There are few things more comforting on a chilly winter day than a piping hot chicken pot pie out of the oven. Pot pie was one of the first things I taught myself to make when I was learning to cook, and is what I crave when I’m sick. This turkey version provides another option for your Thanksgiving leftovers, or use two fresh turkey breasts. This recipe also makes use of the chanterelle mushrooms that are in season at the farmers markets, though you can use whatever mushrooms you find at your store or even reconstitute dried chanterelles.

Recipe: Chanterelle Turkey Pot PIe

Ingredients:

• 1 or 2 9 inch pie crusts
• 1 yellow onion, chopped
• 2 cloves garlic, chopped
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 tablespoons flour
• 2 cups milk
• salt and pepper
• 4 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves removed from stems
• 2 tablespoons fresh parsely, chopped
• 2 1/2 cups leftover turkey meat, shredded or 2 fresh turkey breast tenders
• 1 cup chanterelle mushrooms, diced

Instructions: If using a bottom crust, roll out and place in pie plate. Roll out top crust and lay aside. Preheat oven to 375 degrees. [If using fresh turkey breasts, cube the meat, season with salt and pepper and cook over medium high heat in saute pan until browned, about 6-8 minutes. Remove turkey to plate and cover to keep warm.] Melt butter over medium heat and cook garlic and onion several minutes, until soft. Reduce heat to low, add flour and cook one minute until bubbly. Gradually stir in milk, whisking over low heat until sauce thickens, stir in herbs, salt & pepper and remove from heat. Mix in turkey meat and mushrooms and pour into prepared pie pan. Top with crust, poke a few slits to allow steam to escape, and bake at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, until crust is golden. Makes 6 servings. Enjoy!

Looking for a last-minute Thanksgiving appetizer? This cranberry baked brie kicks things off with seasonal flavors and will keep your guests happy if the turkey is a little slow arriving on the table — always a challenge if you’re cooking with toddlers underfoot!

Recipe: Cranberry Baked Brie

I couldn’t resist Whole Foods’ new Isigny Ste. Mere Holiday Brie, produced by a co-op of eco-friendly farmers in Normandy, France. It was fairly mild-flavored, creamy and rich, and went wonderfully with the sweetly tart tang of my spiced cranberry sauce.

Ingredients:

• 1 12 ounce (6″) wheel of brie
• 8 sheets fillo dough, thawed
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup cranberry sauce
• 3 sprigs fresh thyme
• sliced apples and bread

Instructions:

Cover a baking sheet with a layer of parchment paper. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Unwrap the brie and have the cranberry sauce and thyme ready before you begin working with the fillo dough. Lay out one sheet of fillo dough on a clean work surface and brush generously with melted butter. Repeat with the additional sheets of fillo.

After the last layer, spread cranberry sauce in a circle in the center, as wide as the round of brie. Center the brie over the sauce and lay thyme sprigs over the top.

Trim the corners off the fillo to make an oval shape. Working quickly, fold up the edges over the brie, brushing folds with melted butter as you go. Once it’s closed, gently flip over onto baking sheet and brush outside with butter. Bake for 25 minutes, until fillo is golden brown. Remove from oven and let cool for 45 minutes, then serve with apples and bread.

If you’re impatient like me and can’t wait to dig in, be prepared for a gooey gush of warm, melted cheese. Mmm. Enjoy!

From the FoodieTots’ family to yours, we wish you a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! And check back on Friday for some fresh turkey leftover recipes.

If you missed out on pre-ordering your heritage bird, EcoFriendly reports that they will be bringing a limited quantity of turkeys to the Courthouse (Saturday) and Dupont Circle (Sunday) farmers markets, first-come, first-serve.

If you prefer your turkeys still free ranging, bundle up and take a hike at Turkey Run Park off the G.W. Parkway!

Speaking of markets, Fairfax County Markets have closed for the season, except for Mount Vernon which ends Tuesday. Alexandria’s Del Ray and Old Town are going strong, and Dupont Circle is year-round as well. Warm up after your market visit with Andrea’s Roasted Acorn Squash with Apples and Sage.

Get a head start on your Christmas shopping at Mount Vernon, where former White House pastry chef Roland Mesnier is creating a gingerbread replica of George Washington’s home and signing books Saturday and Sunday at 1 and 4pm.

