Thanksgiving 2012 - Soy-Sauce and Honey-Glazed Turkey, Mark Bittman's Green Beans with Crisp Shallots, Cranberry-Reisling Compote and Sweet Potato Gratin with Chile Spiced Pecans

I came up with the menu for Thanksgiving back in mid-November after spending a little while pouring through the Food & Wine website.  I quickly realized that they had a slideshow for various ethnic and regional Thanksgiving feats, including an "Asian-American Thanksgiving."  I was instantly hooked.  Alex's favorite thing about Thanksgiving with my parents has always been the Sichuan cucumbers that my mother makes and the Soy-Sauce and Honey-Glazed Turkey sounded like the perfect centerpiece to a meal featuring my American father, my Chinese mother, a number of her Chinese siblings and a batch of Sichuan cucumbers.  We only ended up making one dish from the slideshow, but since it was the turkey I think that deserves a shout out. 

I thought the turkey had really good flavor and was very moist, although I wish that the flavors of the honey and soy-sauce mixture really seeped down into the meat a little more.  With that said, I think it was the best turkey we have made for Thanksgiving to date, although I think we have made better gravies.  Unfortunately the picture looks a little ridiculous - nothing that I did made the turkey lay flat on its back.  It just kept keeling over left and right until I admitted defeat.  The sweet potatoes were perhaps my second favorite dish from Thanksgiving.  They were really good.  I was a little worried about the dish for a number of reasons, including the fact that I bought white sweet potatoes and didn't realize that the flesh inside would be this weird light yellow color (which looked kind of sickly against the roasted marshmallows), but the flavor was really good.  They almost looked like applesauce mixed into mashed potatoes.  The color was really weird and slightly off-putting.  I actually considered leaving the sweet potatoes at home rather than bringing them with me because they were such an odd color. I wish I had taken a picture (even thought the picture would have been horrible), but I didn't have time.  I was also worried that they would be too sweet, but in the end I think they were just right.  Mark Bittman's green beans were nice, although the shallots and almonds tended to fall straight to the bottom and without any shallots or almonds to liven them up, they were a little blah.  The cranberry compote marked our third attempt at cranberry sauce, none of which has been a smashing success.  I'm not sure if the heirloom cranberries we are buying at the farmers' market are more bitter than your average grocery store cranberry or if I am extremely sensitive to bitterness, but the past few batches have been too bitter to eat without the addition of a large amount of additional honey or sugar.  I would say that these cranberries ended up being our most successful to date by far, but I added about 1/4 cup of honey to them after they cooled to get them to that point.

P.S.  Sorry for the delay on this post but there was a whole camera/hard drive debacle.  If you want to read more about it, you can look at my Thanksgiving 2012 Desserts post.  I'm not going to repeat the whole story here, but suffice it to say that I am a wee bit forgetful sometimes. 

Recipes (and more pictures) after the jump!

Roast Turkey Breasts with Asian Spice Rub

If I were more into preparation and testing recipes in advance to serving them to guests, October would make an ideal time to try out a few different roast turkey recipes using turkey breasts to see what seasonings you liked best.  I wish I could say that we were that forward-thinking, but the reason we are making turkey right now is because I wanted to get the bone-in turkey breast out of our freezer.  It took up a lot of room!  Earlier this week I found a base recipe for cooking the turkey breast and then considered a variety of different seasonings and spice blends - Asian, Cajun or more traditionally American.  I decided not to brine the turkey this time due to the lack of space in our refrigerator.  I asked Alex which he preferred and of course he picked Asian.  But I guess I am equally at fault for always agreeing when he suggests Asian.  In this instance Asian goes really well with my plans for using the leftover turkey meat - maybe a noodle soup, or a Laotian turkey salad that I have been wanting to make for awhile.  Alex suggested Asian-inspired club sandwiches.  After tasting the turkey I think I am leaning towards the club sandwiches.  And here's why - the turkey was heavily seasoned enough that I think throwing it into a soup (where the seasonings on the turkey breasts would mask any subtle flavors in the stock) or another highly seasoned salad would just be too much.  But if you threw the turkey meat into a sandwich with some nice mayo, lettuce and tomatoes I think it would totally work.  Also, some of our turkey meat was a little dry.  I'm blaming that on the fact that our turkey tipped over (in the rack on the roasting pan) in the oven.  I think that the breast that ended up on the bottom retained a lot more moisture (and was juicy and delicious), but the breast that ended up on top got a little dry.  I had pieces for dinner tonight that were juicy and delicious and other pieces that were nicely seasoned, but dry.  And we went a little heavier on the salt than I am noting in the recipe down below, but I cut it back a bit in the recipe because it was a little too salty for me.  I'm thinking 1 tbsp of kosher salt (instead of the 2 tbsp we used) would be better. 

