Thankful

I always think of Thanksgiving as the kick off to the holiday season. This year we spent Turkey day with my father, his wife and her family. There were all the traditional dishes, turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green bean casserole, a scalloped corn dish, rolls and of course pie; pumpkin, pecan and apple. 

After spending the afternoon with my family Dan and I headed over to the local movie theatre and saw Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them in the most luxurious recliners I’ve ever experienced a movie in - move over barcalounger this theater has you beat! I am an avid Harry Potter fan and while this movie is not about the Potter clan in any way, it is a great story and as I understand there will be 4 more installments - personally I can’t wait. 

We headed back to Minnesota early Friday morning to spend some time with Dan’s family and his daughter Mary who was visiting from Madison, WI - it had been a while since we saw her - it was so good to catch up and hear about what she’s been doing - she’s been busy. She was polite enough to oh and ah over the pottery we made in our last class - the girl is a gem. 

On Saturday we ventured with the thundering herd (aka Dan’s extended family) to the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum to see the Bruce Munro light show. It was a creative mix of light and landscape and Dan’s mom dubbed it “Awesome”. I truly enjoyed wandering around with the family, most of our nieces and nephews were in town; we talked, we caught up with each other and we enjoyed the art. After the show we headed over to our favorite Indian restaurant (all 18 of us) and had a delicious meal complete with mango lassi’s, samosas, lamb, chicken, eggplant and a host of other dishes. 

Today has been a mix of cleaning, organizing, shopping (grocery and holiday), writing (nearly finished with my NaNoWriMo) and cooking. The freezer is now defrosted, the refrigerator cleaned, 3 holiday gifts purchased, and groceries in the house. The hot tub is ready for soaking and I tried out a new recipe. 

I was chatting with my brother-in-law Brian about gardening and he mentioned that they were a little disappointed they didn’t harvest all of their kale before the frost - oh but wait kale is frost resistant - which reminded me we still have a boat load of kale and collard greens waiting to be eaten!

I found a recipe a while ago, which had brown rice pasta, collard greens and shiitake mushrooms. I’m not a fan of pasta in any way shape or form, so I decided to use one of our butternut squash, spiralize it and use it for the pasta. The result was delicious. 

Ingredients:

1/4 cup of tamari or soy sauce

1/4 cup of maple syrup

1 Tbsp. of rice wine vinegar

2 - 3 T olive oil

1 lb of shiitake mushrooms, stems removed, sliced

3 large cloves of garlic, finely chopped

a large knob of ginger, finely chopped

1/2 lb of collard greens, stems removed, and thinly sliced (about 4 cups)

1/4 cup of finely chopped peanuts + more for garnish

1 small butternut squash spiralized on medium noodle

Instructions: 

Peel, seed and spiralize 1/2 of a small butternut squash, toss with olive oil and roast at 400 degrees until edges are slightly browned. 

Combine tamari/soy, maple syrup and rice wine vinegar; whisk to combine and set aside.

While squash is roasting, add 1 T of oil to the pan, stir fry shiitake mushrooms  for a few minutes and then remove from pan. Add 1T oil to pan with garlic and ginger stir fry approximately 1 minute until fragrant and then return mushrooms to the pan. Add soy/vinegar and maple syrup to pan, reduce heat to low, cover pan and cook for 2 - 3 minutes. 

To the mushroom mixture add collard greens and stir until wilted, remove from heat, cover and set aside. 

When squash noodles are done, put on serving platter and top with mushroom/collard mixture, sprinkle with chopped nuts and serve. 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend - thanks for stopping by!