#garlic puree recipe

[ouestdelicesblogculinaire]

Purée d’ail pour tartinades

[askwhatsforlunch]

Maple Shitake Quiche (Vegetarian)

Hearty and tasty, this delicious Maple Shitake Quiche makes an excellent dinner on a rainy night.

Ingredients (serves 4):

1 tablespoon unsalted butter

1 tablespoon olive oil

a dozen and a half shitake mushrooms

a large Green Onion

a small bunch Garden Parsley

a garlic clove, minced

1/4 teaspoon fleur de sel or sea salt flakes

1/4 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

1 1/2 tablespoon pure (Grade A) Canadian Maple Syrup

300 grams/10.5 ounces chilled Pâte Brisée (Water Shortcrust Pastry)

5 large eggs

¾ cup double cream

¼ teaspoon fleur de sel or sea salt flakes

½ teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

2 1/2 tablespoons pure (Grade A) Canadian Maple Syrup

In a large, deep skillet, melt butter with olive oil over medium-high heat.

Thoroughly dust shitake mushrooms with a paper towel or clean brush; then, cut them into thick slices.

Once the butter is just foaming, add shitake mushrooms slices, and sauté, shaking the pan often, to coat in butter and oil, until the mushrooms start browning.

Finely chop Green Onion. Add chopped white part of the Green Onion, saving green part for later, to the skillet and cook, 1 minute.

Finely chop Parsley as well, and stir into the mushrooms. Cook, a few minutes more.

Add minced garlic, and cook, 1 minute.

Season with fleur de sel and black pepper. Cook, another minute, then deglaze with Maple Syrup. Cook, a few seconds more, and remove from the heat. Let cool completely

Preheat oven to 200°C/395°F.

Roll Pâte Brisée out thinly onto a lightly floured surface. Fit into a buttered 20cm/8″ tart tin, letting the pastry overhang on the edges. Prick the base with a fork. Place a sheet of baking paper onto the Pâte Brisée and fill with dried beans or rice. Blind bake the Pâte Brisée crust  at 200°C/395°F, 5 minutes. Carefully remove the beans and baking paper, and bake another 5 minutes, at the same temperature. Remove from the oven. Let cool slightly before trimming the edges.

In a medium bowl, whisk eggs together with double cream. Season salt and black pepper. Then, whisk in Maple Syrup until well-blended. Set aside.

Scatter cooked shitake mushrooms onto the crust. Pour Maple egg and cream mixture evenly all over.

Place in the warm oven, and bake, at 200°C/395°F, 25 to 30 minutes, until cooked through and crust is beautifully golden brown.

Serve Maple Shitake Quiche warm, with dressed lettuce.

[b-blushes]

in a rare move for me next week i'm gonna try NEW RECIPE it is called 'sloppy-joe stuffed peppers with wedges' which is a name i Do Not Like but essentially it's peppers stuffed with turkey mince 👍 Never had any success with that before (turkey mince) and i've gotta substitute a bunch of ingredients hahaha BUT hopefully the gist of it is there and it will make a delicious meal.........

i will report back, hopefully victorious...... o7

[greencheekconure27]

Condiments from the Asian grocery store my beloved.

[batboybisexualism]

assassin's spaghetti fucks so hard y'allllllllllll 😭🔪🍝🙌

[creepyscritches]

Everybody eats, baby!!!!! It's a sharin soup!

Making creamy garlic soup once again lads

[sofiedahl]

Baked Chicken Breast with Balsamic Tomato Puree Chicken breasts seasoned with lemon pepper and garlic salt are baked in a sauce of crushed tomatoes and onion in this quick and easy weeknight recipe.

[abandrewart]

Black Olive Spread Recipe

With this pureed black olive, Parmesan cheese, and garlic, depart from the typical creamy spreads. versatile, simple, and mouthwatering

[chapteronetobecontinued]

Soups, Stews and Chili - Vegetable Soup - Gazpacho

[hotvintagepoll]

Hello! Do you have a favorite winter recipe? I'm looking to expand my repertoire, because I've only lived in a climate that snows for a couple years, and I don't have enough cozy, bone warming foods!

