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In case this blog wasn't enough Thanksgiving for you, my sister made a very funny video about the weekend. Particularly great: her reaction to Mom during the decoration of the malted crisp tart. BEST.
Thanks for watching, and I hope you all have a happy Thanksgiving!
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For most of America, Thanksgiving is four days away, but for my family, Thanksgiving was last night. I'm sad it's over! Jeff and I hosted a nine-person dinner party and had a truly great time. My parents and sister Emily (a.k.a. Poof) and her husband Tyler stayed overnight and enjoyed a 24-hour nonstop food event, and Jeff's folks and Melissa came by for the big meal. My brother Ryan wanted to attend, but he was having an oven crisis at home--long story. I missed seeing him and Shanna and Ashley, but Christmas is just around the corner.
I spent yesterday in perpetual motion and was unable to take lots of photos, so I'm hoping that Dad and Poof will email me some family/food pictures within the next couple of days. In the meantime, I thought I'd share our recipes and existing photos with you in case you came here looking for some last-minute ideas. I've blogged about these recipes in the past, so what you'll get is lots of links (at the beginning of each section) along with some comments and tips.
Turkey Placecards! This year I decided to get a little crafty with the place settings for some reason. A while ago Mom gave me a stack of Martha Stewart Living magazines that were several years old, and I found a project for turkey placecards in the November 2007 issue. The part of me that could have been a grade school art teacher felt the need to make them. I didn't have the necessary brown and red card stock on hand, but I had plenty of scrap watercolor paper, so I painted my turkey pieces. To create the tail, I used some yarn we had around the house that Nicole bought years ago. (I think she planned to make a poncho with it, as I also found a "How to Make Ponchos" book while Jeff and I super-deep-cleaned the house last week. This place is SPARKLING.)
Anyway, I added my own creative touch to this: an eye. Martha didn't want me to make one, but make one I did. I'm a loner, Dottie. A rebel.
Then I made the mistake of browsing through some of Martha's online collection of other Thanksgiving crafts, and happened upon a link for these...
Twig coasters. I don't know what got into me, but you've got to admit her photo is cute, and our yard is loaded with sticks and/or twigs. I went outside during last Tuesday's strange tornado watch/warning weather (75 degrees, really unstable air mass, windy, humid, rumbly) and gathered as many sticks as I could before a heavy downpour hit and kind of had a ball in doing so.
I made ten coasters, each of which consisted of 20-22 five-inch sticks. So that's a lot of measuring and cutting to say the least. Missing art supply for this craft: waxed twine. Who houses a constant supply of waxed twine, Martha? I'm going to have to embed this again.
My solution: dental floss. Ha! Our dentist gives us plenty of it! While not as rustic/authentic as Martha's waxed twine, our dental floss was free and in the house. I was able to make ten coasters using one package (roll?) of it, and I didn't come close to running out. If you like repetitive, mindless knot-tying, this is the craft for you. And the knots are just those easy, first-thing-you-do-when-you-tie-your-shoes knots. Each coaster took about 25 minutes to tie together. The first two are fun. The last eight are extremely tiresome. But I made them because we really needed coasters. In an attempt to make them waterproof and a bit sturdier, I hot glued each coaster to a square of the tough black plastic you can find on the cover of Mead's Five Star spiral notebooks (I threw out some of my notebooks while I cleaned out my studio.)
Nobody used them as coasters, of course, but the turkeys looked cute on them. Poof and I decided that they were turkey life rafts floating down a sea of gravy, symbolized by our brown tablecloth.
And now, some recipes!
Since my side of the family arrived six hours before supper, I felt the need to provide lots of snacks upon which they could graze throughout the afternoon. Such as...
Peanut butter hummus. This recipe makes a LOT, and I could've halved it and still had enough. I am crazy about his hummus, and it pairs nicely with carrots, celery, crackers, etc.
Li'l smokies. These made the kitchen smell fantastic and taste equally great hot and at room temperature. We picked at these all day and ate the leftovers for breakfast the next day.
Seasonally-spiced nuts. Sweet, salty, herby, and garam masala-y!
Roasted red pepper cheesecake. Put some of this on a cracker or toasted baguette slice and you've got The Perfect Bite. I love making this, even though it requires a 4-inch springform pan. Tip: use full-fat cream cheese and ricotta. I made yesterday's cheesecake with reduced fat products, and while delicious, it wasn't as firm and lost its shape as it set out in our warm kitchen nook.
