Monday: radicchio-bread casserole

A somewhat random idea to use up some leftover bread and the last of the radicchio from the box.

Cut some stale bread into 2cm dice. Toss the cubes with stock (I had turkey stock), chopped radicchio, a can of tomatoes (chopped), a thinly sliced leek, fresh thyme, fresh parsley, salt, and pepper. Transfer to an olive-oiled baking dish, top with mozzarella cheese, cover with foil, and bake at 175 for 30 minutes. Uncover and bake for another 30 minutes or until the top is nicely brown and bubbly.

To go with this quite nice dish I cooked diced acorn squash in butter (covered) until it was tender, then served that with white pepper and raclette spices. This was like a savory buttery dessert. :-)

Sunday: Kale and sausage

This week's box had the first kale (grünkohl) of the year. woo hoo!

To prepare it was quite simple: remove the tough stems and chop the leaves finely. Saute them in a really hot pan until they wilt considerably. Add sliced leeks and cook another few minutes over high heat. Add a bit of stock, some diced and steamed firm-cooking potatoes, and some sliced smoked sausage, cover, and simmer until the kale is ready to eat, 20-30 minutes.

mmmmm

Saturday: baked radicchio, white beans

We had a couple heads of radicchio in the fridge that needed to be used. The obvious thing to do was risotto, but that wouldn't have made a big enough dent, so I used up a whole head by baking it with olive oil (method from Hazan).

To counter (or at least compliment) the bitterness of the raddicchio, I gently cooked some white beans in their own liquid along with a clove and a bay leaf. These I served with a drizzle of olive oil.

We also had some ebly (cooked plain) and a big green salad.

This year's thanksgiving spread

We had a smaller group this year so the preparations somehow seemed easier (which doesn't make much sense at all).

This year's spread:

• roasted turkey
• stuffing (bread, leeks, mushrooms, carrots, celery, thyme, celery, sage, roasted-chicken stock)
• mashed potatoes
• sweet potatoes (cooked in their own liquid in the pan, a la Cooks Illustrated).
• green beans (roasted a la Cooks Illustrated then topped with shaved almonds to reheat)
• green salad (nüssli, cranberries, walnuts)
• chopped salad (raddicchio, spitzkohl, carrots, minced onion, cress)
• bread
• pumpkin soup with chestnuts
• a chocolate and pecan cake brought by guests
  

For the appetizers:

• the usual spiced almonds
• a few varieties of olives
• beets: baked in foil then peeled, diced, and tossed with chopped walnut, rosemary, rapeseed oil, balsamico, salt, and white pepper.
• salami and möstbrockli.

way too much was eaten. :-)

Saturday: baked chicken and sauerkraut

A simple one in the midst of the preparations for this year's belated thanksgiving celebration: put sauerkraut (pre-spiced from the biokiste) in an oiled baking dish. Top with chicken leg quarters, season the chicken with salt, pepper, and raclette spices. Bake at 180C until the chicken is done.

Hard to get much simpler than that. :-)

Thursday: curry chicken gipfeli, savoy cabbage gratin

Two recipes from this month's Le Menu that I followed without too much variation. Combined with a green salad this was a nice meal.

Monday: millet-vegetable gratin

Another recipe from Wiener. I stuck to the recipe. For vegetables I used 200g celery root, 200g beet, and 100g carrot. One change to try next time: mix the sauce with the millet and vegetables first, then transfer to the gratin dish and top with the cheese.

As an accompaniment I dressed some sauerkraut (from the market, not from the biokiste) with leftover lemogrette from Sunday.