A Nerve Wracking Addition to Thanksgiving

Have you ever tried to make something that you've never tried or even seen before? I hate cook books that don't have pictures because I like to see what items look like so I know if mine look right. Anyone else? Now, have you ever made something that you've never tried or seen before, but that a large portion of your perspective diners not only remember but remember as a major part of their childhood? Yeah, pretty nerve wracking.

This was what I faced preparing for Thanksgiving. For some idiotic reason, that I have since forgotten, I volunteered to make the cranberry sauce for our Thanksgiving celebration using my great grandmother's recipe. My mom, aunt, and grandmother all very clearly remember this recipe, they remember not only eating it but also helping to prepare it. Needless to say I was a little stressed out. And when Doug turned to me half way through the making of the sauce, when our poor tiny Cuisinart food processor was whining in complaint and the counters were covered in fruit, and asked "does this look right?" it dawned on me that I should stop volunteering to make things........ ok, not really. But it did dawn on me that I really did not want to mess this up. Luckily it was deemed acceptable, if not quite sweet enough, and people actually did eat it, although we have a decent amount left.

This actually wasn't too hard to make, and it would be a lot easier with a larger food processor, and is really good. Although it didn't end up being the only cranberry sauce on the table, you can't take away the canned stuff without warning, I think it was a hit. And I will definitely be trying some more of my great grandmother's recipes, hopefully in slightly less stressful situations.

Grandma's Cranberry Sauce

I don't know the original source on this, it's a very old family recipe

2 Apples
2 Oranges
1 Bag of Cranberries
Sugar to taste
Grind fruit (can use a food processor); mix in bowl and add sugar to taste.

Variations: To make Jell-o salad add above ingredients to one prepared box of cranberry Jell-o and allow to chill for at least 1 hour. I didn't do this but my mom says it is good.

Bringing the Cranberries to Thanksgiving

When my family has Thanksgiving you can be sure that there will be at least one pumpkin treat, if not more, and in recent years I've made sure that pecans are represented as well. So this year, when others beat me to the pumpkin and pecan items, I was at a loss for what to make. I kept finding great looking recipes, but they all featured one of the two items that were already going to be accounted for when our families gathered for our first joint family Thanksgiving at my parents' house. Then I had a flash of genius: cranberries! I was already going to be buying some for the cranberry sauce, so why not just grab an extra bag. Then I quickly remembered this awesome cranberry walnut bread recipe that I saw on Katie's blog and my dessert was born.

I think this bread was a nice alternative to the pies that were brought along to the party (and my goodness were there a lot of pies!). It was a bit of a lighter bite, with a nice fresh taste, courtesy of the orange zest and juice and cranberries. The walnuts were also a nice addition, even though I am not crazy about them. This would be a great item to bring in to a work party or a Christmas event as a nice alternative to the traditional dessert items of the season. And it's also a great item because it can be made a day or two ahead of when you need it and will be perfect, I made this Wednesday evening and it was perfect.

Cranberry Walnut Bread

From: Good Things Catered

Ingredients:

2 c. all purpose flour

1/2 c. granulated sugar

1 Tbsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp grated orange zest

2/3 c. juice from an orange

2 eggs, lightly beaten

3 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1/2 c. shelled walnuts, coarsely chopped

1 1/4 c. fresh cranberries

Directions:

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and prepare a standard loaf pan.

In a small mixing bowl, combine orange juice, eggs, butter, and stir to combine thoroughly; set aside.

In large mixing bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.

Add orange zest and stir to combine.

Add wet ingredients to well in dry ingredients and mix until just combined (don't over mix).

Fold in walnuts and cranberries and transfer mixture to prepared loaf pan.

Place into oven and bake until knife inserted into center comes out clean, about 50-55 minutes.

Remove bread from oven and cool in pan for 15 minutes.

Remove from pan and cool completely on wire rack.

Wrap and put away for 1 to 2 days before serving.

Happy Birthday Blog!!

So today is my one year blog anniversary! I can't believe I've been doing this for a whole year. I felt rather silly at first but now I'm so proud of this blog and really love working on it. I've really been trying to make interesting things lately so that I have stuff to blog about, which has really helped the variety in my kitchen.

I've made some great friends because of this blog, through things like the recipe exchange, blog events, and TWD. I'm really loving sharing great recipes and ideas with people and am very excited to continue. This is also my 50th blog post and I'm really looking forward to the next 50!

On that note, let me know what you think. Any ideas for blog events I should join? Anything you'd like to see? What types of recipes do you like?

And finally, thank you so much for reading this. I'm seriously amazed any time someone says they've read my mind, and even more so if they've made something from it and liked it. So thank you! I do this for you and you are such a great source of encouragement. So here's to many more tasty and interesting blog posts. Cheers!

TWD: Twofer Pie

So after taking last week off from TWD because it was my birthday and we had an abundance of cake I was really excited to try this pie. Basically it is a pumpkin pie with a pecan pie on top, which makes me a very happy girl. I didn't start liking pecan pie until 2 years ago when I made one for Doug and his family and discovered that I actually like it. This pie doesn't disappoint, it has a nice, creamy pumpkin layer with a crunchy, sweet pecan layer on top, so it's the best of both pie worlds. Doug has already asked me to make it again, which is a great sign.

I had to bake this longer than what the recipe called for, almost 20 more minutes actually, before the center was done. Other than that this is an incredibly easy recipe. Doug and I decided that we prefer this cold, which is how we like regular pumpkin pie. This would be great with whipped cream or even vanilla ice cream.

This recipe was picked by Vibi of La Casserole carree. Check out her blog.

Thanksgiving Twofer Pie from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan, page 321.

