Thanksgiving Confessions Plus a Pumpkin Custard Recipe

Thanksgiving Confessions Plus a Pumpkin Custard Recipe

I must confess, I just don’t like Thanksgiving food. Especially turkey. You can brine it, fry it, slather the flesh with butter and herbs and always I think “Meh. The poor bird.”

The side dishes are generally OK. My homemade stuffing with a combo of hand-cubed rustic country bread and olive bread mixed with mushrooms and hazelnuts is good. That gloppy crap cooked inside the bird is horrifying to me. How about some salty glue with your bland meat?! No, thank you.

Homemade cranberry sauce is great, but the jellied kind that comes from a can, makes that creepy slurping noise on the way out and then has can ridges in it -- that is just wrong. 

The “New York Times Cookbook” has a mean creamed spinach recipe. My sweet potato biscuits are to die for. Those two dishes scarcely a holiday meal make. I mean, I would be fine with it, but guests would more than likely be disappointed.

Then there is the fact that we don’t eat a lot of meat in our house -- mostly because of the way the animals are treated in factory farms, partly because the idea of letting something be born just so you can kill and eat it kind of freaks me out and because I really don’t like the way most meat tastes.

In contemplating the holidays with a kid, we are giving a lot of thought to what kinds of traditions we want to create for Georgia. We will raise her mostly vegetarian with occasional fleshy meals, because that is how we eat.

Every year 45 million turkeys are killed for Thanksgiving. The vast majority of those turkeys live on big factory farms where they have a miserable existence before dying. They are filled with chemicals and hormones. PETA has captured on film the most violent and horrifying mistreatment of turkeys. It makes me really sick to think about it, fortifying my already lukewarm view of turkey as dinner.

Then there is the time I got stuck behind a chicken truck that was on the way to the Tyson’s plant. I still get weepy thinking about those poor birds, covered in the waste product of the bird above, unable to move, looking utterly, utterly miserable.

I am a thoughtful person who evaluates all my choices in conjunction with my moral/ethical compass, how it affects the wider world and what sort of message it will send to my daughter. The end result being most things are more complicated for me than for other people and we don't just follow traditions. We think about how we want to live and fit our beliefs in with the mainstream. Or not. 

So what should be on holiday menus? No turkey. On some distance Thanksgiving, I envision venison stuffed with mushroom duxelles. I have a vague idea that if a deer is wandering about in the forest and never knew what hit it, it isn’t as sad as being born to be dinner. Maybe I am making justifications to fuel my love of Bambi.

If Georgia goes to school and feels like a freak for not having turkey, we will find humanely raised turkey and experiment. Maybe some sort of Bobby Flay-inspired Southwestern recipe that involves a cumin spice rub and a green chile mac and cheese side dish. The mind whirls with possibilities. Maybe Georgia will decide to be completely vegetarian and then we will have great fun finding delicious, festive meals that do not involve tofurkey, because seriously. That is just gross.

While not one to cave to tradition in any way, I do see the sense in pumpkin on a fall menu. They are abundant this time of year. Their brilliant orange color is festive. I had this darling little sugar pumpkin from my farm share and I needed to find something to make with it.

I thought some sort of sugar-free custard might be nice. I wanted a bit of egg yolk to add fat and protein for Georgia. I needed a milky substance, but babies aren’t supposed to have milk so I decided upon coconut milk. Those fall spices like ginger, nutmeg and cinnamon were a must. The result was brilliant, if I do say so myself. Georgia ate an entire ramekin full when they came out of the oven and adored the leftovers. Drew spread it on toast and thought it was genius. Because there is no sugar, this recipe isn’t ideal for adult palates, which have been conditioned for sugar, sugar, sugar. A drizzle of maple syrup over top should do the trick.

Pumpkin Custard

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

½ roasted and pureed sugar pumpkin (or about 1 can of pumpkin)

2 egg yolks, beaten

1/3 c coconut milk

Any combination of the spices below and in amounts you like or use all of them – this is a guideline

¼ tsp powdered ginger

¼ nutmeg

¼ cinnamon

Whisk all ingredients together and pour into one-cup ramekins. Place in a ceramic baker and fill half way to sides of ramkeins with water that has recently boiled. Bake for 30 minutes or until middle is set.

You can use the rest of the coconut milk for a lovely curry with mixed vegetables and your choice of protein. The rest of the pumpkin can be baked into scones or some other baked good if you don’t have a baby who will eat the puree.

