Turkey Hangover

We had a thankful day yesterday. Our family stuff is later, so I planned to make a feast for just us. I learned that some friends of ours had no plans so they accepted my happy invitation to join us.

I used the brine recipe that I used last year, with some tweaking. I didn't do any special shopping for the recipe.... I used the cider that I had on hand, but I was still a cup and a half short. Since it called for the citrus flavors of orange peel, I decided that the grapefruit juice in my fridge would be just the thing to round out the rest of the liquid. I also increased the amount of garlic in the brine. I'm telling you, the bird tasted better than last year's. The flavor permeated the meat better, which was my desire.

I suppose I did some overeating, but I didn't go crazy. Today, however, I am so sluggish. I guess that kind of food, even in moderate amounts, really isn't great for us.

Today, Sophia, with no plans on the agenda (which drives her crazy) offered to make supper out of the leftovers. She made barbequed turkey sandwiches - delish! - and potato pancakes - better than I've ever turned out.



And the thankfulness continued.

My City Half Marathon

Two Saturdays ago, my SIL Sarah and I participated in my town's half marathon walk. We are lucky enough to have some extensive trails around town, some of them in picturesque locations. This year was the 3rd annual half marathon walk.

Sarah and I were so proud of ourselves! Sarah is the type of person who, once she commits to something like an athletic event, googles training programs for such a thing. The programs all said that you would be able to complete a half marathon walk without training, but regular walks as exercise would be a smart thing to do.

She and I spent the late summer and early fall walking as often as we could get away together, but couldn't seem to put aside large enough blocks of time for really long walks. Finally, the week before the event, we managed an eight mile walk, which just about killed us.

To say we fretted over the additional 5.1 miles we would be walking the next Saturday was an understatement.



But the Saturday of the walk rolled around and in the cool October morning air we found the distance more manageable. We were proud of our pace and even did the second half a half-hour quicker than the first half. We felt better after ten miles than we had after eight the previous week. In fact, we felt so good around ten miles that we jogged for a little bit. (After three hours of a brisk walk, we were feeling the effects of the repetition in our hips and in the whispers of the start of blisters on our feet. Jogging had us move the strain to other parts for a short amount of time.)

The last two and a half miles or so were tough, though. We finished in 3.5 hours, well under our expected finish time.

Yay, us!

(These photos were taken by the photographer on the staff of the city's downtown organization.)

Fall Back

Whomever invented Daylight Savings Time was certainly not a mother, who expects her children to go to bed on time and who sees the necessity of a full night's sleep in order to have a pleasing, smoothly-running home. When we move the clocks in the spring I grumble and know that we will all pay for it for days.

But tonight I move the clocks back and hum.

I WAS Going to Write a Little Rant...

about a student family that does not see any need to meet the expectations of my studio. A student who will probably be asked to find another teacher at the end of the semester. It's ultimately not good for business to be known as the studio where the rules don't matter.

And then I thought better of it.

Last year, we carved our pumpkin on the front stoop of the house. This summer, I found THIS in the landscaping.



Apparently one little seed found it's way from the Gunk Bowl to the earth, took root and produced another little pumpkin to adorn our doorstep this year.

A more cheerful story.

Pumpkin Bread Pudding

This is another dessert from The Pioneer Woman's throwdown with Bobby Flay. I tried it on Thanksgiving Day and we all really loved it and fought over the bowl scrapings of the Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise. I made it again two days later for another Thanksgiving Dinner. It's definitely more complicated than my usual cooking, so it seems like it needs an occasion to warrant making it. Plus, it's impressively rich and one can't just go around eating desserts with nearly a dozen egg yolks, heavy whipping cream and four-ish cups of sugar every day and for no good reason.


I found that nearly every element of this dessert could be made ahead. The pumpkin bread, for instance, could be made several days in advance.
Pumpkin Bread Pudding
2 c. heavy cream
1 c. whole milk
1 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
6 large egg yolks
1/2 c. sugar
3 T pure maple syrup
1 c. pumpkin puree (I used butternut squash from the garden)
2 T bourbon
1 loaf pumpkin bread, cubed and toasted
Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise, recipe follows
Spicy Caramel Apple Sauce, recipe follows

Preheat the oven to 325. Combine cream, milk, vanilla bean AND seeds in medium saucepan and bring to a simmer.


Meanwhile, whisk together egg yolks, sugar, maple syrup and pumpkin in a large bowl. Slowly whisk in the hot cream mixture until combined. Remove the vanilla pod. Add the bourbon and whisk. Here, Bobby says it should be strained into a clean bowl. My butternut puree was pretty smooth. I didn't strain and suffered no ill effects.




