…simply about g

Yep, we are T minus 2 days till Turkey Day, which just happens to be my favorite holiday. I love the fall colors and the cool ( not cold) weather, the smell of cinnamon and nutmeg and apple cider, and of course the food.  If you know me, you know I love to cook and I love to host, so at Thanksgiving, I get to do both. So this year, instead of posting what we ate, ( after the big day), I thought I’d post what we’re going to eat and share some of my recipes.

I won’t have quite as big a crown this year as last, so I decided to cheat a bit and get one of those fabulous boneless, stuffed turkeys from Chris’ Specialty Meats, but the last few years I have prepared my turkey from frozen status using this great recipe.  It is delicious and very easy to follow.

When it comes time to carve that bird, check out some “How to” videos on youtube.

As for sides, I make the Mac & Cheese, but I have a tiny oven, so my mom makes her wonderful dressing, and sweet potatoes and also this Cranberry Jello salad that is out of this world good. If I had the recipe I’d share it. I also make a basic chocolate pie, ( Cook and Serve chocolate pudding in a Graham cracker crust) But that’s not all, here is a recipe for French Silk Pie. I only make it once or twice a year because I would eat the entire thing. Yeah, it’s that good.

Crust
1 refrigerated pie crust (softened as directed on box)

Filling
3 ounces unsweetened chocolate, cut into pieces
1 cup butter, softened (do not use margarine)
1 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
4  eggs

Topping
1/2 cup sweetened whipped cream
Chocolate curls, if desired

Directions:

1 .      Heat oven to 450°F. Make pie crust as directed on box for One-Crust Baked Shell using 9-inch glass pie pan. Bake 9 to 11 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool completely, about 30 minutes.
2 .      In 1-quart saucepan, melt chocolate over low heat; cool. In small bowl with electric mixer, beat butter on medium speed until fluffy. Gradually beat in sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in cooled chocolate and vanilla until well blended.
3 .      Add eggs 1 at a time, beating on high speed 2 minutes after each addition; beat until mixture is smooth and fluffy. Pour into cooled baked shell. Refrigerate at least 2 hours before serving. Garnish with whipped cream and chocolate curls. Store in refrigerator.

So anyway, Thanksgiving is not all bout the food, it’s about being thankful, and I am very thankful for my family and friends, health and happiness and everything else I’v been blessed with.I wish you all a Happy Thanksgiving.

Last night I played with something new, Phyllo Dough. I was attempting to make these Chicken wraps with cranberry sauce. It’s yet another recipe on my list I’ve been wanting to try. It wasn’t necessarily a flop, it came out like it was supposed to. It was just one of those dishes that looks better than it tastes.  basically you pound a chicken breast thin, top it with cranberry sauce and a pat of butter and wrap it in Phyllo, like a pot sticker, and bake it. To me, it was very bland. Maybe it would have been better is I’d marinated the chicken or used more than salt and black pepper. Maybe even some stuffing in there would have been good too. I’ll probably never know, because I’ll probably never make it again.

I wasn’t giving up there though. Since my entire kitchen was upside down already and I had had phyllo left over, I made Baklava.  I didn’t use this recipe, I just kind of winged it. Sugar, brown sugar, cinnamon, and walnuts. It was pretty good, even though I’ve never really been a fan of baklava. But there isn’t much more than you can do with phyllo dough. It was more fun making it anyway. I always enjoy the baking more than anything. It’s very therapeutic.  When life gives you phyllo, make Baklava.

Have you ever been going along, minding your own business, when suddenly, out of no where you get a craving for something totally off the wall. I’m not talking pickles and ice cream here people, so don’t even go there. Kayla and I were driving around this morning, doing our weekly grocery shopping. On our way to the fruit stand, when Bam! It hit me….Okra and Tomatoes.  I like Okra and tomatoes, but it’s not something I eat or make very often, so it was just odd to suddenly be struck by the thought of it.

I didn’t get the ingredients at the fruit stand  , but I’m not going to say I cheated either. This is one of those dishes that eluded me for a very long time. I think maybe I was just over-thinking it. I’d tried fresh ingredients, spices, cans and all sorts of techniques. But when I simplified it, I found what I was looking for. So here it is, take it or leave it.

1 Package of frozen okra ( I like the chopped, not the whole)

1 Can of Stewed tomatoes

That’s it, seriously! Cook the Okra down on med-high heat with a little olive oil if your not using non stick. Cook them till their tender and not slimy, then add the can of tomatoes and let that hang out for a minute. Add a little salt to taste and voila. And it was so nice to satisfy the need for some real southern comfort food in about 15 minutes.

