Chicken Parm Meatballs, Trout Taco Bowls with Persimmon Salsa, Pesto Goat Kebabs, Roselle Jam Cookies, Lemon Curd Cake & More!

If you need some inspiration of what to make after Thanksgiving, here’s what’s been going on in our kitchen before Thanksgiving and Friendsgiving!

A lot of these meals celebrated the end of the season for basil, tomatoes, peppers, summer squash, roselle hibiscus and okra, but of course there’s amendments you can make to use what’s in season now (like lots of other herbs instead of basil!).

Chicken Parmesan Meatballs with Pesto Spaghetti & Roasted Broccolini

I’ve been meaning to make this recipe for Chicken Parmesan Meatballs from What’s Gaby Cooking and with the forecasted freeze coming for the Northshore a few weeks back, I figured I’d better do it before the end of tomato and basil season!

Wow, did they deliver! It’s a basic chicken meatball seasoning mix with dried herbs and black pepper and breadcrumbs and parmesan and I made several batches of pesto that day to use up the basil in my garden, so I tossed a little into the chicken meatball mix, too. The really deluxe aspect of the recipe is putting a piece of fresh mozzarella in the center and forming the meatballs around it. She also recommends tossing the meatballs in flour before sautéing to give them a little extra crispy coating and I fully support that, too.

I did a double batch (two pounds of ground chicken) and started them on the stove in cast iron pans and transferred them to the oven to finish. They get brown on all sides this way without sticking and without you having to risk breaking them to flip them!

I made a quick tomato sauce with a bunch of cherry tomatoes, plus san Marzano tomatoes I had sliced and froze earlier in the season, along with butter and onion, Marcella Hazan style, loosely.

I also made some spaghetti tossed with some of the pesto and roasted a pan of broccolini and topped the meatballs off with lots of fresh basil. It was so beautiful and very delicious.

Golden Beets with Basil Vinaigrette

I also did a quick batch of steamed golden beets for the meal and a basil vinaigrette to use up even more basil in something other than pesto! For the beets, I did cut them since I had varying sizes and steamed them in the Instant Pot, but they peal easiest when you keep them whole.

The basil vinaigrette is also from What’s Gaby Cooking and she has a really nice cilantro one, too, more apt for the season we’re in now! I typically don’t have shallots or red wine vinegar on hand, so substitute red onion, scallions and/or garlic chives and lemon juice or Meyer lemon vinegar and it comes out really tasty, too!

Fish Taco Bowls with Slaw, Persimmon Cilantro Salsa, Roasted Okra & Cilantro Jalapeño Dip

This was insanely good. So many big flavors and lots of veggies and fiber (and protein from the fish of course!).

We’re still working through our speckled trout haul from our fisherman friend and for this round of broiled filets, I rubbed them with melted coconut oil, curry powder, chili lime seasoning and fresh cracked coriander, mustard seed and black pepper. Then I just roasted them in a sheet pan in the oven at 400 degrees and they cook super quickly — about 8-10 minutes!

I also made a rainbow slaw with caraflex cabbage, watermelon radishes, carrots and garlic chives, with a dressing that included Greek yogurt, mayonnaise, garlic powder, two types of fermented hot sauces for flavor and funk, garlic and onion powders and dried chives, a little honey and some roselle hibiscus vinegar.

A mango or peach or pineapple salsa would have been nice and then I realized that persimmons would probably work just as well! So I did a quick salsa with red onion, cilantro, diced persimmons, chili lime seasoning and lots of lime juice and that came out so delicious, too.

I also had a bunch of cilantro and jalapeños, so I made a batch of my go to almond cashew dip/sauce with nutritional yeast and used cilantro and jalapeños as the big flavor elements. It was a lovely shade of green and perfect with the fish, slaw and salsa.

I also roasted the last okra of the year to serve alongside and dip the cilantro sauce. We’ve got so many amazing meals lately, but this was a contender for number one!

Deconstructed Mint-Lemon Basil Pesto Goat Kebabs with Bell Peppers, Broccolini & Zephyr Squash

I soaked wooden skewers fully planning to grill these goat stew pieces as kebabs, but then Grant had a later afternoon of farm tasks than expected and we pivoted to just searing these in a skillet and finishing in the oven and they didn’t disappoint!

With apple mint, lemon basil and Italian basil in my garden, I had made a batch of pesto with pistachios and garlic that was bright and punchy and perfect for goat meat.

I thinned out the pesto with a little olive oil to season the veggies, too, and roasted those on a sheet pan at the same time as the goat. We also had some arugula and fresh diced tomatoes and goat feta and hummus, along with leftover rice. It was super satisfying with all kinds of flavors and textures and made great meal prep for lunches the rest of the week, too.

Fermented “Candied” Jalapeños

Grant loves candied jalapeños and I love fermentation, so I went round and round on the best way to achieve that while still getting all the probiotics from lacto fermentation.

You can basically ferment and infuse jalapeños in honey, but they end up shriveled up and that method is really better for infusing honey with jalapeño versus having the crunchy aspect of pickled or candied jalapeños.

So I decided to do a take on my fermented bread and butter relish recipe, which relies on cinnamon and turmeric for earthy sweetness that shines through the salty-sour brine from lacto-fermentation. Coriander, celery and mustard seed also round it out.

These jalapeños that we grew were really spicy, so I went through the painstaking process of trimming out as many seeds as I could while still keeping them in rounds.

I added honey to help kickstart fermentation, but all that sugar gets consumed by the bacteria during fermentation. I ended up fermenting for 8 days total. I figured we would taste when finished and add additional honey or sugar to sweeten after the fact. I like them how they are, we’ll see what Grant thinks!

Strawberry Roselle Hibiscus Jam & Peanut Butter Jam Cookies

We put up a couple rounds of roselle calyxes — in the freezer for future baked goods like crisps and muffins and dehydrated for tea.

For the last round before the freeze, I made a jam, sweetened by frozen strawberries and a little cane sugar. Roselle has a lot of natural pectin, so this tightened up into a firm jam without any additional ingredients!

I meant to put the leftover jam out with turkey for Friendsgiving because the sourness from the roselle has cranberry sauce vibes, but I forgot! It’s not too late for it on leftover turkey sandwiches though!

But the first thing I did with it was make these peanut butter jam cookies. I looked at a few recipes and ended up following this one for the dough. The roselle strawberry jam was perfect for these — it set up so well that the jam stayed perfectly inside the cookie.

These were so fun and delicious and I’ll definitely be making them again soon!

Lemon Cake with Lemon Curd and Lemon Cream Cheese Icing

Our shop staffer Blaire had a birthday last week and said lemon cake or a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting were her favorites. Lemon cake with lemon curd seemed like a fun project, so that’s what we went with!

I used this recipe from In Bloom Bakery. The lemon curd was easy and incredibly delicious, as was the cream cheese frosting.

My problem is that I realized after starting that I didn’t have a 9 inch by 9 inch pan, just an 8x8. I figured I’d just adjust the baking time and the cake would be taller and it’d be fine. But between that and maybe over mixing the batter a little, it came out on a dense side.

Next time I would probably do two thinner 8 inch round cakes with the lemon curd in between and swirled on top! We still absolutely devoured and enjoyed it, but just some tips if you make it!