Freezer Jenga

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: I’m not going to show you any pictures here and in a minute you’ll understand why. Well, it is out of pure embarrassment, and my personal self-revelations, even to you all, darling ones, do not extend this far.

If you came over to visit, I would be so incredibly happy to see you! I would show you around my house and show you the things I love, and we could have a cup of tea or a glass of wine and it would be so lovely! You are all invited.

But I will never, under any circumstances, ever, show you the inside of my freezer. Freezers. 

We have a couple of freezers, long story, and I was very happy about that during the pandemic. Still am. (They are not separate, just in the fridge.) 

But I am absolutely completely incapable of throwing food away. I have to freeze it. Oh, well that’s not exactly right, if we have leftover broccoli I will just eat it, same with green beans, that kind of thing

But let’s say I make delicious sautéed flattened chicken breasts that I served with Parmesan cheese and rice and vegetables. And let’s say there are two of those left over. First they get tightly wrapped in saran, then I put them in the refrigerator because they would be great for lunch! Then we don’t have them for lunch. Then I have to do something with them. Into the freezer they go!


If we have leftover grilled lemon pepper salmon, yummy, that gets a day in the refrigerator until I decide that I’m not going to make salmon salad, and then into the freezer it goes! I could make lemon pasta, right? And that would be delicious on it. Someday.

But gradually, my freezer is filling up with little bits and bobs of things like that. Greek chicken, the leftover meat from turkey tacos, (wouldn’t that be good for nachos someday?) the leftover flank steak that would be great for stirfry. Someday.

But you see, I never use them. I always make new chicken or new tacos.

And also, my freezers are kind of like hideous Jenga. None of those things are symmetrical, so they sort of have to be stacked and layered. Very very tippy. And I have had several narrow escapes from frozen blocks of cheese landing on my toes.

Yes, I bought plastic dividers for the freezer; figuring cheese goes in, one chicken goes in, one bread-like things go in another one. That was so great. Very efficient. But I still can’t see everything.

Generally things are labeled, but not always, but if I have leftover beef bourguignon or pasta primavera, I’ll write that on the container. But sometimes I think oh, I’ll recognize that when I look at it. Which I… Sometimes do.

From time to time I’ll make a vow to just throw everything away. Or just close my eyes, put my hand in the freezer, and make for dinner whatever I pick.

However. I don’t do any of those things.

Reds and readers, do you have a freezer situation? Or a solution? Are you playing freezer Jenga?

Poetry and Potpourri

HANK: It’s a random post-Thanksgiving potpourri day on Jungle Red! With a little poetry at the end.  AND a giveaway! 

And here’s a photo of our turkey, straight from the oven and onto the slicing board.


First, what’s your favorite use of leftovers from the holiday meal? I am a massive fan of turkey tetrazzini, and my recipe is ambrosial. But it uses every pan in the kitchen, I mean every single one! But it is all worth it.

Nothing beats a good turkey sandwich though, have to admit. Do you put stuffing on it? Or cranberries?

(I put cranberry leftovers on oatmeal, it is fantastic.)

Read through the Red’s answers, and then I have a couple more questions.


LUCY BURDETTE: Place a generous amount of gravy in a frying pan. Dollop in mashed potatoes, mashed turnips if you have them, turkey, cornbread stuffing, maybe a couple spoonfuls of succotash. Simmer until warmed through and enjoy!


HANK: Ah….I can't picture that. Does it turn out like..soup?


JENN McKINLAY: Turkey sammich! Hot turkey, stuffing, gravy, and cranberry jelly on toasted sourdough. Yuuuuum.


HANK: TOAST! Yes, great idea. With mayo, too?

RHYS BOWEN: Turkey soup with loads of veggies.

HANK: Do you use the turkey carcass?

HALLIE EPHRON: Pie. Pie! Pie!!! Of whichever kind is left… apple or pumpkin or vanilla custard.

HANK: Cannot go wrong with that!


Okay, now Reds and Readers, another question: Black Friday? Are you out shopping?

I say: not a chance on the planet. Weigh in!

And my final question, do you have any Thanksgiving gratefulness traditions?