Keep warm and support your local winter markets!

Now that we’ve covered why organic cranberries are important for your health and the environment, how easy are they to find? Read on for my shopping recap, or just skip to the bottom for my Spiced Cranberry Sauce recipe.

I scoured the produce sections at three local grocery stores, Safeway, Giant and Whole Foods. I generally find that Giant has a better selection of organics than Safeway, but I was intrigued by the promise of “locally grown” berries in yesterday’s Safeway ad. My hopes were quickly dashed when bags of Ocean Spray were all I could find - bags labeled, “Product of Canada,” at that. I asked the produce manager to verify that was all they had, and he reported that they stocked organic cranberries last year but none were sent this year. To his credit, he did try to be helpful and suggest I just go to Whole Foods…

I was hoping to prove that you could find organic cranberries without having to go to an organic market, so I continued on to Giant, a local chain. I did see a few more organic items, potatoes, onions, etc. at first glance, but was about to give up when I spotted two lone boxes of organic cranberries. (Naturipe brand from Wisconsin.) Score! I do hope they are planning to restock before the holiday, though. Curiously, Giant’s bagged Ocean Spray berries were “Product of USA,” stating that they were packed in Wisconsin, Massachusetts or Washington. Not the most helpful if you’re trying to plan a 100-mile Thanksgiving, but slightly more local than Canadian berries for most of us in the states. (I guess if you’re in Minnesota you can go either way.)

On then to Whole Foods, which offered two choices, organic from a family farm in Massachusetts (Orcranic brand), and Ocean Spray branded IPM berries from New Jersey. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) attempts to use natural methods first and pesticides as a last resort, but the consumer has no way of knowing what that means in actual quantities of chemicals unless you can talk to the producer directly. It is generally preferable to conventional, at any rate.

How do the prices stack up?

• Safeway: No organic fresh cranberries.
• Giant: Naturipe brand organic cranberries, $2.99 (in-store only, not available through Peapod delivery service).
• Whole Foods: Orcranic brand organic cranberries, $4.99; Ocean Spray IPM cranberries, $3.99.

Now I was primarily focused on fresh berries, but I perused the dried and canned options at each store as well, for those who have to have the can or just like to snack on dried berries year round. Here’s the scorecard:

• Safeway: Newman’s Own Organic (from US or Canada) $2.99 (4oz.) vs. Sun-Maid “Cape Cod” conventional cranberries, $3.99 (6oz.)
  No organic canned cranberry sauce.
• Giant: Nature’s Promise (store brand) organic dried cranberries, $5.99 (9 oz.). (Out of stock yesterday, but available through Peapod.)
  No organic canned canned cranberry sauce. (Ocean Spray conventional, $1.00.)
• Whole Foods: Organic cans, 365 brand, $1.79.

Recipe: Organic Spiced Cranberry Sauce

Cranberry sauce is surprisingly easy to make, and can be made ahead of time and stored up to a week in the refrigerator. This simple spiced version incorporates other classic fall flavors, apple cider and maple syrup, to lend a dark (and healthier) sweetness. I used the Orcranics for this, and they were firm, tart and full of flavor.

Ingredients:

• 1 12 ounce bag organic fresh cranberries, rinsed
• 1 cup apple cider
• 1/3 cup maple syrup
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice

Instructions: Place all ingredients in a medium sized saucepan and bring to a boil over medium high heat. Reduce heat to medium low and simmer, stirring occasionally, for 10 minutes. Berries will pop and burst. Don’t worry if it is still slightly runny, it will set up more as it cools. Remove from heat and cool; refrigerate until ready to serve. Makes the equivalent of one can, but tastes infinitely better! Enjoy!

Have you seen organic fresh cranberries in your local grocery? Let me know!

Part One of Two on sustainable cranberry sauce for your Thanksgiving dinner… While cranberry-sauce-in-a-can is always on our Thanksgiving table to appease my “traditionalist” husband and in-laws, I make one or two fresh variations as well. I’ve always been intrigued by the notion of cranberry bogs. While my home state Oregon actually boasts a few, I have never seen one in person. In other random cranberry facts, did you know that cranberries are one of the few native North American fruits? And that the cranberry capital of the US is Wisconsin, with Massachusetts in second place? Nutritionally, cranberries provide a boost of antioxidants, vitamin C and fiber.