With a few tweaks, I would totally make this recipe with a whole turkey breast for Thanksgiving.  I think I would cut up the orange that we zested and shove it in the cavity of the turkey along with some scallions and maybe some spices.  And I would pour some chicken stock into the bottom of the roasting pan to help retain moisture.  I would probably also brush the outside of the bird with some melted butter as it roasted.  And then I would make some sort of sherry-flavored gravy to serve with it.  Yum.  We served the turkey with green beans that I blanched in boiling salted water and then tossed simply with sesame oil and toasted sesame seeds.  It was a really nice pairing - the green beans were mellow and simply flavored, whereas the turkey was more complex and more highly-seasoned.  Nicely done us.

Recipe after the jump!

Italian Wedding Soup

Ummmmmm....  What to say about this soup?  It was neither my favorite, not my least favorite soup that we have ever made.  I would say that it falls somewhere in the middle.  It was good, but not great (or at least not as great as I had hoped it might be).  The turkey meatballs smelled amazing while they were browning in the pan, but finishing them in the simmering broth seemed to remove a lot of their flavor rather than adding flavor.  And the broth didn't seem to absorb much flavor from the meatballs either.  The broth did pick up a little flavor from the escarole, but not much else.  I must admit that the soup really improved once you dipped some bread into it.  Then it was pretty tasty.  But all things considered, I wish that we had just made Stracciatella instead - a lot less messy and labor intensive, but just as tasty.

Recipe after the jump!

Happy Thanksgiving! Cider-Brined Turkey Breast with Star Anise and Cinnamon, Roasted Squash with Mint and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds and Homemade Cranberry Sauce

Happy Thanksgiving!  I'm not going to give much commentary because I think I deserve to be able to take Thanksgiving off too, but I wanted to post the menu I served my family (my parents and Alex) for Thanksgiving today before I fly off to Hawaii tomorrow morning!!!!!!  Since there were only four of us, we cooked a whole, bone-in turkey breast instead of a whole turkey.  We used the braise from Anita Lo's Cider-Brined Turkey with Star Anise and Cinnamon recipe, but revised the recipe for a whole turkey breast.  From the same issue of Bon Appetit we made the Roasted Squash with Mint and Toasted Pumpkin Seeds.  We served the turkey and squash (both of which my father assured me were properly traditional and American dishes) with some Momofuku brussels sprouts and homemade cranberry sauce.  Yum.

Recipes after the jump!

Turkey Cutlets with Brussels Sprouts and Dried Cranberries

This dish reminds me of Thanksgiving.  If I were to cook Thanksgiving for just Alex and I, this is the type of dish I would make.  Actually, for Thanksgiving last year we were pretty elaborate and made Pan-Roasted Squab, Polenta and Broccolini.  I have a problem with making overly elaborate dishes/meals on occasion.  What I love about this dish is that it's a medley of my favorite Thanksgiving ingredients and flavors - turkey, cranberries, sage (which I love in stuffing) and brussels sprouts (which is one of my absolute favorite Thanksgiving sides).  Actually, that's not the only thing I love about this dish.  Equally important is the fact that this is a one pot meal that doesn't taste like a one pot meal.  If I didn't know better, I would think this dish had cooked longer and been more complicated.  The flavors were just so rich, nuanced and delicious.  This would be a great Thanksgiving dish, but I would definitely cook this all fall long.  It's perfectly (and wonderfully) autumnal, plus it's so easy.  It also comes together really quickly - and in one pot (bonus)!  It's a toss up for me between whether I prefer the swordfish or these turkey cutlets, but I think the turkey might win by a hair.  Alex said that he also preferred the turkey, but it wasn't quite as close a call for him.  Both were unexpectedly moist and flavorful, but this dish had the added bonus of the delicious brussels sprouts and cranberry mixture.  Yummy.

Recipe after the jump!