My family always went around the table and said something they were grateful for, but this year, my half-sister in Washington DC requested that everyone write a Thanksgiving haiku. Those celebrating in person in Washington would read them at the table, and the rest of us, scattered across the country, sent ours in. Here are a few.



Around the table

The food, the family group.

It is all gravy.




Fall sparkles today

Gathering leaves of this tree

Some leaves scattered far




It never feels like

Thanksgiving out here in Fall

But some leaves do change




Shorter days longer

Nights more time for kids to play

Home is warm inside




Wind only knows the trees

By the shape of its own dance

Gust inward and through




The timer ticks on

Enforcing the T-Day prep.

It cannot time love.





Pretty good, huh? Thanksgiving haiku anyone? Or leftover ideas? Let us know!

Oh, and there's a Goodreads Giveaway for ONE WRONG WORD! Enter here!  https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/376556-one-wrong-word

And oh, the Jungle Red winners of the arc of ONE WRONG WORD from me are Emily Catan and Alicia! Message me on the platform where you saw the post. YAAAY!! Crossing fingers you love it and will help me spread the word.

AND IF YOU DIDN'T WIN---remember the Goodreads Giveaway! https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/376556-one-wrong-word

Happy Clean Out Your Refrigerator Day!

JENN McKINLAY: No, I’m not kidding. This is a legit holiday. It’s in the national day calendar and everything. Here is my proof:

You're welcome! Apparently, it was named a national day to encourage people to clean out their refrigerators in preparation for the upcoming holidays. And I just want to say that the picture above is clearly not a real person's fridge. I mean, there's actual shelf space in there! That is not normal. 

I don't think I've even seen the shelves of my refrigerator since the day we bought it. Plus, there are no weird lab experiments of moldy growing things that have acclimated to the cooler temperature and have started to evolve into sentient beings. What? Just me?

Hub, bless his heart, is the great condiment collector. He loves to barbecue and every time he fires up the grill, he has a new sauce to try. For some reason, we never seem to use the entire bottle, so the lowest shelf in our fridge is where condiments go to die.

My issue is different. I buy a lot of fruits and vegetables, because I really want to be the person who is going to eat them. Sadly, I'm not her yet. They tend to linger in the crisper, which more aptly should be called the wilter, until they get mushy and are then shuffled out to the compost pile in the backyard accompanied by the sound of my dry heaves.

Another fail (mine) is leftovers. No one in my house eats leftovers unless it's meat, potatoes, or homemade mac and cheese. That's it. Everything else should just go straight into the garbage, do not pass Go, do not collect $100 dollars. And yet, I carefully box the leftover spaghetti, fried rice, tuna casserole, and assorted whatnot into snazzy Tupperware containers (Ugh, plastic!) that fill every nook and cranny until we celebrate the great removal day, which is apparently today!

I don't know about you all, but refrigerator cleaning is not on my short list of things I want to do -- unless I'm on deadline -- and it generally falls somewhere between taking the car through the carwash (Fun!) and doing fork recon in one of the Hooligans's rooms (Eek!). However, given that I could not shove one more item of Tupperware into the fridge last night, I have a feeling National Clean Your Refrigerator Day is coming for me!

How about you, Reds and Readers, how is your refrigerator maintenance? Do you need a national day to get it done? Also, do you eat leftovers? I might have some for you!

Thanksgiving, Advent, and Turkey Salad on a Roll

Youngest showing her Turkey Spirit

JULIA: It's the last day of Thanksgiving vacation and the first Sunday of Advent, the liturgical season preceding Christmas. Advent is a nice balance to the pre-Christmas craziness, because it calls people to slow down, anticipate, and be mindful. For us, it means keeping the run-up to the holiday gradual; so today we'll put up some outside decorations (if the drizzle stops.) Next Sunday, the Smithie (and me, a little) will do indoor decorating. The third Sunday is known as Rose or Refreshment or, if you're British, "Stir-up" Sunday, and that's when we get our tree. 

Yes, that's our Shih Tzu on my sister's deck. He came along!

In some ways, I think instead of "keeping the Christmas spirit all year long," we should try to keep the Thanksgiving spirit throughout December - that kind of fun, mellow appreciation of family and friends. Yes, we stress on Thanksgiving - how can we bake the cornbread if the turkey's not out yet? What do we say when Great-Uncle Bob tries to hand out Trump bumper stickers? But nobody except Martha Stewart is trying to make Thanksgiving perfect. Good is good enough. 