PS - I keep having to feed my cat pumpkin puree because he has some tummy troubles but he will only eat it if I gently hand feed him with a spoon. Just thought you might enjoy that.

YES HERE IS JOYOUS SOUP

(i have never actually called it joyous soup but it's what i feel everytime i make it and i feel like everyone should make it)

This soup does not have a proper recipe because uhh, my mom is bad with recipes but ALSO this soup truly adapts to whatever you have in your fridge, as long as you have 1) some kind of oil or butter to sautee things with and 2) potatoes. this is the sam gamgee make-it-on-the-side-of-a-mountain-winter soup.

Step 1. Take your potatoes—6 is the ideal but 4 works—and chop them up rough. "What kind of potatoes?" Whatever they have on the side of the mountain, Sam. You now have a bunch of 1" potato chunks or discs (I like discs). I assumed you washed them first but if you forgot you can wash them now.

Step 2. Get your oil or butter sizzling. I use about two tablespoons of butter to start and add more as I go if the potatoes don't look fully covered. I am probably cooking the butter on medium.

Step 3. You're putting the potatoes in the butter. You're pretending to fry them. Watch them get all buttery and golden and a little brown and crispy. You're thinking, man, I could eat these as they are right now. You could do that. Don't. Add garlic and onions if you have them. Add lots.

Step 4. Just as you're like oh MAN these potatoes and garlic and onions look really good fried just like this, you're going to swamp them in water. You're going to stare at what you've done and thought you made a mistake. You have not. The water should just be covering the potatoes and now you've turned the water up to high, staring at your weird sad soup pot, that smells deliciously of butter garlic onions and potatoes.

Step 5. In another saucepan, you are melting more butter (or oil, or what have you) and figuring out what else you have in your cupboard. Carrots? Those can go in. Parsnips could too. Spinach works nicely. Any onions or garlic you forgot can be added again now. Mushrooms are fucking fabulous. Leeks? Sublime. The only veg you should be avoiding are the ones that are secretly fruits (no watery tomatoes or squishy cucumbers) or the ones that you think are insipid (celery).

Step 6. You're chopping all of that up as much as you like and browning it up in the butter. You're also adding whatever spices strike your fancy. I love salt, so that's always going in, but I usually add black pepper and cayenne, and then I get fruity with it and start adding in paprikas and cumins and turmerics or corianders and thymes and basils and parsleys. It all depends on what smells right to you combined with the steams you're making, and how much spice you want kicking you later.

Step 7. How are your boiled potatoes looking? Are they soft yet? Good. Can you stick a fork in them yet, and has the water boiled down to almost nothing? Excellent. How are all your buttery brown vegetables looking? If you want to give up the whole experiment and eat them right out of the pan, it's time to make another mistake and add all your gorgeous browned vegetables to your disastrous wet potato pot.

Step 8. You now have a lot of delicious stuff looking wet and sad in your potato pot. Pour in a bit more water (or veg broth, or stock if you have it) and stir that all up. Let it stew together a bit and combine flavors. Turn it back down to medium so you don’t scorch any of your nice wet veg things. If you're fancy like my mom, you get out an immersion blender here. If you're broke and possess your grandmother's food processor, like me, you're pouring that all into the food processor with the biggest blade you have and turning it into a smoothie. If your concoction seems oddly chunky you need to add more water.

Step 9. Wet sad potato smoothie is not much to look at but now you're adding CREAM. and CHEESE. and MORE SPICES TO YOUR TASTE. If you don't have cream MILK WORKS FINE. If you don't have cheese THAT IS OKAY. If you like your soup with chunks LEAVE OUT SOME OF YOUR VEG NEXT TIME and ADD IT IN HERE. At this point, you have a gorgeous creamy soup that's soft and luscious (that's the potatoes), includes all your favorite veg (that's everything you got out of the fridge), and can go in any number of taste directions depending on what spices you put in (I've made this with Indian spices, English herb garden spices, Mexican spices, Hungarian spices—every time it's delicious and works a different way).

