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Everyone has his or her own Thanksgiving traditions. Some people like to experiment, and some like the same food for this special day. I am mostly in the latter camp, but I vary the menu if guests have a special food without which it would not be Thanksgiving for them. I thought it would be fun to see what other people are serving.
In the late afternoon, I will make spiced cider to sip as we work on dinner.
We will have a turkey, roasted by my husband. He will bake, then mash sweet potatoes with some cinnamon and butter. I will make Pepperidge Farm dressing (the blue bag!)--with some onion and celery chopped and cooked in the butter, before adding homemade turkey stock, the crumb mix, and fresh parsley. I bake it in a shallow dish. I will also make the time-honored Green Bean Casserole with Campbell's Healthy Request Mushroom soup and low-sodium soy sauce. The onions must be French's! (I'll cook some frozen peas, so that my husband has an alternative.) I also make a cranberry-dried cherry uncooked sauce with brown sugar and cardamom, which my husband won't touch. (More for me!) Dessert is my version of my mother's pumpkin pie.
It's just the two of us this year--for the first time in fourteen years. If my stepdaughter were here, there also would be mashed potatoes and gravy. If we had a lot of people, as we have some years, I would bake rolls and maybe make a streusel-topped apple pie to allow for choice--or for a little of both!
On Wednesday, I baked my version of my Mom's pumpkin pie. As I was making the crust, I realized that I had accidentally used 1 cup of butter instead of 1/2 cup butter and 1/2 half cup Crisco. (I'm glad that I realized that before adding the Crisco!) Once again, the open concept kitchen allows for too much distraction. I forged ahead. After the dough had rested in the refrigerator, I rolled it the usual 1/8-inch thick. I had made a two-crust recipe, so I could do leaf and acorn cut outs around the edge. I decided instead to use more dough for the crust and made sure that I had a thick fold around the perimeter where I would crimp it. I was relieved that the blind-bake was excellent. The pie baked very well. I then rolled out the remaining dough 1/4-inch thick and cut out little turkeys, pumpkins, and acorns, using some of those plastic cutters with the springs that let you make a cookie with a design and then eject it. I baked those at 375F for 16 minutes, until they were lightly brown. I will serve a couple alongside slices of pie.
I used 5 parts pastry flour to 1 part whole wheat pastry flour in my favorite buttermilk pie crust recipe. Maybe the pastry flour helped the all-butter crust hold.Bischofsbrot
This recipe comes from a pamphlet distributed by the California Raisin Board at the Los Angeles County Fair, around forty years ago, so it should be safe to post here. The original recipe used a 9x5 inch loaf pan, but I discovered that the center did not thoroughly bake in that pan, so I now use a 12 x 4 inch loaf pan from Kaiser Backform. I have even made it in small mini-loaf pans (but be careful to get the cherries evenly distributed in the smaller loaves). It will not dome and has a flat top. It is a dense cake and can be sliced thinly. Bischofsbrot {Bishop's Bread) is meant to invoke the idea of a stained glass window.
As a graduate student, I once baked this recipe for a seminar in which participants took turns bringing the food. The British-born professor exclaimed: "Christmas Cake! My mother used to make that!"
Ingredients (in order combined):
6 Tbs. unsalted butter [low-fat alternative1/4 cup avocado oil mixed with 2 Tbs. buttermilk]
1/4 tsp. vanilla2 1/2 Cups flour
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. sea salt
2 Tbs. Bob's Red Mill milk powder (optional)2 Cups chopped walnuts
3/4 Cups currants [or use regular raisins]
3/4 Cups golden raisins
1 Cup chopped semi-sweet chocolate (or 1 Cup chocolate chips--dark chocolate would also be good--I'm partial to Ghirardelli bittersweet chocolate chips )
about 15 whole red maraschino cherries, well-drained4 eggs, at room temperature
1 1/4 Cups sugarGrease and flour a 12x4 inch loaf pan. [Note: The Grease does not work well with this recipe.] Preheat oven to 300F.
Melt butter, stir in vanilla, and set aside to cool. If using the oil option, whisk together avocado oil and buttermilk for a minute, until it has a milky consistency, then mix in vanilla.
In medium-large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, and salt. Then add nuts, fruits, and chocolate chips. Toss to coat and to mix thoroughly.
In large bowl, beat the four eggs at high speed until foamy. Gradually--2 Tbs. at a time--add the 1 1/4 Cups of sugar, beating until the mixture is thick and ivory colored. Beat in the melted butter-vanilla mixture. Using a spatula, carefully fold in the flour mixture, about a third at a time.