The Boy and the Boy Wonder

So today's recipe is an turkey salad that uses the ingredients you still have hanging about in your fridge and pantry. Perfect for dinner tonight with soup or for your lunch bag tomorrow. Sadly, I have no turkey (!) so I think I'll pick up a plump chicken on the way home from church and roast that.

The original recipe was created by Jocelyn of inside BruCrew Life, a baking blog which has some great recipes.

3 cups cooked shredded turkey

 

3/4 cup chopped pecans

 

2 celery stalks, diced

 

1 cup dried cranberries

 

1 cup diced apple chunks

 

1/2 cup plain greek yogurt (Jocelyn substitutes this for half the mayo you might ordinarily use to cut the fat/calories down)

 

1/2 cup mayonnaise

 

1/2 cup fresh finely diced parsley (I actually had leftover spinach leaves when I made this salad last year, and they worked fine.)

 

salt and pepper to taste

 

King's Hawaiian dinner rolls (the original sponsors of the recipe. I used regular leftover white dinner rolls - for some reason, there is always one unopened sheet of dinner rolls after my holiday meals - but since we love Hawaiian bread, I can only imagine how delicious the salad would be on these.)

Mix it together. Yes, that's the sum of the preparation. My favorite kind of recipe. No, wait, I'll add a final instruction:

Relax while you enjoy your sandwich!

Me, the girls and Robbie at the National Zoo. We're all holding leaves Robbie gave us.

TOP THAT! A Reds cooking competition...

HALLIE EPHRON: This week we are celebrating the launch of Lucy's new book TOPPED CHEF in which Key West food critic Hayley Snow gets rooked into judging a cooking competition, so I thought we'd have our own cooking challenge, TOP THAT!

OK, Reds. On your marks, get set, GO to your kitchen and in the next hour, what could you whip up to wow our judges from ingredients you have on hand?? This will be put to a vote. No cheating, now.

Going to my kitchen right now. Pad, pad, pad... Yikes. All there are are leftovers. So be it.

My entry: Cold trout salad (Serves 2)
Ingredients:
Previously delicious pan fried trout - 1/2 of a cold fish left - skinned, boned, flaked
1 small coarsely chopped ripe red tomato
1/4 cup of finely chopped vidalia onion
1/2 celery rib finely chopped
2 T chopped cilantro
1.5 T cider vinegar
2 good olive oil
Salt & pepper to taste

Gently blend all ingredients and serve with thin slices of dense (leftover from caviar celebration) pumpernickel bread.

Ladies? Top THAT!

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh what fun Hallie! Can wait to hear what everyone comes up with.

As I write this, I'm getting ready to go south to Malice Domestic, so not that much is in the fridge. I'll go for the heart-stopping breakfast anytime:)

Bacon, Onion, and Cheese Omelet with Fried Potatoes

4 eggs
Butter and olive oil
1/2 onion, diced finely
4 strips bacon, fried until crisp
1/2 cup shredded sharp cheddar
2-3 potatoes, washed and cubed
4 cloves garlic, peeled and halved

Fry the bacon, crumble it and set aside. Saute the onion in a little butter and olive oil. While this is cooking, in a second pan, saute the cubed potatoes on lowish heat in olive oil. After about ten minutes, stir them and add the garlic and cover. cook until tender and crispy.

Back to the omelet: Whip the eggs with a tiny amount of water. Pour into the pan with the caramelized onions. When the eggs are starting to look set, add the bacon and cheese. When the cheese is melted, flip the omelet in half. Cook until eggs are done. Serve with crispy potatoes!

HALLIE: Got to admit, that sounds pretty fabulous.

RHYS BOWN: Ditto--I'm also off to Malice in the morning but I do have a piece of cold salmon left over from last night, also some left over quinoa, cooked in broth and some frozen peas.

so I'll do Salmon/quinoa salad.
I piece cooked salmon
quinoa cooked
peas
(mint would have been nice but I only have cilantro, so that will do)
green onions (I have three),
oil and vinegar dressing

Cook and cool peas.
Crumble salmon into pieces
stir into quinoa, add chopped green onions and peas. Toss with dressing. Before serving sprinkle with cilantro.

