like any normal thursday

Thanksgiving isn't that big in my family. We get past with a small store-bought rotisserie chicken, corn tortillas and a bag of shredded cheese--chicken quesadillas for the past 4 years or so? Even before then we didn't really feast with turkey and mashed potatoes and all. Even today we didn't eat the traditional Thanksgiving meal, but we had more homemade food than usual!

Ratpatootie Ratatouille! My second attempt (my first was two years ago) inspired by Remy after rewatching the movie a few days ago. Lately I've been holding off on cooking and baking a lot since I doubted the process and outcome before I even started. I don't really know why I let my personal issues affect my usual determination and excitement in the kitchen, but it did. So I took the past few days to prepare myself for today. I didn't make what you would call a feast feast but it's more than the annual quesadillas :) Nothing beats cooking for people you love.

I love Smitten Kitchen's recreation of the traditional ratatouille, and you can find the recipe I used here. The dish is bright, lovely, and utters sophistication though it's actually quite easy to make (aside from cutting the parchment paper and slicing the vegetables paper thin, and in my case, WITHOUT a mandoline). I tried plating it all pretty like Remy did in the movie but my vegetables slumped together; nonetheless, the ratpatootie was tasty.

I guess you really don't stray too far from your roots...or something like that. Or in this case if you've almost always had chicken on Thanksgiving you sort of just stick with that. Chicken Piccata! With a lemon caper sauce that turned out a bit too lemony for my taste, but I reduced it by adding more chicken broth. Recipe can be found here.

Kabocha Squash Pie

And of course there was the kabocha squash pie and cheesecake from my midnight prepping. The mini pie stands tall at 1 cm. and the cheesecake, about 2.5 cm. I was dying to test both of the recipes out, and I made mini versions of both because my family could never finish a store-bought pie and they always went bad :( The pie is custard-like while the cheesecake is creamy smooth, both delicious in their own ways! I replaced white sugar with brown in both of the recipes, and though I didn't have pumpkin pie spice, using only nutmeg and cinnamon still brings out the rich, warm aroma. 

Kabocha Squash Cheesecake

 The recipe for the crustless pie can be found here and the cheesecake here.

Okay so maybe not much of a giant feast, but this Thanksgiving spoke out louder than the rest. This Thanksgiving was the first where I prepared a technically three-course meal for my family. Mixed feelings of stress, anxiety, and confusion built up in the past week, and I could finally, happily, release these pent up emotions in the kitchen. Concentrating on slicing the vegetables paper thin allowed me to think about Thanksgiving. It's difficult to put in exact words let alone express my thankfulness for everyone and everything that has found themselves in and out of my life. My family, my friends, the roof over my head, the cold wind to appreciate bodily warmth, the fact that I am writing this blog, that I've actually kept it running and that it's getting viewers?

Well I hope everyone had a delicious Thanksgiving :) and good night!

Update 12/24/12

I made ratatouille again today, but overstuffed the pan with a ton more vegetables and even double-stacked some of them rather than alternate. It took a little bit longer to bake through but still tasted wonderful.

Also I used herbes de province this time, and I like the taste of the ratatouille with the herbs rather than with just thyme. The thyme was sort of a one note, rather fixed, flavor, while the herbes have a much more subtle, rounder, flavor, which I like better as it doesn't overpower the vegetables or tomato sauce in this dish.

Plus my knife skills are getting better! I sliced the vegetables thinly and evenly 95% of the time (with the other 5% being the very few thick and unevenly cut) without the help of a mandolin! I think I'm getting a hang of this :') and ratatouille might just become a holiday tradition.