The heavyset cheeseball. No family gathering is complete without it!
Spiced pumpkin cookies. I thought my appetizer buffet needed something sweet, and these were a smash. I made and froze the cookies ahead of time, uniced. Thanks to the pumpkin, these are so moist that they can stay uncovered for hours and still be fabulous.
Mom made her famous apple and cherry pies, which I placed on my trusty pie rack. I set it inside a Thanksgiving wreath, and this made an easy centerpiece alongside bowls of lemons and clementines.
Posole. Along with the appetizers, I gave my hungry, road-weary family bowls of posole (Mexican chicken soup) for lunch. My folks enjoyed the addition of hominy--an ingredient they remembered from their childhoods but hadn't eaten in years. Chickeny goodness!
So this was our menu, and Jeff put his turkey in the oven at around noon.
Jeff's Hollywood Turkey. A little more labor-intensive than your average turkey but extra-moist and beautiful to look at, Jeff's turkey was a hit with everybody. Follow the link for his step-by-step instructions and bonus commentary about It's A Wonderful Life.
While Jeff puttered around the kitchen, Poof, Dad, and I laughed our heads off while playing Angry Birds and telling stories in the living room. Poof has a hilarious llama story that you've got to read. I haven't seen Poof since our trip to New York, and while we never feel like we can spend enough time together, we try to have as much fun as possible when we do see each other. This weekend was no exception. At one point we were in the kitchen dancing stoopidly to Girl Talk and just plain having a blast. I love her so much.
Carrot cake mini-bundts. I like to give Poof fun cooking tasks that exploit her decorative flair when she comes over. Yesterday she iced these mini bundt cakes with cream cheese icing and leftover pumpkin cookie glaze. Some of the bundts contained walnuts, so she topped those with, you guessed it, walnuts.
Malted crisp tart. Poof also decorated the top of this blockbuster dessert with malted milk balls and caramelized rice crispies. I don't have a photo of her tart decoration yet, but video is coming soon! I will say this: she made those two things resemble owl faces and it was genius. I made the tart on Friday, and it's not as time-consuming as my recipe indicates. I've made it about four other times since that blog and have since become a lot more efficient. People loved this tart, and there were lots of "oh my god"s and looks of disbelief at its greatness. They were talking about it the next day, and I'm not even exaggerating.
Stuffing. With Italian sausage, apples, onions, cranberries, celery, and really good bread, this is my favorite stuffing and is a meal in and of itself. The recipe makes a truckload. Give it a try!
I also made Parmesan smashed potatoes by Ina Garten, peas and bacon by Tyler Florence, and orange cranberry sauce by Rachael Ray (I used the juice and zest of clementines instead). Hey thanks, Food Network! Sorry there are no photos, but I think you can imagine what those three might look like. We also had some nice Italian rolls.
Above: cell phone photo from Poof. You can see Jeff and me in the kitchen cooking up a storm. While I made most of the above recipes well ahead of time, I had to save the peas and potatoes for the last minute. And then it was time to eat!
Check out Tyler as he chows down on a turkey leg, Viking style. The meal was wonderful, and everybody sat around the table and told stories for what seemed like hours afterward. My side of the family stayed overnight, and it was like a big slumber party.
Apple dumplings. The next morning, I made everybody breakfast--I say apple dumplings qualify as breakfast. These received more raves than any other Thanksgiving item. Poof in particular went crazy for them. I was able to freeze/refrigerate each component days beforehand (glaze, dough, filling), so all I had to do this morning was peel and core four apples and assemble. I served them with leftover li'l smokies.
Hand pies. Finally, I popped some pre-frozen hand pies in the oven--two per person--and after they cooled a bit, I wrapped them in parchment paper. I put the cute little pies in paper bags and gave them to everybody as take-home treats to enjoy during the ride home. (Text from Poof later: Hand pies are awesome!!!!)
And then Jeff and I collapsed for several hours. We're making gentle dents in the leftovers. And this Thursday we're probably going to get some Chinese takeout.
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In the same vein as my crab apples, here's a 10.5"x13.5" watercolor of some mushrooms I found growing next to a tree stump in our yard. They were hidden under some leaves, which I cleared away just a bit. This revealed all kinds of sticks and other dark plant material that was in the process of becoming our state's beautiful black topsoil. (I've known international students who have been astounded by how black our dirt is here, including one who cutely took photos of it.)
