Philly Finale

Independence Hall

This is the last post from the Thanksgiving trip.  It is just a week late.  I did not take a picture of my apple tart.  For the crust, I used phyllo sheets with Earth Balance brushed between the layers.  Of course, the loft did not have any type of food brush, so I had to use paper towels.  That resulted in a a little less buttery taste but it helped in the calorie department.  I made a syrup of vanilla bean, turbino sugar, apple peel and white wine.  This was used to coat the apples which were layered on the phyllo then baked. This was a nice light dessert.

Mashed Potatoes

One must have mashed potatoes over the Thanksgiving holiday.  These are Yukon Gold potatoes that were boiled and mashed with Earth Balance and Tofutiti sour cream.  Two bunches of green onions  and garlic were mixed in.  Seriously addictive.

Honey Pecan Tart

The big dessert was the pecan tart.  The pecans were cooked with honey, almond milk and silken tofu and mounded in a tart shell.  An empty wine bottle makes a good rolling pin for the crust.  A top layer of crust was placed over the tart.  Then I poured a chocolate 'granche' made with dark chocolate, Earth Balance, almond milk and silken tofu.  The remaining pecans were mounded on top.

Tart slice

We brought lots of leftovers home and I had to be very creative to find ways to store them from the trip.  Any container that could be used was saved.  Everything made it home safe.  This was a great trip and we are looking forward to many more Thanksgiving trips.

Philly Day 3

Tofu Scramble

I found the photo of the tofu scramble I had for breakfast on Thanksgiving.  It is still steaming in the pan. That was a good meal, but a little heavy.  It is like eating a large omelet stuffed with veggies.  Today I went light and had some toast with persimmon cranberry sauce and pita chips with edamame dip.  I sipped on some Yerba Mate tea. Appropriately for the season, this tea is made from a type of holly.

At lunch I made a Celery Jicama saute.  Garlic, lemon zest and juice, parsley  and salt were added to the veggies to give them a nice twang. This pared well with leftover porcini stuffing and mushroom gravy.

Celery and Jicama

For dinner we went to the Electric Factory see Frank Turner in concert. The venue is only 3 blocks from the lofts we are staying at so we could walk. there.  They had a veggie burger on the menu and seasonal Woodchuck Cider on draft.  Before we left, I made a Sweet Potato Brulee to snack on when we got back.  This dish is typically made with 7 egg yolks.  I used silken tofu, flaxseed, cornstarch, and baking powder as a substitution. The tofu mixture was combined with baked sweet potatoes, brown sugar, lemon juice, nutmeg and milk and baked for an hour.  After it had cooled off, the top was coated with turbinado sugar. I used a small blowtorch to crystallized the sugar and leave a crunchy topping.  The resulting dish was very good.  It was not like a regular creme brulee in texture.  I do not know if this was from the use of sweet potatoes or the egg substitution.  However, it is a very tasting dish for a late night dessert.

Sweet Potato Brulee

Our wine of the day was the Oban Rose Champagne.  This is one we have one regular basis and is fantastic.

Thanksgiving Day

 

It is Thanksgiving Day in Philly.  The recipes for the week are from a Gourmet magazine cookbook.  Our wine for the main meal is a Neyers Merlot which went well with bread and mushroom based dishes.

 



We started with breakfast.  I made an omelet for Tommy and a tofu scramble for me using smoked tofu, greens beans, broccoli and cauliflower.  I had a piece of the seeded bread spread with the persimmon cranberry sauce. I had detox at breakfast.  I am not sure if it detoxed anything, but it is a good earthy tea with anise, licorice and dandelion root.

 



For lunch we started with a salad.  It was the same salad mix we have eating the last few days of spinach, carrot, tomato, avocado and cucumber.  I topped it with some of the endamame dip and some olive oil.  We had a piece of seeded bread on the side.

 

For the main course, I did make a turkey for Tommy.  It was seasoned with a miso butter between the skin and meat.  Tommy pronounced as the best turkey meat he has ever tasted. I am glad he liked it, since he will be having some at every meal for the next few weeks.  I made a basic turkey gravy with the juices from the turkey, a veggie stock I brought from home and some flour.

