Holiday Stuffing

So Thanksgiving is long gone, and Christmas is still a month away. What better way to stay in the festive mood than to enjoy the delicious side dishes we all love more than the actual turkey? Technically this is dressing, since it's not cooked inside the body cavity of a large fowl. Either way, it's the best part of the meal and the easiest to play around with. I make it the way my mother has always made it (very English/Anglo/Canadian, I imagine) with a few changes.

Stuffing is basically bread, of course, which is probably why it's so comforting and delicious. I used white french bread this time, but I also like using whole wheat, or those fancy breads with pumpkin seeds. The night before, cut a large number of slices into cubes, place in a large bowl and cover generously with poultry seasoning. With delicious herbs like thyme, marjoram and sage, it's the quintessential Thanksgiving flavour. Leave it out on the counter overnight so the bread can dry out. For her stuffing, my mother buys tubes of ground pork. For mine, I usually go vegetarian, but this year I had bacon on hand so bacon it was!

I sliced 4 or 5 pieces of bacon and fried them in a large pan with one diced onion and two diced celery stalks for 6-7 minutes. Stir the veggies into the bread, and mix in whatever else you'd like. Usually seeds, nuts and fruit make a good mix. I used fresh cranberries, sunflower seeds and pecans. Place in a well-greased, large ceramic dish. Now, since this stuffing is not actually being stuffed into something, it needs some added moisture or it will just be toasted bread. Unlike my mother, I follow the classic food magazine recipes which call for chicken stock, but I don't add too much. I usually just pour it straight from the carton and do a couple turns around the dish, Rachael Ray-style.

My mother instead uses large spoonfuls of margarine on top. I do this too - just not as much, since I use stock as well. Any fruit you add will help add moisture too, like cranberries or sliced apple. Once you're done creating your masterpiece stuffing, place a cover on the dish and either microwave it or stick it in the oven. I used the oven, mostly because the dish was too large for the microwave. I baked it @350 for about 45 minutes, uncovering it for the last 15 minutes or so so it can get a little crispy on top. This is obviously meant to be a side dish but whether there is turkey or not, it's front and centre on my plate - a classic mix of soft and toasted bread, fried bacon, tart cranberries, crunchy nuts/seeds, and savoury vegetables. Why wait until it's a holiday to make stuffing? Perfect for any autumn meal, if you ask me!

Baked Eggs with Potato, Bacon & Tomato

I have a large collection of dinner recipes featuring eggs in tomato sauce. Hey, sometimes you have a dozen eggs in your fridge and you don't want frittata! I had tried Shakshuka already, so next up was a simple Baked Eggs with Potato, Bacon and Tomato recipe from the Sobeys flyer. Don't discount grocery store recipes, people, sometimes they are worth saving!

I had bought some soy pepperoni for a homemade pizza and had quite a few left, so first I sliced them and fried them up with olive oil. Good idea - they turned nice and crispy. Meanwhile, I microwaved four small white potatoes for about 2 minutes, then cut them into quarters. Another good idea - I didn't have to wait around for them to cook fully in the pan, which would have taken much longer. Throw the potatoes in the pan with some smoked paprika and let them get a little fried and crunchy, about 5 minutes.

Remove potatoes and pepperoni onto a plate, and put some more oil in the pan. Cook 1 diced onion for about 5 minutes, then stir in 1 can diced tomatoes, a couple of sliced peppers and a pinch of chili flakes. Simmer 15 minutes, or until most of the tomato liquid has evaporated. I also added some fresh rosemary since I had some in the fridge. I threw the potatoes and pepperoni back in, and then poured it all into a greased 9x13" pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper. Now the fun part - make some wells and break 8 eggs on top. Bake @375 22-25 minutes.

The smell of rosemary wafted out of the oven - yum! I filled a bowl with the potato, tomato and egg mixture and topped with diced avocado. Unlike the shakshuka, it wasn't liquidy, so I didn't need to eat it with bread - it was a full meal in a bowl. Everything came together in a bowl of warm, homey goodness. Perfect for catching up with TV shows while lounging on the couch.

Spinach and Ricotta Cannelloni

One recipe I've been making for a long time is cannelloni - so cheesy and delicious. It takes a little work but, thanks to no-boil pasta tubes, it's pretty fun. It's actually quite easy - but it looks like more work than it actually is. Perfect for impressing people, which is why it's a potluck staple. I loosely follow the Broccoli and Ricotta Cannelloni recipe from my old copy of Best Ever Vegetarian. Mine is much more simplified, however.

The recipe calls for fresh breadcrumbs. I always skipped this and used the dry, store-bought kind. But lo and behold, I looked in my cupboard and my panko bag was empty! So I googled quite a few ways to quickly make your own. I ended up toasting four slices of french bread in the oven for 20 minutes @250, then putting them in my mini-chopper. I ended up with a mix of fine, dry crumbs and chunks of bread. Which worked fine, so all was well. Place them in a large bowl, and stir in 1/2 cup milk and 2 Tbsp olive oil. Stir until soft, then add 1 300g tub of ricotta cheese, 4 Tbsp grated parmesan cheese, salt and pepper, and a pinch of nutmeg.

