Lesson Learned: Holiday Edition

I learned a few lessons this Thanksgiving weekend.

1.Making homemade dressing the very first time is a pain in the butt.
        -So I'm sure half of this is my fault but homemade dressing is a huge pain.  I hadn't fully read the recipe until Thanksgiving day.  Then the stupid onion wouldn't peel.  Tiny pieces came off at a time.  At this point, I was very frustrated and told Steve to peel it because I wasn't wasting anymore time on it.  I started chopping the celery.  We didn't put our last batch of onions in the fridge and I could tell.  My eyes stung chopping the onion.  I sat down to cut up the bread for the dressing and it turns out I made 2 loaves too many.  Go me.  I had decided to cut the stuffing recipe in half since there were only 4 of us.  In case you ever need to know, the 2-lb loaf my bread machine makes equals 9 cups of bread.  I put everything in the crock pot but didn't reduce the cooking time.  The dressing was slightly dryer than Grandma's.  I'm not sure I'm making this next year.  If I do make it for next year, I think I will cook it a day or two before Thanksgiving and warm it in the crock-pot the day of Thanksgiving.

2. OXO peelers are lethal.
         -Steve cut his finger last year peeling the potatoes.  I've cut my finger in the past peeling carrots.  This year I decided to peel the potatoes so Steve wouldn't hurt himself again.  I peeled the carrots and half of a potato before cutting my finger.  It hurt like hell.  It also causes your finger to gush blood.  I ran my finger under cold water and put pressure on it before Steve grabbed a band-aid for me.  I called my aunt to commiserate about the progress of my Thanksgiving and proceeded to nick my thumb.  The peeler is in a box for Goodwill.

3. Dancing when flouring your turkey bag makes the day a little better.
    -Yes, I dance at strange times.  I blame my mom.  Music was always blaring at home and she was usually dancing to it.  Not only was she dancing to it but she'd usually convince us to dance with her.  It's in our blood.  I also had a mixed CD blaring that contained a lot of 70's rock and 90's alternative music.  Dancing is bound to happen with that combination.

4. Small kitchens are not ideal for making a holiday meal.
      -My kitchen is tiny and I can't wait to be out of it.  Our dirty dishes took up the counter with the sink leaving the very tiny counters next to the stove for Thanksgiving meal prep.  I don't think I have to elaborate on why that's a pain.

5. Gravy turns out better when your mother-in-law helps you make it.
     -My white wine gravy turned out pretty good.  Or so people say, I haven't actually tasted it yet.  Linda whisked the drippings and the wine together as I poured.  I'm fairly certain this is why it turned out this year.

6. The 24-hours for every 4 pounds to thaw a turkey rule is a lie.  It takes longer than that.
     -Our turkey was just under 12 pounds.  I took it out of the freezer the Sunday before Thanksgiving and put it in the fridge.  This allowed 3 complete days in the fridge (not counting Sunday or Thanksgiving day).  Part of the turkey was still frozen on Thanksgiving day.  The directions to quickly thaw a turkey were to place it in cold water in the sink.  We placed it in the sink with cold running water and our turkey thawed.  It created unnecessary stress on Thanksgiving day.

7. Recipes given by family members are the best.
     -My cousin Angie gave me her pumpkin bar recipe after my previous blog post.  She doesn't give it out to very many people but offered it to me.  I'm proud to be among the select few that gets the recipe.  The bars are delicious and simple.  I made them for Steve's employees and they gave me the title of The Angel of Baking Everything.  Thanks Angie!

8. Delegate more food responsibilities next year.
    -After this year, I'm definitely going pot-luck for my next holiday.  Making all of the dishes is a lot of work and Linda had offered to bring food or help.  I'm filing that away in my memory for next year.  I think next year I'll have a list of the dishes I would like to have for Thanksgiving and ask family members to sign up for the dishes they want to make.

9. If your china is packed away, the white Corelle will work just fine and double as serving dishes.
     -Because we're moving in a few weeks, my guest bedroom is full of boxes.  I keep my china in the storage closet in the guest bedroom.  You can see where this is going, can't you?  The boxes are in the way of getting things out of the storage closet.