 

Turkey







My main course was a Eggplant, Tomato and Chickpea Tart.  The filing was sauteed in a skillet and added to layers of phyllo dough for baking.  The recipe called for 4 individual tarts,  but the lack of cooking utensils led to make one large tart.  The phyllo behaved well, but I did not have a brush to spread olive oil over each layer.  I used a paper towel, which worked okay. For my gravy. I had a barley mushroom gravy.  I roasted a mix of shiitakes, portobellas, and white mushroom with the barley.  The stock was made with the mushroom stems and parsley.  The veggies were removed, then I added the barley. I sautéed some carrots, onion and celery then started adding the stock.  I also added some wine and tomato paste. The stock was continually added and heated until thick.  The pic is the tart with the gravy.





 

For dinner that night I made an Onion Porcini Stuffing.  The bread was a couple of sourdough loaves. Dried porcini mushrooms were reconstituted in hot water.  White mushrooms, onion, celery, shallots and carrots were sautéed with garlic, thyme and sage.  The veggies were added to the toasted bread, then the mushroom water was added.  All of this was baked together.  We served the stuffing with gravy with a salad and some Pouilly Fume.

Stuffing

Philly Day 1

We started a tradition a few years ago of going out of town for Thanksgiving. We have gone to Toronto, Deep Creek MD, Sylva NC, Front Royal  VA, and Chesapeake City MD in the past. This year our trip is to Philadelphia.  It is close enough to drive to with the dogs, though River still got car sick 5 minutes from our destination, but far enough away to be a unique experience.  The above photo is the dining area of the loft we are staying.  We are in a very Asian area with eating places representing Japan, China, Thailand, Korea and India. 

Kitchen

We used Airbnb to find a place.  I want a place that I can make a Thanksgiving meal.  This one has a nice kitchen, but had almost nothing to cook with.  I brought a quiche pan, tart pan, roasting pan, immersion blender, thermometer, pastry blender and potato masher.  But we get here and there is a skillet and a soup pan, 2 plates, 2 bowls, 4 mugs and some silverware  and cooking utensils.  There is a cool Asian market a block away, and I had to buy a sauce pan, a disposable roasting pan, and a dutch oven.  The rite aid had some plastic serving pieces and glasses.  The pieces you see in the pitcher I brought or bought.

Living room area

River is making herself at home in the living area.  The kitchen, dining and living area are one big room.  We have internet and tv so we can watch the ravens tomorrow night.  

bedroom

Jack is making himself at home on the bed.  We did bring their doggie beds.  A couple of dogs will not be happy about that.

Endamame dip

This is an endamame dip I made at home before we left home.  It is made with endamame, roasted garlic, olive oil, parsley, lime juice and pepper.  I used radishes, carrots, celery, and cucumber to dip in it.  The loft has a case of pita chips of top of the refrigerator, so we used some of them as well.

Chestnut soup

For our dinner, we had the dip, a salad and soup with a little bit  of dessert.  The salad was leftovers from home that would go bad if we didn't use them.  It was a basic salad of lettuce, spinach, carrot, tomato, avocado and mung beans.  The dressing was balsamic vinegar and olive oil. The soup was amazing.  The base was chestnuts, carrot, leek, celery and onion that was cooked until soft. The mixture was blended till smooth and I added soy sauce, sherry, parsley and sage.  The soup was topped with sage croutons that I made at home.  A half loaf of seeded bread and chestnuts were roasted in olive oil with sage, salt and pepper.  The croutons were added to the top of the soup.  This was incredible.

cranberry sauce

For dessert I had the Persimmon Cranberry Sauce.  Cranberries, red wine, anise and sugar was heated until the cranberries were soft and mushy.  I mashed the cranberries with a spoon and added diced persimmons.  Tommy had some chocolate for dessert that I found at Asian market.  The milk chocolate with cornflakes was interesting.  Tommy said it bets the Hershey Crunch bar.