Chipotle Turkey Cutlets with Charred Corn Salsa

While Alex and I have hundreds of chicken recipes, we have very few turkey recipes.  Just looking at the blog, we have 50+ chicken recipes and only 9 turkey recipes.  And I would say that is a fair representation of our overall repertoire.  And out of the 9 turkey recipes, only 1 other recipe uses anything but ground turkey or turkey sausage.  All of our other recipes are for turkey meatballs, turkey burgers, turkey meatloaf and various other applications using ground turkey.  But I guess that isn't very surprising considering that the only time you can reliably find turkey breasts or cutlets in your average grocery store is around Thanksgiving.  Otherwise you might find turkey breasts or you might not.  The same goes for whole turkeys.  But our farmers' market has a great turkey farm called DiPaolo Turkeys that I love.  I typically buy their spicy turkey sausage (which I know I have referenced several times on the blog before), but I have been thinking about buying turkey breasts from them for a long time now.  I was initially looking for bone-in, skin-on turkey breasts for a recipe called Turkey with Mint and Hot Chilis from Hot, Sour, Salty, Sweet, but ended up with boneless turkey breasts instead.  Boneless turkey breasts happened to be all they had that day.  But it was surprisingly easy to come up with other recipes that I was interested in making with the turkey breasts I picked up.  This was one of them.  I was initially interested in the recipe because it looked easy and sounded tasty.  It's also a different flavor profile and set of ingredients than we typically use.

I thought the dish was delicious and very successful when you ate all of the components of this dish together with a healthy squeeze of fresh lime juice.  It was bright from the lime juice, slightly spicy and smokey from the chipotle chili powder, and sweet from the corn.  The recipe said that the turkey and salsa should be served with tortillas and steamed, buttered summer squash.  We served it with brown rice instead (and omitted the summer squash), which I thought was very successful.  I liked the dish more than Alex did.  He said it was good.  I thought it was really good - something that I will definitely add to our limited repertoire of turkey recipes.  And since this recipe turned out so well, I am heading back to DiPaolo for more turkey breasts and to the internet for some inspiration for more recipes.

Recipe after the jump!

Thai Turkey Burgers

While walking to work yesterday, it occurred to me that instead of making larb with the ground turkey I had in the fridge, I should make Thai turkey burgers incorporating the flavors of larb.  By the time I got to work I had the recipe all worked out in my head - about 1/4 cup of herbs, some shallots, some scallions, lime zest, fish sauce and a spicy sriracha mayo.  So I sent Alex an email telling him that we were having Thai turkey burgers for dinner.  But we agreed to make the burgers tonight instead of yesterday since we already had dinner plans yesterday and he was already having burgers from Five Guys for lunch.  I had to ask him after dinner tonight which burgers he preferred - his Five Guys bacon cheeseburger with jalapenos, grilled onions, and BBQ sauce, or our Thai turkey burgers.  His answer?  Our turkey burgers!  He almost seemed a little mystified by the fact that he liked them as much as he did, since turkey burgers can get a little dry and lack the inherent hearty flavor of beef.  But these burgers were very flavorful, as well as moist.  The addition of herbs and lime zest made the burgers bright and fresh, while the fish sauce and shallots added flavor and kept them very moist.  This is the type of recipe where you could (and should) whip up a double batch and then freeze the extra burgers to cook in the future.  They really are that good.  I know it's kind of hard to believe that turkey burgers would be worth the extra batch, but I honestly think they are.

Recipe after the jump!

Turkey Sausage, Red Onion, and Shiitake Mushroom Pizza

Meal number one in the new, non-Asian leaf we have turned over - pizza.  And a great pizza at that.  Restaurant-quality pizza.  For which I give a lot of the credit to the sausage and the dough.  The turkey sausage came from DiPaolo Turkey Farm at the Greenmarket and I think it is better than most pork Italian sausages.  Their turkey sausage is just so incredibly flavorful and somehow is less dry than other turkey sausages.  It has a ton of fennel seed and other spices to really make it special.  If the sausage hadn't been so flavorful the pizza wouldn't have been nearly as good.  The same goes for the dough (which I picked up from Eataly) - because the cooked pizza crust had the perfect taste and texture.  I guess some of the credit there goes to the pizza stone too.  That pizza stone is a pain in the butt and weighs a ton, but it can really make a difference to your meal.  Aside from the dough, the pizza just had a really nice flavor profile.  The onions gave the pizza some sweetness, the sausage gave it spice and a certain meatiness, and then the mushrooms made the pizza taste earthy and hearty.  I also loved the hint of fresh rosemary in every bite. 