Let Georgia Eat Cake

Oh the irony/horror/hypocrisy/appropriateness of the second entry of a blog dedicated to teaching a child to eat good food being about making and eating cake.

When Georgia was born I was adamant that she would not get sweets until she was much older. Nope, she was going to eat vegetables and the only sweet taste she would get would be from fruit. Not fruit juice. Fruit.

Americans consume about 152 lbs. of caloric sweeteners per year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Caloric sweeteners are defined as cane and beet sugars, corn sweeteners like high fructose corn syrup and other sweeteners. I assume things like honey or maple syrup.

That type of sugar intake is directly linked to type 2 diabetes and obesity. Americans eat more sugar (in its various forms) than any other country. We’re the fattest and we are among the sickest from preventable diseases. Diseases which are linked to how fat we are, which (did I mention?) is linked to the shocking amounts of sugar we consume.

The horror. I vowed my kid was NOT going to be a sugar-sucking fiend, walking around with Pixie sticks in her fists and gobbling up cake. No freaking way. No sugar for her.

Then I was making plum shortcakes for a dinner party and I simmered the plums in a sprinkling of light brown sugar, a splash of water, cardamom, some ginger, a bit of brandy.* Georgia was staring at it so intently and I thought, “oh, why not” and gave her a little spoonful of the plum syrup. Her eyes grew wide and sparkled. She smiled. I clearly had to fish out some plums and set them aside to blend up. Georgia LOVED those plums.

The more I thought about how I want Georgia to grow up, I realized I want her to get pleasure from life and especially have a fondness for meal times with family and friends. Eating shouldn’t be a chore about shoveling in nutrients. It should be about learning to eat a variety of foods that include kale and spinach and whole grains, but also dessert.

Also factoring into my evolving thoughts was Drew talking about how sugary things – candy, sugared cereal, etc – were banned from his house when he was growing up. That not only created a mystique about them and a desire to try them out, but because Drew is the nice guy that he is, it also caused him a great deal of guilt when he would have a bowl of Cocoa Puffs at a friend’s house. He also said he thought those things would taste a whole lot better and didn’t get what all the carrying on was about.

I felt that same confusion the first time I saw the Alamo.

I do not want Georgia to be sneaking Cocoa Puffs and then feeling guilty about it. That would make me sad for her and sad for our relationship. If she wants to try Cocoa Puffs, then that is a great dessert option on occasion. We can make our own candy, which I trust will put all those Nestle products to shame.

Oh wait, this is a story about cake. I did not set out to make cake for Georgia. I had a bunch of apples. I had buttermilk I needed to use. I had been flipping through my much-loved copy of “Good to the Grain.” I saw a recipe for Apple Graham Coffee Cake. It called for exactly those ingredients. You do the math. I obviously had to make that cake, but tweaked for an infant.

Because Georgia would be eating this, I wanted to cut back on the sugar and I had to make a few changes, because I didn’t have a couple of ingredients. I didn’t have whole wheat pastry flour, but I did have oat flour. I didn’t have apple sauce, but I did have some homemade spiced pear puree.

The result had a moist but rustic crumb, just a hint of sweetness, which made it taste more like bread with maple kissed apple chunks on top rather than a coffee cake. It was awesome. We all three loved it, although Georgia prefers pureed figs or plain yogurt. Good girl!

Apple Coffee “Cake”

 Apple Topping

3 large apples, peeled, cored, cut into small chunks (about 1 inch)

¼ stick unsalted butter

1 to 2 TBSP maple syrup

½ tsp cinnamon

¼ tsp nutmeg

¼ tsp powdered ginger

Dry Mix

¾ c all-purpose flour

1 ¼ c whole wheat flour

¼ c oat flour

¼ c light brown sugar

half of ¼ c sugar

1 tsp baking powder

½ TBSP cinnamon

1 tsp ginger

Wet Mix

½ stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled

1 c buttermilk

¼ c plain, whole milk yogurt

¼ c roasted pear puree

1 egg

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Rub the inside of a 9-inch round cake pan with butter.

2. Melt the ¼ stick of butter, maple syrup and cinnamon in a skillet over medium-high heat until bubbly. Add the apples and toss to coat them with the butter mixture and let the apples sear for one minute without stirring. Cook 6 to 10 minutes or until tender and slightly caramelized. Don’t keep messing with them – let them sit a bit before stirring so they get a nice color. When done, remove from the pan and scrape apples and their juices onto a plate. Set aside.

