I’m back in the States just in time for the most American holiday of them all: Thanksgiving! Where’d I go? Please forgive the week-long break from blogging — I took off in a rush for Australia, to attend a very important friend (VIF) Jordan’s wedding in Melbourne. It was a blast. But now I’m ready to cook a grand Thanksgiving feast… another one, that is. Shortly beforehand, I got together with Rebecca and Max from Working Class Foodies for a great round of recipes all made from typical Thanksgiving spread leftovers. Here’s what they shot! And below, more on what we made.

Rebecca and Max have done a great job so far cooking with Working Class Foodies, their online TV show featuring many of those folks around the city. If you haven’t checked out any episodes yet, I highly recommend. They’re quick, informative and most of all, really friendly. There’s one with Theo Peck, cook-off contestant turned co-founder of the Brooklyn Food Experiments. There’s tips on everything from breakfast when there’s no eggs in the house, to touring the Greenmarket for a simple yet stunning salad. I was thrilled to have them over at my apartment to fool around with some Thanksgiving leftovers for my video’s theme.

There’s nothing wrong with doing a straightforward redux of everything from the Thanksgiving table, the next day. But perhaps you, like me, have grown a bit tired of this routine, and not just for the soporific effect that turkey tends to lend. So I decided to spice up the leftovers for a thoroughly different day-after Thanksgiving meal. One that won’t remind you of all the calories you consumed the day before, in such precise detail. I came up with the following meal, one that’s easy to replicate as well as reinvent with whatever your leftovers happen to include:

Turkey Goulash Soup with Potato Dumplings
Green Bean Pesto and Turkey Sandwiches
Cranberry Rosemary Crumble

For the soup, we sauteed a mirepoix of onion, carrot and celery, and gave it a few heaping tablespoons of Hungarian paprika as it sizzled. This was the starter for the goulash-inspired soup. We added canned stewed tomatoes (regarding the scene in which a can is opened with a knife: I do have a can opener… somewhere. Alas, it was not to be found during the shoot, and like the video says, I wouldn’t recommend trying that method at home), white wine, homemade roasted red peppers and the leftover turkey carcass to make a soup broth. Leftover turkey gravy from the Thanksgiving table went in to help thicken the soup, as well as add flavor. I’ll admit that in the video, I think I added a bit too much water (in attempt to cover the turkey carcass I’d shoved into the pot — it was humongous) to that pot. I would have liked the broth to have been a little thicker, but compensated for that by making sure it had plenty of chunks. You can add chicken or turkey stock instead of water and a carcass, or make broth from the carcass separately, in a big stockpot. Or you can simply toss in some stray bones, legs and wings to the soup, especially if you’re making a smaller batch. And because Rebecca and Max had some leftover roasted root vegetables, we sunk those into the soup after it had simmered for about an hour, and gave the leftover bits of meat a rough chop to keep in the mix, too.

cold leftover potatoes becomes un-boring repurposed as gnocchi-like dumplings

Next, we added some potato dumplings. Continuing this soup’s Eastern European theme, I thought potato dumplings would make a suitably filling filler for the goulash-inspired soup. Only these weren’t dumplings in the sense that they had mashed potatoes stuffed inside. They were more like potato gnocci — mashed potatoes, mixed with flour. More or less following the same procedure for my recent sweet potato gnocci recipe, I swapped in leftover mashed potatoes, which had already been typically seasoned with salt, pepper, butter and milk. It was also a little on the chunky side. No matter — these dumplings worked out just fine. One trick I would suggest though, is heating up the mashed potatoes before you begin adding the flour, to get them back to their more fluid state rather than them being a solid rock from the refrigerator. Once the flour and mashed potatoes reached a dough-like consistency in a bowl, I rolled these onto a floured cutting board, and cut them up. They were tossed into the soup while it was at a roiling boil, and cooked quickly. The soup was finished by stirring in some sour cream, another Hungarian goulash trait.