If you’re like me, one of the first steps you probably took to “go green” was swapping out plastic bottles for a few reusable bottles. (We’re fans of the Sigg (especially for kids) and Klean Kanteen here at the Foodie Tots household.) Then you probably started noticing the news reports about what’s really in that bottled water and just how polluted your tap water really is. (Especially if you’re lucky enough to live in lead pipe-supplied D.C.) Yeah yeah, enough with the science lesson, how does this relate to Thanksgiving dinner? …

Cranberry bogs. I was brushing off my maple cranberry sauce recipe and started wondering just what chemicals might lurk in those mysterious bogs. Then I realized they probably add pesticides on top of whatever groundwater contaminants are already there. Sure enough, cranberries are treated with 22 different types of pesticides (and herbicides, fungicides, etc.), which are then discharged into lakes, rivers and wetlands. And cranberry bogs are exempt from the Clean Water Act (!).

So I pointed my trusty Google towards “organic cranberry bog” and discovered this great little video from Nantucket, Connecticut, where the Nantucket Conservation Fund is slowly converting traditional bogs to all-natural cranberry plots. (Remember that crops have to be grown organically for a number of years before they can obtain organic certification, so there is a significant lag time.)

As retold in the video, their organic cranberries garner three times the price of conventional, but they put about four times as much labor into maintaining the bogs. Organic bogs also produce a lower yield, which is further disincentive in a conventional food system that values quantity over all else. They are making progress, however. The University of Massachusetts-Amherst’s Cranberry Station is also conducting research and outreach to increase the use of integrated pest management (IPM, or less-pesticide) techniques in cranberry bogs.

So check your local grocery and spring for the organic berries if you can find them - Thanksgiving only comes once a year, after all, and now you can enjoy your meal knowing a little less pesticide is entering our water (and your kids - after all, cranberries soaking in toxins for months at a time can’t simply be rinsed clean). And you can wash it down with organic Triple Eight cranberry vodka, straight from Nantucket.

Up next, where to find organic cranberries and a recipe to enjoy them in.

“Behind the label” is a new series by FoodieTots.com that highlights the sustainability issues behind our food, and brings you the facts you won’t find in the glossy food mags who rely on ad revenue from big agribusiness.

Ingredients:

Chef Eric Ripert recently launched a “Dinner Social” project on his blog, Avec Eric, to encourage fans to cook with friends and family. You have to love a chef who is willing to share recipes and techniques to encourage you to enjoy their food at home. As the theme for the first challenge was “Market Table,” I naturally was intrigued. When April, of The Food Scribe, suggested a collaborative effort with fellow DC food bloggers, I was definitely on board. Together with April, Tiffany of The Garden Apartment and Alison of The Humble Gourmand, we spent Sunday afternoon cooking and enjoying good wine and conversation. We bought as many of our ingredients as possible at our local farmers markets, with my squash from the Del Ray market, Tiffany’s root vegetables from the Dupont Circle market, and April’s pears from the Takoma Park market. With cameras in hand, we took over April’s lovely kitchen and set to work.

My assignment was the Pumpkin Soup with Herbed Creme Fraiche & Spiced Pumpkin Seeds. Chef Ripert suggested serving it in a large roasted pumpkin, but I discovered that it’s hard to find full-size pumpkins after Halloween. The pumpkin for the soup was actually Japanese Kabocha squash, with a rich, orange pulp. My only complaint was that the Kabocha was very hard to peel; next time I would probably roast it a little to make it easier. I hollowed out and roasted lovely orange and green Celebration squash to use as individual serving bowls. (Roasted at 450 degrees for 20 minutes.)

The local ingredients in my soup came from Potomac Vegetable Farms, Va. (thyme), Three Way Farm, Va. (squash, onion and elephant garlic), and Trickling Springs Creamery, Pa. (heavy cream). The rest were organic products from Alexandria’s My Organic Market.

