A couple of weeks ago, some friends had a sushi party, where they made several types of sushi for a wonderful dinner. Thanks again, Bill and Barbara, for a fun, delicious dinner!

I brought a Japanese shrimp-noodle-cucumber salad I discovered last year and really enjoyed. It went over well I used green onions from our garden in this dish.

Japanese Noodle, Shrimp and Cucumber Salad

Dressing
2/3 cup rice wine vinegar
1/4 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup vegetable oil (I used peanut oil)
3 tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. dry mustard
1 pinch cayenne pepper

Salad
1 lb. fresh bean sprouts
14 oz. dried chuka soba noodles (I used spaghetti, broken in half)
1/4 cup toasted sesame oil
2 lb. cooked bay shrimp
3 large cucumbers, peeled, halved, seeded and thinly sliced
6 green onions, sliced
1 tbsp. black sesame seeds, for garnish

Dressing: Whisk together vinegar, soy sauce, oil, sugar and mustard in small bowl. Season with cayenne pepper. (Can be prepared 1 day ahead. Cover and leave at room temperature).

Salad: Bring large pot of salted water to boil. Add noodles and boil until tender, stirring occasionally, about 3 minutes. Blanch bean sprouts in boiling water 30 seconds. Drain and refresh in cold water. Drain well.

Place noodles and sprouts in a large bowl. Add sesame oil and toss to coat. (Can be prepared up to 6 hours ahead. Cover and refrigerate bean sprouts and noodles separately.) Add bean sprouts, shrimp, cucumbers and onions to noodles. Drizzle with dressing. Toss gently to combine. Sprinkle with sesame seeds.

This is my contribution to Grow Your Own, the twice-monthly food blogging event that celebrates home-grown food. It’s hosted this month by the founder, Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes.

As I’ve said before, I’m not much of a baker, but I’ve been stretching into trying new things this year, so for a Christmas gift to my co-workers, I decided to make a holiday bread. I wanted to do something other than the seemingly ubiquitous apple or cranberry flavor, so I Googled around for a while, and eventually found a Ginger-Orange Quick Bread recipe on About.com - perfect The recipe makes three mini-loaves, so I bought enough ingredients for three recipes and spent a few hours on a recent Sunday filling the kitchen with yummy baking aromas. The bread is delicious.

I was afraid the amount of crystallized ginger required would make it too spicy, but the baking seems to mellow the flavor. You can still taste it really well, but it’s not overwhelming at all.

If you decide to make it, here’s a tip: The crystallized ginger at the grocery store cost almost $10 for 2 ounces, and I needed 18 ounces total for three recipes. No way I’m spending $90 on ingredients for co-worker holiday gifts - sorry guys But I checked at my local gourmet kitchen store, the Kitchen Koop, and they had crystallized ginger for $1.25 per ounce. Not sure why it’s such a deal there, but there you are. And here it is.

Keep an eye on Santa Claus - he’s heading our way!

NORAD Tracks Santa

This is part of a neighbor’s porch, decorated for Christmas. I heard the owners used to be either set decorators or shop window decorators in New York City.

I took this photo in May at James River State Park at sunset. I love the way it came out.

I’ve lived in Virginia for years now, driven around the country roads here and in North Carolina, and I still can’t get over how many dead and dying buildings there are out there. Maybe I just didn’t notice them growing up in Michigan, or maybe Michiganders are more likely to tear them down, but it always amazes me to see these poor, collapsing buildings along the side of the road.

This one is in Nelson County, Va., where we have been a few times in the last couple of years, for kayaking/canoeing races and last year, Dan and I went for a long weekend of biking in September.

Last weekend, I was a hostess at one of the homes on the Holiday Home Tour our neighborhood civic league, the Port Norfolk Civic League in Portsmouth, Va., puts on as a fundraiser every year. Below is one of the homes on the tour - Culpeppers Boat Rental and the family’s home.

It’s an interesting building - the front is the store of a boat-rental operation where people can rent small boats for crabbing or fishing and behind it is living quarters for the family that owns the shop. It was really cute inside and they had a case of interesting antique fishing tackle, among other goodies.

This photo is from when we were on a sailboat race on the Elizabeth River with Laura and Steve, and probably Dan B. and Paul. The clouds were so cool that night. This is for Photo Friday, the weekly photo challenge. The topic this week is Dusk.

We have lots and lots of bok choy in the garden right now. It doesn’t really seem like that much - we have four more plants out there - but when there are only two of us to feed, a little goes a really long way. See here for a picture from a while back.

In case you’re not familiar with it, bok choy is also known as Chinese cabbage, although it doesn’t really look like cabbage. It has stems that look like celery and broad, dark-green leaves that can be treated like spinach. I use it in stir-fries, but I also use it to replace celery, as in this recipe.

This chicken fricassee recipe is based on one from Cook’s Country magazine, a sister magazine to Cook’s Illustrated. You can use any kind of sausage in it that you like. I had some chipotle chicken sausage I had picked up the last time I cruised up to Trader Joe’s in Newport New, so I used that, but kielbasa, andouille or something similar would work just as well.