Yes, Rebecca, Max and I all had plenty of leftover turkey soup at the end of the day. I still have a couple quarts in the freezer. Moving on, we played around with another typical Thanksgiving leftover: green beans. I love green beans sauteed with garlic, perfectly seasoned and crisp-tender. But I don’t love them as much the next day. They’re never be crisp-tender again, more like sodden-wrinkly, and this just makes your leftover meal look a little sad. So we mashed them up in a food processor along with basil, walnuts, olive oil and a bit of fresh garlic. Presto! Green bean pesto it became. We spread this on slices of bread to make sandwiches with the leftover white turkey meat (and more roasted red peppers).

the finished leftover cranberry sauce and rosemary crumble

After gorging on these for a while, we went back to the cutting board to mince up some leftover rosemary. I don’t know about you, but I always have leftover herbs after Thanksgiving, and rosemary’s a pretty common one. Fresh herbs tend to go bad quickly, so it’s a good reason to sneak them into foods you might not normally think to. Like dessert. With a tub of leftover cranberry sauce, we made a simple fruit crumble with a buttery oat and rosemary-flecked crust. The recipe for this was really as easy as it looks on the video: equal parts flour and rolled oats, some brown sugar, rosemary and butter for the crust. Fold it together, and spread half the mixture in the bottom of a casserole. Spread an even layer of the leftover cranberry sauce (as long as it’s a jellylike consistency — cook yours down or thin it out with water if need be), and top the two layers with a sprinkling of the remaining crust crumbles. After that happenstance union, I’d have to say that cranberry and rosemary might be my latest favorite flavor combination.

So whatever you’re making for Thanksgiving, know that your lazy Friday meal can still be unique. What about a turkey pot pie, with chopped turkey meat, leftover veggies and gravy for a quick sauce inside pastry? Or soup that’s not spiced Eastern European-style? Leftover Brussels sprouts pesto? Hey, I’m not too sure about that one, but let me know how it tastes if you give that a try.

Okay, it’s not summer anymore, and Indian summer has not yet arrived. Instead, this is about the time of year people start taking flu shots, and sweaters and scarfs out from hibernation boxes and changing their sheets to flannel. I do all these things minus the flu shots. But I do have a good way to boost the immune — fresh veggies and bloody, bloody, antioxidant-rich beets. To keep that blood pumping.

“Flu borscht” just didn’t sound like a very good name, though. Summer borscht is actually what the recipe’s creator, Jui Shih, named this soup herself. It’s fresh and light like a summery breeze from chunky chopped tomatoes, cucumbers and dill; it has the zing of red wine vinegar, lemon juice, plain yogurt and sour cream; and a crisp finish of scallions and chives. And it’s served chilled, or room temperature. It’s sort of like gazpacho, but with beets.

Jui created this soup as part of a four-course meal that was cooked at the Greenpoint Reformed Church soup kitchen last Wednesday. It was the grand finale-feast of the project that Noah Berland and myself devised called the Souper Douper Sandwich Cook-Off: the cook-off, in which any home cook shared their best sandwich and soup combinations with attendees, and friendly competition amongst themselves for prizes, took place in August. The second act was this meal, which the winner planned and executed the menu of. With the guidance of Ann Kansfield, director of the Greenpoint Interfaith Food Team, we served about 80 hungry members of the local community in Brooklyn, and about a dozen soup kitchen volunteer staff members. So hats off to Jui, for her thoughtful menu and hours of work on this. Thanks also everyone who competed at the cook-off and those who bought a ticket to eat there, because it was through their participation that we funded the ingredients for this soup kitchen dinner. Most of all, thanks to the great team of volnteers who cranked this one out. Together, and over two nights, Jui, Noah, Emily Hanhan, Mike O’Neill, Lori Budnick and I cooked and served the meal, and I personally had a blast. Here’s a quick look at some of the preparation:

That was the main course, in the video — stuffed cabbage. Inside was a mixture of ground chicken, rice, diced red pepper and onions, and once rolled up in blanched cabbage leaves, it was drenched in a savory tomato sauce and baked. This was quite a different meal altogether than the one that Jui had won the Souperdouper Sandwich Cook-Off with. Scrapping the sandwich concept entirely, she decided to focus on the cuisine of the community — Polish. Greenpoint, Brooklyn is predominantly Polish, and many of the people who come to eat at this church’s soup kitchen are, too. So she wanted to serve them some familiar fare, but with her own twists. Along with the cabbage rolls, she came up with some incredibly tasty potato and turnip latkes, served with homemade applesauce and sour cream, this summery take on beet borscht (recipe below), and a dessert of crepes with fresh fruit compote and homemade vanilla ice cream. Okay, so maybe the sweets weren’t that Polish. But they were certainly a highlight.

shredded purple potato, turnip and scallion laltkes

a big pot of the summer borscht

crepes with homemade ice cream and peach-nectarine-plum compote

Some of the vegetables that we were able to use for this dinner included those from Garden of Eve Farm, whose CSA pick-up location in Greenpoint happens to be this same church. The Greenpoint Interfaith Food Team regularly gets to cook with these leftovers, as well as receives donations of food from nearby businesses, and other local farms. Jui had originally wanted to shred up sweet potatoes for the latkes, for instance, but when CSA pick-up day left behind a few pounds of purple fingerlings, as well as some turnips, it was purple potato latkes with shredded turnips instead. Fried in a shallow bath of cooking oil, these were just irresistible. Of course, healthiness is a factor for all the meals that are served at the soup kitchen, but deliciousness of this one was really a special treat.