I’m still playing with my new cookbook.  I wasn’t that crazy about the last dish I made, but this recipe for mini meat loaves was off the chain. ( Or insert whatever the new slang is these days. ) They were super simple to make plus minimal cleanup which is also a plus.  The only thing I did differently, was I baked mine in a mini bundt pan. Which is a little bit bigger than a cupcake pan, with only 6 cups. So they came out really cute. Here is the recipe, I hope you try it and if you do, tell me what you thought about it.

Mini Meat Loaves

1 lb ground beef
1 small onion, finely chopped
2 slices bread, cubed
1 egg, beaten
1 (10 3/4oz) can Vegetable Soup ( I used Campbells Vegetarion Vegetable)

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Shape into 6 oval loaves,
Place on an ungreased rimmed baking sheet. Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes.
*** I did spray my pan with non stick cooking spray just to be safe

Lets face it, we all love good food. So I thought I’d share some tasty tidbits I’ve discovered recently. For starters, Annette and I had a girls night last night, shopping and dinner. We went to one of the new restaurants outside the Mall of LA, called “Bravo!” I might have a new favorite Italian restaurant. The atmosphere was nice, the service was great, the price was fair and the food was delicious. I ordered a cup of Lobster bisque that was sinfully rich. One of those so rich, you know you’re going to have a belly ache later, but it’s totally worth it. And for my entree, I got the Wood Grilled Salmon Salad. Grilled Salmon, field greens, tomato, grilled asparagus, shoestring potatoes and feta cheese with a balsamic vinaigrette. It was so good, I can’t see myself ever ordering anything else. I do plan on going back, soon.  I am happy to see new restaurants opening around the mall, we needed some few stuff. And I have had my last bad experience from Logan’s, I’m done. Their free bread isn’t good enough to suffice the horrible service I have received on my last 3 visits there.

Moving on to candy… if you like those free chocolate covered mints from D’Angelos, I found them at Fresh Market. They taste almost the same, and they are pretty colors. Now you can buy them instead of begging your waitress to bring you extra.

Still on the candy subject, Kayla and I found a new item at Target today, mini chocolate covered marshmallows.  Now, you really can’t go wrong with these, because they combine two of my favorite things, chocolate and marshmallows. Combine that with they fact they are tiny and cute and you have the perfect snack. I found them on the baking aisle, next to the regular marshmallows.

Alright, moving on. I couldn’t resist sharing this with you. Kayla and were on our way home from the fruit stand this week. I put my bag of fruit and veggies on the back seat because I hate collecting all my loose fruit from the trunk when we get home. So Kayla being nosy, decided to check out our stash on the ride. I check my rear view mirror only to see her chowing down on a raw squash. I couldn’t help but laugh and there wasn’t really anything I could do about it while driving on the interstate.  She hasn’t gone for any more squash since, but she is eating the grape tomatoes like their going out of style. Here is a picture of the bruised fruit.

So, do you have a new favorite restaurant, recipe or snack? I’d love to hear about it.

Ok, well if you didn’t already know, Kayla’s first birthday party is right around the corner. We are having a cupcake theme. I’ve been searching the internet, looking through cookbooks and magazines, watching the food network in order to find cute ideas for her cupcake party. I found this great blog dedicated entirely to cupcakes. ( They update this blog at least 4 times a day, I don’t know how they do it. I can barely update mine once a week) Anyway, they have the cutest and most original cupcakes. I’ve gotten a lot of ideas from them. But I wanted to come up with something on my own. Something more than a yellow cupcake with chocolate frosting. This weekend, I had my epiphany moment. Mint Chocolate Chip Cupcakes. Here they are…

They taste as good as they look too. I’ll share my incredibly complicated recipe with you.

The cupcake is :

1 box of Devil’s food cake mix (follow the directions on the box)

plus add:

1 box instant chocolate pudding

2 Tablespoons Mayonnaise (Don’t be grossed out, it’s the same as vegetable oil, it keeps the cake moist)

Frosting:

1 container of Pillsbury classic vanilla ( beat with hand mixer a couple of minutes, it fluffs up and doubles your icing)

2 tsp peppermint extract

green food coloring

( Don’t give me grief on the store bought icing, I made some from scratch too, the store one tasted better)

Chocolate drizzle:

4 oz chocolate chips

2 Tablespoons butter

Simple enough right. If you try them, let me know what you think.

Well today I have been trying to get all the things done on my list before tomorrow. Mainly cleaning, some cooking too. Yet again I have waited till the last minute. I’ve had all week to do this stuff and here it is 7:42pm and I’m not even halfway through the list. I’m still not doing anything now, Blog posting wasn’t on my list, yet here I am. Wes posted this Procrastinators Chart yesterday, I think it suits me. I think I work better under pressure. Oh, well I guess this stuff can wait till morning. I gotta get up early and cook my bird. Happy Thanksgiving.

By the way, this is the recipe I’ll be using. Courtesy of Elise and Simply Recipes.