Scatter bread cubes in a buttered 9x13 pan and pour custard over all. Press down on the bread to make sure it completely submerges and wait about fifteen minutes before continuing with the recipe to allow time for the bread to soak up all that eggy, creamy goodness.

For best results, put this baking pan into a larger roasting pan and put tap water in the outer pan until the water level is halfway up the sides of the 9x13 pan. Bake about one hour, or until the edges of the pudding are puffy and the middle jiggles only slightly. Remove from oven and water bath and allow to cool at least 30 minutes before serving.

I like to serve it with some of the Spicy Caramel Apple Sauce drizzled fancily onto the dish, then spoon the bread pudding onto that. Finally, top with a generous portion of the delicious Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise.


Spicy Caramel Apple Sauce

1 c. heavy cream
1/2 c. apple juice
1 star anise
A 1-inch piece of fresh ginger, peeled and chopped
4 whole cloves
2 cinnamon sticks
1/8 t. nutmeg
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/2 c. water
1 T apple cider vinegar
1 T apple schnapps

Combine cream, juice, anise, ginger, cloves, cinnamon sticks and nutmeg in a medium saucepan and bring to a simmer. Remove from heat, but allow to steep for at least 20 minutes while you make the Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise. Strain into a clean bowl.

Combine sugar, water and vinegar in a small saucepan and place over high heat without stirring until it's a deep amber color, about 8 minutes. Slowly whisk in the hot cream mixture a little at a time, whisking until it is smooth. Add the apple schnapps and cook 30 seconds longer. This sauce can be made up to 2 days in advance and refrigerated. Heat through before serving.


Vanilla Bean Creme Anglaise

2 c. half and half
1/2 vanilla bean, seeds scraped
5 large egg yolks
1/3 sugar

Bring the half and half and vanilla bean and seeds to a simmer in a medium saucepan.


Whisk eggs and sugar together until they reach the pale ribbon stage. This will help to prevent those chunks of cooked egg from appearing when you add the hot cream mixture. Slowly add the hot half and half, whisking constantly. Return to the pot. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon. (Why a wooden spoon? Bobby doesn't say. His specificity without explanation is frustrating.) Allow to thicken until mixture easily coats the spoon.

Remove from heat. Strain into a bowl to remove bean pod and any errant bits of cooked egg. Set bowl over an ice bath and stir until cooled. Cover and refrigerate for at least one hour before serving.

Lick the spoon. (That's my generous instruction to you, not Bobby's.)

A Pretty Way to Serve Salad

I know I'm supposed to be giving you the recipe for Pumpkin Bread Pudding, but I can't face it just yet. It's a more complicated recipe than my usual and I want to be able to focus on it better than I can at the moment. It was a ridiculously busy weekend. All good, mind you, but crazy for sure. My son's choir had concerts every evening of the weekend at the local college's Festival of Carols, where I was overcome by the beauty and wept and kissed like, I don't know - an Italian? instead of the rest of the stoic Germanic people there. We had our third Thanksgiving over the weekend in the big city three hours away (where half of my husband's family has moved over the years). The hostess graciously suggested that we bring salads and desserts, which she thought would travel better than the hot foods. I guess I'll share with you the easy, colorful dish I offered.

I made a lettuce salad, which had simple ingredients, but the assembly of the dish makes a nice impact. Served on a tray instead of a bowl, start with a bed of lettuce and add the ingredients you like in columns down the serving tray.


In this salad, I used broccoli, red onion, hard-boiled egg, radish, cheddar cheese, mushrooms, celery, tomato and black olives.

In addition to being different and attractive, I find it also allows picky eaters to avoid certain ingredients more easily than a regular tossed salad.

Pumpkin Bread

Now the recipe I really want you to have is for Pumpkin Bread Pudding. That post is coming. But first we need a loaf of pumpkin bread. This recipe makes just one loaf, so why don't you double it? It stands on its own just scrumptiously. You can gobble one up while it's still warm and cube the other for this wonderful dessert.

Pumpkin Bread
4 T unsalted butter, plus more for greasing
1 3/4 c. flour
1/2 t. salt
1 t. baking soda
1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. ground allspice
1/2 t. ground nutmeg
1/2 t. ground cloves
1 t. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. vegetable oil
8 oz. (scant cup) unsweetened pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
2/3 c. water

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Butter or lightly spray the bottom and sides of a loaf pan.

In a small bowl, combine all the dry ingredients EXCEPT the sugar.

In a large mixing bowl, beat together softened butter, sugar and oil on high speed until light and fluffy, about one minute.



Add the pumpkin puree and beat until combined.

Add eggs, one at a time and mix JUST until incorporated. Do not overmix.

At low mixer speed, slowly add the dry ingredient mixture and water and mix until just combined.



