the bottom of a 3 quart casserole dish (9x13 is too big) spread
2 cups (3 ounces) of tortilla chips
Crush the chips somewhat so that the bottom of the dish is covered. Spread on top
1 cup (8 ounces) of leftover chicken, cubed
Spread
1 1/2 cups tomatillo salsa (or 1 1/2 cups tomato salsa)
over the chicken and dollop with
4 tablespoons of sour cream
Repeat layering one more time with all of the above ingredients. Top with
1/2 cup shredded cheese (cheddar, monterey jack, etc.)
Cover with aluminum foil and bake in center of oven for 15 minutes. Remove foil and broil for the last 5 minutes of cooking. Remove from oven and let cool slightly before serving. If desired, garnish with
chopped cilantro, chopped scallions, chopped jalapeno, or additional sour cream

Thanksgiving 2007: Peppery Ginger Cookies

It's the day before the biggest eating day in America! Are you as excited as I am at the prosepect? I'm excited, but admittedly a little less so this year. For the last two years I've had the pleasure of hosting Thanksgiving in my humble home. For the food obsessed, I'm sure you know that Thanksgiving is it! What with poring over recipes, planning the menu, shopping for just the right ingredients, and preparing foods that reflect fall's bounty, nothing compares! It's the best kind of stress for me really. I love to plan AND I love to cook. Watching the food shows; contemplating something new to merge with the old standbys that everyone demands, I mean, expects to have; and of course sharing it all with loved ones. Organizing it all in a spreadsheet to map out a timeline and show what to have for each course and what dish it will be served in, what could be more of a high for a ganbaru cook?

Just reviewing last year's spreadsheet, I see we had hors d'oeuvres of crackers with caramelized onion, tuna mousse, assorted pickles and cheeses, crudite with hummus, spiced nuts, and cauliflower soup. For the main event, brined turkey with fennel spice rub; collard greens with onion and adobo; butternut squash a scapece; yukon gold mashers with parsnips, celeriac, roasted garlic, and roasted scallions; herb cornbread stuffing with turkey bacon and fennel, buttermilk biscuits with parmesan cheese, cranberry chutney, and, of course, gravy! And let us not forget the desserts: peppery ginger cookies, honey lavender almond ice cream, and my sister's apple pie. Believe it or not this menu for seven was composed AFTER learning my lesson from the previous year when I cooked way too much for 16! But I think you get the picture! Yes indeed, I thrive on this stuff!

I set all that up to inform you that this year I won't be hosting as my family are all converging in Orlando. I can just hear your collective, "Awwww..." In fact as I write this from Washington, DC, everyone else is already in Florida (except my partner and me) enjoying the balmy weather and making their way to Sea World. Fortunately I prevailed upon them to wait until Friday for Disney World, which I hope none of us will regret as rain is in the forecast. But if it's a nice day, won't everyone in Orlando want to go to Disney World on that Friday? Are we mad? I guess we'll find out!

So the only thing I'll be preparing this year is the peppery ginger cookies, which are easy to transport AND my cousin loves them. She favors them because a) she loves anything with ginger, and b) unlike most ginger cookies that come out crisp, these are nice and chewy thanks to the brown sugar and molasses. Plus they've got a secret ingredient for a little added kick: a half teaspoon of freshly ground pepper (I wouldn't substitute pre-ground), which is in addition to both powdered and candied ginger. So I hope that as you make your way over the river and through the woods, your journey is safe and all is well with you and yours.

p.s. If you're dreading the obligatory trip home, hope your day doesn't end like Washington Post food blogger Kim O'Donnell's a few years back!

Peppery Ginger Cookies
Serving: Yields: 3 1/2 to 4 dozen cookies

1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter
1/4 cup molasses
1 teaspoon real vanilla extract
2 cups unbleached flour
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 tablespoon ground ginger
2 teaspoons cinnamon (freshly ground is transformative)
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg (freshly grated is best)
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper (YES!)
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 beaten egg
1/2 cup candied ginger (snipped into small pieces)
Turbinado (raw) sugar for rolling (adds flavor and sparkle)

Melt butter; stir in molasses and vanilla and let cool. In separate bowl, mix flour, sugar, baking soda, and all the spices and salt.

Add the beaten egg to the cooled butter mixture. Fold into the bowl with flour and spices and add the candied ginger. Cover and refrigerate at least 15 minutes to make the dough firm. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Put the raw sugar in a shallow dish. Using a cookie scoop, make balls of the dough, rolling in the raw sugar. Place on an ungreased baking sheet, 2 inches apart.

Bake for 10 minues until cookies are starting to brown on the bottom and the tops start to crack. Let cool on a rack for 5 minutes -- they will firm up a bit at this point.

Important: Do not overbake, or cookies will be brittle and bitter. These are wonderfully chewy, spicy, and addictive cookies.