Midway through cooking for Thanksgiving tonight, I called my mom.

“I love our Thanksgiving menu,” I told her.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. It’s just so stress free.”

It wasn’t by design.  And it wasn’t always that way.  But somehow over the last few years, our standard feast has evolved into a menu that is totally doable.  Stress-free.  Manageable with two kids underfoot.  And most of all, delicious.  For the past few years, we have had the same core dishes.  I like that.   Maybe it’s because I make so many new recipes during the year, that it’s nice to have a familiar menu full of family favorites to look forward to.  I’m certain that’s why.  And this year, more than ever, I want the familiar.  The reliable.  The constant.  I almost crave it.

The Thanksgiving table will be filled with the usual suspects.

Cranberry Broccoli Salad.  When Nick was younger, he would eat this.  Now not so much.  Perhaps this is the year that the girls fall in love with it.

Make Ahead Mashed Potatoes.  Good, comforting mashed potatoes that you can make ahead to free up much coveted oven space.

Cranberry Conserve.  At our office Thanksgiving lunch the other day, the conversation turned to cranberry sauce.  Particularly the kind from the can with the lines.  Ick.  I’m sorry, but ick.  If you try this, you will never have that one again.  I can almost guarantee it.  I’ve been making it for several years now, and I wouldn’t touch cranberry sauce before this recipe.

Stuffing.  We’re partial to the standard kind.  Nothing funky in it, ‘cept for the traditional flavors you have come to love.  Bread.  Sage.  I love Emeril’s version, although I skip the oysters when I’m making it for my family.

Spinach Cheese Squares and Sausage Cheese Puffs.  Finger food.  Unfussy.  Just good.  My sister is making those, along with a new sweet potato recipe.

My mom’s in charge of the turkey and this dessert that she made a few years ago.  Love that trifle.  Turkey cupcakes for the kids. Continue reading this entry…

No Comments

Usually when Nick finishes his homework after school, he wanders into my office, asking me to find him a craft online to work on.  He hasn’t completely grasped the concept that crafting sometimes take a little bit of preplanning … to find the craft, to make sure we have the right supplies.  It’s not usually a spur of the moment thing.

Imagine his surprise the other day when he asked about doing a craft, and I was ready for him!  As much as I love the holidays, every last one of them, and the associated decorating that comes along with them, we don’t have very much in the way for Thanksgiving.  I wanted to change that.  Enter the Thanksgiving banner.

The craft was very simple to make, and I love that it’s something that we can pack up and use again and again, year after year.  I did the cutting, and Nick was responsible for the gluing, taping, hole punching and ribbon stringing.  We made a great team.

I used foam sheets in a deep chocolate brown color for the base of each letter.  They run about 30 cents a sheet, and I was able to get several pieces from each sheet.  For the layers, I used sheets of scrapbooking paper, choosing different colors and patterns, but all keeping within the warm colors of the Autumn palate.  On top of the patterned paper went a piece of plain ivory, again using scrapbook paper.  For the letters, I chose a font in Microsoft Word and found the size I wanted (175).  Once printed, I cut out all the letters to layer on top of the ivory piece of paper.

Continue reading this entry…

3 Comments

If you’re a regular, long-time reader here, this won’t be the first time you’ve heard me talk about Spinach Cheese Squares. Or the last time either. This recipe has been in our family for a good  twenty (yikes!) years.  When my sister and I were kids and my parents entertained, this recipe was often one of the appetizers that my Mom would make.  I still love them just as much now as I did back then.

They whip up in nothing flat and are a great, no-fail, no-fuss way to start off any meal.  This recipe was the first way I could get Nick to eat spinach when he was younger.  And it’s no wonder.  Enveloped by all the Cheddar cheesy goodness around it, you’d hardly know that there was a lot of spinach in there.  They make many appearances on our table during the year, including Thanksgiving.

The last few times I have made the recipe, I have skipped the 2 tablespoons of butter in the beginning, and just sprayed the pan instead.  You don’t miss it at all.  I have also subbed the Cheddar for many different types of cheeses, mixing and matching, depending on what I have on hand.  Swapping out half the Cheddar for Monterey Jack made it a bit creamier, and oh so good.

A great recipe to have in your go-to file, I hope it becomes a family favorite for you as well.  Now that I’m craving a bite of these myself, I’m going to go count the hours until Thursday’s big meal.

Continue reading this entry…

11 Comments

Continue reading this entry…

10 Comments

I don’t know how it happened.  Maybe it was the blue eyes.  Or maybe it was the bald chef head, which seems to be a recurring theme.  Or maybe I was just really hungry.  But before I knew it, I was adding collard greens and sweet potatoes to my grocery list last week.  I like sweet potatoes.  I like collard greens.  But together?  That was new unchartered territory for me.  But after reading a recent article in People magazine on Sam Kass, a new 29-year-old chef working in the White House, I made plans to make his recipe.  After all, if it’s good enough for the White House, who am I to argue?

Kass’ path to the White House, and his duties there now, are actually quite interesting.  Michelle Obama first met him while he was cooking at Avec in Chicago.  He eventually was hired on as the Obama’s private chef for two years, before the First Family landed in Washington.  She was so impressed with him, that once firmly ensconced in the White House, she brought him on as an assistant White House chef.  Besides cooking and planning menus in the First Kitchen, he is also the first chef to have an official desk at the White House, as he is also charged with being a Food Initiative Coordinator.  Not too shabby a career path for such a young chef.

He is a strong voice for organic and sustainable farming, and was one of the driving forces behind the new White House garden.   He has taken improving the nation’s school lunches on as one of his projects, and is a vocal participant in President Obama’s bi-monthly meetings on improving the health of our children, alongside the chiefs of staff.  In a recent profile that Mark Bittman did on Kass in Men’s Health magazine, Sam had this to say, “The responsibility of all chefs, of all people who cook, is the care and well-being of the people they’re feeding.  Whether it’s in a restaurant, at home, or here, it’s the same: You have to nourish and sustain. Whenever we put food on plates, we have to take that into account.”  Love that.

As for the taste of his recipe?  Not bad.  It’s an interesting combination that works, and it certainly is a healthy side dish that you can feel good about preparing for your family.  Although I love collard greens, this is my first time cooking with them.  One bunch of collards is A LOT of collards.

So far, though, my favorite collard greens come from a restaurant my sister introduced us to years ago, the Freedom Cafe in Maine.  Oh and their macaroni and cheese?  To die for.  The food doesn’t get much better.  I just saw that they have a cookbook available - one that is a definite must-have for my collection.  They also note that they will be retiring and closing the restaurant next October, so if you haven’t been to it yet, and happen to be heading in, through or around Maine, do stop in. Continue reading this entry…

11 Comments