Spread the batter evenly in greased and floured 12x4 inch loaf pan. Bake at 300F for 1 hour and 30 minutes, or until tester comes out clean.
Cool loaf on rack in pan for 15 minutes. Run a thin plastic spatula around edges to loosen before turning out of pan onto a rack.. Cool completely. Powdered sugar can be sifted over the top before serving, if an even more festive look is desired.
Note: The original recipe specifies walnuts or almonds for the nuts--probably because those nuts are important crops in California. I'm sure that pecans would be nice as well.
For Tuesday dinner, I thawed a boneless chicken breast (yes, from a sale) and cut it in half. I rubbed it with mayonnaise, and dredged them in a mixture of panko, onion powder, garlic powder, chives, pepper, and freshly grated Parmesan. I roasted them at 375F for 30 minutes. To go with it, I sautéed chopped onion, chopped celery, coarsely chopped carrot, and mushrooms in grapeseed oil. I stirred in the leftover rice from last night and added a bit of the leftover broth. I also microwaved some frozen peas.
Topic: Fruit Cake
Hi everyone, I know a lot of people don’t like fruit cake. A few years ago I stopped at a church bake sale and I bought a few slices of fruit cake. I have to say it was very good. It didn’t have any citrus fruit in it (at least I didn’t see any). I did see raisins, dates, nuts, apples and I don’t know what else. The lady that had made it wasn’t there so I couldn’t ask her about her recipe. Does anyone have a good fruit cake recipe that is moist and just a good tasting that they would be willing to share. Thanks in advance and wishing everyone a wonderful Thanksgiving.
WendySaturday evening, I tried an experiment with my springerle pumpkin mold. I had made springerle once years ago, and maybe it was the recipe, or maybe it was my technique, but I did not care for them and have not tried baking them again. I did try the KAF Springerle Shortbread recipe a couple of years ago, but the taste and texture made them a so-so cookie for me.
I decided to try making a brown sugar shortbread. I looked at the KAF recipe, then I googled brown sugar shortbread recipes. I ended up using 1 Cup of salted butter, 1/2 Cup light brown sugar, 2 Tbs. regular sugar, and 2 1/4 cups bleached flour. After making a smooth dough, I rolled it to 1/4 inch, but that was not deep enough, so I added another 1/8 inch. Once the mold is pushed down, the cookie is probably about 1/4-inch thick. I also used a copper pumpkin cut-out cookie cutter that is designed to go around the pumpkin springerle mold, so that the cookie has crisp edges.
I baked these on parchment at 325F for 35 minutes--checking at 25 minutes and 30 minutes. The design came out pretty well on about half of them, as I got better at it as I went along. I would still like a little more clarity on the design. Taste and texture is good (as of next morning.) However, I think that they might need 1/2 tsp. of vanilla next time.
I shopped Chefs back when they were out of the Midwest (Illinois?). Then Nieman-Marcus got a hold of them, and I had to pay sales tax in Texas. They also stopped carrying some of the really useful stuff, such as wide saran. (Not everyone has access to Sam's, Cosco, or a local restaurant store.) I do not recall if there was an additional owner before Target bought them to cannibalize for their customer data base and recipes. Much of the Cook's unsold inventory has ended up at Tuesday Morning on "close-out."
I'll have to look online. They were my favorite place to kitchen shop.
OK: Here's the scoop: https://www.chefscatalog.com/about-us/
Hi, Rascals,
I just saw your post. Here is the variation I used the last time I baked this bread:
I preheated the oven to 400F, but turned it down to 375F once the bread was in. I baked for 40 minutes to an internal temperature of 205. That will make the bread a darker color. For a lighter bread, perhaps bake for 35 minutes. I used my hearth pan.
1 cup whole wheat flour
1/2 cup rye flour
1 1/2 cups bread flour
1 1/2 cups AP flour
2 Tbs. flax meal
2 Tbs. special dried milk
2 tsp. salt.1/2 cup "honey water" (cleaned out a honey jar)--regular water will do
1 1/4 tsp. active dry yeast and 1 tsp. special gold yeast
3 Tbs. honey
3 Tbs. unsalted butter
9 oz. buttermilkBy "honey water," I simply mean that we had a jar with most of the honey scraped out. I save them, and when I bake bread, I put the water in them that I plan to use for proofing the yeast, so that the jar is cleaned out.
You can delete the special dried milk if you like. I'm trying to use it up.