Meanwhile, defrost one package of frozen spinach in the microwave. Squeeze dry with your hands (you don't want all that green, foamy water in your filling...) and mix into the cheese. Try not to snack on it - I always end up sneaking some spoonfuls while I'm filling those little tubes. I usually make quite a mess, though, as I don't use the suggested piping bag. I found it works well if you put the tubes vertical then drop in small spoonfuls of cheese. Once they are filled, place them in a well-greased 9x13" pan - but add a layer of tomato sauce on the bottom first. Then drench those cannelloni in as much sauce as you have!

The no-boil cannelloni must be completely covered or they won't cook properly, so be liberal with the sauce. I used a sauce that already had cheese in it, so I didn't grate more on top - but you definitely can. Bake @350 for about 35 minutes - or until the pasta is cooked. Then try not to eat too many at one sitting - very difficult indeed! It's hard to beat the combination of pasta, tomato sauce and cheese. The filling is a bit sweet and fruity from the nutmeg and olive oil - it will work well with whatever sauce you use. Impress you friends at your next dinner party or just make a tray and keep it in the fridge for quick dinners.

Clam Chowder

With the colder weather comes soup-making season. To start it off this year, I decided to go all out and make something pretty decadent - clam chowder. I had never bought canned clams before, and was excited to make something rich, flavourful and different. It was early in the Thanksgiving weekend so turkey-mania hadn't started yet. I decided to go with Michael Smith's Maritime Clam Chowder because, hey, the guy's from PEI - he must know his stuff!

I got out my Dutch oven and started with the bacon - four slices, chopped in with scissors, with a splash of water. Cook until crispy, then get rid of most of the fat. Add in one onion, chopped, and two celery stalks, chopped, with another splash of water to get the brown bits loose from the bottom of the pan. Nothing like bacon to make the kitchen smell good! I skipped the splash of white wine (didn't have any) and added 1 cup milk and 1 cup half-and-half - heavy cream would've been so rich. I also added in about 1 cup of the liquid from the clam cans, as this was written in other recipes I saw online.

With the liquid went in the other ingredients - two 5-oz cans of clams, 1 large baking potato, unpeeled and coarsely grated (to thicken the chowder, baking potatoes are best), 2 bay leaves and 1 tsp dried thyme. I think I may have added extra, because the thyme became the most powerful flavour - it smelled like Thanksgiving stuffing! Not a bad thing. Cook on low for twenty minutes, to cook the potatoes - but keep an eye on it, as I found it was still burning a little on the bottom, even though the element was on low.

Add 1 can of evaporated milk, and keep cooking for another few minutes. Garnish with salt, pepper, and parsley (if you have it) and voila - a rich, steaming bowl of clam chowder! Way better than opening a can. It tasted like cream and thyme, mostly, with soft grated potatoes and chewy clams. Very simple, with few ingredients - I highly suggest if you see canned clams on sale, grab them and keep them for a Maritime-themed night. Even better, do as they do in San Francisco and get some sourdough bread bowls - YUM

Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

'Tis the season for all things pumpkin. I've just bought my third can of delicious orange pumpkiny mush... I can't stop. It's the fall weather - it screams "Make orange-coloured, spiced things!". But I wanted to do something a little different, so I decided to try cheesecake. Also, it was my first time making cheesecake! I only got a springform pan last year, and making an entire cheesecake always seemed quite intimidating. I decided to go the easy route and make mini cheesecakes - super simple. After a dinner of Pumpkin-Peanut Curry Pasta, we needed more pumpkin! I followed this recipe from a lovely food blog called Pinch My Salt.

Luckily I had some graham cracker crumbs left over from another recipe for the crust. I mixed 1 cup crumbs, 2 Tbsp brown sugar, 2 Tbsp melted margarine, 1 Tbsp maple syrup, and 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice. I added extra oil to the bowl as it seemed a little dry. I also learned a neat trick after googling how to soften up brown sugar that had hardened - place the sugar in a bowl with a damp paper towel, and microwave, covered, for 20 seconds. It really worked - and saved my butt. Thank God for the internet sometimes. Once it's all mixed, push into the bottom of a 12-cup muffin tray and push down with the back of a spoon.

Thankfully cream cheese softens quite quickly so you don't have to remember to take it out of the fridge the night before. In a large bowl, beat 1 rectangular package of (light) cream cheese, 1/2 cup pumpkin, 1 egg, 1 egg white, 1/4 cup brown sugar, 2 Tbsp maple syrup and 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice with a wooden spoon, and then a whisk to break up the chunks of cheese. Pour batter into muffin cups, and bake @375 for about 20 minutes. The recipe originally said 14, but they seemed quite raw still by that point. Cool, then keep in fridge until ready to serve.

They became quite soft after being left out so make sure to keep them in the fridge. We originally ate them unadorned, but the next day I put some Greek yogurt on top in place of the recipe's whipped cream topping, which was a nice compromise. These were a great dessert for a weeknight. The cheese was rich and sweet with a hint of spice. My cat even licked most of the cheese off the top of one while they were cooling - so I can officially say everyone in the house liked them!