Lucy's omelet sounds so yummy but alas I hardboiled two eggs to eat on the way to the early flight.

HALLIE: Rhys, that sounds delicious! It was not long ago that I found out how to pronounce quinoa (keen-wa).

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Well, I'm just off the plane from Malice, whew,
 and I am SO HUNGRY because I never get to eat at these things. I live on almonds and water. Seriously. But, you know me, I'm competitive. I'll play. And even more dangerous, because Jonathan went to the grocery while I was gone, and I have no idea what's there.

Looking now in the fridge.....well, Okay, I'll make dessert!

Fresh raspberries and blueberries, in, um, a faux zabaglione of  lemon greek yogurt and Grand Marnier.  Oh! With my leftover almonds chipped and sprinkled on the top. Yum!  (And champagne, because I am celebrating--so happy for winning the Mary Higgins Clark Award!)

HALLIE:  Hmmmm. I want what SHE'S eating...



ROSEMARY HARRIS: Well...I'm at the Lenox Hotel in Boston for a little research and then a gig with Hallie tomorrow. Right now...we have a box of Girl Scout Peanut Butter Sandwich cookies, a can of diet Red Bull, a bag of oyster crackers I stuck in my bag after lunch yesterday, an apple (from the front desk) and a bottle of water I got at the CVS on Boylston Street. I don't think even Hallie could make a meal of that!

HALLIE: You've got even me stumped, Ro. We can call it Ro's City Smorgasboard. Hope you get out somewhere good to eat at least -- you're in prime restaurant territory.

JULIA SPENCER-FLEMING: Ross, the Youngest and I got back Saturday night from New York, where, along with the Edgar awards and seeing Hank win the Mary Higgins Clark award(!) I spent Friday from eleven am to eleven pm at the Flatiron Building, whipping the manuscript for THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS into shape with my editor. Then we dashed off Sunday morning to church, to see Virginia celebrate her Rite 13, and took her out for brunch afterwards. Needless to say, the pantry is pretty bare, but I always have the ingredients for teen favorite Spaghetti Carbonara:

1 onion, diced
1/2 pound bacon, diced
butter
three eggs
Italian Herbs mix (mine is Penzeys, but any rosemary/thyme/oregano blend will do)
grated parmesan cheese (the stuff in a can in a pinch, but I prefer the real cheese, pre-grated in those bags from the grocery store, which I keep on hand in my freezer.)

1 pound of spaghetti, plus an additional pound for every 2 teens you're feeding.

Put on the spaghetti to boil. Saute onion and bacon until limp and crisp, respectively. Whip the eggs and Italian herbs in a bowl. When the spaghetti is finished, drain, put it in a large dish and add 3 T or more of butter. Add the bacon/onion mix and the egg/seasoning mix. I find the ingredients blend better if I cut the pasta before tossing it. Finish with a generous amount of parmesan - I usually add one or two handfuls of the grated.  Sit back and enjoy with some of Hank's champagne!

HALLIE: So, there you have it...

Cold trout salad a la Ephron
Bacon onion and cheese omelet with fried potatoes a la Burdette
Salmon/quinoa salad a la Bowen
Faux Zabaglione a la Ryan
Red Bull a la Harris
Spaghetti Carbonara a la Fleming

Whose house are YOU going to for dinner? And if we came to yours, what would your entry be? No cheating -- it's got to be stuff you've actually got on hand and you have not a second more than an hour to pull this off...

JAN BROGAN -   So this, the day after Thanksgiving, there are really only two things to talk about:  What to do with leftovers  - which we did yesterday, and Black Friday Christmas shopping.

Let me begin by saying, I am the world's worst shopper.  I am also the world's worst planner. This has always made Christmas difficult.  I could never get it together to start shopping today. Basically, I developed a holiday system that goes like this:  

1. No matter what the date, pretend Christmas is months away
2. When daughter complains it's getting late, allow her to do all the Christmas decorating.
3. Mean to send cards, but put it off so long that it becomes beside the point.  If someone I haven't heard from in years from sends me one, rush to store and buy one single Christmas card to send in reply.
4. Ritualize Christmas tree shopping so that it is always done on daughter's birthday. This way she either reminds me or offers to do it herself.
5. Agree to make Christmas candies at the very last moment at daughter's urging.
6.  Wait until the week before Christmas to start shopping. Thus run out of time before running out of money.
7. Recover from the materialism of Christmas by cooking a lot on Christmas day. For some reason it seems the perfect balm.