The taste of this pizza had almost nothing to do with our skill as chefs, and everything to do with the quality of the ingredients.  I'm calling this pizza my quasimodo pizza since there was a bit of an incident when I transferred the pizza onto the pizza stone.  Generally Alex and I roll out the dough on a cutting board, then using the rolling pin we transfer the pizza to the back of a cookie sheet that has been liberally dusted with cornmeal.  The cornmeal acts like little ball bearings and turns the cookie sheet into a ghetto pizza peel.  But due to the weight of the toppings the pizza stretched out while I was trying to transfer it from the cookie sheet to the pizza stone, and so the stretched out pizza ended up flopping off the end of the stone.  I took a spatula and flipped the extra crust back on top of the pizza and called it a day.  So I may not be a perfect pizza chef, but who cares when the results are this tasty?

Recipe after the jump!

My Crazy Chicken (Turkey) Rice Noodle Stir-Fry

Look at how good I am!  Two nights, two Asian recipes in a row.  Go me!  Or go us, since Alex has been equally responsible for cooking (although I have done all of the menu planning and almost all of the grocery shopping).  So thank you hubby for making my Asian recipes possible.  And thanks also goes out to our friend Mark for telling us about this recipe in the first place.  I can't remember how long ago it was that Mark first told me about this recipe, but Alex and I made it once years ago and then forgot about it entirely.  And then when I was thinking about Asian recipes earlier this week I suddenly remembered this recipe.  Luckily, all we needed from the grocery store were some rice sticks/stir-fry noodles and some basil and we were in business.

Yum.  This recipe was even better than I remembered.  I think last time we used ground chicken instead of ground turkey and the chicken was dry and didn't soak up much of the sambal and lime juice mixture.  And if I recall correctly, the noodles were overcooked and a bit gummy, so they didn't soak up the sambal-lime mixture either.  But this time the entire dish had some serious flavor and a good measure of heat to it.  We slightly increased the amount of sugar and lime juice in order to give the sauce balance (before we did so all we were tasting was sambal with undertones of fish sauce).  And then I squeezed some additional lime juice over the top of the noodles before we ate to give it some more fresh lime flavor.  Don't skimp on the fresh basil for garnish, because the basil that you toss with the noodles loses a lot of its bright, fresh flavor once it is heated up.  So you really need the fresh basil in addition to the basil that you threw into the wok with the scallions.  But even without the fresh basil, this dish is delicious and very easy to make.  From start to finish, it took less than 30 minutes, including prep time.  I guarantee that it won't be another few years before we make these noodles again!

Recipe after the jump!

Turkey Kebabs with Tomato, Onion, and Cilantro Relish, and "Dry" Potatoes with Ginger and Garlic

I have been craving Indian food on and off for the past few weeks.  Rather than going out to eat Indian, I decided to use one of our Madhur Jaffrey cookbooks to make something since I got home early from work this evening.  Of course once I opened up Indian Cooking there were only about a dozen recipes that appealed to me.  But we had some ground turkey so the decision on what to make for our entree was fairly simple - Turkey Kebabs.  Madhur recommends serving these kebabs in pita pockets with cilantro chutney, or wrapped in parathas.  Since we grilled burgers the other night at a friend's place, I wasn't really feeling what sounded entirely too much like an Indian turkey burger.  Instead I wanted to eat it solo topped with some form of chutney or relish.  The relish that sounded the best to me with the combination of spices and ingredients in the turkey kebabs was her Tomato, Onion, and Cilantro Relish.  Then to go with it I originally wanted to make the Spicy Cucumber Wedges, but then we realized that our English cucumber had seen better days.  So I went back to the cookbook and picked out the "Dry" Potatoes with Ginger and Garlic.  We had some of the world's teensiest and most adorable new potatoes left from our CSA haul last week that I wanted to use and it seemed like a great side dish for our kebabs.

