Thanksgiving Eats!

Happy Thanksgiving! It's super late, and it's been a while, but I wanted to post about my Thanksgiving eats.

Paleo Thanksgiving!

Kat and I had a Paleo Thanksgiving lunch on Wednesday. That was thanksgiving one. :-p. I made the following recipes:

Pecan Pie with Bacon Crust- this turned out decent. I loved that the list of ingredients was straightforward, and there wasn't too much sugar in the recipe. The drizzle also turned out better than I thought, especially because I only like the taste of coconut milk in certain things. I would give this recipe a three.












Roasted Butternut Squash with Pecan Ginger Glaze- LOVED this recipe, and I could make it again and again. I actually used sweet potatoes instead of the butternut squash, and it was so good! The syrup you toss the squash in is warm, sweet, and complex. So good and perfect for a fall spread!

Cheesy Mashed Yucca- this recipe didn't actually taste cheesy at all, but  I still loved it. Mashed yucca is so much thicker and sticks to your ribs more than mashed cauliflower does. I welcomed the change and will be making mashed yucca in the future! I got a 4 lb bag of frozen yucca from the grocery store (check the latin section of the frozen foods to see if you can find it at your grocery store!) and just used 3/4 of the bag for this recipe. Very easy to make!

Paleo Gravy and Paleo Stuffing from Brittany Angell's free holiday ebook-my gravy looked a lot grittier than the picture in the ebook, but the taste was phenomenal. I loved it on my mashed yucca! The paleo stuffing was good. I halved the recipe but ended up keeping the amount of Italian sausage the same just because we love Italian sausage that much! Was light in flavor, but good.

I also made cranberry sauce from scratch and a nonalcoholic sangria, but those were just okay. :-/

Wednesday night we went to my co-worker's turkey and tequila party. Such a lovely concept! We brought a turkey and they fried it so we didn't have to cook it today! They used a cajun injector too, which was so yummy! There were so many yummy finger foods to try! Deer sausage with pineapple bites, mini ham sandwiches with mustard, cheddar Bisquick sausage bites, and they had a little spread of their own with fried and roast turkey, green beans (I brought those), mac and cheese, a snicker doodle apple pie bake, thumbprint cookies, and lots of libations-that was Thanksgiving 2! :-)

Thanksgiving 3!

Today we spent Thanksgiving with Kat's family. I guess that's technically Thanksgiving 3!  We were due at 12:30 at her sister's house, but alas, cp time got the best of us and we got there at about 1:10. Not too bad for us, lol. I made southern mac and cheese for the potluck. I used Sweetie Pie's mac and cheese recipe. There was so much cheese, I had to make some modifications. I followed the recipe, the only tweaks I made were I used an 8 oz block of cheddar and 8 oz block colby jack and 4 tbsp of butter-and this was even after doubling the recipe! In the future I'll be sure I cut the velveeta and butter into tinier cubes so that they melt into the sauce a lot better. It was still really good. Mmmm!

We needed some veggies, so Mark, Kat's sister's husband, asked if I could make a salad. I made Nigella Lawson's Cranberry, Feta, and Pecan Salad. I used about 3/4 of a 10 oz package of 50/50 spinach and baby greens, and used a cup of pecans that I roasted in the oven for a few minutes and it really gave the pecans a lovely, robust flavor. I absolutely love this salad and plan to make it again in the future as a main course meal. The notes in the recipe indicated it's good with either pork tenderloin or grilled chicken-yum!!

After eating, playing with Kat's niece and nephews, and hearty conversations with everyone, Kat, Mama Vellie, Theresa (Mark's sister) and I drove to Walmart to do a little Christmas shopping. I did get to take care of a few people on my list which is always nice!

What did you eat for Thanksgiving today? And, what's on your Christmas list?

How to Botch a Cake...

Does anyone else grow tired of seeing pin after pin, picture after picture of marvelous baked goods, baked goods that look a little too easy to recreate? Well, hear me roar--I AM!!!

So the bestie sent me a pin for a pumpkin spice crunch cake. It looked easy enough. Make a box of spice cake batter, add in some pureed pumpkin and a mound of heath toffee bits. Bake, spread with icing, add a sprinkle of heath bits, and voila, done! 