10. If your gravy boat is packed away, a Pyrex 2-cup measuring cup works just fine too.
    -We don't have a gravy boat or gravy ladle for every day use.  Pyrex is as good as it was going to get.  I found it slightly humorous.

11. Don't be depressed if you didn't have a fancy Thanksgiving table if the food tasted ok.
    -I'm disappointed my Thanksgiving table wasn't as fancy as I would have liked but that's the perfectionist in me coming out.  The food tasted good so that's all that matters... right?

Get Your Game Face On

The countdown to Thanksgiving has begun and so have the preparations.  I'm hosting Thanksgiving again this year.  We're having a very small group.  David and Linda are the only guests that I know are coming.  Other family members are welcome since the smallest turkey available was 12 pounds.  We're going to be eating turkey forever... it's a good thing I like it.  My Thanksgiving menu is:

-turkey
-homemade stuffing (Hey my side of the family, did you hear that? You can stop icking about Stove Top because this year, I'm trying to make the real stuff...enjoy Grandma's at her house.)
-cranberry sauce
-mashed potatoes and gravy
-corn
-squash
-green bean casserole
-veggie tray
       --olives
       --celery
       --carrots
       --pickles
-rolls
-cheese and crackers
-lettuce salad
-pumpkin pie

I had a great idea to do prep all week long... Great idea, right?  The cranberry sauce was made Sunday.  I've made 2 loaves of bread for the stuffing.  I think I need 4.  The recipe says 18 cups of soft bread.  Hey, my side of the family, if I have left-over stuffing you're invited to come eat it anytime you want.  The bread machine made a loaf on Sunday and another yesterday.  Today I forgot to get it ready before we left to get groceries.  Bread takes over 3 hours... that was so not happening tonight after 7pm.  Linda did email and ask what she could bring or help with.  I told her to bring the rolls, cheese and crackers.  I've also delegated the mashed potatoes to her again this  year.  If she only did that, it would be enough.  I know how to make mashed potatoes but the smell makes me want to gag.  I haven't mastered making mashed potatoes and the angle my neck needs to be so the potato steam doesn't hit me in the face.  I hope I never get that mastered.  It just doesn't need to happen.

Tomorrow, I'm making the pumpkin pie (and the pie crusts), the squash and assembling the green bean casserole.  Oh and I work  7-4pm tomorrow.  I'm going to be tired.  I have Mike's Cranberry in the fridge as my reward.  Speaking of alcohol, I found a gravy recipe with white wine in it.  It sounds delicious.  And since my gravy was way too thick last year, I figured up the ante and make it more difficult to make, right?  I am aware that I'm crazy but it's the good crazy.  The good crazy always leads to a fun story.  The scary crazy leads to an interesting but potentially bad story... that's not me.

I'm going to have Steve help me make the squash.  I don't know how to make it.  He made it last year.  Squash usually doesn't make an appearance at my family's Thanksgiving.  Steve really likes it so it's becoming a traditional part of our Thanksgiving dinner.

I was watching the Food Network this past Sunday (shocking, right?) and Guy Fieri was making cranberry sauce.  His cranberry sauce had serrano peppers, orange juice and a chipotle pepper in adobo sauce among other things in it.  As he grabbed the chipotle pepper, he said "that's right.  it gets weirder as you go."  I so want to try this.  But I'm already being adventurous with my gravy and the homemade stuffing and didn't want to stretch myself too far.  Next year, maybe I'll give this a whirl and if it's good, I'll make an extra batch for Darcy.  Cranberry sauce is her favorite part of Thanksgiving.

My crock-pot will be housing the stuffing.  I'm so glad I got the big 6-quart crock-pot.  (Thanks again Nancy and Jen!)  I think I can make that day of but should probably chop the veggies for it and the turkey tomorrow.

As a surprise for Linda and because he likes them, Steve made refrigerator pickles for the veggie tray.  I hope they last until Thursday.  Last time he made a batch, they were gone within a day or two.  Again, I don't know how to make these.  Steve got the recipe from his mom.  The original recipe is David's mom's.  Linda found a very similar recipe in the Winthrop cookbook.  According to Steve, they taste exactly the same.  Isn't it fun when food is a part of your family history?  (Ok, it is to me... I'm weird.)  