Spread the batter into the prepared loaf pan and bake until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean, about 60 to 75 minutes.

Allow to cool in the pan for ten minutes and then remove from pan to cool completely.



Stay tuned for the fabulous Pumpkin Bread Pudding recipe.

Brining the Bird and Other Minor Details

OK. Let's go. Let's do as much as we can in advance so that we can enjoy the day ahead. First, let's brine the hell out of that bird. I've already posted The Pioneer Woman's favorite turkey brine recipe here, so I think what I'm doing in this post is just documenting my timing of the meal prep and deciding how I'll alter things for my purposes.

Now, P-Dub says her recipe is for a 20 pound bird. My turkey is not quite twelve. What I used was the peel of two oranges, 2 c. of apple cider, 5 qts. of water, 1 c. of salt, 1 1/4 c. brown sugar, 4 bay leaves, a fistful of rosemary, 2 T peppercorns and 3 cloves of garlic.


I boiled the brine on Monday, let it cool in the fridge until Tuesday, when I slapped the whole thing, turkey and all, in to a 2 gallon ziplock bag. Just to be on the safe side, I put the bag into the roasting pan. This made it easier to transport to my extra fridge, to be sure, but really, I just didn't trust the edges and corners of the bag to hold up. Lucky for me, because there are juices gathering in that roasting pan from the leaking bag! Can nothing work as it should?

By my calculation, I need to get the bird in the oven by 8:00 AM in order to eat around noon. Today I've assembled the dressing, combining bread, chicken, onion, celery and chestnuts, then slopping it up with a combination of egg and chicken broth.


I've put together all the elements of the dessert: Pumpkin Bread Pudding. I made the pumpkin bread, diced it up, made a pumpkin custard and poured it over all, made a caramel apple sauce for over the top and set it to keep in the fridge. (I taste-tested every one of those elements and cannot wait to try it all together!)


Finally, Sophia set the table and readied it for the big day.

Thanksgiving Plans and Ambition

SIL Sarah has on her Christmas List a cookbook by Ree Drummond, known in the blogosphere as The Pioneer Woman. I checked out her website after seeing the book in the store and now I'm totally mad that people have kept her a secret from me all these years. She is my soul mate. She grew up affluent middle class on the 7th green of a golf course. She fled to LA for college and had made up her mind that her future would consist of city dwelling, little black dresses and Thai food. Instead, she met and fell in love with a rugged cowboy with a ranch an hour and a half from her hometown. She now lives on this isolated ranch, where they homeschool their four children, and manages this fantastic blog, now website. OK, her background isn't anything like mine, but I like her writing style and her cooking style is not too far from mine... very meat and potatoes.

Expect a few Pioneer Woman-related posts coming up. Just this week, Bobby Flay of The Food Network had a "throwdown" with her in which they each prepared an entire Thanksgiving dinner, which was judged and one of them was declared the winner.

This weekend, I will prepare her Favorite Turkey Brine as I find myself preparing an entire Thanksgiving dinner on my own. It turns out I don't have any family dinners until Saturday, leaving Thursday wide open and available for culinary experimentation. I'll have Dad over and maybe another odd family member (insinuation intended) or two.

But maybe I can get someone else to bring the mashed potatoes. I just don't like that job.

Happy Halloween

I had such a fun Halloween. In our little town, when Halloween lands on a Sunday, the festivities happen on Saturday. Ava and I mostly had the day to ourselves, as Michael took The Big Ones to participate in a local chess tournament. We had a nice day of some productivity at home and some fun away. Horseback riding lesson. A trip to Hobby Lobby. Pumpkin carving.

Ever the Bunny Hugger, she wanted a cuddly sort of Jack-O-Lantern. But the way she kept dictating the face seemed much more human and much less furry.


We put shaggy, long ears on the side so that you would know it was a dog. A St. Bernard, to be exact. Can you see it?

When The Big Ones came home we were ready to leave for Tricks and Treats. I suppose traditionally, one just goes to the neighborhood doors, asking for candy. But we always get in the car. For one thing, we have family members across town who expect to see the kids in their Halloween finery. For another, we happened upon such a dear little neighborhood in which to trick-or-treat.


This is the street on which the girls go to school. It is what some call a Cathedral Steet because of the way the tree branches rise up on either side and meet vaultingly overhead. In October, I can think of few prettier places.


Aside from its beauty, it's a "neighbor" - hood in the truest sense. Most of the houses are about 100 years old, all with a front porch. People come out on their front porches with their giant bags of candy, turn their porch lights on and wait for the onslaught.


Some even join in with their own dress-up craziness.


This neighborhood is also within blocks of the local college campus. A few of the old homes serve as rentals that house some of the students. And some of THEM even wanted to be a part of it all.