The Maple-flavored Breakfast

This blog is seriously lacking in breakfast items (other than muffins), I'm the first to admit this. The reason? We usually don't eat breakfast 1. at home, 2. together, or 3. sometimes at all. Monday through Friday I eat breakfast in the car on my way to work or incredibly quickly once I get to work and Saturday and Sunday usually find me eating oatmeal, another muffin, something that isn't really a breakfast food, or nothing at all. Most days of the week Doug doesn't eat breakfast, or if he does it is a poptart, something I've baked, or something that isn't really a breakfast food ( a dietitian would have a field day with us). Sometimes, if I'm feeling particularly energetic, I'll make a quick breakfast on a weekend if Doug doesn't have to go in too early, but that is pretty rare anymore. So when Doug told me that he had taken the first weekend in November off I knew I had to do something special. So when this recipe showed up in my email a few days later I knew it was meant to be.

I had never actually made a breakfast casserole before. I had tried many of them at other places, but had just never been brave enough to try one myself. This was incredibly easy, it is definitely a great starter recipe for those entering the world of breakfast casseroles. I followed this recipe exactly, using maple flavored sausage to bump up the flavor. I was a little worried actually about maple flavor (especially the syrup) with eggs (I really hate those McGriddle things at McDonald's- ick!) but this is actually really great. It took a little longer to cook than I thought it would but it ended up turning out perfectly. We had some leftover and Doug said it warmed up really well. Enjoy!

Maple Sausage Breakfast Casserole

From Serious Eats

Adapted from The Cook's Country Cookbook

- makes 6 servings -

Ingredients
6-8 frozen waffles (1/2-inch thick, not Belgian-style)

12 ounces maple breakfast sausage, crumbled

1 1/2 cups shredded cheddar cheese

6 large eggs

1 1/4 cups whole or low-fat milk

1/4 cup maple syrup

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/8 teaspoon pepper

Procedure
1. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 375ºF. Arrange the waffles in a single layer on a baking sheet. Bake until crisp, about 10 minutes per side.
2. Brown the sausage in a nonstick skillet over medium heat, breaking it apart with a spoon, 8 to 10 minutes. Drain on a paper towel-lined plate.
3. Butter an 8-inch square baking dish. Add half of the waffles in a single layer. Add half of the sausage and 1/2 cup of the cheese. Repeat layering the waffles, sausage, and 1/2 cup more cheese. Whisk the eggs, milk, maple syrup, salt, and pepper in a medium bowl until combined. Pour the egg mixture evenly over the casserole. Cover the dish with plastic wrap and place weights on top. Refrigerate the casserole for at least 1 hour or overnight.
4. Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 325ºF. Let the casserole stand at room temperature for 20 minutes. Uncover the casserole and sprinkle the remaining 1/2 cup the cheese over the top. Bake until the edges and center are puffed, 45 to 50 minutes. Cool for 5 minutes. Cut into pieces and serve.

Another Birthday Cake

So I am slowly starting to get into making birthday cakes, very, very slowly. I'm not very good yet, so I've only made them for family members so far (because they have to say they like the cake no matter how bad it is, right?). This cake was actually really easy to make. I used a recipe for vanilla cupcakes from Annie's Eats, doubled it, and then used frosting from a can (hey, it was for young kids and they like what they like, right?). This cake is really light and has a good flavor to it, so I will definitely be making it again. The decorations are just gel icing, green sanding sugar, and conversation hearts turned over (don't worry, they were still fresh). The birthday girls love the cake, which made me very happy. I've also made cupcakes with this recipe and they were really good too, so give it try sometime soon.

Vanilla Cupcakes

From Annie's Eats

I doubled this recipe and baked it in a 9 x 13 cake pan at the same temperature for about 25 minutes.

½ cup unsalted butter, at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 tsp. vanilla extract
zest of 1 lemon (optional) I omitted this
1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
1 ½ tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¼ cup milk

Directions:
Preheat the oven to 350°. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper liners. Set pan aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the sides and beating well after each addition. Beat in the vanilla extract and lemon zest, if using.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. With the mixer on low speed, alternately add the flour mixture and milk, in three additions, beginning and ending with the flour mixture. Scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Evenly fill the muffin cups with the batter and bake for about 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in pan 5 minutes. Transfer cupcakes to a wire rack and allow to cool completely.

Tuesdays With Dorie: Kugelhopf

This week's Tuesdays with Dorie recipe was a bit of a challenge for me. First of all, the recipe, which was picked by Yolanda of The All-purpose Girl, is for a yeast cake called Kugelhopf. This recipe scared me because of the fact that I have never made anything by myself with yeast. Nothing, ever. So I was very nervous that I would somehow mess this up and end up looking silly on my second week in the group. But amazingly everything with the dough went just fine. My dough rose like it was supposed to each time, much to my amazement. So when the last rise in the fridge was done I had a perfectly risen dough.

Then came the real trouble. This cake can be made in a special Kugelhopf pan or in a regular bundt pan, I planned to use a bundt pan. I have never made anything in a bundt pan, so I planned to use the one from a Kitchen Aid set I had gotten a while ago at Linens 'n Things for the first time. Well, lets just say I learned an important lesson: always check your pans before you start baking. It turns out I had a mini bundt pan, not the full size one I thought I had. Luckily I had read on the Tuesdays with Dorie site that you could make these in a muffin pan, so that's what I did. So we had Kugelhopf rolls, instead of a cake.

This recipe was actually a lot simpler than I thought it would be. It has a nice texture and a good taste to it. I think if I make it again I will use something other than raisins in it, I'm not a big fan of raisins in my baked goods. Overall though this was an easy recipe and, I think, a nice introduction to yeast.

Kugelhopf from Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. Pages 61 to 63.