The system is not for everyone,  but it works for me.  But as you may imagine, this system does not allow for Black Friday shopping.  

So my question for you all is twofold: 

Have you every gone Christmas shopping on Black Friday and if so, why and was it worth it?
 Or do you have an alternate holiday system you'd like to share? 

LUCY BURDETTE: Oh Jan, your system would make me so anxious! What a lucky thing to have such a daughter to take over:). We are often traveling to see family or going to Key West or somewhere around the holidays, so that my preparations have contracted. One thing I can count on to help with the shopping list is the annual RJ Julia Booksellers member sale in November. I love this bookstore and love this sale, so a lot of presents are taken care of then! And I do collect stocking stuffers all year.

Black Friday shopping? Never! Hate those frantic crowds...

JAN: Yes, Lucy, I am extremely lucky to have such a daughter, for many reasons. Not least of which - besides her love Christmas and willingness to carry much of the burden, she is insanely organized all year round. (still trying to figure out how that happened.) 

HALLIE EPHRON: Shopping, sigh. Did you have to bring that up (she said, after returning from four trips to the grocery store and still needing to go back for another pint of heavy cream for Thanksgiving)?

Black Friday. I have never, will never ever shop it. First of all, I hate crowds. If I have to go to the mall, ever, I go on a Monday morning when the place opens. And I'm home no more than an hour later. 

Plus our Christmas exchange is very modest -- mostly stocking stuffers which I try to pick up through the year, though this year I have almost nothing in reserve. My husband told me what he wants and sent me the link. It's purchased. And like Jan, I make candy.

My son in law, whose family does exchange gifts, has a great system. He waits until Christmas eve and then heads out at dinner time to blitz it. It's like that old game show Beat the Clock -- what happens happens.

JAN: He sounds sounds like my kind of guy.

RHYS BOWEN: Life is much smoother since I discovered online shopping. Not only is it painless but they ship the presents to the right address. But I do send cards, around 100, since I like keeping in touch with friends around the world, and I love decorating. I have to confess that we finally got a fake tree. It looks wonderful but I miss the smell of fresh greenery. 

I also usually collect stocking stuffers all year but this year I have nothing! And it really bugs me when people want gift cards as presents. Nothing beats unwrapping a strangely shaped package, does it?

And John is one of those who can't get into the holiday spirit until about December 23. Then he asks "What does everyone want for Christmas?" and by then it's too late to buy it at a good price online.

HANK PHILLIPPI RYAN: Here's my 9-step system.

1. Buy Christmas cards. 
2. Plan to mail them.
3. It's too late.
4. NO! They can be New Years cards, all the better.
5. Missed that deadline, too.
6. Look on bright side, now I have cards for next year.
7. Put cards in safe place.
8. Forget where safe place is.
9. See number one. 

DEBORAH CROMBIE: You mean it's Christmas already??? I'm not ready! I'm never ready! And I never never never ever shop on Black Friday. I can't think of many things I would less rather do. I don't go in department stores very often under ordinary circumstances--they make me feel overwhelmed by STUFF--so I can't imagine doing it on that day. I like to shop online or in my small local stores, and we don't usually buy big gifts.

The Christmas cards are the tradition in our house.  I think Rick and I have made our own cards every year since we've been married. (There was the year I'd had dental surgery and, totally snockered on Vicodin, hand-stamped a gilded pear--from a handmade woodblock--on a hundred cards...) Then we started doing photo cards, and not the family grouping, but really beautiful photos. The last couple of years we've moved the photo card tradition to digital and are using Paperless Post.  I still buy a few paper cards to send to friends who don't have email.

Who knows what we'll do this year?  Maybe take up Hank's system?  

JAN: Hank, except for actually buying the cards, I totally endorse this system. 
Anyone else willing to share the holiday system that works for her/him?  And whether it includes  Black Friday shopping?