We wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving… and in lieu of fresh pictures… have some pictures from our Boone Thanksgiving, provided by Gaby…
The Bird:
The Green bean Casserole…
The sourdough sausage stuffing… or…. dressing since it wasn’t inside the bird…
The Challa Bread….
and…. the group… Minus Gaby who was taking the picture…
Happy Thanksgiving to all!!
As promised here is the awesome mac and cheese blog. You know Aaron and I are mac and cheese connoisseurs. This recipe isn’t fancy, but it is easy, cheesy and delicious. A big hit with both our early Thanksgiving parties.
This recipe comes almost exactly from Culinary Cory (http://culinarycory.com/2008/11/02/slow-cooker-mac-and-cheese/) which I found during an extensive internet search for slow cooker mac and cheese. Apparently some recipes also include eggs, so if you like a more custardy, thicker version, you could also try addition eggs to this.
So, the first trick is to use nice big pasta, like cork screws. We used medium shells. Second trick is to pre-boil them about five minutes before they go into the crock pot.
Then you just throw all the ingredients into the crock pot. I mixed the butter in right away so the pasta didn’t get sticky.
I’ve experimented with different cheese blends. The two key elements are Velveeta and cheddar. But you can throw pretty much anything on top of that.
Now for the key “secret” ingredient: Dijon mustard.
Finally add your cup of milk and half cup of heavy cream for deliciousness.
I seasoned mine with salt, pepper and just a pinch of cayenne. Then stir it all up good.
Just leave it in the crock on high for about two hours and you’ll have this creamy deliciousness:
(Pictured here with Aaron’s meatloaf). It’s also good with a bacon and/or bread crumb topping.
Hope you all enjoy! And have a happy Thanksgiving.
So… while Virginia was working on the macaroni and cheese above… I was making meatloaf…. now… you may think that meatloaf is nothing special…. To that, I say you’re wrong. I love some meatloaf… so… since today was the first time we’ve made non-turkey related food since the last blog posting.. I was ready for some meatloaf.
This recipe is one of my own… we didn’t find it online… didn’t find it in a cook book…. just took some previous recipes of meatloaf and reworked tem to fit what I wanted….
Today’s ingredient I wanted in the meatloaf was:
For those that don’t speak in pictures… those are sun-dried tomatoes.
To start things off, you have to reconstitute the tomatoes a bit… just drop a handful of them into some boiling water … turn the burner off, and just let them coast in the hot water for about 15 minutes…
After 15 minutes, they’ll be a bit more pliable; a bit less leather-like.
While the ‘maters are reconstituting… this is a good time to get some other things ready… I used sourdough bread for the bread component of the meatloaf… probably about a cup’s worth of bread per pound of meat or so…. chop / tear it up into small pieces….
Now… the meat… we used 2 pounds of 80/20 ground beef…. a little bit of fat will help the meat from sticking to the pan… and it’ll keep everything moist…
After you’ve gotten the bread broken up, and the meat unpacked and ready to go… the sun dried tomatoes should be about ready….
Chop the ‘maters into smaller pieces, and then you can toss them into the meat mixture with the bread… and then it’s time to add the various spices and remaining ingredients…. This would also be a good time to preheat the oven to 425….
We’ve got a few subtle flavors going on already with the sourdough and sun-dried tomatoes… so we just want to supplement those flavors with a few more…. I tossed in 1 egg, 1TSP Minced Onion, 1TSP Garlic, 1TSP Onion powder, 1TSP Pepper, 1/2TSP Salt and about 1/4 Cup of Italian Seasoning... This may sound like a lot, but typically, you would use a packet of Onion Soup mix… which is about 1/3 of a cup of minced onions, and powdered sodium and various other things of undetermined health values… So in comparison, this isn’t too bad.
oh…. and I forgot… thankfully, Virginia reminded me… You need to add a good “Dollop” of Ketchup.
Now… it’s time to mix everything up…. so… in that spirit…
MIXING MONTAGE!!!
Viola. Got everything mixed up and into the pan… now, it’s time for it to go into the oven…. total cook time is about an hour… but we have to put the topping on it… so… set the timer for 45 minutes…
Above are the ingredients for my mom’s meatloaf sauce…. the stuff is amazing… but… I’ll warn you… she might call me and tell me to get her recipe off the internet… so… write it down while you can… I like to make a double recipe so there’s enough to go on top of each cut slice of meatloaf…
Believe it or not… that’s it..
Toss it on the burner… medium heat or so when the timer goes off… you’ll have some lumps… but just push them against the bottom as you stir and that should help break them up…
So.. the sauce took you 5 minutes to make… so… 45 minutes on the timer.. 5 minutes sauce cook time… you’re at 50 minutes on the meatloaf so far.. so… pull it out.. and cover it in the magic sauce….