Step 10. I hope you have a lot of bread because you're going to be dipping it in your soup saying :) man this is a nice soup :) and knowing you can make it whenever you have weird leftovers, as long as you have potatoes and butter. and what else does a person need in life than potatoes and butter?

enjoy your joyous soup <3 i may have forgotten several steps but as long as you follow -brown some veg -add water -add spice -blend the shit out of it, you can never really go wrong <3

[askwhatsforlunch]

Maple and Sage Red Kuri Squash and Chestnuts

Hearty and fragrant, these Maple and Sage Red Kuri Squash and Chestnuts --with a tiny home-grown squash!-- made a beautiful Thanksgiving side for us; but this Autumnal dish can also be enjoyed as a vegetarian main all season long! Happy Monday!

Ingredients (serves 4):

1 ½ tablespoon olive oil

half a large onion

half a dozen large (or a dozen small) leaves Garden Sage 

a small (330-gram/11.5-ounce) Red Kuri Squash, thoroughly scrubbed

2 cups cooked chestnuts (bottled, canned or sous-vide)

1 large garlic clove, minced

1/2 teaspoon fleur de sel or sea salt flakes

1/2 teaspoon freshly cracked black pepper

3 tablespoons pure (Grade A) Canadian Maple Syrup

Heat olive oil in a large, deep skillet over medium-high heat.

Peel and finely chop onion, and stir into the skillet. Fry, a couple of minutes until just tender.

Finely chop Sage Leaves, and stir into the onion. Cook, 1 minute more.

Peel, halve and seed Red Kuri Squash, then, cut it into dices. Add Red Kuri Squash dices to the skillet, and cook, stirring often, about 4 to 5 minutes.

Stir in chestnuts and minced garlic and cook, 1 minute.

Season with fleur de sel and black pepper. Cook, a couple of minutes, then reduce heat to medium. Cook, about 5 minutes more, until Red Kuri Squash has softened.

Drizzle generously with Maple Syrup, stirring gently to coat.

Serve Maple and Sage Red Kuri Squash and Chestnuts hot.

[bohobearsboutique]

Roasted Garlic Potato Soup - Vegetable Soup

[fanaticsnail]

Hey! Hope you’re doing well this fine day~ I had a cute idea if u just wanna hear me rant about it.

So imagine teaching Killer a new pasta recipe whether that is a new sauce or new way to cook it and making it for him and watching him literally LIGHT UP with pure glee over how good it is. I say this as I’ve made my grandma’s spaghetti sauce which is STRAIGHT UP ADDICTING every time I make it and gobble it all up. Like the reader can be like a straw hat or kid pirate who is like hey I have this really yummy pasta recipe if you wanna try and afterwards she keeps on exchanging recipes with Killer and lowkey he in love with her mwahahaha (cause as they say in Princess and the Frog “the quickest way to a man’s heart, is through his stomach”). And she cooks it for him since he is always cooking 🥹🥹🥹

Also! I do have to add how much IM OBSESSED with the recent Hey Doc Drabble. Idk if you saw my tags but man I was GOING THROUGH IT. All the sweet nicknames and just the pure desperation for doc to be okay like 😭😭😭 and POOR HEAT AND BUBBLEGUM LIKE AWWWW I need a part 2 to that or SOMETHING just to see an aftermath if you will. Wire calling them “honey” had me WEAK.

Alright imma head out now, have a marvelous day/night 🏃🏽‍♀️🏃🏽‍♀️🏃🏽‍♀️

How did I miss this 😭. Thank you for your beautiful compliments on the 'Hey Doc' series. It's been an absolute joy to write. Reading through tags and reblogs are my favourite: especially when it's as enthusiastic as yours has been. You're so much fun, and I very much appreciate the time you take to read and go through my silly things. I can't write a full fic, but I hope this little drabble satiates the need of cooking with Killer 🖤.

Pasta

Masterlist Here

Word Count: mini-fic, just a little one.

Themes: Killer x reader, fluff, cooking, food, Killer is in awe, you are cooking, and I am hungry.

The one thing he hasn't managed to perfect is a pure, unadulterated Marinara. Anything to do with crushed tomato he finds too acidic, and over compensates with far too much salt to cut the tannins. He's tried everything: more onion, less herbs, malted brown sugar, refining his own salt by storing sea water on the oven, everything. He just can't seem to get it right.

