Cooking: Thanksgiving potluck

No, I'm not American but yes, I love all types of celebrations -- they always provide the right setting for a gathering, for meeting old and new, for putting the blandness of everyday life aside for a few hours of laughter, joy and insanity!  On this particular occasion, there was also a good reason to actually agree with the theme of the evening:  we should all have something to be thankful for:  our families, our friends, our health...

My friend Jessi, Über-mistress of ceremonies, was the proper person to undertake the extreme task of gathering close to 30 people for a Thanksgiving dinner:  just looking at the quantity of meat was enough to scare even the toughest male contender among the guests ...  The rest of the meal, however, was actually potluck:  from all corners of the world, but with a distinct American flavour, several side dishes provided the perfect background in honour of the Bird!  My contribution:  something with corn and something with pumpkin as per instructions - and I complied:


Creamy cheesy corn bake

(adapted from FiveheartHome)

300gr cream cheese

4 tbsp butter

1/3 cup milk

2x400gr cans crispy corn 

150g diced antipasti peppers

1 heaped tbsp wholegrain mustard

salt/pepper to taste

150g shredded cheddar cheese

Heat the oven at 180 degrees C fan.  Over low-medium heat, slowly melt the butter in a deep casserole (I like using as few utensils as possible).  Remove from stove.  Add cream cheese, milk, corn, peppers, mustard and stir.  Add salt/pepper to taste.  Pour in oven dish and sprinkle with cheddar.  Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the topping is golden brown... Delish warm or cold!

Pumpkin cream cheese truffles

(adapted from Erin's Food files)

For the filling:
120g white chocolate chunks
200g digestive cookie crumbs

250g pumpkin purée
2 tbsp confectioners' sugar

1 tsp vanilla paste

200g cream cheese

pinch of salt

For the coating:

500g white chocolate chunks

(Almost) no cooking required:

For the filling:
In a bain-marie, slowly melt the chunks.  Remove from stove (I used only this bowl to prepare everything).  In the bowl, add the crumbs, the pumpkin purée, the sugar, the vanilla paste and the cream cheese.  Stir well and add the pinch of salt.  Form in little balls and place in a lined cookie sheet.  Leave in refrigerator until hardened (I did this in the morning before work, and left them in the fridge until my lunch break).  

Now for the coating:
Again, in a bain-marie, melt the chocolate chunks.  The original recipe calls for dipping the pumpkin balls in the mixture.  I did not dare - what I did instead was to pour spoonfuls of the chocolate goodness over the balls, trying to cover them as much as possible.  Leave once more in the fridge until the chocolate is hardened (at least 2 hours).  

I think the result was not bad at all...

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Why this Thanksgiving dinner was special:  good friends (old and new) all around, celebrating the arrival of two babies, meeting two pairs of parents, there to (help and) share the joy across the tables and -- putting everything into perspective, realising what is important in life and concentrating on this.  Thanks Jessi for a unforgettable celebration!

This post is my entry into Weekend Cooking, a weekly event hosted by Beth Fish Reads. For more information, see the welcome post.

Americanah, by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Again, a book that I would probably never have read were it not for my book club:  Americanah, a present-day story about growing up without prospects, about how enchanting certain parts of the world may seem, of how race is indeed an issue among us whether we like it or not, and finally, about how blogging may keep people sane (yes...)

I was hesitant to start this book because of the horror stories I've read over time about people forced to seek (political) refuge in new, strange countries and the sacrifices and ordeals they go through for a better life.  

The Return, by Victoria Hislop

I got "The Return" by V. Hislop as a summer present. At 500 pages, I was slightly intimidated whether I would be able to finish it during my holidays. In addition, I was cautious about the content, as I had not really liked her first book "The Island". But then I was intrigued: reading the back cover, I read that the storyline included Spain's Franco and the story of a family during this difficult time…

Cooking: 3-veg and halloumi bake

no meat in sight...

(In lieu of an introduction: There are plenty of documentaries on TV showing the risk to the food supply if we continue to eat meat at the rate we do. While I don't intend (yet) to become vegetarian/vegan, I am conscious of the unsustainability of eating meat (and to a certain extent dairy products, for that matter) at the current rate. During a recent such episode shown on BBC, I was appaled to see in real terms (i.e. in actual meat mass) how much we consume on average. The conclusion, to which I fully agree, is straight-forward: the only sustainable solution requires a large reduction in the quantity of meat we consume. Eating less meat will put less pressure on the planet, is more healthy and will also promote a better farming system - improved animal well-being, and less but better-quality meat for the carnivores among us.)

All this to say that I've been trying more and more meatless recipes to reach this decrease in my own consumption of meat: I give you a heart-warming, vegetable-packed, rough but oh, so tasty bake! 

Moby Dick: A whale of a readalong!

Yep, I have to drag myself back into the art of reading and writing about it -- plus, I've wanted to read Moby Dick for a very long time.  No time like the present, and RoofBeamReader's invitation was hard to resist.

For my reading, I plan to use two modes:  my wonderful hard-bound copy purchased at the well-known English bookstore Shakespeare and Company in Paris, that's bound to bring back happy memories of a spectacular bookstore and a well-read personnel, ready to help with all types of requests...

and ...

The podcasts from Moby Dick Big Read, which, back in 2012, I would religiously wait for to download because I worried they would disappear.  Fear not, the site still exists and it is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to hear beautiful voices read each chapter (and marvel at the artistic interpretations).  I plan to use these podcasts on my daily walks and hope that the combination of listening and reading brings me to the 15 pages per day RoofBeamReader suggests...

Join the readalong - a great way to start the summer!

The Making of a Marchioness, by Frances Hodgson Burnett

I'm always amazed at how some of the themes currently at the height of interest were also touched upon by classic books. Case in question The Making of a Marchioness, by Frances Hodgson Burnett.  Written in 1901, it talks of financial peril, marriage of convenience and death plots for inheritance purposes...  

I came upon it  having watched "The making of a Lady" (I assume because the title of Marchioness is not well-known), a slightly rom-com set in a Victorian context - easy for a gentle afternoon watching, while knitting / cross-stitching / petting your cat, or whatever Victorians would do in the afternoon...