1 jar of Tonnino Yellowfin Tuna Fillets in Spring Water
2 tablespoons of Kewpie mayonnaise
¼ cup of chopped organic celery
¼ cup of chopped organic green onion
¼ cup of finely-chopped organic parsley
½ of an organic Honeyscrip apple cubed
1 minced Bubbies Kosher Dill Pickle
1 head of organic butter lettuce
1 tablespoon of Kosterina Extra Virgin Olive Oil
1 lemon or a mild vinegar (white wine vinegar)
Salt to taste
Directions:
Combine tuna with mayonnaise, then add the pickles, and then the celery
Create a bed of lettuce, place a scoop of the tuna mixture in the center, then garnish with the green onion and apple
Drizzle with olive oil, and a squeeze of lemon and a pinch of salt
Pro tip: If you want to turn it into a tuna melt, simply toast some sourdough bread, add a slice of muenster, havarti, or a mild cheddar (e.g. colby cheddar)
One of my fondest Thanksgiving memories is of making massive batches of this stuffing with my Aunt out on The Ranch to feed my massive family– which has only grown since!
Ingredients:
½ a cup of chicken stock
4 ½ cups of day old sourdough bread (or 36 oz of stuffing)
1 pound of sausage (2 cups)
1 pound of chestnuts (2 cups)
4 stalks of celery roughly chopped
2 yellow onions roughly chopped
1 tablespoon of organic thyme minced
2 tablespoon of organic sage minced
3 tablespoon of organic rosemary minced
4 tablespoon of organic parsley minced
1 organic red apple (I recommend using a Honeycrisp)
1 organic green apple (I recommend using a Grannysmith)
2 pasture-raised eggs
1 stick of french un-salted butter
Directions:
Preheat your oven to 375°F and butter two 9×11″ baking dishes
In a large skillet, sauté your onion, celery, chestnuts, and herbs in butter over medium heat until lightly browned
Then add your sausage to the mix, and cook for a 3-5 minutes
Pour your mixture into a large bowl, and combine with the breadcrumbs and apple slices
Finally, pour in your stock and eggs
Transfer to baking dishes and let bake for roughly 30 minutes
Note:
If you plan on making the bread cubes yourself, make sure you buy the bread ahead of time so it has enough time to dry out (this will vary based on regional humidity)
You can also use turkey stock instead of chicken, if you can find it.
Make sure the sausage you buy isn’t too spicy or it will overpower the dish, I like to use breakfast sausage
Chestnuts can be hard to find, but I swear they make the dish, so plan ahead to ensure you have them
Fresh herbs are always better than dried herbs
You don’t need to cook your sausage all the way through on the skillet because it will cook more in the oven
Make sure you have twice as much stock as needed in case more moisture is needed
If the top of the stuffing is browning too quickly in the oven, cover with tinfoil for the remainder of its time in the oven
Every Thanksgiving, in loving memory of my uncle’s mother, Joyce, I make this old-fashioned American side dish. It’s easy to make and can be made ahead of time, which is a plus. But the real reason to make it is because its sweetness, cool temperature, and mint-green color really add some variety to an otherwise savory and salt plate, especially if you aren’t a big fan of cranberry.
Ingredients:
1 packet of pistachio jello pudding mix
1 (20 oz) can of crushed pineapple
1 tub of cool whip
1 package of sliced almonds
2 cups of mini marshmallows
1 jar of Maraschino cherries (for garnish)
Directions:
Combine your wet ingredients into the pistachio jello pudding mix
Transfer to serving dish
Refrigerate overnight
Before serving, decorate the top of your pistachio pudding with cherries for a fun pop of color
My older sister married into the most wonderful family, so I am thrilled to add this Hill family classic into the Wright Family Digital Cookbook. It’s an old-fashioned American dish, but one that we had never heard of before. Now I look forward to enjoying them alongside my new brothers and sisters in law every year at Sibsgiving (sibling Thanksgiving.)