And to add to my insanity, I'm making a few treats for Steve's employees since they have to work on Thanksgiving.  (A coworker offered to work for Steve so he has the day off.  Thanks Anthony!)  Steve's employees will get their treats on Friday.  I want to make pumpkin bars and a cranberry chutney.  The cranberry chutney is served over cream cheese and is eaten with crackers.  I really want to try it.  I might have to sneak a bite before I give it to them.  I don't have a recipe for the pumpkin bars yet... is that bad?

I've got my game face on.  Get ready Thanksgiving, I'm cooking and I'm going to kick your butt!

I'm dreaming of a...

Purple kitchen.  Steve and I are buying a house.  I had told him awhile ago that I wanted a purple kitchen.  He's a little scared.  He asked if I was going to paint all of the walls purple.  I think he was envisioning four walls painted Vikings purple.  I explained I didn't want that.  I want purple accessories and dishes.  I do plan on replacing my white Correlle with purple Fiesta Ware.  Any purple Fiesta Ware.  Younkers and Khols both carry Fiesta Ware and are located in Sioux City.  Neither store carries the current purple Fiesta Ware.  How is that possible?! I will find purple Fiesta Ware.  It's going to happen.  Both retailers have stores in Sioux Falls too.  I'm going to be checking those branches.  I will not be denied my purple Fiesta Ware.  Fiesta Ware has had many different purple shades through out the years.  I want any and all that I can get my hands on.  On the plus side of my search for purple kitchen accessories, I saw a purple casserole dish at Kitchen Dressings.  I took it off the shelf and showed Steve.  I also told him that it was a hint.

The kitchen is large and I can't wait to use it.  I've been dealing with small apartment kitchens for almost 10 years.  I want my big kitchen.  I need my big kitchen.  I will be able to do so much more cooking, baking and experimenting there.

My Week in Food

        Yesterday was a very productive day for me.  I had decided earlier in the week that I was changing up some of my weekend routines so that I could get more done.  We've started to look at houses which means we don't get home until 7 or later.  These are the nights you don't want to chop veggies for supper.  For the past month, we'd usually end up eating frozen pizza or something just as easy and not at all nutritious.  To remedy this, I decided to do all of the veggie chopping on Saturday.  I had done this last weekend and it worked really well.  I've moved laundry day to Friday night (I lead a very exciting life.).  Saturday morning I made myself a pumpkin spice latte.  This is a recipe that I got from a vegan blog called Peas and Thank You.  Don't worry I'm not going vegan, I just enjoy her writing style and some of the healthy ideas from her recipes.  I unveganized it by using cow's milk.  It's still good.  I don't have the garam masala the recipe calls for so I added a dash of chili powder.  Same basic concept.  Side note, a couple days after we tried this recipe without the garam masala or chili powder I found an article in the Sioux City journal about garam masala with a recipe.  Thank you to the food gods!  I didn't try to make it yesterday.  I figured I already have enough planned for the day.  So after enjoying my pumpkin spice latte (my weekend treat!), I did the two loads of laundry left over from Friday night.  After that I raided the refrigerator for all of the veggies that needed to be chopped.  These included: 3 green peppers, 1 red pepper, 1 orange pepper, broccoli and a bag of carrots.  Crank up the radio and I'm in business.  In case you're wondering what all of that looks like, here's a pic:

I don't feel like the picture is an accurate depiction of all of the chopping I did but I hope you get the point.  On Saturday I also made a batch of rice and chicken noodle soup.  We frequently have stir-fry during the week but I always forget to make rice.  Ta-da!  Problem solved!  The chicken noodle soup is for today.  I like to have Sundays be very relaxing and being able to reheat a pot of soup will add to that.

