cook: menu planning and thanksgiving sides

The day before Thanksgiving, I finished off the Asian meals in my fridge. I ate the Filipino sinigang and the Thai red curry that were still leftover before my weekend working trip to Memphis. And I had hoped to find inspiration to change up my meal rotation. Two of my meals in that Southern city were great: fried chicken, coleslaw, fried okra, and collard greens + grilled red snapper with both Cajun spice and garlic butter, beans and rice, grilled squash. But South in my mouth was too fried and too meat-centric to eat on the regular. So lo and behold, I came home to an issue of 52 meals in Food & Wine.

Like Julie and Julia, maybe 2024 will be a year of new dishes and exploration of other cuisines from around the globe.

And yesterday was Thanksgiving Day, and I'd volunteered two starchy sides: oyster stuffing and garlic noodles. I roused my little girl from bed and got to chopping. I started with the stuffing by sautéing the onions and celery in a stick of butter. I saw chives in my fridge and decided to chop them up and add to the stuffing.

 

I knew I didn't want the fresh oysters to cook down to a rubbery texture, and so I added their liquid to the simmering broth and aromatics and chopped the oysters as well as additional seasoning to add JUST ALONG with the bread mixture.

 

Dried bread mixture added next to the cooking liquid, stir and done.

 

The stuffing tasted divine and started on the mise en place for the garlic noodles by first chopping the scallions. And then the garlic.

 

The garlic I knew was gonna be a lot of work, and it took me all morning to pound it in my mortar and pestle.

  

Once the aromatics were prepped, next was the washing and cutting of the baby bok choy into bite-sized pieces.

Next was the making of the salty umami element of the Vietnamese American noodles: a little soy, seasoning sauce, oyster sauce, and fish sauce.

And then it was time to gather and pack. My enameled cast iron would be both the carrying AND cooking vessels. Ready to hit the road!

I was famished after all that cooking preparation.

The next time I travel to a conference, I know to take with me an avocado for those meals that I just could not abide, like an awful turkey sandwich and mediocre cucumber salad served at the hotel.