Ingredients:
36 ounces of frozen hash browns
2 cups of sour cream
2 cups of grated cheddar cheese
1 stick of butter (melted)
1 can of Cream of Chicken Soup
2 teaspoons of minced yellow onion
1 cup of Corn Flakes
Salt to taste
Directions:
Start by fully thawing your hash browns
Preheat your oven to 350°F
Crush up the corn flakes and toast them in the oven while it’s preheating for about 10 minutes or until fragrant
Coat your 9×13″ baking dish with butter
In a large bowl combine the: sour cream, cheese, butter, soup, onion, and the potatoes
Make sure to add the potatoes last
Pour your mixture into your baking dish, and sprinkles the corn flakes on top
1 yellow onion (or 4 shallots, or 2 shallots and 2 garlic cloves), chopped
2 tablespoons of organic thyme, chopped
3 tablespoons of organic parsley, chopped
1 cup of white wine (Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling)
4 tablespoons of organic heavy whipping cream (or crème fraîche)
To Taste: fresh lemon juice and/or vinegar (I recommend using a white wine or champagne vinegar, but tarragon vinegar also works)
Optional: garlic and/or celery
Serve with: french fries
Directions:
Preheat your oven for the french fries, and pop them in as soon as it’s ready
In a dutch oven, brown your onions and thyme with some butter
Add the wine, and bring to a boil
Add the mussels, and cover the pot
Cook until the mussels start to open (~3 – 5 minutes)
Taste your broth and add fresh lemon, vinegar, and/or salt to taste
Add heavy cream, top with parsley
Discard any unopened mussels then serve
Fun Fact: freezing potatoes converts some of their starch into resistant starch, which is a type of fiber that is better for digestion because it is harder to break down which means that you get less of a blood sugar spike and feel full faster (rice, bread, and pasta can also undergo starch retrogradation)
½ of a lemon or 1 tablespoon of tarragon or white wine vinegar
White pepper to taste
Cayenne pepper to taste
Salt to taste
Fresh fettuccine pasta
Directions:
Start by dicing the onion, celery, carrots, and garlic
Sauté them together with butter over medium heat in a large pan
While vegetables are browning, lightly poach the lobster tails in a large pot with one carton of seafood stock, half of the bottle of white wine, the Old Bay, and the tarragon (4 minutes, or until shells are red)
You can add more wine if needed to cover the lobster depending on the size of your pot
Note: you are only cooking the meat so it is soft enough to be removed from the shells, so try not to overdue it or when you add them back in with your sauce at the end they will become chewy
Remove lobster tails from pot and then remove the meat from the shells, and set meat aside
Cut up the lobster shells into 1 inch pieces and put back into your stock pot
I recommend using kitchen shears for this step
Add the tomato paste to your vegetable mix and deglaze with cognac
Once the cognac has reduced, and your vegetable mix into your stock with the lobster shells
At this point you can add salt, pepper, and acid to taste
I add a 1/2 a lemon, a tablespoon of tarragon vinegar, and a teaspoon of cayenne pepper
Reduce for at least an hour (longer if you have time)
Add equal parts stock, wine, and cognac as needed, and continue to season to taste
Pour your stock, with the vegetables and cut up lobster shells into a blender, and on the lowest setting, pulse blend until lobster shells are closer to 1 quarter inch in size
Note: you don’t want to shells to be ground up to finely because you are going to put the mixture through a chinoise strainer and you don’t want them to go through
Pour this mixture back into your pot and reduce again for at least half an hour
Add equal parts stock, wine, and cognac as needed, and continue to season to taste
After reducing, strain your mixture in a chinoise, and then return it to the pot for the final touches
Now is about with you should start to boil the water for your pasta
Add the crème fraîche and stir to combine
Add the lobster meat into the mixture
At this point you can either strain the pasta and finish it in the lobster sauce, or serve them separately so people can control their ratios, I like to keep them separate so that if there are leftovers the pasta doesn’t become soggy
Add salt to taste
Finish with parsley if so inclined (it’s a relatively homogeneous in color)
My understanding is that AI software is bad for the environment because it is so energy inefficient but I allowed myself to experiment because I needed a new head shot for my LinkedIn profile. I used a service called Aragon.ai, it asks a few questions like your age and hair color, you upload six photos of yourself and you get 100 AI generated head shots in return. The experience is uncanny (pun intended).
I sent a handful of them to friends and family. Unfortunately, everyone knew me well enough to know I didn’t do a professional photo shoot, hair, and makeup, all for a new head shot, so they had their suspicions, but they were unanimously impressed with the realism of 95% of the photos. Only a handful didn’t seem to look as much like me, or looked more obviously artificial to us.
See exhibits A – C below and try to guess which is which.
One is AI generated. One is Photoshop. One is just hair and makeup.
Exhibit A.Exhibit B.Exhibit C.
Not that hard to figure it out. But I still find the takeaway interesting. I like the middle photo the least. I don’t know what they did on Photoshop but I don’t think it looks very much like me. I actually like the first photo the best, even though it’s AI generated. The last photo was a very flattering photo of me when I was younger, but my family and I could not stop staring at the AI ones. They were so compelling.
This is one that we felt didn’t look like me. The hands in this one are the give away. This one to me feels the most obviously fake. Given that these were the worst of 100 options… I feel really good about the relatively small investment I made to acquire these.
I was blown away by the technology.
Psychologically, the experience of seeing these photos hit me differently than seeing photos of myself that I took using filters on Snapchat for example. I don’t know if that because I didn’t see the photos made, or simply if it’s just been a very long time since I even played around with that sort of technology, etc. But the AI photo made me feel motivated to keep up my skincare, and look into learning how to blowout my hair because it felt like I was seeing the best version of myself, instead of just a different version. What I could look like if I learned how to do my makeup better, instead of plastic surgery, for example.
Anyway. This has all been a bit self-indulgent. Even for me. But I think a little vanity is good for motivation, so my recommendation would be to try out Aragon.ai. I can’t speak to other services. I’m sure I could have looked around a little longer and found a free version that would have done the job well enough, if not just as well, but I didn’t so here we are.
Sophie's External Brain 