Once I took a second look I thought, "Wait wait wait..." Here were my issues:

1. Exactly HOW much pumpkin puree (canned, no doubt) was I to add to the batter? Typically recipes using canned pumpkin call for one 15 oz can. Okay. Whew. That wasn't too bad. 
2. Then I worried about the amount of moisture in the batter. Would the water the box recipe called for, plus the water in the pumpkin, be too much for the cake? But I didn't know how to modify it, so I kept going. 
3. Wait--how much of the heath bits to add to the cake, when I needed to add some to the batter, the middle layer, and the outside of the iced cake? The good thing about that is that no amount of heath bits is too large, so I put about a third of a cup in the batter, and then sprinkled onto the middle layer and outside of the cake until it looked pretty. Cool. 
4. Wait, now with all the extra ingredients, is the cake going to bake for as long as the box indicates? Nope. As a matter of fact, it took much longer, much much longer. Then again that could have been because I had to place all the batter in my one springform pan. I thought it'd be prettier as a round cake rather than baking in two bread loaf pans like the picture directed. So maybe that part was my fault!

After all of this, I removed the cake from the oven and let it cool on a wire cooling rack. If you need a lesson in patience, bake a cake. I did not fully succeed in learning my lesson, as I was too eager to cut the cake in half so I could frost it, pop it into its pretty glass home, and be DONE. So as I was cutting the cake in half, part of it started to crumble. EXPLETIVE! EXPLETIVE! EXPLETIVE! Mind you, this cake is for my office's Thanksgiving lunch today. But I REFUSED to start over (no ingredients to do so) or bring something else. I was gon' finish this cake come hell or high batter! You get the picture. 

Also, when turning a cake out onto a cake dish, and you have NOT baked the layers in two separate pans, be sure to have a large spatula with a lot of surface area. This will help. Or, you can place a plate on the bottom of the cake and turn it over. I used a combo of all of these techniques to get the layers on the cake dish. 

When it came to the top of the cake, about a third of it did crumble all the way off, but, you guessed it, I let the icing do its magic to bind all parts of the cake. I spread that icing like my life (and the cake's life) fully depended on it (and it did). The finished product wasn't perfect, but it held together, and looks pretty purty. Let's just pray the folks at my job like it! I know that to be a real chef means tasting as you go, but am I the only one who finds that just a little scary? In my quest for avoidance I wait until I take the first bite and let that tell me all I need to know. And by the by, if this cake turns out tasty, I'll post the recipe. :-)

Happy Early Thanksgiving! 

The crack...ominous much?!

Looks okay, right?

Yeah, it crumbled. Don't judge me. :-p

The aftermath...not too bad if I do say so myself!!

Potlucks Galore

Update 2!! 

Sorry for the delay! I spent all night Wednesday cooking, and all morning Thursday cooking, then all afternoon eating! :-D

We placed everyone's names in a random drawing and the winner of the gift card is Katrina Marie!

Thank you so much to all who left a comment and voted! Please be on the lookout for more posts on recipes (including the Thanksgiving post) and more contests!

Have a great holiday break!

<3

Update!

Thank you to all who voted! I loved hearing your thoughts! The votes are in...and our winners are...drum roll please...

Shredded Chicken Empanadas with Pique (8 votes)
Mixed Greens Salad with Pecans, Cranberries, and Sweet Orange Vinaigrette (7 votes)

and third runner up is...the Red Velvet cake (5 votes). If there is time, I may tweak the rules and bring the cake too. :-) I may not be able to resist. I'll let you know. 

We didn't hit 22 votes, but that is ok! I will cast each person's name in a random drawing and then randomly draw a name to select the winner of the $15 Target gift card. 

The winner will be announced tonight.

For now, it is time to do some grocery shopping... :-)
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With Kat's family's Thanksgiving potluck right around the corner, the only question is, what to bring? Last year we had the traditional greens, dressing, ham, turkey, mac and cheese, Puerto Rican rice (courtesy of moi and traditional for my family), and Kel's signature pound cake. 

As the eclectic foodies we are, we always like to experiment and try different foods. Of course, we can't get too crazy. Not every palate will agree with what we would eat, so I've made a list of slightly adventurous dishes I would love to try.  I always want to make much more than I am asked to make but of course I will have to limit myself to two yummy dishes.  

Possibilities are:

Sausage and Vidalia (Sweet) Onion Casserole 
Shredded Chicken Columbian Empanadas with Pique (Dipping Sauce)
Arroz con gandulez (Rice with Pigeon Peas or Puerto Rican rice)
Clean Green Bean Casserole (Courtesy of Detoxinista at detoxinista.com)
Red Velvet Cake (a recipe that has been passed down in one of my colleague's families) 
Broccoli with Bacon and Pine Nuts
Mixed Greens Salad with Pecans, Cranberries, and Sweet Orange Vinaigrette (Also courtesy of Detoxinista at detoxinista.com)

Cast your vote! Which two dishes sound the best? I will pick the highest ranking and blog the recipes in prep for Thanksgiving!

 Don't forget, as my 22nd poster, you will receive a $15 Target gift card! :-)