Thanksgiving dinner

     Oh what fun Thanksgiving is. We host Thanksgiving every year and I always get so happy being able to spend so much time in the kitchen prepping to feed family. I'm not sure what the bigger compliment is, seeing the plates come out one by one so full that food is stacked on top of food, or the way everyone leans back when they're finished because their full belly prevents them from leaning forward for another second. Either way, I've always been a firm believer that good times happen around good food.
     This year, I took the home made stuffing up a notch and started with home made bread. We made a couple loaves, starting a few nights before Thanksgiving. The bread was nothing out of the ordinary, just simple white bread.

     The night before, we cubed it so it could dry out just a little. I've made the same stuffing for years and mine actually calls for soft bread cubes, but I don't like them pillow soft, so cubing them and leaving them in a loosely covered bowl over night is usually perfect. When you're ready to stuff the turkey, melt 3/4 cup butter and soften 2 sliced celery stalks and a chopped medium onion. As soon as this starts cooking on the stove, Shawn already starts to inhale deeply. The smell is amazing. To the 9 cups of cubed bread, add approx 2 teaspoons of ground sage, mix it around real good, then toss in the butter, celery and onion mixture. Just stir it until it's all coated real good and start shoving inside that beautiful bird. This recipe can be used inside any bird, turkey, chicken or even Cornish hens. Because it's such a basic stuffing, no sausage or berries, etc., it's very versatile.

     This is before we tied up the legs, but I wanted you to be able to see the stuffing inside. This bird was so big that all the stuffing fit inside, but normally I have some left over. Anything that doesn't fit inside, just put in an oven safe casserole dish, cover it and place in the refrigerator. After the turkey comes out of the oven and is resting, I can usually bake the left over stuffing and rolls at the same time so everything is nice and hot for dinner.
     Unfortunately, since we were juggling so much with company coming in, turkey coming out and a hundred other fun kitchen things, I didn't get a picture of the finished bird. I didn't do anything special seasoning this years turkey. It was a simple butter and salt and pepper bird, but I've done quite a few variations from herbs to brine to pumpkin pie spice rubbed, which was amazing. We did expect a bigger crowd this year, hence the large bird, and since some of the family doesn't care too much for out-of-the-box ideas, I just stayed with simple. The flavor of the turkey and stuffing is going to be fantastic no matter what you do.

     This picture was actually taken the next day during our day of watching movies, cleaning up and pigging out on left overs. I don't do black Friday shopping. I do sweats, movies and enjoy my husband. My sister does the sweet potato casserole every year and if she were to ever decide not to bring it, I'd be lost. It's the sweet that cuts through the savory on the plate. It's almost a dessert in itself. So this was almost all of our meal. Not pictured is the cranberry sauce and the rolls. Why didn't I show the rolls? Because that's tomorrow's blog. The rolls were so amazing and so easy that I'm going to share that entire recipe with you.
     We also took the turkey carcass, some celery and a few other vegetable odds and ends, put it in a large stock pot, covered it with water and simmered it very slowly for hours. It was at least 3 hours, but I can't say for sure because I went more by eye than time. This yielded 5 quarts of amazing home made turkey stock. On Saturday, with 4 cups of that turkey stock, we made a mashed potato topped turkey pot pie. It's another one of my traditional after Thanksgiving meals, though normally with pie crust. This year I decided to try it with the mashed potatoes. It was good, but I think I missed the pie crust on top of this.

     It was still a great comfort food kind of evening and with the temperatures beginning to drop, I don't complain at all about the oven being on.
    Tune in tomorrow when I share the best roll recipe you've ever seen, and who I copied the recipe from!
Chat soon and I hope you enjoyed your Thanksgiving!
Penni

First snow of the winter

     I'm certainly not complaining.  It's near the end of November in Michigan and we've actually enjoyed temperatures near the 70s this month. But for our first snowfall of the season, it packed quite the punch. We were hammered with over ten inches of snow today. I'm thankful I didn't have to leave the house.
     Shawn and I couldn't wait to let Kota outside, who we found sleeping belly up on the couch. I gave him a few minutes to wake up and then opened the door. As soon as he could see outside his ears went up. Suddenly he was like a kid on Christmas morning. And he spent the majority of his day sleeping in the snow. He made a few random trips inside to pick out another of his many bones and went back outside. We watched through the window giggling as he buried them in the snow.

     I do love seeing him in the snow. It's definitely one of his favorite times of year and I was pretty happy for him today. As for me? Meh, maybe another day or two of this and then I'll be ready for beach weather again. 

Chat soon!

Penni

Squeaky clean...