Each course incorporated seasonal ingredients with unexpected flavor combinations. I never would have thought to add brussel sprouts to a roasted root vegetable platter, for example, but the bright green added a lovely visual component as well as a crisp bite among softer turnips, beets and carrots. While it would have been a lot of work for one cook, Ripert provided a several day preparation guide that would have lessened the work load the day of the dinner party. With multiple chefs, it came together easily. All together it was a fabulous meal, made better with great company and good wine! This was the perfect way to spend a chilly November afternoon. Thank you, Chef Ripert, for the inspiration!

(Pictured, clockwise from left, Tiffany, April, yours truly, Alison.)

Be sure to surf around to see Tiffany’s roasted lamb and root vegetable, Alison’s endives with prosciutto, blue cheese and pomegranate seeds - and perfect wine picks, and April‘s carmelized onion and olive croustade and roasted pears with chocolate bourbon sauce and homemade chestnut ice cream. And you can drool over all our pictures over on Flickr.

Last week I attended a FoodBuzz publishers dinner at Michel Richard’s James Beard winning Central in Washington, DC. Together with eight other DC bloggers, we enjoyed good wine, food, and conversation about food, of course.

We started with the much lauded gougeres. While they were enjoyable, I was wishing for a slightly more pronounced explosion of cheese upon biting in. This may just reflect my personal cheese addiction, though.

As an entree, I had the braised beef cheeks with tagliatelle and carrot puree. The carrot was topped with crispy carrot ribbons, a nifty contrast in texture. The beef cheeks were rich, falling apart tender and flavorful. I sampled another person’s brussels sprouts, which were sweet and creamy and appropriately loaded with bacon, of course.

For dessert, I took the advice of our waiter and ordered Michel Richard’s chocolate bar, a rich chocolate bar paired with decadent hazelnut ice cream and caramel sauce. Truly not to be missed. Overall, I thought the food was outstanding. Sort of like the comfort food your mom would have made, if your mom were a classically trained French chef.

Thank you, FoodBuzz! And thank you to Olga (Mango and Tomato) and Rivka (Not Derby Pie) for organizing the dinner. Photos thanks to Anna of Meals from the Girl in the Little Black Dress. And also attending were Lauren from Capital Cooking Show, Quinn from Daily Moderation, Maddy from Cook Like Mad, Matt from Foodphoria, and Taresa from Cook and Book. Check out their blogs for more pictures and reviews.

Around Town: Looking for a good meal next week? Open Table’s Appetite Stimulus Plan offers $24 lunches and $35 dinners at participating restaurants Nov. 17-21. Capital Spice created a terrific Google map of participating DC restaurants, to help you map out which ones you can comfortably hit up on your lunch hour. (This deal is being offered in all of Open Table’s cities, including NY, Minneapolis, Seattle and San Francisco.)

As thoughts turn to the Thanksgiving menu, hop on over to my guest post on the Napa Farmhouse 1885 blog to chime in on one of the great questions of our time …. does anyone actually like green bean casserole?

And enjoy my alternative recipe, the Zesty Green Bean Almondine.

Recipe: Zesty Green Beans Almondine

Ingredients:

• 2 pounds green beans, trimmed
• 1/4 cup sliced almonds
• 1 large shallot, thinly sliced
• 4 tablespoons butter
• zest of one lemon
• 2-4 oz. crumbled blue cheese (I used Bayley Hazen Blue of Jasper Hill Farms, VT)

Instructions: Bring pot of water to a boil. Meanwhile, heat sauté pan over medium heat and toast almonds until just turning golden, about 3-4 minutes. Remove from pan and reduce heat to low. Melt butter in pan, then add shallot and cook, stirring once or twice, until shallots are golden brown, about 5-6 minutes. Remove from heat. Add a pinch of salt to boiling water and blanch green beans for 4 minutes, then drain, rinse with cold water and add to pan with shallots. Add almonds and lemon zest and toss gently. Top with blue cheese and serve. If you make this ahead of time, reheat in oven just before serving, then top with blue cheese immediately upon removing from oven. Makes 8 servings. Enjoy!

Be sure to take a peak in Diane’s wonderful shop, whose tagline is “live a green life of style.” With recycled, repurposed home goods, jewelry, and even organic dog treats, you’re sure to find something for someone on your Christmas list.

Now that the weather has turned colder I am getting back into our Tuesday pasta night routine. And one of my favorite weeknight pasta tricks is to stop off at my cheese shop to pick up some fresh cheese, meats and even fresh pasta. Cooking with flavored pastas eliminates the need for sauce, and you can instead focus on pairing a few favorite ingredients to make your pasta de jour.