Earlier in the week, we made pumpkin pie smoothies.  I got the recipe from the same site as the pumpkin spice latte.  We had already used the food processor so I had to use my blender.  I'm not that huge of a fan of blender and I was considering getting rid of mine due to the lack of use it gets.  I dragged out our blender and put the ingredients in.  The pitcher of the blender didn't appear to be sitting right but I wiggled it around and got the same result.  I turned it on and none of the ingredients moved.  This is not normal.  I adjusted it and tried a few more times... same result.  I took the pitcher off and looked at the bottom.  It was broken!  I've used this blender maybe 3 times since I got it!  What a piece of crap!  It was a Black and Decker Crush Master.  Don't buy it.  Another side note, I had registered for this as a wedding gift and someone gave it to us.  I'm not criticizing the gift.  I'm criticizing my ability to pick out a decent blender.  I stood there looking at my pumpkin pie smoothie ingredients in a busted blender wondering what to do.  Steve reminded me that I have an old blender from my grandma.  Grandma had given me this blender when I was going to college.  It was extremely old and she was going to get rid of it anyway.  We poured all of the ingredients into Grandma's blender.  Well, almost all of them.  An ice cube fell on my foot in the process.  I have a bruise.  Cooking/baking/smoothie making is dangerous work.  Grandma's 40-year old blender worked perfectly and our smoothies came out great.  So to recap: New blenders are junk.  40-year old blenders are great.  Here's a pic of both:

Ironic, right?  Please ignore my messy kitchen.  That's my week in food.  I hope you enjoyed it!

Winning the Battle... Maybe the War

   Today I will be spending the day in my kitchen chopping vegetables and fruit, browning hamburger and cooking chicken for next week's meals.  I'm taking solace in my kitchen.  This last month has been particularly stressful for me.  I'm trying to do all of the prep work today so we can have tasty and nutritious meals this week. I've over-scheduled myself until January and the perfectionist in me in rearing her ugly head.  The perfectionist in me questions everything I do at work, in my church activities, my participation in holiday traditions, how I play music, how I complete my crafts and so on.  Many people appreciate the perfectionist in me.  They know if I'm assigned a task or take on a task, it will be done correctly.  But I don't appreciate her.  The perfectionist in me questions everything except my presence in the kitchen.  Cooking and baking are the one thing that comes naturally to me.  Being in the kitchen is the one place the perfectionist won't follow me to.  The one place were she won't nag me and tell me I'm doing something wrong or not good enough.  It's the one place where I can tell her to take a flying leap and she actually listens.  I've done battle many times with the perfectionist in me.  She's easing up a little bit but when I get stressed especially around the holiday season, she rears her ugly head.  Quite frequently I lose my battle with the perfectionist but not in the kitchen.  In the kitchen I always win.

Food Glorious Food!

         I took today off work so I can go home for my brother's football game and the Spencer fair.  Steve works until 2:30 so we plan to leave after he gets home.  My plan for today was to make our menu plan and grocery list and then go grocery shopping.  Good plan, right?  It is when your car is not in the shop.  The only place I can actually go to is the mall because it's a block away and I can walk there.  This will not help me.  But on the plus side, the menu and grocery list are done and ready for when we return on Sunday.  I am looking forward to all of the delicious food we'll have when home.  We're staying at Grandma's and her food is always good.  I'm excited to have concession snacks at Jerry's game.  I don't remember all of the concession food but I do remember the giant pickles which I only bought once.  I'm not a huge fan of pickles.  I wonder if they still have those...  I am excited for the fair food!  It's going to be very difficult choosing what to eat.  There are always so many options: pizza, nachos, gyro on a stick, fried butter (I'm not kidding or trying it.), taffy, pastries...  A couple years ago I had a bucket of nachos and it was delicious in a very disgusting way.

      I actually couldn't eat all of it.  I don't remember what Steve had but I do remember that he liked it.  He wouldn't let me take a picture of it. :(  I'm very excited for Tom Thumb donuts.  They are a legend at the Spencer fair and you must stand in line for the freshly fried mini donuts covered in sugar.  What's your favorite concession or fair food?

