Twice-Cooked Broccoli

I found this recipe written on a torn-off sheet from a daily calendar dated 10 March 1984. There are only four steps to make this, and combined with the 4 ingredients, it makes for a pretty easy side dish, or dinner if you live in our house. (As an aside, we've realised lately that we eat a lot of broccoli in this house, and often end up eating an entire head of broccoli with dinner, which seems both strange and unlikely, considering I was once the child who refused broccoli unless topped with-- ahem-- American cheese.)

Anyway, sometimes there’s nothing quite so exciting as a vegetable side dish, especially if you’re in the throes of Christmas baking and have eaten nothing but sweets for weeks on end, and especially if you've been making lots of complicated candy recipes that require particular temperatures, specific timings, and detailed ingredient lists… which is why I was so excited to make this broccoli dish after the Christmas holidays.

We don't do a lot of variety when it comes to vegetables in this house—or at least we didn't until I started this blog—but this time of year it’s nice to have something to vary up the ‘roasted veggies with olive oil, salt, and pepper’ that is our mainstay side dish during winter months, and this casserole definitely does that... even if it does so at the cost of upping the butter content. So I was happy to make this, even if it does involve soup mix and butter, both ingredients I contend are not necessary for making veggies tasty and nutritious. I broke my own rules and mixed it up a little when I realised I had bought fresh broccoli instead of frozen, but if the produce section at your local supermarket is as empty as mine has been recently, then no one is going to bat an eye if you use frozen. Also, I looked everywhere in Edinburgh and couldn't find water chestnuts, so for the love of all things good, if you know where I could procure some in this country, please let me know! In their absence, we used celery, which didn't stay as crisp as water chestnuts would have, but it added a nice texture and flavour, so I regret nothing.

It’s not glamorous and it sure is a pain to photograph, but this recipe is tasty and easy, and since we’re always looking for new ways to eat an entire head of broccoli for dinner, this one definitely fits the bill. Note that in the ingredients below I lowered the butter levels to a more manageable amount that's less likely to give you a coronary and also more likely to allow you to eat this as your main course later this week. It's that good.

the verdict:

3 spoons out of five. This is super tasty and definitely easy. It'll become a go-to for us over the next few months, I'm sure!

the recipe:

Twice-Cooked Broccoli

the directions:

Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Steam fresh broccoli until green but still firm (if using frozen, saute without salt and drain).
Combine steamed broccoli and water chestnuts or celery in an oven-safe dish, then dot with butter.
Sprinkle onion soup mix over the dish and toss slightly to coat.
Bake 25 minutes or until veggies are tender.

the ingredients:

2 heads broccoli, chopped into florets (or equivalent in frozen broccoli)
1 c water chestnuts or coarsely sliced celery
2 tablespoons butter (or 1 tablespoon olive oil/1 tablespoon butter)
1 envelope dry onion soup mix

Brandied Cranberries

In my family, we all refer to cranberry sauce as simply ‘cranberry.’

I don’t know how this got started, but I would hazard a guess it was because as a kid, my favourite food for a good long while was cranberry. It didn’t even have to be the good homemade kind; just the kind shaped like a can was good enough for me. Relatedly, my favourite doll was a terrifying plastic doll with blond hair and a tattered pink dress named, I kid you not, Cranberry.

When I was a teenager, I learned how easy cranberry is to make, and I’ve been making it every year for Thanksgiving ever since. This year, when I realised Eleanor had her own recipe for ‘brandied cranberries’ in the box, I got excited: a new way to make cranberry in honour of one of my favourite holidays!

But then I read the recipe and realised it’s basically the exact same recipe I’ve been making for half my life every year on Thanksgiving.* So I made the cranberry, thinking it would be exactly the same as the stuff I’ve always made… until I got to the brandy.

¾ cup of brandy is a huge amount of brandy, you guys. That’s 6 ounces of brandy, or 4-6 shots, depending how you measure a shot in your house. And it’s not added to the cranberry until after you remove it from the oven, meaning that almost none of it cooks off (some probably still does, because the dish sizzles like crazy when you pour in the alcohol). This means that this cranberry is boozy enough that if I were hosting a Thanksgiving dinner with children present, I would probably not serve it to them… unless their parents were desperate to make them take a nice, long nap.

However, it also means that this cranberry is insanely delicious. Decadent, rich, and with that perfect balance of sweet/sour/bitter that makes me want to pour it all over everything I eat. And if no one's looking and you stir a wee spoonful into a glass of bourbon, top it with a dash of bitters, and serve it with the biggest ice cube you can find in a sort of holiday riff on an Old-Fashioned, no one will complain, I guarantee it.

We're not celebrating too much this year since today is a work day in all countries except the US, but I've been dwelling on the things I'm grateful for all day, and here are just a handful:

• Amazing friends near and far.

• The cosiness of winter in Scotland.

• Commuting by bus every morning and the insane amount of books I’ve been able to read because of it.

• A flat with a giant bay window that overlooks my favourite street in Edinburgh.

• A husband willing to sit through a Bring Me The Horizon show this week, even though he’d rather have been playing video games.