Killer and pasta: his one weakness.

He would never admit it, but he has been attempting to perfect each recipe he comes upon. Pesto is all made from scratch: crushed fresh basil, the purest of virgin olive oils, a parmesan wheel with crispy salt crystals, oven toasted pine nuts, cloves of bulbed garlic, everything perfected by his skill in his kitchen. His pesto pasta is better than Sanji's, and the curly-browed chef is both impressed and intimidated by it.

Watching from a safe distance as you bounce gleefully within the dominion of the kitchen, he hunches his back and places his whiskered chin over his laced fingertips. He was unsure as to why you offered to cook for the crew, but your enthusiasm had him step aside to watch you work. It was the initial confession of homesickness that did it for him. Knowing food can aid in emotional regulation and comfort, he was more than happy to watch from his position sitting at the kitchen island.

And then the smell hit him.

The sweetness of roasting tomatoes, onion, garlic, and the herbal aromatics of thyme, rosemary and sage. The soft waft had his heart swell and beat in his chest and eyes twinkle in curiousity. Stirring the rotund vegetables in the pot and expertly crushing them with the blunt tip of the wooden spoon had him sit up attentively in his seat, watching you as you attend to the sauce from muscle memory alone.

He was in awe, perplexed, and intrigued.

Each time you would move on to another element of the dish, Killer would move a little closer. Each time your back was turned, he would perch himself just a little more towards the simmering pot. When you moved to the pantry to decide which shape of pasta to begin to boil, you could barely make out the shape of Killer's mask being partially elevated over his lips and nose by one large hand. Using a fresh spoon, he dips it into the sauce and puckers his purple-tinted lips and extends a breath of cool air to stifle the heat.

As soon as the first drops meet his tongue, he can't help the soft moan that escapes him at the flavor. Upon your return with a bag of penne in hand, you are immediately hoisted into the air with Killer's hands beneath your arms. Gently spinning you before placing you on the ground, he claps his arms over your shoulders and leans down closer. The purple hue of his lips is stretched up in a smile, his joy at your sauce immediately having him taken aback and fullfilled in the knowledge that he now has the answer he desperately seeks.

"Teach me. Please."

And who were you to deny him? It was a family recipe, and this crew aboard the Victoria Punk was your new family. Gently raising one of your hands to cup over his on your shoulder, you crinkle your nose at him and nod with a smile to match his own.

"Yes, chef."

Tag list: @mfreedomstuff @daydreamer-in-training @since-im-already-here @gingernut1314 @writingmysanity @sordidmusings @i-am-vita @indydonuts @feral-artistry @the-light-of-star @empirenowmp3 @racfoam @sunflowersatori @carrotsunshine @skullfacedlady

[sevenstarcigarette]

Full Day of Low cal Vegan meals! ☆

Low cal vegan breakfast idea - Rice Cakes!:

☆

Base:

- Start with a Quakers lightly salted (or whatever you prefer) rice cake (35 cals).

☆

Dip/Sauce Options:

- Choose one:

- Hummus: 25 cals per tbsp

- Tzatziki: 10-15 cals per tbsp

- Salsa: 10 cals per tbsp

- Vegan cream cheese dip: 30-50 cals per tbsp (depending on the brand)

- none (0 cal)

☆

Extra Options:

- Guacamole: 25 cals per tbsp

- Kimchi: 5-7 cals per tbsp

☆

Toppings:

- Sliced bell peppers: 3 cals per slice

- Cherry tomatoes: 3 cals for half

- Carrots: 4 cals per slice

- Cucumber: 1 cals per slice

- Radish: 2 cals per slice

☆

( You could also add spices of your choosing to not have such bland flavors)

☆

Example Combination for a 50-Cal Breakfast

1. Take one rice cake (35 cals)

2. Add 1 tablespoon of salsa (10 cals) or tzatziki (10-15 cals)

3. Top with 4-5 slices of cucumber (4-5 cals)

☆

Total Calories: about 49-50 calories

☆

50 cal vegan lunch idea: Tomato Basil Soup!:

☆

Ingredients:

