There are only two of us, and no relatives in town...so we are going to Palm Springs for actual thanksgiving, staying at the Parker. Dinner will be at Mr. Parker's, if they actually do one (its a little unclear still). BUT, in honor of thanksgiving coming I decided to cook a turkey dish, something I rarely do. What I did was make pozole built around the idea of a traditional yucatan dish called "Pavo en Relleno Negro." The original is made with turkey stuffed with a kind of sausage meatloaf, with hard boiled eggs in the middle, which is simmered in a rich broth flavored with "Recado Negro." Recado Negro, also known as Chilmole, is a paste made primarily of charred chiles - pitch black in color. It is a very unique flavor, specific to the Yucatan - though it looks something like Oaxacan mole negro, it is completely different in flavor. Anyway, I cooked pozole in homemade turkey stock along with chopped tomato and a turkey breast. After the breast was poached, I removed it, shredded it, and then returned the meat to the pot. I also made meatballs with ground turkey, flavored with mexican oregano, thyme, bay, allspice, black pepper, and a bit of the chilmole, which I formed around hard boiled egg yolks (my wife doesn't like to eat pork; it would have been more traditional to use a pork sausage instead of the ground turkey here). These were browned and then finished by cooking in the pozole. The whole thing was enriched with a strained puree of Chile Mulatto, red sweet pepper and recado negro/chilmole.

I've been making my own hummus for many years, and it is similar to the one that Dawn posted, but I definitely never add cumin (which that recipe says is optional). For me, cumin ruins the other flavors. I use fresh Meyer lemons from my tree, and that makes a big difference, but I've not yet made my own tahini paste. However, since I do not, I add toasted sesame oil to it. We've decided to have Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow, although I've already made parts of it today. Today we are having turkey breast (cooked previously for sandwiches) with a mushroom sauce, plus cornbread stuffing, and some green beans that I already made. Today I made a Torta di Mele Al Burro, to use up some apples and in place of apple pie. I'm roasting the duck tomorrow, and I want to get a fairly early start, since it takes many hours. Our orange tree (the one that came with the house) finally has ripe oranges on it, and so I can use that in the sauce.

That all sounds great! Congratulations on the successes. I had some minor emergencies, like I set the oven to preheat so it would be good and hot, and found it cold when it was time to put in the "bird". 9 pound double turkey breast. I figured the latch didn't completely catch so it didn't turn on. It heated quickly, however, and didn't really affect the timing much. Breasts don't need the kind of resting time than whole, and I made sure all the dishes, etc., were pulled and placed, and that which stood still was washed and put away. The turkey breast was just sprinkled with poultry seasoning and placed in an unbleached parchment turkey bag. I couldn't help myself, however, and (literally) threw in a wedged onion, a couple chunked carrots and a couple chunked celery stalks. :) Tore open the top for the last half hour. Perfect! Steamed in its own juices. The gravy was made ahead with chicken stock, plus some turkey juice day of. I've been making this gravy for years. It's little more than a velouté. Dead easy. Foolproof. Plus, I use Wondra. But just now, I managed to make lumps in Wondra. And it separated in the fridge. Not broke. It never came together. It was a suspension. As I was heading to bed, Wednesday, something I often have said came to mind: Once something has been emulsified in the Vita-Mix, it stays emulsified. Couldn't hurt, I thought. So I dumped it in, gave it a whirr and got a perfectly velvety, never to separate gravy. :) OTOH, I overcooked the beautiful broccolini. :( Not badly, but enough It still got mostly all 'et up. The stuffing was a success. A few years ago I figured out the key to making it like my mother's. Her instructions didn't work for me. Instead, I pretend I'm making bread pudding a la velouté instead of custard. :) Not really. The eggs go into the dry bread first, then the stock, but it's the quantity of stock that matters. I bought a loaf or organic par baked French bread because I was in no mood to bake bread for the stuffing. I baked it off according to directions, and was surprised that it was very sour on the sourdough scale. Not my usual definition of French bread. But it lost some of that sour as it dried out. I added some mandlin and matzah, and a big bag of restaurant chow mein, for variety. And was very proud of myself that the quantity I eyeballed in my bowl was exactly the right amount to fill my mother's dish. The cranberry sauce was ... normal. The Libby's recipe pumpkin pie was fine, but not very pumpkiny. Not the texture I was looking for, like my autnie's, but very much like Lindac's recipe, which I make with fresh pumpkin. The whole wheat spiced crust was a good call. I used Stella Parks's pinch recipe for the crust for the apple pie. It was wonderfully flaky, but it was obvious that gluten had developed. I used Gold Medal AP, as usual. I think it spent too long in the fridge and went all no-knead dough. I have Swansdown, which it never occurred to me to use, but I think I'll buy some pastry flour if I want to make the dough ahead again. It tastes good, mind you. It's just not 100% "right". Not that anyone noticed. They gobbled it all up. :)

Already tired of turkey so froze what was left of the meat. Right after baking the turkey I froze the carcass and drippings from the turkey in the freezer for soup in a week or two. Came home from a mini shift at work tonight and was craving sushi. Instead of stopping to pick up some, I made some rice and put some seaweed/sesame seed mix on top. It didn't help the sushi craving. lol I did buy some stuff to make one of the recipes from Hello Fresh, one pot quinoa. It's probably my favorite recipe from those boxed meal kits I used to get. The avocados I got from Walmart today just aren't ripe yet so will have to suffer until one ripens before I can make this dish. I like it because it is pretty healthy and tastes so good.