Friday, November 28, 2008

Thanksgiving 2008

Happy Thanksgiving everyone! =)

The other day I decided to try maple brown sugar snickerdoodles. They turned out alright, but I learned something valuable. I knew our oven ran a little hot, but when the smoke detectors (all of them) went off on these puppies, I decided to actually check the temp with an oven thermometer. At each setting I tried, it was at least 60 degrees hot. Wow! Good to know.

Maple Snickerdoodles

I love my tiered baking sheets.

They weren't to bad, just a little too crispy. A couple days wrapped in plastic definitely improved that though. A co-worker said they were good dipped in coffee. I think the dough was also a little dry, since they didn't absorb the brown sugar like the picture on the recipe.

Then I finished a couple more pumpkins which I promised my mom I'd make for her.

Pumpkins

What do you make with crocheted pumpkins? Crocheted pumpkin pie, of course! My mom got a kick out of that as well. I also brought her a real pumpkin pie, made from the recipe on the can, but with less sugar and more spices. It went over well.

Pumpkin Pie

I took Wednesday off work so I could finish getting the house ready and start cooking. I made a pumpkin pie, an apple pie with a lattice top, and a berry blend pie. I thought the berry turned out well, especially since I just improvised. I used a bag of frozen blackberries, a bag of mixed berries (strawberries, blueberries, raspberries), and added the basics for a pie: sugar, spices and flour.

On to the turkey! I was very excited to use our new roasting pan for the first time. I'm glad I learned about the oven temp ahead of time.

It's easy, right? Just turn it on and set a timer!

Then just turn it on, right?

Actually I'm just testing the height to make sure I can cook stuffing and rolls on the top shelf. Look at my clean oven! (except for the berry pie, which folded on its foil pan on the way out, but I saved it... Then I put more stoneware pie plates on my shopping / ceramics list)

Here's myself manning the stove, and my friend V helping me make cornbread chestnut stuffing. We made a small batch of wheat-free cornbread, since she's allergic to gluten. The stuffing turned out very well, and got a positive response. I'll be making that again for sure.

Kitchen

Next year I want to try the turkey in a brine. What I did was put some roasted garlic and a bunch of herbs in butter a few days ago, and sliced it up to slide under the skin of the turkey. Then we had the requisite canned jelly cranberry sauce along with a hot cranberry and orange sauce, homemade rolls, the stuffings, garlic mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, green beans, and of course the gravies (regular and wheat-free).

This morning I tried Alton Brown's recipe for sweet potato waffles, using some leftovers from yesterday. I thought they were tasty, if a little too sweet, but they got a "meh" from my husband, which is not too bad, considering he actually ate them :) I want to try something similar, but using regular potatoes and cutting out some sugar.

So far today I've also finished my first complete Christmas present, which is exciting. While everyone else is out there shopping, I'll be sitting at home crocheting my presents.

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