- 2 cups diced tomatoes (fresh or canned) - about 50 cals

- 1 cup vegetable broth (low-sodium) - about 10 cals

- 1/2 cup chopped onion (about 30 cals)

- 1 clove garlic, minced (about 4 cals)

- 1 teaspoon dried basil (about 1 cal)

- Salt and pepper to taste - (0 cals)

- Optional: a splash of balsamic vinegar (about 5 cals)

☆

Instructions:

1. In a pot, sauté the chopped onion and minced garlic over medium heat until the onion is translucent.

2. Add the diced tomatoes and vegetable broth to the pot.

3. Stir in the dried basil, salt, and pepper.

4. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and let it simmer for about 10-15 minutes.

5. Use a blender to puree the soup until smooth, or leave it chunky if you prefer (ew)

6. Adjust seasoning to taste and add a splash of balsamic vinegar if desired.

☆

Total Calories: Approximately 100 cals for the entire recipe, so about 50 cals per cup if you divide it into two servings.

☆

50 cal vegan dinner idea: Spring roll!:

☆

Ingredients:

- 1 rice paper wrapper (approx. 30 cals)

- 1/4 cup shredded lettuce (approx 2 cals)

- 1/4 cup shredded carrots (approx 12 cals)

- 1/4 cup sliced cucumber (approx 4 cals)

- a small amount of sliced bell peppers (3 cals for a slice)

☆

Instructions:

1. Soak the rice paper wrapper in warm water for about 10-15 seconds until it becomes soft and pliable. Lay it flat on a clean surface.

2. Place the shredded lettuce, carrots, cucumber, and pepper in the center of the rice paper wrapper.

3. Fold the 2 bottom sides of the roll in and then tightly fold one of the longer sides over the filling and then flip on to the other (if that makes sense)

☆

(I would personally eat with a sauce but I just enjoy flavor)

☆

Total Calories (without sauce): Around 50 calories per spring roll!

☆

Sauce:

1. Rice Vinegar (2 tbsp): Approximately 6 calories

2. Soy Sauce (1 tbsp): Approximately 11 calories

3. Sesame Oil (1/2 tsp): Approximately 20 calories

4. Buldok Hot Sauce (2 tsp): Approximately 5 calories (about 2.5 calories per teaspoon)

5. Sweet Chili Thai Sauce (1 tbsp): Approximately 30 calories

6. Chili Oil (1/4 tsp): Approximately 12 calories

☆

Total: 44 cals, (by taking away any high cal ingredient you can lower it this is just what I think tastes good, a good alternative dip would just be soy sauce and/or rice vinegar)

☆

I hope y'all enjoy, I have more ideas I just haven't been able to write them out :/

[monayen]

how about something sfw for a change? can you do a ranking of who’s best at cooking?

Cooking Headcannons

➷ Paring - Multi x Fem!Reader [Randal's Friends / Ranfren]

➷ CWs - very light mention of consuming blood and cannibalism. that’s about it !!

a/n - i feel like im a bit rusty at pure sfw stuff… but i will try for NNN ~_~ this isn’t a ranking, since a good chunk are either just bad or barely cook. mostly just hcs about food they like, what’d they’d make you, and habits etc. ratmen are excluded cus you know those boys scavenge rather than cook !!! also ignore any mistakes i wrote this really fast

Sebastian

While Sebastian did work at a pizza place for a bit before becoming Randal’s pet, it was just as a delivery boy

I like to think he was in the training process of learning how to make the food, but he got lost before he learned anything skillful. He does have half the recipe for garlic knots memorized though 

A personal hc is that his parents were semi-absent with him (which probably helped lead him to being in the adoption center in the first place), so he survived a lot on sandwiches and microwave meals since they were easy and available

He wasn’t a big fan of it then, but now he craves them a lot. His favorite were the microwaveable kraft dinner mac & cheese cups. Foods like that are a comfort for him, and he’ll love you forever if you manage to get some for him to eat

Luther doesn’t trust him in the kitchen, so even if Sebastian wanted to cook, he wouldn’t be allowed. Deep down, he doubts his cooking skills anyways

Randal

A terrible cook. He has no idea how to properly prepare a meal and his attempts often end in disaster