Greenpoint Interfaith Food Team members relax and eat (for a change of pace)

If you’re wondering why there aren’t photos of the needy people whom we served that night, it’s intentional, and out of respect for their privacy. Albeit I’ve only done this just once, it’s been a very gratifying experience volunteering in a soup kitchen, and completely different from any large-group food event I’ve cooked for before. The most exciting part of this night was, because the staff and eaters had all been pleased with the outcome (the staff actually got to have a meeting that night, instead of working around the clock!), we may turn this guest-chef concept at this church’s soup kitchen into a more frequent series. Bimonthly, perhaps, with different menu-planners at each one using their creativity to feed the people who could really use it the most. We’re still in the brainstorming phases and open to thoughts, so if you’d like to participate, please speak up! And if you think you have what it takes to top Jui’s chef-excellence, I dare you! Professional chefs, out there, that includes you, too…

Jui Shih’s Summer Borscht
(makes about 6-8 servings)

about 5 medium-sized beets, boiled or roasted until tender, peeled and diced
about 2 English cucumbers, diced
about 3-4 medium tomatoes, diced
3 cups chicken or vegetable broth (chilled or room temperature)
2 cups plain yogurt
1/4 cup red wine vinegar (or more to taste)
1 small bunch fresh dill, chopped
salt and pepper to taste
fresh lemon juice and zest to taste (optional)
chopped scallions or chives for garnish (optional)
sour cream to garnish (optional)

Reserve any juices from the beets, tomatoes and cucumbers while chopping and combine them in a large pot or bowl with the broth and yogurt. Add the vinegar, dill, a pinch of salt and pepper, and taste. Sugar can be added to cut the acidity as well, to taste. Add optional lemon juice and anything else to taste. Top each bowl with optional garnishes of chopped scallions or chives, extra dill, and/or a scoop of sour cream.

Cost Calculator, Health Factor and Green Factor Ratings respectfully omitted for guest recipes.

It includes interviews with local food aficionados like chefs Alex Guarneschelli, Dan Barber, Michael Anthony and Tom Valenti as well as food bloggers Lisa Fain and myself. Needless to say, it’s a ton better than my shoddy attempt at Greenmarket video-making last spring! (And it you haven’t had a chance to see Fresh, a feature-length documentary celebrating sustainable farmers and fresh food advocates, it’s a terrific expansion on these and many more topics.)

Also, Saveur magazine has a new online look, one that includes short posts from a new batch of contributors. Be sure to check out those of Josh and Jessica Applestone, the principals of Fleisher’s Grass-Fed Meats of upstate New York. I’ll be writing weekly posts that feature a different small, sustainability-oriented farm, and the fruits of their bounty. They’re brief introductions, at best, to the fascinating story behind their thoughtful work in the field. This week, say hello to Rhode Island’s Scratch Farms!

What’s going on here?? Let me back up a bit. Last year, I contributed a recipe for a project by the non-profit organization the Neighbors Project, called Bodega Party in a Box. The idea behind the ‘box was to promote shopping within one’s community, and to put more fresh produce and healthier foods on the shelves of local corner shops by increasing demand for it. There’s a lot more to the project on the organization’s website. But from a local perspective, big supermarkets are dropping like fleas throughout Brooklyn and Queens, and in low-income neighborhoods especially, quickie convenience stores (aka bodegas) are the only places to buy food for several blocks. The need for better food in them is urgent; and the Neighbors Project’s incentive more timely than ever.

So when a producer for the morning news show on WPIX/Channel 11 contacted me to see if I would do a cooking segment based on a recipe in the Bodega Party in a Box cookbook, I couldn’t help but accept. I didn’t organize this project, nor do I work for The Neighbors Project, so I’m not really sure how they came to me first. In fact, I’m still a little in disbelief that I was on TV this morning. But, after deciding on a recipe that I would make on air, and getting some preparation on a three minute back-and-forth with the show’s hostess, it appears that I really was on television. And to prove it, I still have cakey make-up on my face.