Of course you don’t have to visit a cheese shop to make a gourmet pasta dish; at the grocery, just pick out a few high quality items from the deli counter. Because you only need a few slices of meat, you can splurge on a good prosciutto or salami.

With a quarter pound of spicy salami, a small container of creme fraiche, the roasted tomatoes and pasta, this made four servings of pasta for under $20. That’s cheaper than Olive Garden, and ready in less time the average Friday night wait for a table!

Recipe: Roasted Tomato, Salami & Saffron Pasta (aka Cheesetique Pasta)

Ingredients:

• 1 pound saffron angel hair pasta
• 1 bunch curly kale (or other greens), sliced into ribbons
• 6 oz. roasted tomatoes, in olive oil (can use sundried tomatoes)
• 1/4 pound salami, sliced into thin ribbons
• 4 ounces creme fraiche
• salt & pepper

Instructions: Bring a large pot of water to boil over high heat. Cook pasta according to package instructions, adding kale for the final minute of cooking time. Drain pasta and kale, reserving some of the cooking liquid. In a large serving bowl, layer the tomatoes (reserving oil), salami and creme fraiche. Pour pasta and kale over top and use tongs to toss and combine. Add 2 tablespoons of the reserved tomato oil and a few spoonfuls of the cooking liquid, as needed to moisten the pasta. Season with a little salt and pepper (try red pepper flakes for an added kick), and enjoy! Makes 4 servings.

Shared with Presto Pasta Nights, created by Ruth of Once Upon a Feast and hosted this week by Venielje Kitchen.

Somehow I missed reading about the pie challenge at The Kitchn until about 9pm tonight. I’d been planning to roast my beautiful Cushaw pumpkin tonight, so why not throw together a pie? After a mad rush to roast, bake and blog by the stroke of midnight, I completed my entry form at 11:59pm on the dot … only to have my internet connection drop and return a few minutes later to the “error: the entry form is now closed” message. Nooo! Oh well, now that I have this pretty blog post prepared, hopefully you all will enjoy it even if it’s not a prize winner.

To complement my pumpkin, from our Potomac Vegetable Farms CSA in Virginia, I decided to keep it simple and use a few other quality, local ingredients, namely my South Mountain Creamery butter and Hilldale Farms organic eggs.

This summer I tried the Cooks Illustrated vodka pie crust, to rave reviews. It was perfectly light and flaky. This time, I made it with all (local, natural) butter since I generally prefer not to use shortening, and found the resulting dough a little less moist and easier to work with. It still requires chilling, though, before rolling it out, and I rolled it out between two pieces of plastic wrap to facilitate getting it off my cutting board and into the pie plate in one piece.

For the pumpkin puree, I split my pumpkin in half and roasted it cut sides down on parchment paper at 350 degrees for 50 minutes. This pumpkin is more yellow than your traditional pumpkin, but the cooked flesh was so luscious and creamy it barely needed blending. I used a hand blender just to smooth it out. I like my pumpkin pie custardy with a little creaminess, but instead of using condensed milk I used a little local yogurt instead.

Recipe: Rustic Pumpkin Pie

Ingredients:

• 1 9-inch pie crust (Cooks Illustrated, half the recipe)
• 2 cups fresh pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 2 organic eggs
• 1 teaspoon organic vanilla
• 3/4 teaspoon powdered ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• 1/4 cup plain, unsweetened whole milk yogurt

Instructions: Prepare pie crust and set aside. Preheat oven to 400 degrees. In a large mixing bowl, stir together pumpkin puree and sugar until well blended. Add eggs and vanilla and whisk to combine. Stir in seasonings, then yogurt. Blend completely, then pour into prepared pie crust. Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes, then reduce heat to 350 degrees and cook until set, about 35-40 minutes more. Makes 8 servings.

Pour yourself a glass of fresh milk (ours was delivered this morning!), and enjoy the perfect midnight snack! Or, you know, save it for a holiday like a normal person. Either way, enjoy!

This is the first in a four-part series of FoodieTots Thanksgiving favorites - starting with dessert first, of course! Stay tuned for a few other turkey day recipes.