Flori Cooks

Be sure to check out the items I made for Thanksgiving and shoot me an email if you’re interested in any of them happening in YOUR home! Hummus? LATKES? I’m afraid the little girl is not available…

…and oh, boy is it ever.

If you followed my past few posts, you know that one part of my Thanksgiving this year was stuffing both a turkey and a kabocha squash (for the vegans) to go into the oven of a friend. She bakes like you wouldn’t believe but is not big on the dinner side of things. My help allowed her to play tennis on Thanksgiving morning, come home where I started the turkey at noon so she could bake a pie and host a stress free dinner with her guests bringing all the other side dishes. I returned on Friday to pick up my roasting pan and the turkey frame (from the fridge). This was on top of baking half a dozen pies on Tuesday neatly packed into boxes and of course Nana’s Homemade Hummus for football snacking (clients’, certainly not mine…). If you are in the LA area and any of this sounds appealing to you please reach out and we can discuss how I can help make your holiday parties delicious and easy. We could talk everything paella to chili to simple things to have at home ready to cook after a long day like a quiche or a batch of that famous hummus for the kids (you can have some too).

The stock will become mushroom barley soup for Tuesday’s promised first BIG rain of the year and more through the winter. This is two gallons of stock (I reduce my stock to a double concentration to save freezer space) so a quart jar will be for a party – once I add all the veggies+++ to it it will make a gallon itself.

I was so intent on reporting on pie day that I left out the part about doing battle with a massive horseradish root to make creamed horseradish sauce for my neighbors Ryan’s rib roast. In his early 40s, he finally decided to tell his mother that he doesn’t like turkey…there’s too little time in life to be unhappy, so speak up! Personally, I LOVE turkey, even the bits picked off the necks after I made stock today for my stuffing. I was at the store picking up batteries for my kitchen scale (which kept beeping at me yesterday while I was doing all that baking – moderately terrifying) when my iPhone informed me that it would take me about 9 minutes to drive home where I was scheduled to make stock in 3 minutes. Bossy device!

As long as I was in the kitchen yesterday I made some Swiss chard and bread soup for a comforting dinner. I’ll have the rest tonight while writing up the instructions that I will leave behind with my turkey client tomorrow. I’m going to her home at 11 to start the bird in her oven (I made the dressing today), so her guests will arrive to that heavenly smell and be none the wiser unless she chooses to boast that she has a private chef. I am also making a wild rice and mushroom stuffed kabocha squash for her vegan guests.

For today I will leave you with these thoughts – always bake a tester. We had pecan pie and ice cream last night and I made it all the way to 9:38 this morning before dipping back into it. Then I countered it with this lovely winter salad for lunch – red lettuce, pear, ruby red grapefruit imperials, figs, walnuts and paper thin slices of radish with a walnut oil and fig balsamic dressing. It’s always important to maintain a balanced diet, not to mention a balanced life.

The crazy southern California Santa Ana weather made this a challenging day for baking. I know; I know…sorry, Buffalo. It was 82° today and BONE DRY. Pastry just would not behave. I pushed through and the pies are lovely! We will test out the pecan tonight – I baked a 6” preview tart. Here’s how my day went – – –