Then… it goes back into the oven for another 10 minutes… then pull it back out and let it rest for about 5 minutes before you slice into it.
I like to top it off with some of that extra sauce…. and of course we served the meatloaf with Virginia’s Mac and Cheese from above….
You can see the sun-dried tomatoes in the meatloaf.. I’ve gotta say… it was awesome…. You should make it.
Well… this is kind of a crossover post between the cooking blog and the regular blog… but it’ll land here, since food was kind of the main event.
Given the nature and scope of cooking for Thanksgiving meals… the below descriptions will be a rough overview… If you want to know any one part more in detail… just drop us a line, give us a call, or leave us a comment… we’ll fill you in on the specifics.
Last Friday, Nov 5th, we had our annual Thanksgiving in Boone. We always try to do a Thanksgiving here before heading home to have Thanksgiving with the family. This year, we had some special guests as well… our exchange student Gaby came over… Josh came over…. and Martha flew in all of the way from Minnesota just to come to our Thanksgiving…. well… ok … Martha was really in the area to go to a wedding… but she did drive several hours from the airport to come to Thanksgiving, and then several hours back to the wedding… so she still gets extra bonus points…
So… lets talk menu. To shake things up a bit… we actually got the bulk of our Thanksgiving recipes from our Cooking Light magazines that Nat and Erin subscribed us to as a wedding present. Let me take a minute to say another thing… EVERYTHING that was served this Thanksgiving was made possible by Virginia’s small hands… I stood back and she took control of the whole thing… the menu.. the shopping… the preparing… everything… She really did an outstanding job… everything was hot at the same time…. everything was ready to hit the table at the same time… and everything was delicious…. so.. any time I say “We” … it’s purely out of convenience… just convert “We” to “Virginia” as you read.
First… the Turkey:
We decided to do a brined turkey this year…. in the past, we’ve done a crockpot turkey … a turkey breast in the oven… and a few turkey legs on the grill (well… the legs weren’t for Thankgiving… but… really… how many times do you cook any part of a Turkey??)
So.. the brine consisted of 8 cups apple cider… 8 cups water… salt / pepper … some Jalapenos… and perhaps a few other various spices… You mix up the brine.. and drop the bird in… then, put it in the fridge for 24 hours or so….
While our turkey was taking a bath in the fridge… Virginia got working on some side dishes…. first up was fresh cranberry sauce:
Fresh cranberries… some orange zest… and some Lindemans Framboise Lambic beer…. it’s a fruity / raspberry type beer… so it added a bit of sweetness…and a bit of sugar… then, everything cooks down and gets all happy… at which point, it’s ready to come out of the pot and into the fridge….
Virginia also used this time to make some cheese chive challa bread… that stuff was awesome… unfortunately… I got a bit slack with pictures as there was a lot going on.. and it was hard to keep up…
So… fast forward a bit… the turkey has been thoroughly enjoying its bath… now it’s time to get under its skin…. quite literally in fact.. so… Virginia used a mixture of secret spices… and rubbed them under the skin of the bird… she started at the neck… and worked her way back… until she had the turkey completely spiced up from the inside…
Yeah… she got elbow deep into this bird.
Next, it was time for some additions in and around the bird… this would consist of some poblano peppers and some fuji apples…
Let’s cover something really quick like… if you’re cutting peppers… and then apples… some of the spice might be transferred from the peppers to the apples through the knife….
Virginia temporarily forgot that….
After chopping the peppers and apples into manageable sized slices… you want to cram a bunch inside of the turkey…
Whatever doesn’t fit inside of the bird will go around the outside of the bird in the roasting pan…
Then, top things off with a good handful of fresh cilantro… because of course.. cilantro makes everything better…
So… other dishes included:
stuffing / dressing (I call it stuffing.. but apparently if it’ not inside the bird… it doesn’t count as stuffing… it’s dressing then…) but.. the stuffing Virginia made was a sourdough stuffing with sausage…
the cranberries from above…
crockpot macaroni and cheese
green bean casserole…
the bread from above…
mashed sweet potatoes….
and for dessert…. a pumpkin cheesecake with gingerbread cookie crust…. I’ m sure I’ve forgotten something… so if you read this tonight… it may very well change by tomorrow morning….
really really really fast forward……
Left to right: Martha, Virginia, Josh, Gaby
and here’s a closeup of the wreckage…
It all was outstanding… the turkey was moist and crazy juicy… the stuffing was perfect… and the macaroni and cheese was out of this world… I’m trying to get Virginia to make another batch of the macaroni and cheese… so hopefully there will be another blog update on that soon… if not… send Virginia multiple e-mails and call her hourly until she agrees to make it again and share the recipe with the world…
Until next time…..
