A Farm Stand Thanksgiving

Turkey-Day Recap!

Check out this map... You've got Monterey Bay on the left, what is probably Elkhorn Slough up top, and Highway 1 going up the center. 
That star-arrow thing in the middle is pointing right at one of the neatest/cheapest/diverse produce stands in the whole entire world: Farm Fresh Produce. 
Check out the Price indicator on Yelp. ONE DOLLAR SIGN. That's not a joke! This place is super duper di doooper cheap! Also check out "Hours Today: 6:00 am until 5:30 am" That's not true, because that would mean that they are open for 23 1/2 hours a day. You know what? They are actually open 24 hours a day! 
They get new produce around the clock so why not stay open around the clock? Driving from Santa Cruz to Monterey at 3 am and need 10 oranges? Want to get them for a buck? Well this is where you should stop!
My roommate Sarah originally told me about this place and the first time I went I was overwhelmed by all the deals. Now I've got it down to a science... I like to get grapes there, and freeze them for snacking on during the week. I'll also get some apples, plums, and usually an onion.

Before Thanksgiving, I made a booklet of all the dishes I wanted to prepare on turkey day:

1. Seared Brussels Sprouts
2. Orange Cranberry Sauce
3. Alton Brown's Best Ever Green Bean Casserole
4. Honey Glazed Carrots
5. Crab-Stuffed Mushrooms
6. Cornbread and Dutch Crunch Apple Stuffing
7. Pumpkin Pie!!
8. Salad stuff <- but I didn't end up making the salad



I bought my brussels sprouts from the Marina Farmer's Market on Sunday and the rest of my veggies came from Farm Fresh Produce in Moss Landing. Check out my spread:




Orange (#2), Green Beans + Portobello Mushroom + Onion (#3), Parsley + Carrots (#4), Baby Mushrooms (#5), Apple + Onion + Celery (#6), Lettuce + Tomatoes (#8)... Lemons are for beer... MMMMM I love lemon in my beer. Better than orange fo sho.




Yeah... and my total for ALL of that was $12.78 (plus I got a bunch of frozen grapes, not pictured).




Thanksgiving morning David, my mom, my sister Nicole, and I drove at the crack of dawn in the freeeezing San Jose weather to go run the Silicon Valley Turkey Trot! 
One of my favorite traditions is running this race with my Mom and Nicole and Aaron, but sadly he couldn't make it this year because he has a girlfriend and she lives in LA area.

We quickly started the race, and finished the race, and grabbed a bunch of freebie snacks - hoping for any sort of warm sun rays (didn't get any though). Instead of sticking around for a while, we jammed back to the car and drove back to my moms.

After showering, I got to work in the kitchen. Timing things is pretty difficult. I was so nervous that it would be 5pm and everyone would be starving with no food ready. With Nicole and Kyle's help, we actually got a lot of the food ready to bake ahead of schedule.

Adding to the list above: the turkey, Kyle's mashed potatoes, Nicole's secret-ingredient banana bread, and my mom's sweet potatoes (favorite dish), we had 5 things that needed oven time.

Luckily, everything finished on time and was warm and delicious. While it sounds kind of corny,  Thanksgiving dinner truly was delightful. In attendance: Mom, Nicole, David, his 3 sons: Nathan, Sam, and Ben, David's coworker Doug, family friends Becky, Megan, and Andrew, and good ol' Kyle Dozeman... and myself. After my pumpkin pie slice, Ben brought me a chocolate chip cookie he took home from Starbucks - perfect end to the perfect meal. It was so much fun to spend the day cooking in the kitchen with Nicole and Kyle.

I wish I had more time to make fun, creative meals. Sadly, during the week I just don't feel as motivated to make tricky things for just myself to enjoy. Maybe if I had the "Cooking for One" cookbook I could learn how to spice things up without having to eat leftovers for lunch/dinner 2 or 3 days straight!

"Cooking for One"??? That sounds like a depressing gift. Nobody give it to me out of pity! I will make do until my move to San Jose. Hopefully then I can cook with my mom, Kyle, friends.... any takers for dinner dates??

While there weren't any pictures taken of the Thanksgiving dinner spread, I did take pictures of breakfast the next morning: Apple Walnut Sticky Buns!!




