Salad

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Thanksgiving Day 2013 – The Spread

Giving thanks to God for many of the blessings we’ve had during the past year my family and I sat down to Thanksgiving Dinner with some friends who graciously accepted and invitation to spend Thanksgiving with us.

Lucky and grateful to be able to gather together and enjoy a meal while communing with each other was an awesome experience that I often took for granted growing up as a kid.

In these latter days and years in life I’m appreciating the blessing of family and what it means to be close, in addition to valuing the time we have with one another.

I’m grateful for the brief moments in life that we are fortunate enough to have together and thank God for his blessings, his mercy and for family & friends far and near.

Without further ado we present Thanksgiving 2013 – The Spread. Here’s a look at the bounty we were fortunate enough to share amongst friends and family. The Bird

The Ham

Rice & Peas

Roasted Vegetables

The Stuffing

The Spread Close Up

The Polenta feat Quinoa

The Ham II

Vegetarian Loaf

Cornbread

7 Cheese Mac N Cheese

The Spread at a Glance

The Spread II

So we had the basics Turkey with stuffing, Gravy, Ham, Roasted Vegetables (including, Yams, Squash, Edoes, Brussel Sprouts, and herbs), Mac N Cheese with bread crumb topping, Vegetarian Loaf, Collard Greens, Lasagne, Cranberry Sauce, Rice & Peas, Salad and Cornbread. Desert had to wait a while as room was being made for it after the main course.

Mom was the star of the evening for having cooked almost all of the dishes, while I was responsible for the Mac N Cheese with a slight amount of char on it due to placement in a cramped oven lol. It came out tasting pretty good if I do say so myself. Till next time this has been Thanksgiving 2013 – The Spread by THEJNSREPORT. Wishing everyone a Happy Thanksgiving.

Welcome to THEJNSREPORT’S: Dinner at Home – Whole Wheat Fusili and Seafood & Vegetable Cream Sauce

Today I was thinking that I have a lot of pasta I haven’t used yet and could try my hand at making my own cream sauce to boot. After checking the fridge for what I would need I decided to make a quick stop at the supermarket and pick up some needed items for my Cream Sauce. Once back from the supermarket I set up the ingredients

Ingredients for my Vegetable Seafood Cream Sauce:

1 pint of Heavy cream

1 half cup Coconut water with pulp

3 tbsp Oregano, 2 tbsp Cayenne Pepper, 1 tsp Black Pepper, 1 tsp Habanero Pepper, Sea Salt

2 finely chopped Garlic Cloves

1/2 Red Onion finely chopped (or whatever onion you have)

1 can Green Peas n Carrots, 1 can Green Peas

3 tbsp All purpose flour

1 1/2 cups shelled deveined uncooked Shrimp

1/2 cup Calamari

3 hard boiled eggs

I poured the heavy cream and coconut water w pulp into a sauce pan or pot with medium low heat. Next in went the spices and canned peas and carrots before I stirred in the chopped garlic and red onion. In a small bowl I mixed the 3 tbsp of flour and just enough water to dissolve the flour and have no lumps. The dissolved flour was then added to the sauce and let simmer.

In a separate skillet I added some canola oil and heated the pan to medium heat. Once the oil was fast in the pan, I added the Shrimp and Calamari pieces one at a time to the pan and allowed them to cook on both sides before removing and placing on a plate with paper towel to drain excess oil. I did two styles where I used Panko breadcrumbs and an egg yolk bath to coat some of the Calamari and Shrimp and some I fried without any breadcrumbs just in oil. Both ways I cooked the shrimp ended up in the cream sauce and were equally delicious.

Next I took the yolks from the 3 Hard Boiled Eggs and sliced them in halves before adding them to the sauce.

After a gentle stir of the Shrimp and Calamari and Egg Yolks into the sauce, I added Sea Salt to taste as I could tell the coconut water had made the sauce a tad sweeter than I intended. Once the taste was just right I let it simmer until sufficiently thickened. The heat was turned down to low. Next turned my attention to putting a pot of water on to boil before adding the Fusili pasta to it.

I let the Fusili boil for about 8 minutes till al dente then drained them and set them aside while I tended to the cream sauce which was almost done. Next I grabbed a mixing bowl and whipped together a quick Garden Salad with Mushrooms, Grape Tomatoes, Spinach and Shredded Carrots. Below is the completion of my efforts.

Dinner is finally served…

Just when I thought I’d take my first bite I realized I wanted to add some Parmesan Cheese and so…

Now for the first bite of Shrimp

I have to say for my first time throwing together a Cream Sauce this turned out to be quite good. The Cayenne Pepper and Habanero Pepper heightened the flavor and gave the sauce a little kick. Next time I’ll have to experiment making this using Shrimp stock in the sauce. Till next time this has been Dinner at Home another report by THEJNSREPORT.