Instead of choosing the recipe I submitted for the actual cookbook, I decided to cook a more fitting morning-show feast. It might not occur to most people that ingredients for the classic breakfast indulgence and darling of brunch restaurant menus, Eggs Benedict, could be purchased from any old bodega. But it really equates five ingredients: eggs, butter, sliced ham, a lemon and English muffins, and who can’t get those at their local quickie mart? Alright, maybe the English muffins aren’t to be found everywhere, and this is the problem I ran into when I dashed out of my apartment at 6am this morning, to catch my call time. Nobody had English muffins in my immediate ‘hood, on the way to the subway station. So instead I picked up a pack of round, flat rolls called Bulla cakes, a Jamaican specialty (my neighborhood of Crown Heights, Brooklyn is predominantly Caribbean). I was going to use those instead, but the producers had to make a run for extra ingredients anyway, and picked up the traditional bread du Benedict while there.

Extra-special, big, hearty, heaping thanks to chef Akiko Moorman, who came along to prep and style all the ingredients before the spot. I think she pretty much made everything that was seen on air. (Akiko’s launching her own food blog in about a week, which I’ll link to soon.) And thanks to all the great people at the Neighbors Project for letting me be their spokeswoman for a day (or three minutes). It was a fun turn behind the camera. My only regret is that the clip featured on the station’s website doesn’t show the part when the anchors signed off, and the entire news team was crowded around me holding plates of Eggs Benedict. I wasn’t expecting this scene to take place, and probably looked like a weirdo standing in between people who all had so much makeup on that, close-up, looked like mannequins to me. In any case, good morning New York, and happy home-cooked brunching!

Problem was, my question was “too vague.” (If you didn’t watch the vid, I ask her what type of foods are known aphrodisiacs so as to seduce a cooking-in date.) After some discussion, long story short, I accepted the task of making a poor lasagna so that Aida could ameliorate the problem with it. This time, the producers would be coming over to shoot.

The specific dilemma I had to demonstrate was lasagna so soupy that its layers slid apart when put on a plate. Now, I’ve never had this particular problem myself, but I can appreciate the fact that many home cooks might. (I’m a fan of using no-boil egg pasta sheets, which seem to eradicate this issue — or, when time allows, fresh pasta sheets, as in my Breakfast Lasagna.) So it was a real challenge figuring out just how I was going to create this visually off-putting entree. I asked around. Karol suggested I dump three cups of water over the whole thing before it went into the oven. Others insisted I over-boil the lasagna noodles. I ended up doing the latter, making a watery tomato sauce, and covering the casserole with foil while baking. Success! — er, I mean, failure! It worked out perfectly horribly.

We also shot me going through the motions of making the lasagna for the episode. To do that I swapped the “bad” lasagna out of the casserole dish and layered a fairly good lasagna into the same dish. At the end of the day, I had made two great big trays of lasagna. Did I mention that I live alone? Right, so the producers ate some of the bad, soupy lasagna after the last cut, and liked it so much that they even took some home with them. Then, Matt came over and we ate up almost all of the “good” lasagna.

The episode I appear in, titled “Lasagna,” is set to air Saturday, October 11th at 12:30 EST. I don’t get cable but I’ll be sure to be sitting TV-side somewhere, with a great big lasagna-filled party of friends.

But enough about me — I so love the concept for this show and its practical, can-do attitude on foods that people find fussy to make at home. I also think it’s neat that it incorporates home video and real people (even if my ultimate segment was slightly staged). In this technology-crazed day in age when the average Joe may know how to make a video sooner than he can scramble an egg, why not? Oh, and you can still submit your cooking question in video, or by regular email, too.

The second episode of the show airs this Saturday. I can’t wait to see what Aida makes of my lasagna later on.

With that question still lingering in the air, I can’t help but wonder another one: This is the first time my face will appear on the Food Network, or any television network, for that matter. Will it be the last?

It’s another video! Just when you thought I couldn’t get any worse on camera, here’s the latest installment of my ongoing battle with awkwardness. Um, um… yeah.

Greenmarkets are particularly exciting at this time of the year, because, like the public parks they often border, they’re budding with fresh, botanical diversity. Grand Army Plaza’s market is Brooklyn’s largest, with regularly a dozen or more vendors at any given Saturday throughout the year (it’s the second largest one in NYC, after Union Square). If this guided tour isn’t cheesy enough to turn you away from it, I hope you get to enjoy the scene soon, and cheer on your evidently very hard-working tri-state area farmers. (Video/genius credit: Matt Bagdanoff.)

Even if it isn’t quite corn on the cob season in the Northeast, here’s some great fodder for your upcoming barbecues. Something to add to your global grilled corn cooking expertise (which might include the popular, lime and chile-spiked Mexican grilled corn), this recipe is god-awfully delicious. And now I’m providing you with documented evidence of its simplicity.

