Kiwi Pear Smoothie

I have really been enjoying smoothies lately.  I had a few kiwis left, plus a slightly over-ripe pear, so I did a search for recipes with those ingredients.  I found a recipe using them, plus yogurt, which I really like in my smoothies, so I made it!  It was tangy and delicious.  I couldn't really taste the pear, only the kiwis, but I think the pear helped to sweeten it up.  This recipe made a bit more than I cared to drink at the time, so I recommend sharing with a friend if you're not super hungry.  I left the last bit in the fridge, and it did not taste very good a few hours later.

Thanksgiving 2010

Thanksgiving 2010 was cooked for only 7 people, so we didn't go too overboard.  It was a lot less stressful this way.  We had no appetizers to worry about, either.

Pumpkin and Feta Muffins

These are first because they are the coolest thing we made.  I got the recipe from 101 Cookbooks a few weeks ago and they were the first thing on my Thanksgiving recipe list.  I followed the directions exactly and got excellent results.  The only thing to note was that we ended up with 18 muffins instead of 12, but that's certainly nothing to complain about.

Golden-Crusted Brussels Sprouts

When my sister got wind of the menu (the day before Thanksgiving, of course) she greeted me with: "Can we PUHLEEEAAASE make a DIFFERENT VEGETABLE?!?!"  Right after these were cooked, I saw her stick her hand right in the skillet to try one - and of course she loved it.  Super simple, and the caramelized edges were the best part.  This is another recipe from 101 Cookbooks.

Lemon-Barley Stuffing

This recipe from the New York Times was kind of a wild card, but it worked out in the end.  The mushrooms shrunk into ribbons when roasted, and I thought there wouldn't be enough lemon, but it shined right through.  The chive butter was fun to make and pretty much made the dish.  This is where I gained a deeper knowledge of where the line lies between browned and burned.  Note to self: more liquid next time, trust your instincts.

Sandra Lee's Turkey

Well, of course there was a turkey.  This one had butter massaged into it.  I never liked turkey before, and I still only ate a very small bit of it, but it was very good.  This picture is gross.  (Thanks to Haley for the photo.)

Mashed Potatoes

Yuck.  That's all I have to say about that.  This is a picture of what later became mashed potatoes.  There's no finished picture because there's nothing pretty about mashed potatoes.  (Thanks to Haley for the photo.)

Garden Vegetable and Potato Lyonnaise

I've got these giant rutabagas sitting in my fridge, plus a few turnips, and I've never had these things before, of course, so I had no idea what we could do with them.  I found this recipe through the "look inside" feature of Amazon - it's in Homegrown Pure and Simple by Michael Nischan.  Naturally, Amazon wouldn't let me look at the second page, but I found an adapted version online and used it to sort of wing it, and it turned out alright.  The strong flavors weren't appreciated by all, but I finally got to try a bunch of things through this dish.

Pumpkin Cornbread

When we were little, my dad used to make us biscuits.  Of course, they came from a box, but I had to remind him to channel those times from the past when my mom asked him to help us by making the cornbread.  This alone was the most hectic time of the day, as he insisted on lining up each ingredient, did not know the difference between liquid and dry measures, and refused to stop whisking even when I said he was finished.  Then we ended up having to bake it in the microwave (it makes sense if you've seen my mom's space-age microwave) and since we're all too short to see the top it got a bit toasted.  Fortunately, it tasted fantastic.  This was another New York Times recipe.  (Thanks to Haley for these photos.)

Winter Green Salad with Sugared Walnuts, 

Crispy Pears and Pomegranate Vinaigrette

I made this last year, but did a different candied walnut.  Though we had to make some substitutions, these walnuts were delicious.  Everyone kept walking by them and snatching a few - we're lucky we had any left for the salad.  The vinaigrette was my favorite part.  This recipe is from Clean Food.

"Best-Ever" Apple Pie

Haley made her famous apple pie with lattice crust.  It's the best-ever apple pie!  This particular pie contained a variety of apples known as "whatever we had lying around."

Spice-Kissed Pumpkin Pie

This pumpkin pie recipe is from 101 Cookbooks.  It features a special spice blend and a hazelnut paste between the filling and the graham-cracker crust.  Delicious.

Pumpkin and Ginger Scones

These were not for Thanksgiving, in particular, but they were there when I arrived to cook on Thanksgiving, and they were delicious.  I liked them plain, but they were very good with Haley's cinnamon glaze.