     I'm a Pinterest lover just like many of you out there. We like to believe all the innovative ideas that we're seeing actually work. Most of them probably do. I don't know because I've only tried a few handful of projects or recipes and out of the millions of ideas, my few don't leave me any authority to judge. But I do know many of those so called short cut life savers aren't worth squat and turn out to be complete failures.
     I've ended up with a few of those failures, but in time, I've realized many of the recipes just needed a few tweaks and I could improve it to be the scrumptious dish it was meant to be. We once tried apple pie empanadas. I was so excited as I was making them because they looked amazing. I was using our home made apple pie filling and making, what I thought was, caramel for the first time. Lots of butter. In fact, a crazy amount of butter. But I followed the recipe. As it baked, the house smelled amazing and our mouths watered when I pulled them out of the oven. It was so hard to wait that 20 minutes or so to let it cool.
     One bite and I was so disappointed. The tortilla wrap and filling were amazing, but the caramel sauce was pretty much a pool of butter. Way too much. So much butter that it ruined all of it. Go figure. Too much butter. It really turned me off and I could feel my veins harden just taste testing it. Use about a quarter of the butter called for, bump up the sugar and viola. No more wasted apple pie filling. I assume as people copy and paste each others recipes and share them on Pinterest, there are probably unintentional typos or someone's misjudgment. One wrong word can be the difference between a success and a flop. Try it your self and see what happens. Learn from it. Better it if you can and make it your own.
     And then you run across the recipes and mixes that bring back a childhood memory of your grandmother or great aunt or some such who used to do it that way. And they'd always say, "I've done it like this for 50 years." But what if somewhere in your memory, you remember how well it turned out for them? We gave one of those old wives tales a shot.
     We followed the old 3, 2, 1 glass cleaner recipe. Even as a young teen I can remember being at a friends house while she was doing chores. They used a home made cleaner, I remember she said vinegar, and she used newspapers, and the mirrors all came out so spotless. I was amazed. How could anything but expensive cleaner and paper towels get such a streak free shine? Then I came across this recipe on Pinterest, which was only one of 100's that I came across.

Easy 3-2-1 Formula for Washing Windows

It's simply three drops of blue Dawn, two-thirds cup of water, and one-third cup of white vinegar.  (Did I mention this only costs pennies per cup?)

     Just pour it into a spray bottle and spray away. That's it. You can see the rest of the post here:

     http://lessthanperfectlifeofbliss.blogspot.com/2014/03/easy-3-2-1-formula-for-washing-windows.html
     So I take this mixture and head to the bathroom. The dirtiest mirrors in the house. I sprayed it all over and already I wasn't impressed. It started dripping right away and looked like nothing more than straight up water. However the vinegar smell was a tad douche related. Yes... I said it. I grabbed a wad of paper towel, (next time I'll save the Sunday paper) and started wiping, not having much hope.

   I wiped as fast as I could and changed the paper towel around to make sure I kept drying with a dry spot, but it just seemed to move the fluid around and I thought for sure my mirrors were going to look disgusting. When I gave up trying to dry them and stood back, instantly the moisture started to clear up and I was left with streak free, spotless mirrors... with a little vinegar smell. I couldn't believe it. I stood there with my mouth open wondering, "How much money have I spent on Windex over the years?" No offense against Windex.
     I moved to the bedroom and did that mirror and wiped every other glass or mirror surface I had. I picked up a little momentum even because I felt pretty accomplished and smitten with myself. Just like grandma used to do it. Two thumbs up is my review on this one. I'll never buy mirror cleaner again. No kidding. And I'll try more of the home made home cleaners now that this one has proven to be a success.
Chat soon!
Penni
 

Recipe success!

     It's been a wonderful few days of recipes, old and new. I did tell you the next time I made our usual weekly loaf of bread that I would be sure to post pictures and the recipe, so here it is!

Place in your bread machine in this order:
3/4 cup Water (80 degrees approx.)
1 Tbsp. oil or butter
2 Tbsp. sugar
1 tsp. salt
1 Tbsp. powdered milk
1 3/4 cup bread flour (I actually only use your standard all purpose flour)
1/4 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 tsp. active dry yeast
Add 1 Tbsp. of sunflower seeds if desired. We've been using maple toffee covered sunflower seeds. So all ingredients into the machine.

I set the machine for a one pound loaf on wheat setting and it's good to be left alone for 3.5 hours. Set it and forget it. I do love my bread machine.

     I have such a great husband. I text him from work and said, "Do me a favor and snap a picture of the loaf of bread for our blog BEFORE you eat it all." I couldn't help but giggle when he text back, "Uhhhhh...." I knew it was too late. He did still manage to impress and set his sliced bread down with the left over loaf, included our jam and took the best picture. This was his breakfast. This bread toasts up so nice. Crunchy on the outside and soft on the inside. We now make this bread at least once a week, but sometimes more because it doesn't last through the week. You can certainly make a larger loaf. My machine will go up to a 2 pound loaf. I choose to make them smaller because I'd rather make another loaf than make too much and be wasteful throwing it out.