Randal doesn't understand the concept of recipes or following instructions. He just throws random ingredients together and hopes for the best. “How to Basic” levels of culinary skills

Despite his terrible cooking skills, Randal still insists on trying to make meals for people (or you) to try. Truly believes he's good and everyone else just can’t handle his exquisite tastes

Once, Randal tried to make surprise pancakes for breakfast. He used baking powder instead of baking soda and the pancakes turned out hard as rocks. He still ate them anyway, breaking a couple of his teeth in the process. Don’t worry, they grew back by supper

He used to try to cook at least a couple times a week, but Luther banned him after he 

somehow managed to set water on fire on the stove. Now he’s restricted to just the microwave. Which is alright, just remind him to add the water in his instant noodles before they explode

Randal will also eat almost anything if it's covered in enough sauce or condiments. He's been known to put ketchup on his cereal and maple syrup on his pizza. Swears by it, will probably make you try all his weird food combinations

Satoru

This little show off!

Cooks and bakes purely to give it away to you or Randal. He doesn’t even eat them himself, always insisting you try his new recipe

The reality is that he steals most of his ideas from cookbooks. While he has the skill to execute them, coming up with his own dishes and perfecting them is a bit beyond him—but that’s a secret he keeps to himself!

He’ll sit there, watching closely as you eat his carefully prepared food, studying your reactions and asking if it’s good, like a chef waiting for feedback

But he’s memorized what you like already, and he makes sure to tailor his dishes just for you, hoping to earn your praise when the flavors hit your tongue

Exceptional at chopping, so fast at it you worry he’ll cut a finger off or something if he’s not careful enough. A part of him doesn’t mind if you taste something that has a little bit of his blood in it…

Doesn’t exactly have a favorite meal or food, he likes whatever you like :) is a bit partial to Japanese cuisine though, especially sashimi

Nyon

Nyon's cooking skills are quite limited. As a catman, his preferences lean more towards raw meats and simple  foods. Or whatever Luther gives him

Doesn’t mean he doesn’t like a good home cooked meal, but if you put him in a kitchen with every ingredient and tool that could potentially make something avant-garde or delicious… he’d probably just end up making hard boiled eggs

He does have an odd skill of picking though. Pickled cucumbers, onions, beets, all in unlabeled, merky, mason jars. Has a goal to pickle everything that can be pickled, just to try

Keeps a stash of it in the pantry and munches on them when he gets high. Will share if you ask (he kinda wants you to, pickling takes practice!) 

Nyon has the stance that he’d much rather wash the dishes and put away the ingredients than actually prepare the food, as it’s a lot of effort and stress on his part that’d he’d rather avoid

Nyen

Really only ever cooks for himself. Not a fan of sharing and to be honest… you probably wouldn’t like what he makes anyways

Lots of slabs of undercooked chicken and beef, barely seasoned because “it doesn’t need that.” Protein buff, but not keen on eating beans… or eggs… or fish… Okay, usually just eats chicken to maintain his muscles

Unironically picky, doesn’t eat a lot of what isn’t what he usually eats. If you give him a plate of pasta or something, he’ll just stare at it like you handed him a severed cow head. Even Luther knows this, making sure he keeps the fridge stocked with Nyen favorite foods so he’s in the best condition to get through the day!

Does have a small sweet tooth, so you can coax him into baking if he’s in a good mood. His favorite are raspberry muffins :)

You still might have to do most of the work, but he’ll mix shit and keep track of the dessert in the oven for you. Don’t ask him for anything else—just hand him a muffin and clean up the mess, okay?

Luther

Quite the chef! 

He’s domestic, and even though Randal always begs him to get fast food to eat, he always prefers to make something at home

Uses “passed down” recipes. Passed down from who? Who knows. He keeps them all in a little old notebook, pages yellowed and worn out. The last ingredient in all the recipes is always “love ♡”

He’s also a big fan of those southern mom baking shows, especially during the holiday season, he’ll bake like a madman!

Likes nature, so he does have a small garden in the backyard of the house he’ll tend to when he has the time. Specializes in exotic vegetables you probably aren’t used to eating. Ask him how his kohlrabi harvest is going, he’s quite proud!