3. Sift the dry ingredients into a large bowl, pouring back into the bowl bits of grain or other ingredients left in the sifter.

4. Whisk the wet ingredients until thoroughly combined. Scrape the wet ingredients into the dry ones and mix together. Scrape the batter into the cake pan, smooth the top and sprinkle with the apples, ensuring that the entire the cake is covered.

5. Bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until the cake is golden brown, springs back when lightly touched and/or a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.

*Don’t freak out about the brandy. It was probably less than a tablespoon (who measures?) and had been boiling away, so alcohol content bye bye. I did not get a baby drunk.

First Foods

Welcome to Cooking with Georgia, an adventure in raising a sassy, compassionate girl who (I hope, hope, hope) will love to eat good food and possibly cook it, too. You’ll find (I hope, hope, hope) some good recipes for your kids and the rest of the family, be inspired to explore local farms and food, and think more deeply about issues and topics, probably all food related, that perhaps you have only given a cursory glance. Probably I will make you mad at some point, because I prize being thought provoking over being nice.

All parents want their children to have a better life than they, themselves, had. In the great cosmic sense, I want that for my daughter; but specifically I want her to be a better eater. I have the lofty goal of my daughter eating lots of fruits and vegetables, a chicken nugget never passing her lips and I’d like her to develop a healthy disdain for box macaroni and cheese. She will never, ever eat a cake from a box. Not on my watch.

My goals stem from concern over the current obesity rate in the United States and are inspired by the other f-word – French -- parenting, thanks to reading Pamela Druckerman’s “Bringing Up Bebe” shortly before Georgia was born.

Nearly 36 percent of U.S. adults and almost 17 percent of children are currently obese, according to the Centers for Disease Control. To paint an even gloomier picture, a recent study by the Trust for American’s Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation predicts that unless something drastically changes in the American diet and lifestyle, the U.S. will see obesity rates averaging 50 percent by 2030. For the first time, children are expected to have a shorter life expectancy than their parents and kids are being diagnosed with diabetes and other diseases that had been the provenance of old age.

I also am intrigued by the idea that children can eat a variety of foods, not kidded up (or would that be down?) and can behave like civilized human beings in a restaurant.

Let me just say up front, this journey is not about judging other mothers and their choices. Everyone has to make parenting (and eating) decisions according to their own values, free time, budget, interest, goals, etc. Although, if you are putting soda in the bottle and feeding your baby cheese doodles, I am totally going to judge you for that. I am fortunate to have lots of free time and the ability to buy organic produce for my daughter, plus I have a passion and obsession for food – mostly baking, but a girl cannot live on biscuits alone; at least not without becoming a statistic in the obesity epidemic.

But I digress … at eight months old, Georgia has eaten things I hadn’t even heard of until recently – thanks to the odd assortment from our CSA box. She loved ground cherry marmalade, for example. I am making all of Georgia’s baby food, mostly from the ingredients in our CSA box, but supplemented from organic produce as necessary.

As a first foray into this blog, I will simply list the things that Georgia has eaten in her first two-plus months of trying real food.

• Avocado
• Beets
• Apples
• Pears
• Figs
• Roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes with blue cheese
• Cottage cheese
• Plain yogurt
• Bagel and vegetable cream cheese
• Scone with dried cherries
• Butternut squash
• Whole wheat macaroni with roasted squash puree in place of the cheese
• Herbed goat cheese
• Black beans with cumin and quinoa
• Roasted kuri squash
• Split pea soup
• Curried red lentil soup with brown rice
• Lentil pilaf with dates and coconut
• Pumpkin custard made with egg yolk, coconut milk and spices (no sugar)
• Fish
• Plums
• Mango
• Carrot, mango, apple puree
• Beets 
• Pasta with tomato sauce
• Chocolate pudding (I know! But it was just one bite.)
• Peaches
• Banana
• Kale, potato, parmesan puree
• Spinach
• Zucchini
• Carrots
• Carrots and zucchini together
• Mushrooms
• Peanut butter
• Scrambled egg yolk
• Cauliflower
• Apple cake sweetened with roasted pear puree and apples on top
• Baby cereal – mixed grain with apple and sweet potatoes rather than rice given the recent reports on arsenic levels in rice
• Yams
• Sweet potato

It is possible all of this will backfire and Georgia, despite her varied baby diet, will emerge into toddlerhood insisting on only beige food. I don’t know. This is a journey. An adventure. A real-life experiment and I hope you come along with us to see how it all turns out.