Really, there was no end to the adorability. (Is that a word? It totally should be.)

We saw big boys playing football in the street. We saw friends and classmates. We saw great costumes.


Three blind mice.


Nancy Drew.


A scarecrow.

We even heard someone playing Dixieland on the clarinet. One year someone had a three-piece bluegrass band on his porch.

A good time was had by all.

Anyway, a recipe, if you can call it that... Certainly, it's a tradition.

Roasted Pumpkin Seeds


Have your husband and willing children sift through the pumpkin muck to seperate seeds from membrane. Retrieve about 1 1/2 c. This will take more than one pumpkin. I always boil them briefly to begin the cooking process and to clean them up. Drain them and slam a tablespoon or two of butter into the pot, along with 1/2 t. of salt. The butter will melt and coat the seeds, bringing along the salt for seasoning. Put them on a cookie sheet and into a preheated 300 degree oven. Leave them there for 30-40 minutes, until lightly browned, tossing them every 10 or 15 minutes.

Caramel Corn

During my childhood my mother made caramel corn once a year, to the delight of all at home and the in neighborhood. She made it as a homemade halloween treat for any trick or treaters who came her way. We lived out in the country, with a corn field behind us and across the road from us, but amid a little cluster of about five houses. It so happened that there were kids in most of those houses and, during our own trick or treating years, we managed to have a few T or T'ers of our own.

I have another fond memory of Mom's caramel corn. The college choir I was in went on retreat each fall for the purpose of group-building and to learn our fall program. The place we retreated to was a camp about ten minutes from my home. During one retreat, Mom stopped in to drop off some things I needed and some other things she thought I would enjoy. She brought an entire batch of caramel corn for me and my friends. I was Prom Queen of the choir for about twenty minutes, or until the caramel corn was gone.

6 qts. popped corn
2 c. brown sugar
1 t. salt
1/3 c. corn syrup
1 t. baking soda

Preheat oven to 200. In a large-ish saucepan... in fact, larger than you think - you'll need the space later.... combine brown sugar, salt and syrup. Bring to a boil and allow to gently boil for five minutes. Remove from heat and add the soda. When you mix the soda in, the caramel will "grow" visibly. Stir until the soda is adequately blended in, then use to coat the popcorn in a large roasting pan. This is a somewhat involved job. It's best to pour about a third of the caramel at a time onto the popcorn and stir to distribute the topping evenly.

Once you're satisfied with the caramel to popcorn ratio, pop the roaster in the warm oven for an hour, stirring every fifteen minutes. Once you remove the whole mess from the oven, I find it's best to stir it several times as it cools, too, as it will harden to a roasting pan-shaped brick if left to cool on its own.

I hope you like it.

Apple Crisp

I really should be posting the recipe for Peach Cream Pie. It is my best pie and I promised you the recipe back in the spring. The peaches are nearly gone now and I am not making that pie until Thursday, so, I'm sorry, you'll need to wait a while longer.

We are, however, smack in the middle of Apple Season. We were invited tonight to the beautiful home of my Genetically Perfect friends Brian and Jen. She made a very delicious meal of white chili, cornbread and fruit pizza. It really hit the spot on this, one of the first fall-like days. I offered to bring an apple crisp, since they are in season and I figured it would be a good ending to such a wonderful autumn meal.

When I was a school-aged girl and my mother went back to work, I was sometimes in charge of making the evening meal on Tuesdays, when Mom had to work until 6:00 PM. We didn't often have desserts for our simiple family meals, but I found this recipe of Mom's easy to manage and found the apples themselves on the tree in our backyard. I frequently made this dish to close the meal and today, my own family likes it alot, too. I didn't find any Granny Smith apples at the orchard across the river from my house, which is the type of apple I like to use for baking. I chose the tartest apples they had on hand, which was MacIntosh, and truly I didn't find the results all that favorable. I should have adjusted the sugar and cinnamon for this sweeter apple, but it would have been just guesswork without knowing how they tasted baked. I find this dish made with Granny Smiths to be apple-ier and with a crisper taste.

Please make this this fall:

Apple Crisp

6 c. peeled, sliced apples
1/2 c. sugar
cinnamon
1/2 c. brown sugar
1/2 c. melted butter
1 c. flour
1 c. oatmeal
1/2 t. baking soda


Mix apples, white sugar and cinnamon (to taste - my guess is that I use about 3/4 t.) and pour into a baking dish. In a bowl, make crumbs of butter, brown sugar, oatmeal, flour and soda. Spread over the apples. Bake at 350 until apples are tender, about 30-45 minutes.

Here's a picture of the finished product, but I notice it's not the most interesting thing in the photo next to Jen's glamorous fruit pizza.