Adapted from a Sandra Lee recipe I saw on a Bake Sale special on the Food Network:

You'll need:
1 Granny Smith apple
1/2 C chopped walnuts
1/4 C brown sugar
2 T. softened butter
1 (8-count) tube of refrigerated cinnamon rolls
1/2 t. pumpkin pie spice
1 to 2 t. water

Directions:
- Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F. Butter a 12-count muffin tin a lil' bit.
- Peel/core/dice apple into 1/2-inch cubes
- Stir together diced apples with walnuts and brown sugar.
- Divide apple mixture evenly into 8 of the 12 muffin tin slots.
- Put the 8 cinnamon buns, cinnamon side up, on top of the apple mixture.
- Put the muffin tin on a baking sheet and bake until the tops are golden brown, about 8 to 10 minutes.
- Remove the muffin tin from the oven and allow to cool for 5 minutes. Put a clean baking sheet on top of the muffin tin and flip to remove the sticky buns.

For glaze:
- In a small bowl, combine the frosting from the cinnamon roll tube with the pumpkin pie spice and 1 to 2 teaspoons of water.
- Mix until very thick and of pourable consistency. Drizzle over buns and serve.

SO YUMMY!




Now let's start thinking about Christmas dinner... I'm thinking Vegetable Parmesan?

Berkeley Eats and Sweets

Saturday I went with Katie and Nick to Berkeley to explore College Ave and eat our way over Shattuck.

After a pit-stop in Belmont at Nick's, we drove across the bridge and up the East Bay and in to Berkeley. We parked at the Rockridge BART station (free on weekends!) and began walking towards Cal, stopping in cute shops along the way.

For lunch, we ate at Manpuku (2977 College Ave, Berkeley). We ordered five different rolls, and the total after tax was under $21! Super cheap... and the sushi was good too! We got an imitation crab CA roll, a roll with eel and mango, a shitake mushroom and spinach roll, a spicy white tuna roll, and the fancier one was... um... I forget. But it had lots of avocado on top!

Grabbing hot tea and water

Check out the tuna!



Mixin in the wasabi - a must!



$20 bucks never looked so tasty.

We walked up the street and found this cute candy shop! (Sweet Dreams)

We enjoyed looking at their scocks and tasting fudge!

Next stop was Ici Ice Cream, a must-try in Berkeley's cold dessert arena.

Ici is a self-proclaimed "one of a kind ice cream shop." They make their ice cream, sorbets, candies and cookies in the shop in small batches. They pride themselves on their local/fresh/quality ingredients. (ie. all dairy is certified organic, fruits/nuts/chocolate exceed organic standards, no artificial preservatives, etc). Mary Canales, former pastry chef at Chez Panisse (ONE DAY KATIE!) left her 9-year tenure and opened Ici a little over 4 years ago. We had our choice of 11 flavors of ice creams/sorbets/sherbets: Pear Ginger Sorbet, Earl Grey, Kirsch Cherry-Fudge Swirl, Vanilla, Lemon Vanilla, Meyer Lemon Sherbert, Chocolate, Brown Sugar-Porcini, Brandied Allspice, Coconut-Rum, Candied Cacao Nib.

Ice cream elves in the back of the shop doing their small-batch thang

The three of us decided to enjoy our picks in Ici's hand rolled, chocolate-filled-tip, cones. Seriously, don't even consider going with a cup. The cones were soooooo good. It tasted like a cookie.

After Nick reassured me Candied Cacao Nib would be tasty, I chose a scoop of that!

I ordered one of their peanut butter bon bons too. I thought the inside was deliciously peanut buttery, but the hand-dipped, bittersweet chocolate casing was a little too rich for my tastes. Gimme that milk chocolate haha...

We went into a lot of shops.... Including this Hat Shop ;)

After we went up and down College Avenue we decided to go to Shattuck area, specifically to check out a highly-recommended cupcakery. Apparently Nick and Katie had been here before and remembered that it was sort of in an off-the-beaten path upstairs building thing. It makes sense when you see it. (1510 Walnut Street Suite G, Berkeley).

Such a cute shop! I like how open it is

Chocolates and Vanillas... standard.

Here's the good stuff. What would you choose between Sweet Potato, Cookies and Cream, and Peanut Butter Cup??!?

I went with PB Cup... of course. That frosting is SOO AMMMAZZINNNGG.