Pear and Buckwheat Pancakes

I have been wanting to try something with buckwheat flour since this post on 101 Cookbooks.  I bought the flour to try that recipe but haven't gotten around to it yet.  As I was thinking about what to make for dinner with the minimal ingredients I have on hand (due to not having cooked in a long while since baking is my thing right now) I got to thinking about breakfast for dinner.  I peeked in the fridge and saw the buckwheat flour.  Hmm.  I looked around a little more and saw two pears.  Hmm.  Didn't I see this somewhere?  I went to The Book (if you've read ANY of my posts in the past two months, you know which book) and there were the Pear and Buckwheat Pancakes.  What a coincidence.

This was an easy recipe.  You just grate in the pears, right over the bowl so that the juices fall in, mix wet into dry, and make as pancakes.  I, however, am bad at pancakes.  This was not always so.  Once upon a time I could flip a pancake and it would work out just the way it was supposed to.  Now, for some reason, they are always falling on top of themselves.  You would think I would have gotten better, not worse, but oh well.

The pancakes tasted good.  They were nice and moist.  The buckwheat flour has a strong taste, but the kind where you keep taking another bite trying to really figure it out.  The recipe calls for a honey butter to be poured over the pancakes, which I would love to try sometime, maybe for guests, but I felt it was too indulgent for something I was eating right at the stove.

Thanksgiving 2009

I had fun cooking for Thanksgiving with my mom. It took days (literally) and was gobbled up in about 30 minutes (literally) but everything came out pretty great. Here is a little photo tour through our menu... unfortunately I didn't get pictures of everything, but I'll try to describe it all.

Appetizers

Bacon-Wrapped Water Chestnuts: I thought these would be gross - I hate water chestnuts. But between the bacon fat and the globs of honey, they softened up a lot and were really flavorful. There is no real recipe for this - just wrap water chestnuts with bacon, pop in a toothpick, and pile on the honey.





In addition to this, we also had brie with dried cranberries, walnuts, and thyme. I think some more stuff was out, but nothing too fancy.

Salad

Winter Green Salad with Sugared Walnuts, Crispy Pears and Pomegranate Vinaigrette: This is from Clean Food. The dressing was a huge success... it was made from pomegranate juice, a little balsamic vinegar, zesty honey mustard... delicious. I didn't use the sugared walnuts recipe from Clean Food because I had to make them for the stuffing anyway (see below), and that recipe was much easier. The tough part here was getting the pomegranate arils out of the fruit. Also check out my sweet Vera Bradley apron!

Main Course

Ham and Turkey: No pictures of the turkey, but here is the ham being slathered in brown sugar. There was some other stuff involved, but I don't know what. All I have to say is... yummm!







Sage, Walnut, and Dried Fig Stuffing: This is a 101 Cookbooks recipe, which I was so excited to make. As I mentioned earlier, I made the sugared walnuts (egg whites, sugar and salt) and used them also in the salad. I was so excited to have vegetarian stuffing with no meat in it! And although it was pretty dry (Mom even added extra liquid) it still tasted good. I would add more liquid next time though.




Wild Rice with Apples: This recipe is from Cooking Light - if not October 2009, another fall issue for this year. I was so excited to make this. It takes a long time though, and so I had to get dressed while I was waiting to bring it to a boil. I asked my mom to turn it down to a simmer after it boiled. A looong time later, I realized that she had turned it all the way up instead. Oops! There was no liquid left but it was completely uncooked. I managed to salvage it by adding a ton of extra liquid and cooking it much longer. Fortunately it turned out really good. It was a really interesting side dish and fit well with the holiday - the sauteed Pink Lady apples were so good.

We also had the typical sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

Desserts

Best-Ever Apple Pie: This is from a cookbook of my mom's - I forget the title, but it is actually quite interesting. I read it while I was supposed to be helping with the cooking. This woman traveled to farms all over the country to collect recipes. A lot of them are kind of disgusting (using ingredients like lard, etc.) but some are really cool. There are also sidebars about stuff like avocado farming, for example. Haley did most of this by herself - I helped a little though.

Tofu Pumpkin Pie with Gingersnap Crust: Another Clean Food recipe, but not as much of a hit. There was some flavor here that just wasn't really great, but it was OK. The gingersnap crust was very good though.







Mini Sweet Potato Tarts: Mom made these after she overcooked the sweet potato. I ended up taking over and scooping the stuff into all of the cups and putting on the sweet pecan mixture. I didn't try one of these (I don't like sweet potatoes, I will have to try them again someday) but they looked pretty good.