Thanksgiving! Jick Style!

Thanksgiving! For the first time, my mom and I decided to cook Thanksgiving together this year. We pulled out all the recipe books and NYtimes guides and old copies of Gourmet (RIP), but of course, ended up just making the classics we know best. And it came out pretty well! After only five or six hours of cooking, and no fighting whatsoever (!), my mom and I had created a hearty-thanksgiving lunch (2 PM to please Grandma...) that everyone enjoyed.

The dishes were:
- Turkey, stuffed with mushrooms, onions and shallots, coated in butter, baked for 3 hours.
- Mushroom, leek, herb, ciabatta stuffing (with a slight dash of pecorino)
- Mashed potatoes (sans garlic to please grandma, despite my garlic-obsessed whining)
- Sweet potato balls filled with melted marshmallow and covered in honey corn flakes
- Green bean and cream of mushroom casserole (to which I added fresh mushrooms) with French's fried onions on top
- Brussel sprouts with garlic chips
- Salad with homemade candied pecans and cranberries (I don't think anyone ate the salad)
- Cranberry sauce, spicy cranberry chutney, cranberry-orange spread
- Rolls and Pecan bread

This is what the sweet potatoes and stuffing looked like, pre-cooking:


These are the two attempts at candying the pecans, the back batch are burned but the second are perfection. I called Maren for help and she suggested I toast the pecans instead of putting them straight on the stove because they would cook more evenly that way.

These are the appetizers my mom insisted on: chevre spread, brie, mimolete, pear-stilton, lemon olives, asiago crackers, and lavash crackers. My grandma appreciated the spread, but then asked us when the food would be ready.
This is the beautiful table my mom produced, full of coordinated fall colors!
And notice the AMAZING turkey shaped butter she found!! But please don't judge the flower display... My grandmother spent the entire meal criticizing the bouquet and vowing to call the flower store to complain. I don't think it's so bad, but she probably knows better than I do.

THIS IS OUR TURKEY. It is amazing looking. Perfectly browned from the butter-coating and displayed tackily with the corniest little plastic turkeys from CVS (on sale.)
This is my mom making her own gravy which was overwhelmingly preferred to the store bought one we also had.
Final table!



ugh.. those green beans were REALLY good.

And this is my dad being the all-American he is... carving the turkey like a pro.

MY PLATE!!
And now I shall go collapse.

Tuna Melts

My apartment has about 40 cans of tuna, mostly because my housemates and I know that a tuna melt is always a solid, quality, quick fix for hunger. You can't really go wrong. However, we also know that there is a lot of variation on this classic. Observe:

Tonight Jenny and I came back from the library and decided to procrastinate/bond by making tuna melts. Knowing that we both like our tuna melts very differently, we laid out all possible ingredients on the table and brought out two separate bowls in order to make the tuna individually. Not to say that we were in opposition, there was a LOT of teamwork: I opened the cans into the bowls and sliced the tomatoes and laid out the spices while jenny finely diced the red onion. There wasn't a lot of talking, just strict concentration. We now would like to tell you how we each made our melts. We both stand firmly behind our melts and embrace personal preferences in this matter. And we both appreciate each others tuna melts. That's really important.

(Disclaimer: We didn't choose individual breads because we only had one type of bread in the house. It was 12 grain.)

Zoe's Tuna Melt First:

Zoe used a fork in order to make the tuna really shredded. She combined the finely diced red onions into the mix. She added mayo (kind of a bunch, not too much though), extra virgin olive oil, and whole grain dijon mustard. She really likes the grainy spicy mustard. Then she used a lot of salt and pepper, probably even more pepper than salt, and garlic salt. Then she probably added 8 drops of green pepper tabasco, and a dollop of sriracha. That's the tuna salad. Now to the sandwich: she put two slices of american cheese because she likes how it melts. Then two slices of tomato, but cut up so she didn't have to bite into it with her teeth during eating. Then the tuna, then six thin slices of avocado. Then she fried the sandwich with a whole lot of butter on both sides, and when it was done, cut the sandwich diagonally.

Jenny's Tuna Melt Second:

Jenny also shredded her tuna. Her second step was also to put in the onions and mix them. Then comes the pickles. Jenny sliced and diced half a full sour pickle and mixed that up into the tuna. Then, she added two different kinds of mustard. She tends to avoid mayonnaise in her tuna because she feels that the creaminess of mustard does the texture job, and prefers the taste to that of mayonnaise. She puts in whole grain dijon mustard for the tiny little seeds, and then adds regular dijon for the creaminess. Following this, she puts in a little kosher sea salt, and then pours in a hefty amount of pickle juice (but not enough to make it at all soggy). Then, she places in about 8-10 drops of sriracha - almost too much, she realizes after. That's the tuna. On to the sandwich. She cuts Black Diamond Cheddar Cheese into slices and places it on the bread. Then, she slathers the tuna on (very thickly). Following that, the perfectly cut tomatoes (thank you zoe) and layers avocados. On top of the tomatoes, she places yet another layer of Cheddar Cheese. Then, to close, the bread. Finally, butter on both sides and on to the pan it goes. Diagonal cutting as well, of course.

In hindsight, Zoe wishes she had used more cheese, specifically on both sides of the bread. Also she wishes she had used kosher sea salt. She also wishes she had pre-salted and olive oil-ed the tomatoes. Jenny wishes she had put the heat on lower so that her cheddar had melted. She realized that she should have taken into account how much thicker and denser her cheddar is than Zoe's American cheese. Also, maybe it would have been good to use garlic salt.

To close, we would like you to remember not to use the cheese choice as the prime element in your judgment of the sandwiches. We know that the cheddar/American divide is very important in melts, but we would like you to focus on the preparation of the tuna just as much as on your pre-established cheese preferences.