     We tried another bread this weekend. And it too will be added to the regular rotation. It's a Portuguese sweet bread and I found it right on Allrecipe.com.



Portuguese Sweet Bread I

Recipe By:Jennifer Houde

"This recipe is for the bread machine. It is similar to homemade grandmother's sweet bread."

Ingredients

• 1 cup milk
• 1 egg
• 2 tablespoons margarine
• 1/3 cup white sugar

• 3/4 teaspoon salt
• 3 cups bread flour
• 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

Directions

1. Add ingredients in order suggested by your manufacturer.
2. Select "sweet bread" setting.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED © 2015 Allrecipes.com

     And this is what it looks like... Yes, again, I only get a picture of a slice because this was cut pretty fast. We sliced it up and used it that same night to make stuffed french toast with sausage for dinner. Who doesn't love a breakfast dinner, right?

     We just stuffed it with whipped cream cheese, made french toast with it and we topped it with our peach syrup. It was so amazing. Shawn said it tasted like he ordered it from a gourmet restaurant. I think he likes when I experiment in the kitchen. He seems to be reaping the rewards. He liked this one so much that he requested it for breakfast again the next morning. He doesn't request breakfast. It's not my strong suit. The cooking is, but the getting up and moving early is not. Hence, breakfast dinners. :)  But I didn't hesitate. He asked for it, he gets it. It's kind of my rule with him.

     We had a wonderful productive weekend. Finally sat down Sunday night in a spotless house, lunches ready for the next day, and amazing weather for November in Michigan. Oddly amazing, thanks be to El Nino. So why not take advantage of the rare Michigan fall? Shawn made a pot of coffee and we sat on the deck in the dark watching the stars because the sky was completely clear. This is unheard of this time of year. No coats, winds or shivering. Just a mug of coffee, my husband, dog at my feet and ending a productive weekend with a perfect night. I love my weekends with Shawn and one of these days when I hit the lottery, I'm calling into work sick!

Next post I'll be sharing the recips we've tried for home cleaning supplies. I'll give my take on some of the Pintrest recipes I've made. Some have been around for decades and some are new. You can find the carziest ideas on Pintrest and not all of them are legit and a success that they claim. We've tried some and the reviews are in! Tune in.

Chat soon

Penni







A pack too close to home

     This morning was the usual Monday with the alarm starting at 5:30 am and after hitting snooze 3 times, we finally crawl out of bed at 6:00. First thing Kota wanted to go outside so Shawn throws on his robe and heads to the kitchen to make our morning cup of Joe, while I head to the bathroom to begin the daily regime.
     The mornings have been extra dark since daylight savings and before any lights get turned on, I look at the sky on my way to the bathroom. There has been so many stars and it even looks cold and crisp lately. The winter is coming, and with that, our dogs natural love to sit out in the cold. I normally head back out of the bedroom right about the time Shawn walks by with a mug in each hand. Ahh he's so wonderful...
     He says very nonchalantly, "Can hear the coyotes howling in the distance..." And sets my coffee down.
     Apparently I found this more of a shock then he did, though we have come face to face recently with a coyote while out walking Kota in the dark. "Did he come back in? Where is he? Do they sound close?"
     Shawn just shrugged, "He's hanging outside. They sound like they're in the distance."
     Ok... Shawn can't hear like he once could and I could be right next to him carrying on an entire conversation only to realize he has no clue I'm even speaking to him. That's usually followed up with him looking at me and saying, "huh?" So right now, I don't trust his assessment of howling in the distance. Luckily, he senses my not-so-hidden panic and he heads back out to check on the dog.
     "He's fine. He's sleeping on the porch."
     I guess I'm good with that... And eventually he did come in. I'm sure he was enjoying the sounds of the howls and I'm a little surprised he didn't answer those calls. It's not odd for him to be outside laying quietly in the yard in the cold and dark, when he's feeling closest to his natural roots, that he decides to howl like a wild wolf. His howl is subtle and smooth. It's gorgeous. So I was definitely surprised he wasn't howling back at the posse calling out this morning.
     I made bread over the weekend. I've been trying to use my bread machine weekly and make home made bread and trying not to buy so much store bought. Just another small step to us trying to be more self sufficient. We have a million ways to improve in that area, and in some ways, we're wasteful. Any small change I can make in lowering the grocery cost and just making what I need, adds up to larger change over time. So I've just been making a combo white wheat bread once a week. I'm focusing on just getting better and familiarizing myself with dough and the machine before I branch out to other loaves.
     This weekend I decided to toss in some butter toffee covered sunflower seeds. It came out so good that I couldn't take a picture fast enough! The loaf is already half gone. So now that I know, I'll do it again in the next couple of days and not only post pictures, but also the recipe. Tune in if you like home made bread!
Chat soon
Penni