The type of humanoid to surprise you with your favorite meal after a long day. Makes enough for everyone, of course, but Luther puts in effort to see the smile on your face when he presents you with it at the dinner table

He does expect compliments after you eat any of his food, even if it’s something as simple as scrambled eggs. It means a lot to him, so don’t forget to do so. He might take it the wrong way if you don’t 

Luther swears up and down that he’d never eat a human. Cannibalism is wrong! But he did get very close to once… just to “expand his pallet”

[writing-relatedactivities]

A Very Ask A Manager Thanksgiving

So I love advice blogs (I maintain that comment sections on advice blogs are the best free tool for writers to explore different viewpoints, which really enriches your characterization), and for a few years now, I have had this idea that I want to do a do an Ask A Manager themed dinner, purely to delight myself. Meant to do it as a cookout this summer, but timing never worked out, so I broached the idea of doing it for Thanksgiving. My partner, who is also a nerd and therefore very supportive of my advice blog love even though it is not one of their interests, was down, with their only condition being that I should still make my cider bread with maple butter.

The menu:

Appetizers

Chips with:

Guacamole in honor of Guacamole Bob, of "ordering extra guacamole is wasteful of member dues” fame. (This being on the menu may also have been a factor in Partner being willing to have our holiday take on an Ask A Manager theme, as I once took a community education course on grilling that taught me nothing about its ostensible subject matter but did teach me to make a bomb-ass guacamole. The secret is that your first step should be to pulverize an entire head of garlic into a paste in your mocajete.)

Three store bought salsas, where the trick is to "fold" the salsa to get the best flavor

A bottle of hot sauce so we can get fired after a coworker steals our spicy food

Main Course

"Duck club" sandwiches in honor of the secret office sex club where you get points for sex in different locations, and quacking is involved. (These were very decadent and if anyone's interested in a great duck recipe, I used the Duck with Lemon recipe from A Feast of Ice and Fire.)

Sides

Cheap-ass rolls that I definitely deliberately brought to upstage you, yes you, the person who signed up to bring Hawaiian rolls! It's definitely not an overreaction on your part to declare that "they can all take Santa and stick it up their ass!" You're definitely not getting fired for being wildly hostile! (These are actually homemade rolls, but I weighed "buy actually cheap rolls and be done" or "spend a couple hours adapting a corgi butt roll recipe to a human butt roll," and chose in favor of the pun.)

Dessert

Bribery cupcakes, from that time a letter writer brought some cupcakes over to chat with her neighbor, the son of the Chief of Police, about a disruptive noise issue in her workplace and some commenters decided this constituted bribing a public servant. (The recipe is in the comments on that link; I made the carrot cake version. However, I realized halfway through that I was somehow low on vanilla despite obsessively buying fancy vanilla extract every time I am in a spice shop, along with a bunch of other things I don't need because buying cool spices makes me feel like a wizard. Anyway, half of these had vanilla in the filling/icing, and the other half had cardamom extract.)

A birthday cake that somehow crosses boundaries by...being too fancy? Being paid for a staff person? Not involving the wife in the planning? Anyway, the real answer to the letter writer's question is, "Eh, I don't think it's a big deal" because different offices have different norms around birthdays and it's whatever, but sometimes a low-stakes office norms question hits just right and you get 630 comments of people debating The One True Way to Do Office Birthdays, and whether or not buying a cake means you're angling for an affair. (Okay, not all the comments are about that particular letter. Anyway, I picked up this fancy-ass cake at Marc Heu Patisserie, and appropriately enough, the guy ahead of me in line was picking up a cake for his boss.)

And of course, what Ask A Manager column would be complete without chocolate teapots?

Beverages

Mudslides, because "girls love chocolate." And magic tricks. And being played "You're So Vain" on the piano with a mournful stare. Partner and I are both notorious lightweights but I had been snacking all day as I cooked so I was mostly immune. Partner took one sip of this drink and immediately began loudly telling me how their one colleague doesn't sing enough to his Pre-K students, and "this classroom will do anything if you sing to them!" After dinner, they lay down on the floor and sang the Slippery Fish song.

The full spread: