A Little Pie for Thanksgiving - Spaghetti Pie

I'm pretty sure there's an unwritten law which states that if you're an American with a food blog, you must include a pie recipe in the week preceding Thanksgiving. Being the law-abiding sort, I dutifully submit my contribution - spaghetti pie. A playful hybrid of spaghetti and lasagne, this was one of my favorite meals as a kid.

Boil spaghetti* (dry, I used the amount contained by touching my index finger to the knuckle on my thumb) in salted water until 90% cooked. Drain and add to a mixture of two beaten eggs, 1/4 c. grated parmesan cheese, and 2 Tbsp. butter. Mix to combine, and form into a "crust" in a greased pie pan. Cover the spaghetti crust with a few spoonfuls of cottage cheese, then your favorite pasta sauce. Bake at 350 degrees (F) for 15 minutes, top with shredded mozzarella, and return to the oven for another 15 minutes, or until the cheese is bubbling and golden.

*As far as gluten-free pastas goes, I've found none better than Tinkyada.

Stop! Don't Throw Out Those Shrimp Shells

All those tiny legs, and tails, and heads - those are the pieces we tear away to get to the prized shrimp meat (did you know shrimp is a rich source of vitamin D?). But those oogie bits have their own value; they can be boiled to create a delicious and versatile shrimp stock. I'll admit that I was guilty of throwing away the shells until last year. But I was won over by the stunning amount of flavor which can be coaxed out of what I had thought was trash (this kind of frugality always gives me a little thrill). Simply boil shrimp shells in water with aromatics such as garlic, bay, and peppercorns, strain, and use the resulting stock in fish soups and sauces.

Today, I used the stock to boost the shrimp flavor in a chowder. Boil diced potatoes in shrimp stock until tender. Lightly crush the potatoes with a fork, add milk, thyme, bay, salt and pepper, and heat through. In the meantime, rub peeled raw shrimp with garlic, thyme, s&p, and a touch of smoked paprika. Fry shrimp in a hot skillet until they take on some good color, and are cooked through. Remove shrimp from pan, deglaze pan with a little water, and dump the resulting liquid into the soup. At this point, if the soup hasn't thickened, add a little potato starch mixed with cold water. Once the soup is rich and thick, spoon it into a bowl, top with shrimp and add a hit of freshness with green onion.

Sunshine for a Snowy Day: Lemon Curd

My mother first became gravely ill last year. Most of the time, she doesn't feel up to eating, and sometimes she just can't. When she does eat, her appetite is mainly for candy and fruit juice. That's why when she showed interest in a magazine article about lemon curd, I saw a golden opportunity to get valuable nutrients from eggs and butter into her. It worked. Over the course of the day, she managed to polish off an entire 8 oz. jar as if it were pudding.

I was introduced to lemon curd when I lived in England. At the time, I was just learning to cook, and lemon curd seemed like something only chefs could make. But a kind friend showed me her family recipe, and it is definitely within the reach of home cooks. Her method is genius, because it eliminates the need for straining out bits of egg (Ok, I admit I probably wouldn't strain it anyhow. I'm pretty sure people who strain their lemon curd don't wash their own dishes).

6 Tbsp. room temp butter

1 c. sugar

2 large eggs

2 large egg yolks

2/3 c. fresh lemon juice (usually 2-3 juicy lemons)

1 tsp. lemon zest (optional)

In a mixing bowl, cream together sugar and butter as if starting a batch of cookies. Slowly add in eggs and extra yolks, and mix until well combined. Stir in lemon juice (the mixture will look curdled). In a heavy saucepan, cook the mixture over med-low heat, stirring constantly (so that you don't end up making scrambled eggs), until it's thick enough to coat the back of a spoon (about 170 degrees F). Remove from heat, and stir in zest. Let cool.

Obviously, lemon curd is delicious with all sorts of sweets - particularly as a shimmering yellow layer atop cheesecake. But don't overlook it's possibilities in savory recipes. Together with a little chile kick, it makes a great glaze for lemon chicken.

There's a Pear in my Soup!

Before this year, I'd never dreamed of putting a pear into soup, but now I'm seeing this type of recipe over and over again. It's a lovely way to unite some of the best produce of the season. The flavor which pear lends to soup is far more subtle than apple - it's more of a high note. Take advantage of this to strike a balance with the earthiness of winter root veg - leeks, parsnips, turnips, etc.

Tonight I made a creamed soup with celery root (ugly, but oh so good!) and pear.

Saute a few shallots in butter. Add an entire celery root (peeled), a small potato, and three pears, all cubed, then enough cold water to just cover. Simmer over a medium heat until you can smash the pieces with the back of a spoon. Add milk, and heat gently. Puree with a blender until velvety smooth, season with salt and pepper, thin with more milk if necessary, and finish with quite a bit of cream.

Embrace the Boogeyman: Learn to Render Lard

People are afraid of animal fat. Why shouldn't they be? Almost every "authority" out there has told them saturated fat is a killer. I get it. Really, I do. I lived as a vegan for years, and as a low-fat devotee for the majority of my life. So often, I hear people lament that one minute "they" tell you to avoid a food, and the next, it's ok to eat it. It truly is confusing, most of all because people want to do what is best for their health, and are looking for guidance. I found my mentors in my grandmothers and great grandmothers, who in turn, learned from the generations before them. Their wisdom is stronger to me than any scientific study. My grandmothers cooked with lard, and prized butter and cream. When I reintroduced these same fats into my diet, my decades-long depression lifted, my weight loss became steady and near-effortless, and my gut, which had been damaged by celiac disease, started to heal.

Not only is animal fat not the villain it's made out to be, it's a health food. Yes, you heard right, it's good for you. By eating animal fats, you are helping your body to make better use of the other nutrients you eat, including the fat-soluble vitamins (A, D, E, and K), carotene, omega-3's, and minerals. This is the reason why proteins naturally come paired with fat - muscle meat is marbled with and attached to fat, the protein in egg whites is paired with the fat of the yolks, etc. Fats help the body to absorb the vitamins and minerals in veggies, too. A few generations ago, people intuitively knew this. Classic vegetable recipes are cooked with fat - potatoes mashed with butter and cream, collards stewed with salt pork.

Fats are needed for other vital functions. Not only are they a source of energy, they provide the building material for hormones and cell membranes. Saturated fats, the very ones we've been taught to fear, are the preferred food for the heart. They also protect the liver from toxins and enhance immunity.

If all that doesn't convince you, how about the fact that cooking with animal fats will make you look like a rock star in the kitchen? You will be able to whip up sumptuous sauces and delightfully satisfying dishes with little effort. Eating foods made with butter and cream and lard taste amazing. And these fats keep you full and sated, which keeps cravings and binges at bay.

If you'd like to learn more about how animal fats are good for you, check out some of the books in my reading list, including Real Food, Eat Fat Lose Fat, and Nourishing Traditions, or watch the movie Fat Head.

So are you ready to start incorporating healthy animal fats into your diet? A good way to start is by rendering your own lard.

There are several ways to render lard. I've tried three - stove top, oven, and crock pot. I've found the key with all three is low heat, and starting out with fat that has be chopped or ground into small pieces. The stove top method is too messy for me; it sputters and needs to be watched. Making lard in the crock pot works just fine, but I prefer making it in the oven. If the smell of the fat rendering bothers you, then doing it outside over a propane burner is another great option.

My favorite way to render lard is in my cast iron skillet because it's a great opportunity to season it. For larger batches, I use a big stainless steel pot. Simply add the fat, and about a half inch of water (this prevents the fat from sticking in the beginning), and let it go at 225 degrees until it looks like the pieces have stopped releasing fat, a process which takes several hours. Once the fat is rendered, strain the it through cheesecloth, and store. I vacuum seal my lard in jars and keep them in the pantry, but it can also be refrigerated or frozen. I've never gotten true crispy cracklings from the process, but I save the remaining grease-soaked pieces of fat, and use them to grease my pan before cooking.

Sound simple? It is. As with most rewarding processes in the kitchen, rendering lard is easy; it just takes time and patience. If you render at too high a heat, your resulting lard won't be snowy white, and will have more of a meaty taste, but it's not ruined. Another good trick is to throw a bay leaf into the fat as it's rendering, if you like the taste of bay. This process works well for all types of animal fat. If you have leftover fat from an animal and you like the way it tastes, then render it and make good use of it's nourishing properties.

Squash and Sausage

This is the recipe I anticipate more than any other. To me, the dish is autumn, and is the reason I spent a good chunk of last summer babying a patch of butternut squash. In it's original incarnation, which my gran and mom both made, an acorn squash was halved, and the cavity filled with applesauce and sausage meatballs before being baked. It's nice that way, and certainly less trouble to prepare, but you're left with a disproportionate amount of dry squash. As you might imagine, I improved the recipe by loading it up with fat.

Cut a butternut squash in half, remove seeds, grease lightly, and place cut side down on a baking sheet. Bake in a 400 degree (F) oven for half an hour, turn the pieces cut side up, and continue to bake until very tender. Meanwhile, use any mild sausage to make meatballs, fry them up until brown, then add homemade applesauce (really, I insist, homemade), and gently heat. Once baked, scoop the flesh from the butternut squash and mash it with obscene quantities of butter and cream, then lightly salt until it's sweet complexity emerges. Top the mashed squash with the sausage and applesauce mixture, and prepare for the hallelujah chorus.

Mushroom Cultivation

We got the diagnosis over the weekend - MacGyver has been infected with the mushroom-growing bug. He may never recover.

Our mushroom kit was so deliciously fun that we decided to go into a larger production. The steps required to grow mushrooms reminded me of making yogurt, and the process is just as simple. First, the spawn, which is sawdust that has been colonized with mushroom mycelium, was mixed with shredded, hydrated, pasteurized straw (bringing the straw up to 160 degrees F in a water bath, and letting it hold there for two hours, killed the pathogenic bacteria and fungi, while leaving the beneficial ones). Once the spawn was mixed with the pasteurized straw (which had been cooled to 80 degrees), it was packed into ordinary plastic grocery bags.

The filled bags will be left at room temp for up to two weeks to colonize, at which point, they should be identical to the kit we purchased before. Next, the bags will be placed in 50-55 degree area for a day, which is known as cold shocking. Cold shocking the colony mimics the changing of the seasons, and causes primordia to form. The final step is bringing the colony back into a humid room temp environment, where the warmth and light stimulate it to fruit.

The batch MacGyver is shown mixing is pearl oyster, but we hope to have other varieties soon. The process described here is an indoor cultivation technique, but mushrooms can also be grown outdoors at a slower, more natural pace.