Speaking of students, when I was a high school art teacher, kids always wanted to draw, paint, and sculpt mushrooms. I assumed that most of these kids were druggies and encouraged them to become inspired by, I don't know, one of the trillion other subjects available to them on this planet. "But I don't know what else to draw! And I just really like mushrooms!" I'm sure you do.
Also they're way too easy. Come on.
Gee, what are you going to make next? An ashtray? An incense burner? A cylinder with an odd little tube coming out the side?
Mushrooms. Sheesh.
So anyway, a few weeks ago I decided I wanted to paint some mushrooms!
And what a lot of work this was. I got obsessed with every square inch of it. That colorful leaf near the top took two days to finish and was challenging to say the least. Painting the mushrooms made me happy. The little ridges look difficult but they're actually pretty satisfying to create. There are so many tiny things going on here, and they're the kinds of details you never notice, like what's happening in the gaps between the leaves and the little fly (can you find it?). I tried to do them justice, but that meant mixing tiny amounts of hundreds of different colors, I'm guessing.
I posted this painting on Facebook when I finished it last week, and a few people thought I was making up some of the colors, especially the ones on the bright leaf. Those people don't live in Illinois. Most of my Illinois pals agreed that this year the foliage was just this colorful. Lurid, even! I showed Jeff's daughter Melissa my reference photo last night, and she said I should put it on my blog.
So while I pumped up the colors somewhat, in real life that leaf was still pretty loud. :)
I'm really pleased with the way this turned out, and I'll have a few more fall paintings to add to this series.
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I find I've been eating lots of orange food lately, and I'm loving it. Jeff found this enchilada recipe online a few days ago (from CookinFanatic) and floated the idea of making them. Hmm, yeah, I guess that sounds pretty good, I said, but when he suggested that we buy our chorizo from that new Mexican grocery store that just opened on Cunningham Avenue, I was completely on board.
International food stores fascinate me! El Progreso was loaded with interesting spices, produce, and baked goods, and I could have spent a fun hour looking at dozens of items in unfamiliar packaging. Jeff found fresh chorizo at the meat counter--even when it was wrapped up, it made our car smell delicious. The guy working the counter let us sample pork carnitas that they fix on Saturdays and Sundays only. We cannot stop talking about the carnitas, and based on a few small mouthfuls have decided that this is the best pork in Champaign-Urbana and probably laced with the blue meth. What would have made El Progreso better? This song playing.
Apologies. I am in mourning over the end of Breaking Bad, season four.
Anyway, on to these enchiladas. Melissa came out and helped Jeff and me put them together. Jeff worked on the chorizo, Mel wrapped everything up, and I was on sauce detail. The recipe was fast and easy, and our kitchen smelled like Total Fall Goodness. After 20 quick minutes in the oven, we gave the enchiladas a try.
I wasn't entirely crazy about them at first. AT FIRST. Oh, they were clearly good, but it was not love at first bite for me <-- gagging at this sentence. Something about the combination of brown sugar, cinnamon and cumin confused my tongue, I think. The sweet/salty balance tipped over to the sweet side maybe just a bit too much. But as I worked my way down the length of the enchilada, I started to get it. Like, really get it.
Later on the beautiful Mel spent some quality couch time with our snuggly kitties while we watched The Walking Dead, which is certainly no Breaking Bad. Sorry to beat a dead horse, but I miss Jesse and Mr. White! And Gus! Mel and Jeff seemed particularly annoyed by the writing from last night's episode, and I was grossed out by the [SPOILER ALERT] trapped-in-the-well-zombie-that-got-ripped-in-half.
At one point in the evening Mel correctly noted that Hypatia looks like The White Seal. Does anybody else remember that supercute Chuck Jones cartoon? I used to love it, and maybe that's why I adore Pache so much. The resemblance is uncanny. Please watch at least this important first part before you move on.
Also, how cute are the white seal's parents? Sheesh.
Okay. This morning as I painted, I kept thinking about lunch and those enchiladas, whose orange spices must have settled inside my brain overnight. Possibly in my heart and in my soul.
Gah, what a tasty lunch that was! We have one enchilada left, which Jeff cut in half, and I'm thinking that it could qualify as a breakfast item tomorrow.
If you like orange fall flavors and if any of this has made you curious, I say give them a try! Link to the recipe is here.
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