# 1 turkey, approx. 15 lbs.*
# Juice of a lemon
# Salt and pepper
# Olive oil or melted butter
# 1/2 yellow onion, peeled and quartered
# Tops and bottoms of a bunch of celery
# 2 carrots
# Parsley
# Sprigs of fresh rosemary, thyme

Directions:

1 To start, if the turkey has been refrigerated, bring it to room temperature before cooking. Keep it in its plastic wrapping until you are ready to cook it. While in the refrigerator, and or while you are bringing it to room temp, have the bird resting in a pan, so that if the plastic covering leaks for any reason, you are confining the juices to the pan. If you get a frozen turkey, you will need to defrost it in the refrigerator for several days first. Allow approximately 5 hours of defrosting for every pound. So, if you have a 15 pound turkey, it will take about 75 hours to defrost it in the refrigerator, or around 3 days.

Handle a raw turkey with the same amount of caution as when you handle raw chicken – use a separate cutting board and utensils to avoid contaminating other foods. Wash you hands with soap before touching anything else in the kitchen. Use paper towels to clean up.

Remove the neck and giblets (heart, gizzard, liver). Use the heart and gizzard for making stock for the stuffing. The neck can be cooked along side the turkey or saved for turkey soup.

Note that if your turkey comes with a plastic piece holding the legs together, check the instructions on the turkey’s package. Most likely you do not need to remove those plastic ties for cooking (unless you plan to cook your turkey at a very high temperature). If you remove the plastic ties, you will need to use kitchen string to tie the legs together.

2 Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.

3 Wash out the turkey with water. Pull out any remaining feather stubs in the turkey skin. Pat the turkey dry with paper towels. Lather the inside of the cavity with the juice of half a lemon. Take a small handful of salt and rub all over the inside of the turkey.

4 In this method of cooking a turkey, we don’t make the stuffing in the turkey because doing so adds too much to the cooking time. For flavor, put in inside the turkey a half a yellow onion, peeled and quartered, a bunch of parsley, a couple of carrots, and some tops and bottoms of celery. You may need to cap the body cavity with some aluminum foil so that the stuffing doesn’t easily fall out. Close up the turkey cavity with either string (not nylon string!) or metal skewers. Make sure that the turkey’s legs are tied together, held close to the body, and tie a string around the turkey body to hold the wings  in close.

The neck cavity can be stuffed with parsley and tied closed with thin skewers and string.

5 Rub either melted butter or olive oil all over the outside of the turkey. Sprinkle salt generously all over the outside of the turkey (or have had it soaking in salt-water brine before starting this process). Sprinkle pepper over the turkey.

6 Place turkey BREAST DOWN on the bottom of a rack over a sturdy roasting pan big enough to catch all the drippings. This is the main difference between the way mom makes turkey and everyone else. Cooking the turkey breast down means the skin over the breast will not get so brown. However, all of the juices from the cooking turkey will fall down into the breast while cooking. And the resulting bird will have the most succulent turkey breast imaginable.

Add several sprigs of fresh (if possible) thyme and rosemary to the outside of the turkey.

7 Chop up the turkey giblets (gizzard, heart, liver). Put into a small saucepan, cover with water, add salt. Bring to simmer for an hour or so to help make stock for the stuffing (see stuffing recipe).

8 Put the turkey in the oven. Check the cooking directions on the turkey packaging. Gourmet turkeys often don’t take as long to cook. With the turkeys mom gets, she recommends cooking time of about 15 minutes for every pound. For the 15 lb turkey, start the cooking at 400 F for the first 1/2 hour. Then reduce the heat to 350 F for the next 2 hours. Then reduce the heat further to 225 F for the next hour to hour and a half.

If you want the breast to be browned as well, you can turn over the bird for the last 15-20 minutes of cooking, at an oven temp of 300°F. (Oven must be at least 250°F for browning to occur.) Note that if you do this, you will have a higher risk of overcooking the turkey breast. We never worry about browning the breast.

Start taking temperature readings with a meat thermometer, inserted deep into the thickest part of the turkey breast and thigh, a half hour before the turkey should be done. The dark meat in the thigh should be about 175 F. The white meat in the breast should be 160 F to 165 F. If you don’t have a meat thermometer, spear the breast with a knife. The turkey juices should be clear, not pink.

9 Once you remove the turkey from the oven, let it rest for 15-20 minutes. Turn the turkey breast side up to carve it.

Well tonight I made tuna sandwiches, I know that’s not a real difficult thing to make, but I added some things to jazz it up a little. I don’t necessarily have a recipe, I just put in what I like and when it tastes good…Voila, dinner.  Unless I am baking I don’t measure anything, so bear with me on the measurements.