• When you find grapes so ripe they crunch when you bite into them.

• All of the incredible trips I’ve been able to take this year, to Miami, San Francisco, Liverpool, Glasgow, Tulum, Paris, London and Berlin… and to Vienna next month!

• Tesco selling cranberries so I don’t have to schlep to the fruit market.

• A Christmas tree shop that delivers!

• Candles that make the entire flat smell like winter.

• Living on a block with 2 chocolate shops, a florist, 2 bakeries, 3 coffee shops and a wine shop

• Turning 30 and finally feeling like I might know myself at least a little bit better.

But most of all, I’m thankful to have a warm, safe home to share with my husband in a beautiful city I call home in a wonderful country we’ve adopted as our own. Hugs to you from the Recipe Box Project kitchen, and remember today to be grateful for all the things you have! 

*Minus the crushed pecans and orange zest, two ingredients I definitely prefer to include.

the verdict:

5 spoons out of five. This is perfect, unpretentious, easy and impossible to mess up cranberry sauce. Serve it with turkey, serve it with roast chicken, serve it on a scone or on a spoon or over ice cream or in a cocktail and it will be perfect no matter what!

the recipe:

Brandied Cranberries

the directions:

Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Wash cranberries well and place in a single layer in a shallow baking dish.
Sprinkle sugar evenly over cranberries, then cover dish tightly with foil.
Bake 45-60 minutes until cranberries are burst and sauce has formed.
Remove from oven and add brandy immediately.
Allow to cool, then serve or store for later use.

the ingredients:

16 oz fresh cranberries
1 1/2 c sugar
3/4 c brandy

Shredded Yams & Squash Casserole

This year will be the fourth Thanksgiving that Judson and I have been married, and the third that we'll be celebrating in the UK. When I was in undergrad and lived in Paris, Thanksgiving was just about the only time I felt really, truly homesick. This could have something to do with the fact that I had a full day of class on Thanksgiving (and Black Friday), but since then, I haven't minded too much dealing with Thanksgiving in the UK. It's still kind of weird celebrating a holiday here that no one else is observing, but we celebrate on the weekend before and it's still a lovely time to get together with new friends (American or not), eat good food, and, for me, make all the recipes I've bookmarked since the year before.

I love Thanksgiving-- it's not my favourite holiday (that would be Halloween, followed by New Year's Eve), but I just adore Thanksgiving. Having an excuse to meet with your friends, eat delicious food, and feel gratitude is a great tradition that I love taking part in every year... and in a year like this one, where so many tragedies seem to be taking over the news lately, I'm looking forward to remembering some of the things that I'm grateful for. 

More on that soon, but in the meantime, here are some new veggie recipes you can serve as a side dish with your Thanksgiving (or Friendsgiving) dinner.

The verdict:
Shredded Yams:

2 spoons out of five. The directions on this recipe were exceedingly difficult to follow, and I feel fairly confident I messed something up. Shredding them took nearly half an hour, and the finished product was way to salty... but somehow, also too sweet. So I made some revisions and the final product (as written below) is much better-- at least 4 spoons out of five. I know the name of the recipe should be changed since they are obviously no longer shredded yams, but the name was too awesome to change and I couldn't think of a better one.

Squash Casserole:

3 spoons out of five. I couldn't find summer squash (I KNOW, how weird is that?) so I used a hokkaido squash and an acorn squash, and it was still great. If you like squash, you'll love this recipe-- I just am pretty indifferent to squash in general.

The recipe:

Shredded Yams

the directions:

Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
Peel and chop potatoes in bite-sized pieces, pouring into a large bowl full of water as you go (to keep potatoes orange).
Sprinkle salt in the bowl and stir well.
Drain potatoes and rinse well.
Pour potatoes into a shallow roasting pan and set aside.
In a medium bowl, mix together sugar, water, golden syrup, butter, and pineapple juice.
Pour mixture over potatoes and cook until yams are tender and stringy, approximately one hour.

Serves 6.

the ingredients:

1 lb raw sweet potatoes
½ tbs salt
½ c sugar
¼ c water
½ c golden syrup or corn syrup
1 oz butter
½ c pineapple juice

---

the recipe:

Yellow Summer Squash Casserole

the directions:

Preheat oven to 175C/350F.
In boiling water, cook squash and onion for five minutes, then drain.
In a separate bowl, combine soup, water, sour cream, and carrots.
Fold in squash and onions, then set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine bread crumbs, butter, and herbs.
Spread half of crumb mixture in a small baking dish, then spread squash mixture over the crumbs.
Sprinkle other half of crumbs over the squash, then bake 25-30 minutes or until golden brown and bubbly.

Serves 6.

the ingredients:

1 lb summer squash or a mix of acorn and winter squash, sliced
¼ c onion, chopped
½ can condensed cream of chicken soup
½ c water
½ c sour cream
½ c carrots, coarsely grated
½ c bread crumbs
¼ c butter, melted
Herbs of your choice: I used 1 tsp garlic powder, 1 tsp onion powder, and a pinch each of thyme, nutmeg, dill, black pepper, and cayenne pepper.