I think that Madhur Jaffrey's cookbooks are among the most successful cookbooks I own.  I am very rarely disappointed when I try out one of her recipes.  The kebabs were intensely flavorful, not to mention moist.  I loved the interplay between all of the flavors.  With the addition of the relish they were amazing.  I am a ridiculously large fan of both these kebabs and the relish.  Alex said that the relish at first reminded him of a standard pico de gallo, but then you get hit with the taste of cumin and cayenne and you realize this is no pico de gallo, but something else entirely.  Delicious.  The potatoes were pretty good too, but I'm just not a potato lover - unless of course those potatoes are in really good french fry form.  Alex is a potato lover, but his complaint was that the potatoes didn't carry quite as much of the "spice flavor" as he expected.  Although the potatoes weren't exactly a smashing success, this Indian meal was more successful than some restaurant Indian meals.  Madhur Jaffrey is officially my hero.

Recipes after the jump!

Spicy Turkey Meatball Subs

The Greenmarket in NYC sells spicy turkey sausage that I am obsessed with from DiPaolo Turkey Farm.  It is delicious.  I bought some recently and have been pondering what to do with it.  The idea that I kept coming back to was making a meatball sub.  What makes that idea unbelievably strange is that I have never ordered a meatball sub in my life, nor have I ever been tempted.  But I couldn't resist the idea of ciabatta bread filled with spicy turkey sausage meatballs, topped with fresh mozzarella cheese, and lots of fresh basil.  We cheated and used jarred tomato sauce, but the sub was all about the other ingredients for me anyway.  I just wanted the tomato sauce to add a little moisture and a hint of tomato sauce flavor.  I briefly considered making some homemade tomato sauce and decided that was taking a meatball sub just a little too far.

Seeing as I have absolutely zero experience with meatball subs, I am not sure that I am a fair judge of how this one ranked against the all of the legitimate meatball subs out there.  Nor do I even know what makes a standard meatball sub.  Alex tells me that our sub wasn't as saucy as a normal meatball sub and that our mozzarella was much fresher and higher quality than what you would usually find on a meatball sub.  So that is the sum total of my meatball sub knowledge.  With all of that said, I really enjoyed this sandwich.  The fresh mozzarella melted down over the meatballs and was all warm, gooey and delicious.  The meatballs were moist and very flavorful, both of which are serious achievements with turkey.  The sausage we used was fairly spicy, but if you are using a sweet turkey sausage, or if your sausage just isn't that spicy, you can add a pinch of dried chili flakes to the spaghetti sauce.  Then you had all of that fresh, sweet basil to give the dish a little something extra.  If you don't love basil as much as I do (and I think it's absolutely heavenly), then you can cut back on the amount of basil in the sub and be just fine.

Recipe after the jump!

Turkey Parmesan Burgers

I am always on the lookout for new burger recipes.  I have tried burgers made from beef, lamb, chicken, and turkey.  The only thing I don't make burgers from is seafood.  Somehow I'm just not into that.  If you're going to eat seafood, eat a wonderful piece of seafood.  Why grind nice seafood up into burgers?  I guess I am a seafood snob.  Anyway, I have recently found that turkey burgers are among my favorites - even ranking up there with beef and lamb burgers, while I'm not a huge fan of chicken burgers.  I think that turkey burgers tend to stay moist, whereas in my experience chicken burgers dry out more easily.  That is perhaps because when I buy ground chicken I tend to buy ground white meat chicken, but who knows?  Regardless, when I saw this chicken parmesan burger recipe from Bon Appetit, I decided I would have to try the whole thing with turkey and with some other significant modifications.

These burgers were definitely yummy.  All Alex had to say was that they were "tasty."  Because they were turkey burgers I don't have to feel so guilty about inhaling mine.  And for the record, I definitely inhaled it.  The burgers are pretty hefty, but still manage to be light, juicy and flavorful.  It was a fun and tasty interpretation of two American favorites - burgers and chicken parm.  I think the addition of the the fresh herbs (particularly the basil) and the toasted sourdough made the burger for me.  And then the radicchio, the marinara, and the mozzarella give the burger some wonderful color and flavor.  As far as I concerned, this burger is a definite keeper, and not just because it's pretty.

Recipe after the jump!

