Thanksgiving: Take 2

Every year, my husband and I take the kids to our parents' houses for multiple turkey dinners. But, in our own little world of insanity, we also cook a Thanksgiving meal of our own the next day.

If you know anything about me, you probably have heard me admit that I am a terrible cook. My husband, on the other hand is actually pretty talented. He's not one to create his own masterpieces, but give the man a recipe and he delivers every time.

We both like to experiment and find new recipes online. So, this year, I was really thrilled with our final products and thought maybe I'd gloat some of you guys might like to check 'em out. The sad part is, I didn't take any pictures. What can I say? I was too excited to eat.

The first thing we did was brine our turkey overnight. My ingenious friend, Seth Pollins, had a great instructional video, but the link no longer works, so we'll just go with outright instructions:

3 cups kosher salt
1 cup sugar
2 gallons water

For a 12 to 20 pound turkey, you can submerge it in this solution for 4 to 12 hours.

Then, when we cooked it, my husband found this Black Pepper Pomegranate Molasses Glaze recipe.

Holy bejeezus, this was the best turkey I have ever eaten. Even days later, the turkey is still juicy. I feel like I have Rubbermaid tubs full of crack in my fridge because I can't stop consuming it.

Another recipe that my husband tackled was this basic cranberry sauce. Growing up, all I ever saw was that tin can-mold of jelly slurp out into a bowl, so I never touched the stuff. Even though I wasn't excited about the recipe, once it started cooking, the whole house smelled incredible. And so, another addiction was born. The flavors burst in your mouth, coating it first with the tart of the cranberries, but then the sweetness of the brown sugar and honey smooth it out. It was super easy to make and an excellent dish to impress.

I actually made a sweet potato-marshmallow casserole, which is something I never even ate growing up. Never once did sweet potatoes cross the threshold into our home. I don't even like them that much. So, I took the time to bake the potatoes. I mashed them with the electric mixer and love. (Yes, I said that.) For the record, I love anything with brown sugar. I can eat brown sugar right out of the bag.

O_O

But, read carefully here...DO NOT add the marshmallows until the last 5 or 10 minutes of baking. Otherwise you will have burnt marshmallows. They neglected to mention that in the recipe, but thankfully, I was leery of cooking them that long and saved them before it was my usual disastrous ending. And surprise! I loved it.

These may be some fairly basic recipes for some, but they are all flavorful and simple ways to create a meal that everyone will drool over.

Bon appetit!

Peanut Butter Kiss Cookies

At Christmas time, I love to make cookies.  Ok, I'm lying...I will gladly make cookies any time.  They are one of my favorite snacks to make.  A few days before Christmas, the kids and I make five or six types of cookies and pack them in tins for family and friends.  The cookie I probably love to make the most are Peanut Butter Kiss cookies. 

1 cup peanut butter
3/4 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1 stick butter softened (4 oz)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 and 1/2 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 bag Hershey's Kisses

Preheat oven to 350°F

In a large bowl, beat peanut butter, brown sugar and butter on medium speed until light and fluffy.  Beat in eggs and vanilla until well blended.

Mix flour, baking soda and salt and beat in gradually until dough is smooth, scraping sides of the bowl with a spatula frequently.

Instead of using a teaspoon to drop it on the cookie sheet, I like to roll it into one inch, or slightly larger, balls.  I line them up on a cookie sheet three by six.  Then I flatten them, only slightly.  Just enough so they are still pretty thick in height. 

Bake for 8 minutes.  While they're baking, remove the foil wrappers from the kisses.  Remove the tray of cookies, leaving the oven on.  Place a kiss on top of each cookie pressing in just enough to set into the dough.  Return the tray to the oven and bake 2 to 4 minutes more.  They're done when they are golden brown.

Pumpkin Bread

When Halloween and Thanksgiving come around, my family always looks forward to all the pumpkin goodies.  Pumpkin lattes, cookies, ice cream and pie are the most obvious favorites.  While we drool over most of these at the store, I have one recipe I love to use that can double as a great party pleaser. 

You will need:
3 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2 cups canned pumpkin (about 16 ounces)
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp baking soda
1 & 1/2 cup sugar
2 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cloves
1/4 tsp ginger

Preheat the oven to 375.

Beat the eggs in a medium sized bowl.  Stir in the oil, sugar, pumpkin and vanilla. 

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg, cloves and ginger together.  Then add to the pumpkin mixture gradually until well blended.  It should be thick and well mixed like cake batter.

Oooo....lookin' good

Make sure you have greased two loaf pans thoroughly.

See? WELL greased

Pour the mixture into the pans as evenly as you can.  You don't need to measure exactly.  Do the ol' Rachael Ray with it....you know..."eyeball it".  Go ahead.  I trust you.

Then bake them together, side by side is fine, in the oven for about 45 to 50 minutes.  The original recipe said to bake at 1 hour, but my oven is an overachiever and was done in 45.  I'm not sure how old the recipe is, I got it from Mom. (Thanks, Mom!)  However, ovens today run a bit hotter, it seems, so it's best to know your oven and check on the bread at about 45 minutes.

I'm not much of a cook, but I love to bake.  If you don't know the tricks to being able to tell when something is done, a toothpick inserted in the middle is a great tester.  If it comes out clean, you're good to go.  Another telltale sign is if you can see the sides of the bread pulling away from the pan.  You can get them out before those edges start getting dark.

When all is said and done, you should have two gorgeous little loafs of holiday goodness that look like this:

Enjoy!