Breakfast: The Most Important Meal of the Day

          Breakfast is truly the most important meal of the day.  We've all read it in magazines but I've learned it the hard way.  In the past couple of months, I've skipped breakfast a few times and almost passed out.  I'm not kidding.  I have a fast metabolism and in the past had to eat every 3 hours.  Before you slap me, keep reading to find out why it's not always the greatest thing in the world.  In July I skipped breakfast before hosting coffee and rolls at church.  All I had to eat was 2 large glazed donuts at this event.  Afterwards Steve and I took the left-over donuts to a local women's and children's shelter.  I have no idea how I drove all the way across town to the shelter without causing an accident.  I had Steve drive us directly to a restaurant for lunch.  By the time we got there it was 2 o'clock and I wanted to lay down on the restaurant floor.  I'm not exaggerating.  Sitting up in a chair felt like work.  I ate my burger and fries and instantly felt better and could sit up straight.  This past Friday I skipped breakfast before going to work.  Friday was the last grill-out at work so I needed to pick up some grill-out items: buns, BBQ sauce, pickles.  I started to shake just by carrying those items inside.  I also had a headache.  I grabbed a Snickers and a Pepsi from the vending machine because I knew it would pop my blood sugar back up but still felt crappy until lunch when I ate real food.  I know better than to skip breakfast but I was too lazy both of those days to fix my simple breakfasts.  Not anymore.  I have to take better care of myself.

I have two go-to breakfasts: yogurt with homemade granola and fruit and toast with homemade apple butter and peanut butter.  I prefer the yogurt because it lasts longer but the toast is really tasty.  Both of these breakfasts take a couple minutes to assemble.  Both breakfasts last because they contain multiple food groups.  For your benefit, I'm posting the original recipes and I'll list the few tweaks I've made.  First the granola.  My older sister Kat found this recipe online and shared it with me.

Homemade Granola
Mix well:
3C oats
1/2C sunflower seeds
1/2C nuts
1/2C coconut

Mix well:
1/4C oil
1/4C honey
1/6C water
1tsp vanilla

Combine the mixed wet and dry ingredients together and stir well.  Pour into a 9x13 pan or a cookie sheet.  Toast in a 350 degree oven.  Stir after 10 minutes, then more frequently until browned (every 5 minutes).  Store in an airtight container.

Easy, right?  I don't usually add the sunflower seeds or coconut.  The sunflower seeds are left out because we usually don't have any in our apartment.  I have added them a few times and it's good with them.  I leave out the coconut because I hate it and it's never in the apartment.  I know I'm taking away some of the nutrition by leaving these out but I'll actually eat it this way.  I usually use vegetable oil or olive oil.  The recipe suggests melted coconut oil or butter but I don't have coconut oil and I don't want to use all of my butter making granola.  I store my granola in the fridge.  For breakfast I put a couple tablespoons of granola in a bowl, grab an individual vanilla yogurt and mix in some fruit.  For the fruit, I use frozen fruit that's thawed in the fridge.  Easy and nutritious.  And also delicious.

Now for the apple butter.  I've blogged about it before but I feel it's worth mentioning again.  Another recipe my older sister found online and shared with me.  It would take too long to share the original and list my changes so you're getting my version of the recipe.

Apple Butter
14 apples
1 tbsp vanilla extract
1/4 C white sugar
3/4 C brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cloves
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Core and quarter the apples.  I cut the slices into smaller sections.  Put all of the apples into the crock pot.  Add in the sugars, vanilla, cloves and cinnamon.  Cook on low for 8 hours.  When done, stir and let cool.  Put in smaller containers and refrigerate.  I usually put all of the containers in the freezer except one.  This recipe makes a lot and it lasts for a really long time.  I made the recipe a few times and have never made it the same way.  I've previously blogged about adding cranberry sauce to it.  I have also added peaches to it and eliminated the white sugar.  I realize that it still has quite a bit of brown sugar in it but I'm still working on that part.  I'm thinking about subbing molasses or sorghum for the brown sugar.  I'll have to wait until apples go on sale again before I start making it this fall.  The original recipe suggests picking out the apples skins and uses a hand mixer to make the apple butter smooth.  I didn't do this because a) I'm lazy and b) I like the chunkiness of it.

Happy breakfast to all of you!  I hope these recipes make your mornings a little easier.