Creole Chicken Fricassee

2 boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut into chunks
3 tsp. Creole seasoning
8 oz. andouille sausage, cut into 1/2-inch rounds (I used chipotle chicken sausage)
3 tbsp. vegetable oil
1 onion, chopped
3 celery ribs, sliced thin (I used six bok choy ribs, with leaves)
1 red bell pepper, seeded and chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
2 cups low-sodium chicken broth
Hot cooked rice

Sprinkle chicken with 2 tsp. Creole seasoning and toss to coat. Cook sausage in large pan over medium-high heat till browned, about 5 minutes. Transfer sausage to paper towel-lined plate, leaving fat in skillet. Cook chicken in sausage fat until browned, about 2 minutes per side. Transfer to plate with sausage.

Add oil, onion, celery and pepper to skillet and cook until lightly browned, about 5 minutes. Add garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Stir in flour and remaining tsp. Creole seasoning and cook until flour begins to brown, about 1 minute.

Slowly stir in broth until sauce is smooth. Return chicken and sausage to skillet. Cover and simmer until chicken registers 160 degrees, about 10 minutes. Serve over hot cooked rice.

This is my entry in Grow Your Own, the twice-monthly food blogging event that celebrates home-grown ingredients. It’s hosted this month by the founder, Andrea of Andrea’s Recipes.

Thanksgiving is absolutely my favorite holiday, so I had a great time yesterday and Tuesday getting ready for the big feast. Not so big, actually, since it was just Dan and me this year. But it was great

I’ve had this fear of making turkey gravy for several years, but now - yay! - I’m over it. I think one year, I didn’t cook the flour-fat (roux) mixture enough, because the gravy tasted floury, and after that, I convinced myself I was no good at sauces. So my mom came for Thanksgiving several years in a row and I told her the gravy was her job But she and Leo have gone south on the Intracoastal Waterway already this year, so I had to do it myself.

Luckily, earlier this week, I got an email from America’s Test Kitchen for make-ahead gravy, from a Cook’s Country magazine recipe. It called for roasting turkey wings (I couldn’t find them, so I used necks) with chopped carrots, celery, onions and garlic and using the roasted veggies to make stock for the gravy.

Oh. My. God. It was so good, I went back today and bought more necks so I can make more stock. It was so good, I’m going to make soup tomorrow with the next batch. Yum.

Make-Ahead Turkey Gravy

Makes about 2 quarts

6 turkey drumsticks, thighs, or wings
reserved turkey giblets
reserved turkey neck
2 carrots, chopped coarse
1 head garlic, halved
2 ribs celery, chopped coarse
2 onions, chopped coarse
Vegetable oil spray
10 cups low-sodium chicken broth
2 cups dry white wine
12 sprigs fresh thyme
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
Table salt and ground black pepper

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 450 degrees. Place giblets, neck, drumsticks, carrots, celery, onions, and garlic in roasting pan, spray with vegetable oil, and toss well. Roast, stirring occasionally, until well browned, 1 to 1 1/2 hours. (I set my oven to 400 and checked after 1 hour; I think 1 hour and 20 minutes would be enough).

Transfer contents of roasting pan to Dutch oven. Add broth, wine, and thyme and bring to boil over high heat. Reduce heat to low and simmer until reduced by half, about 1 1/2 hours. Pour through fine-mesh strainer into large container (discard solids), cover stock with plastic wrap, and refrigerate until fat congeals, at least 2 hours.

Using soup spoon, skim fat and reserve. Heat 1/2 cup fat in Dutch oven over medium-high heat until bubbling. Whisk in flour and cook, whisking constantly, until honey colored, about 2 minutes. Gradually whisk in stock, bring to boil, reduce heat to medium-low, and simmer until slightly thickened, about 10 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. (Gravy can be refrigerated for up to 3 days or frozen for up to 2 months.) Reheat gravy in saucepan over medium heat until bubbling.

This is my contribution to Tasty Tools: Roasting/Braising Pans, hosted by Joelen of Joelen’s Culinary Adventures.

We were planning to go to Michigan to visit Dan’s family for Thanksgiving, but Pippen, our black Lab, fell on the stairs and tore her ACL (anterior cruciate ligament - one of the ligaments that holds the knee joint together).

So, rather than travel with an injured dog, or board an injured dog where she would be alone for at least 12 hours every night, we decided to stay home with her. Since we’re both off of work for several days, we’re able to take care of her while she recovers initially. We have to put that sling on so she doesn’t put too much weight on the leg when we take her out to go to the bathroom. Poor thing - she keeps wanting to go for a walk, but she’s just not ready for that yet. I’m also going to look into setting up a Web cam, so we can keep an eye on her when we go back to work.

ETA: Have a Happy Thanksgiving! We just finished cleaning up - that was a great dinner, if I do say so myself. On the to-do list tomorrow: turkey stock with the carcass - yum.