Yes, that box at the top of this post is the brainchild of my enthusiasm to share this recipe with you and (mostly) my friend Matt Bagdanoff’s camera and editing skills. See, I caught wind of a new Bobby Flay TV series on the Food Network about grilling, and that they were looking for three-minute audition tapes from ordinary grilling enthusiasts. After a beautiful, sunny, 70-degree Saturday passed, we got up onto Matt’s roof on Sunday to shoot ‘n grill… only it wasn’t quite so sunny anymore. In fact, it was pretty darn cold, gloomy and windy as all blustery hell.

Despite this, we had lots of fun making this video — and the tasty corn. Matt worked so hard on shooting and editing this bit that I thought it only right that more people got to see it before it gets watched by some Food Network intern and ends up in the reject pile. So, we are proudly presenting the editor’s second cut… where stumbling over words and dorky gaps in speech fly. (“Yay for grilling”?)

Though we couldn’t find any skewers to prop the ears of corn on, the authentic street food in Taiwan would have been served on one. I spent my last semester of college in Taipei on an abroad/scholarship program and ate lots of this corn and other street food specialties while there. But I didn’t learn to cook it during my travels, nor did I consult any chefs on how the glaze was made. I asked my mom what she thought was in it, and she could only guess soy sauce, sugar and maybe a little chili powder (if I haven’t mentioned this too profoundly before, my mom grew up in Taiwan). I’m fairly sure that this alone would have made a decent sauce to spread on the corn pre-grilling, but that was too facile. I looked around online and found snapshots of the Taiwanese specialty but no recipes. Then I asked my (Taiwanese) friend for his thoughts. He quickly came across a few recipes on Chinese-written websites for the snack, and in the process, grew incredibly homesick from photos of all the various deliciously grilled, charred, crusty and caramelized skewers of things and other popular street food from Taipei. Anyway, some of the recipes for the corn glaze included sa-cha sauce, while some didn’t. Most included lard, which I prudently left out. Since sa-cha sauce is simply a mixture of chilies, shallots, garlic, and a little crushed dried shrimp and brill fish, I took a fresh shallot and garlic clove and mashed them up. I added this to two tablespoons of soy sauce with two teaspoons of dissolved sugar and whipped it up. I added a pinch of hot chili powder (cayenne), and finally, the mixture was emulsified into a dark, thick slurry with two tablespoons of vegetable oil.

I took this recipe down a notch in flavor by not using the extra pungent fishy ingredients in the sa-cha sauce because the actual corn in Taiwan is quite different from ours. It’s bigger, starchier, blander and tougher, while the sweet corn in the States is just that. Deliciously sweet on its own. So this is the Americas, and we may own corn on the cob, grilled simply and delicious on its own. But I’ll be darned if you don’t fall head over heels in love with this modified Taiwanese-style grilled preparation.

Taiwanese Street Food-Style Grilled Corn
(makes 4 ears)

4 ears corn, shucked
2 tablespoons soy sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
1 medium shallot
1 large garlic clove
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
½ teaspoon cayenne pepper

Crush the garlic clove and shallot using a chef’s knife against a board, grinding back and forth until it becomes a pulp (alternately, you can put these in a food processor and pulse). In a mixing bowl, combine the soy sauce with the sugar with a whisk until dissolved. Add to the shallot and garlic mixture along with the chile powder. Add the vegetable oil while whisking until emulsified.

Spread sauce mixture onto corn with a brush and place ears onto a hot grill. Grill about 2-3 minutes per side until slightly charred all around. Serve or grill ears of corn on a stick if desired.

Cost Calculator
(for 4 side servings)

4 ears of corn: $2.99
2 tablespoons soy sauce: $0.20
2 teaspoons sugar: $0.10
1 shallot: $0.20
1 garlic clove: $0.03
2 tablespoons vegetable oil: $0.15
1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper: $0.05

Total: $3.73

Health Factor

Three brownie points: As far as veggie sides go, this one’s not a pure soul. It’s got a little fat from the oil, some sugar, and sodium from the soy sauce, so there’s your three cruxes. Sweet corn alone gives you some Vitamin C and Vitamin A, not a lot, but it’s not dismissable either. Hey, at least I didn’t use the lard.

Green Factor

Three maple leaves: As mentioned, this recipe was made in anticipation of the summer barbecuing season while fresh sweet corn is not locally available. That said, the garlic and shallot came from Farmers’ Markets in the area, and the minimal, unavoidably non-local seasonings are staples that have been in my cupboards for maybe a year or so. All told, not so green, at least not yet.