We continued walking around and ended up at The Cheeseboard Pizza Collective (1512 Shattuck Avenue, Berkeley). So it has 1647 reviews. But why you might ask? From their website I learned that The Cheese Board (not the pizza part - yet) was founded on November 6, 1967 by two people as a privately owned business. In an effort to treat customers in a way that they would want to be treated, the owners decided to let all workers having equal power, as well as equal wages (= pay cut for owners). "The Cheese Board began making pizza on Tuesdays for lunch in 1985. Gradually this expanded to Wednesday lunch and Friday evening. In 1986 the Cheese Board acquired the space vacated by Pig by the Tail Charcuterie... This space was used to create and sell pizza three week day lunches (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday) and Friday Evening. On Saturdays this space was used as a bread outlet for the main Cheese Board. Some Collective members worked at both sites." They serve one type of (vegetarian) pizza a day. $2.50/slice or $20/whole pie. QUALITY ingredients. "In 1990 six members of the Cheese Board Collective formed a committee to seek out new members to form another collective–The Cheese Board Pizza Collective–which would allow the pizza operation to run full time...Pizza eventually brought in new members, expanded its hours and now is open six lunches and five evenings each week. The Cheese Board Pizza Collective is run as its own business, but Pizza and the Cheese Board are under the same financial umbrella and operate under the identical corporate by-laws." While Katie and Nick went to the bathroom I watched the assembly line. These collective people were fast! One man was handling all the pizza ovens, another was slicing and adding "finishing touches," and a girl was acting as cashier and boxer-upper.

The line might be reeeeally long, but it moves quickly!

Our time in Berkeley was really fun! Usually I avoid Berkeley because I got lost driving there once and the East Bay really confuses me. I hate being lost. However, I'm glad I gave it another shot because after all the walking around we did, I definitely saw spots that I want to come back too... Ici that means you. (And Chez Panisse - for a known-in-advance (?) special occasion OBVIOUSLY).

We headed back to the car and drove south to San Jose. We split for about 45 mins to prepare for a pretty amazing, quickly thrown together, Harry Potter Party (watched the 6th movie in anticipation for the 7th on 11/19!)

No Garlic Ice Cream

What's that sign say? Garlic Ice Cream??

Sadly those are not my hands (eek! man hands attack!) ... and no they are not Kyle's hands. Those babies belong to a stranger. A stranger holding the mystical garlic ice cream. To make it better (or more strange?) the ice cream is served in half a cantaloupe. We went to the Gilroy Garlic Festival and I was so excited to try the garlic ice cream but that never happened. Here is why:

We got to the fairgrounds and did a loop around to check everything out.

OMG. LOVE DUNKIN DONUTS! Bring the stores to CALIFORNIA!!

We stopped and spun the prize wheel. No cool winnings.

We stopped to check out these giant chickens. They were really well trained.

We walked into this demo area and someone tossed us some free garlic!

They told us how to make their prize-winning scampi sauce.

He was afraid of the giant chickens from earlier.

We continued to walk ... SO MANY PEOPLE! And lots of food options...

For example, these enchanted escargot.

If you are a real badass you could just eat the garlic like an apple.

Then we found one of the 2 stages and listened to a lady rock out. SERIOUSLY she was a rocker. 

Okay. HUNGRY now! All the food was locally grown. 

MMM... this sounds delicious.

And it was! It was overflowing with green and red peppers, onions, garlic of course...

Ultimately this was the reason why I did not have the garlic ice cream...

Can you blame me? Nicole knows about my love for anything related to frozen yogurt. I'm not going to say I would always choose froyo over ice cream, but today froyo won! Kyle and I also had the garlic fries (in fact it was the first thing we ate!)

General thoughts about the Gilroy Garlic Festival:

- tons of people! 

- repetitive food stalls (all of them had garlic for some reason ...jk)

- art sampling (diverse but nothing that sticks out as WOOOAHHHH)

- pickled garlic: I liked it while Kyle thought it was detestable. If you ever decide to try it, make sure you are a fan of brine preservation.

- Dunkin Donuts spin wheel is rigged so no one can win

- giant chicken Halloween costume might not be a bad idea

- garlic fries are awesome, if only Jan Hagel would have let me try the one with crab (I don't care if it's fake crab!)

- there really isn't a whole lot to do - eat, walk, eat, sit, eat ... eat eat eat!