Jazzed up tuna sandwiches
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Serving Size: 4

Ingredients:

1 package tuna packed in sunflower oil, 7 oz
2 eggs, hard boiled and chopped into small pieces
1/2 cup light sour cream
2 tablespoons mayo
1/2 stalk  celery, finely chopped
1/4  cup dill pickels , chopped
salt and pepper, to taste
4 slices swiss cheese
1 loaf  bread   , (French, Rye or other good crusty bread)

Directions:

Mix all ingredients (except for cheese and bread) in a bowl to make tuna salad.

Preheat broiler, slice bread into 1/2 inch think slices, lay in even layer on cookie sheet and spread small amount of butter on each slice.
Put under broiler just long enough to toast up the bread. This should take longer than 1 minute. Spread tuna on each slice of bead and place swiss cheese slice on every other piece. Place back under broiler for another minute, just long enough to melt cheese.

Top with whatever toppings you like, I like a slice of tomato. Sandwich two pieces together and enjoy.

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I also made some fresh green beans, I think everyone knows how to make green beans but I did want to point out that I used the new Glad steamer bags.

They worked great. Steaming instructions were right on the bag. I placed my veggies into the little ziploc bag, microwaved for 5 minutes and they were perfect. I sauteed some chopped onion and turkey bacon in a little butter and tossed the steamed beans around in it. End result was better than anything you get out of a can.

Alright, so I tried a new recipe 2 nights in a row, thats got to be some kind of record. Tonight I made Twice-Baked Potato Casserole and it was delicious.

Twice Baked Potato Casserole
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Ingredients:

6 potatoes, Baked & Cubed
Salt and pepper, to taste
1 pound bacon , cooked and crmbled
2 tablespoons butter, cut in small pieces
3 cups sour cream
8 oz. Mozarella cheese, shredded
8  oz. Cheddar cheese, shredded
green onions , for garnish

Directions:

Place half of the baked cubed potatoes in a greased 13″x9″ baking pan. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and half the butter pats. Top with half of bacon, sour cream and cheeses. Repeat layer with rest of potatoes and other ingredients.

Bake at 350 for 20 min. Garnish with chopped green onions or chives.

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Wes and I both really liked this dish. It is certainly not figure friendly. I made it as a main dish, but I think it would work better as a side dish. It would also be great to take along to a pot luck or church dinner. By the way, those chives on top are fresh from my garden.

So, I am unveiling a new post topic for my 3 loyal readers out there. You know I like to cook and try out new recipes. So, I have decided to start sharing these recipes with you. Now, I won’t be posting these every day, because I don’t cook every day. But when I do, I’m going to share the recipe, Wes’ and my opinion of the dish, and any tips to go along with it. So this will be my first installment of What’s for Dinner.

Smokey Chicken Tortilla Soup
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Serving Size: 4

Ingredients:

3 cups chicken stock
1 lb. chicken tenders
1 bay leaf, fresh if available

1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
4 slices thick, smoky center cut bacon, chopped
1 onion, finely chopped
4 cloves, garlic chopped
2 chipotles in adobo, chopped, plus 2 tablespoons sauce
1 can (28-ounce) crushed fire roasted tomatoes
Salt
4 cups corn tortilla chips, lightly crushed
2 cups shredded fresh smoked mozzarella or smoked sharp white Cheddar cheese, 3/4 pound
1 lime, cut into wedges
1/2 red onion, chopped
Fresh cilantro leaves, chopped for garnish

Directions:

Bring the broth to a simmer and add the chicken tenders, poach them for 6 to 7 minutes with a bay leaf.

While the chicken poaches, heat the extra-virgin olive oil in a medium soup pot or deep skillet over medium high heat. Add the bacon and cook it until crisp then remove it with a slotted spoon. Drain off the excess fat, leaving 2 to 3 tablespoons in the pan. Add the onions and garlic to the skillet and cook them for 5 minutes then stir in chipotles and tomatoes.

Remove the chicken from the stock, dice it then add it to the soup. Pass the stock through a strainer then add it to the soup.

Place a pile of crushed tortilla chips in the bottom of each soup bowl. Cover it liberally with smoked cheese then ladle the hot soup down over the top. Serve it with lime, raw onions and cilantro at table to finish the soup.

(I omitted the bay leaf, cilantro, limes and salt. For me there was enough salt from the chicken stock)

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I liked this recipe a lot. The only thing for me was that I didn’t really like the texture of the chips after they sat in the soup. But I am not a fan of soggy cereal, chips crackers etc. So for me personally, I’d rather put the chips on top of the soup. The sharp cheddar really brought out the smoky flavor in the soup, so definitely don’t skip the cheese. Wes liked the soup also, he had no complaints.

Recipe was easy to follow and total cooking time was about 30 minutes. This is not a meal that I’d cook every week, but its great when you want something different. And I also liked the fact that it makes a small amount. I give it a 4 out of 5.

If you try it, please leave me a comment and tell me what you thought about it. ( Sorry there isn’t a picture, I’ll try to include pictures in the future)