Turkey Breasts with Leeks, Mushrooms and Colcannon Cakes

Basically, as a preface to this recipe, I am going to admit that yesterday practically NOTHING went my way.  Because of St. Paddy's day, the parade made it absolutely impossible to get around the city.  And when I went to the grocery store that afternoon to buy the last few things I needed for dinner, the first grocery store didn't have all-purpose flour.  Who doesn't have all-purpose flour?  They had all sorts of fancy cake, buckwheat, self-rising, and other gourmet flours, but no plain old all-purpose flour.  So it was on to grocery store number two.  And then while at the grocery store I looked at my watch and realized it was already after 4pm.  The stout-braised short ribs I had intended to cook needed to braise for at least 4 hours, after having been browned and getting the vegetables all prepped and sauteed.  So I realized that unless I wanted to eat at 10pm, I was going to have to come up with an Irish plan B.  So I called Alex in desperation and he went online and found some Irish recipes on the BBC website.  This turkey recipe won by default because I had all of the ingredients I needed, except for the turkey breasts.  Only the grocery store didn't have turkey breasts.  Crap.  So it was off to the butcher, who luckily for me, I knew had turkey breasts because I had walked by with the dog and seen them in the display case that morning.  Score.  By the way, I love my butcher.  The guys there are all super nice.  Moving on.

By that time it was 6pm.  So Alex and I ran home, printed out the recipe, and realized the recipe wanted me to use basically every pan and/or pot in the entire house, plus stove-top burners that I just don't have.  It wanted me to have like 5 pans going at one time.  Double crap.  But since we had everything all ready to go, I started figuring out how to modify the recipe to cut down on pans.  As it was, I used 1 large soup pot, 1 huge non-stick pan, 2 10-inch saute pans, and a cast iron skillet.  That doesn't even begin to take into account the number of cutting boards, knives, prep bowls, etc.  As I was prepping and then cooking (and imagining what a Herculean feat cleaning would be) all I could think was "this turkey had better be freaking awesome!"

And it was delicious.  In the future I might forgo the Colcannon cakes (which were also very tasty), but the turkey itself is a definite keeper.  The skin was golden brown and crispy, and it had amazing flavor once you drizzled some of the shallot white wine sauce over top.  As an aside, the recipe used up an amazing amount of butter (even though I cut down on the amounts it asked for dramatically).  And everything tastes better with butter!  So if you're not butter-shy, or afraid of some serious dish-washing after dinner, give this a try!  And even if you are terminally afraid of dish-washing, go ahead and just make the turkey and the sauce.  Which will only use up one cast iron pan (or other oven-safe pan), and will be well worth your trouble.  I promise.  Served with a nice salad and some fresh bread (and you don't even have to bake your own Irish soda bread like I did), it would be a wonderful meal.

Recipe after the jump!

Turkey Meatloaf

Growing up with an Asian mother, I managed to miss out on most of the "American classics."  I never tried homemade lasagna, real mashed potatoes (the only kind we ate in my family came from a box of dehydrated potato flakes that you cooked in the microwave), meatloaf, chicken pot pie, or any of the other things my friends ate regularly.  Not all of this was my mother's fault - I had a very picky sibling, and a moderately picky father as well.  My father was actually the reason we never had meatloaf.  Instead, we ate stir fry, Korean bulgogi, Vietnamese summer rolls, fried rice, homemade wonton soup, and pho ga (Vietnamese chicken noodle soup).


It wasn't until I moved to New York that I started trying to make up for lost time so to speak, and try out some of those American classics that I had missed out on while growing up.  However, I usually end up giving them something of a twist to suit my palate.  For instance, this turkey meatloaf was my attempt to use up a lot of produce in my fridge (a New Year's resolution of sorts), as well as to avoid the normal pitfalls of both turkey and meatloaf.  Turkey is often so dry because it is so lean.  And it also has a tendency to be flavorless.  I wanted something moist and full of flavor.  Meatloaf itself often seems very clunky to me.  I wanted something fresher - full of vegetables and fresh herbs.


Considering I have never made a turkey meatloaf in my life, I was very pleased with the results of this one.  My one complaint being that I wish it had more of a crust to it.  Maybe next time I will put it under the broiler for a minute or two to get it nice and crusty.  Otherwise, it was incredibly moist, full of flavor, and went wonderfully with the cranberry ketchup.  Usually when I try to substitute turkey for beef in a recipe I end up missing the richness and moistness of the beef, but I didn't miss it here at all.  The turkey was fresh and lovely pared with the vegetables and tartness of the cranberry ketchup.  The picture doesn't do it justice, but then again meatloaf is never pretty.


I served the meatloaf with watercress that I simply sauteed in evoo with minced garlic, s&p.  Delicious.


Recipes after the jump!