Thanksgiving Recap

Overall, our first hosted Thanksgiving went well.

Positives
1. We didn't have to travel

2. ShankRabbit had the day before Thanksgiving off, so he could help me clean the house and prep the food.

3. Each dish we made turned out fantastic (recipes below).

4. We ordered an all natural turkey from our local health food store. Fantastic flavor, wasn't frozen, and only cost us about $2.69/lb.

5. I deligated the desserts to my mother-in-law, who showed up with 8 (!) pies and a tray of pumpkin bars. We only had 9 adults and one child.

6. We're still eating pie.

7. A wet kitchen sponge was thrown at my head. That's how you know your kitchen is the fun place to be.

8. On Friday, we packed up our Thanksgiving leftovers and went to my brother-in-law's house. Another fantastic meal followed by some Kinect playing, where my sister-in-law tried to pull one over on my husband. Little did she know that he is super-competitive and knows how to drop it like it's hot.

The not-so-positives
1. The turkey took over 4.5 hours to cook, as opposed to the 2.5 our recipe claimed. My entire food timetable was thrown off. Boo! But hey, it was a darn tasty turkey.

2. We ran out of clean - and dry - dish towels, so by the end of the night we had to just leave the dirty dishes on the counter. We don't have a dishwasher (or a dryer), so we resorted to doing a drying-rack full of dishes and waiting for them to air dry.

And here is who made our Thanksgiving possible...the recipes (all gluten-free):

Roast Turkey
We mostly used Alton's brine, with some added tweaks from Gluten Free Girl's brine recipe. Also, we used butter to coat the bird instead of canola oil. BIG MISTAKE. The butter sizzled and smoked through the whole 500 degree portion of cooking (we had to make some temp and time adjustments...which may have been the reason why our turkey took so long to cook).

Udi's Gluten Free Stuffing
We stayed true to the recipe and it came out beautifully. Because our turkey was taking so long in the oven, our stuffing did dry out a bit waiting for a final warm up in the oven. I think next year we'll add a bit more moisture.

Gluten Free Dinner Rolls
I can't begin to describe the amazing flavor these rolls have. Yes, they are a little dense in the middle, but not at all like the hockey pucks most GF folks are used to. These were a big hit with everyone!

Biggy's Sweet Potato Casserole
The only change we made was to cook it in the CrockPot. About 20 minutes in, we added the mini marshmallows so they could melt. Yum.

Honey Glazed Carrots
We used regular carrots and cut them up into circles. A simple, yet flavorful dish.

Green Beans Almondine
Perfect as is.

Mashed potatoes were made by my sister-in-law. I don't know what she did or how she did it, but they rocked!

Recipe time!

I have had luck with a couple of recipes recently that I wanted to share.

Pulled Pork
Let me give you background on this one. I had a recipe for pulled pork sandwiches that I wasn't all that crazy about (too much brown sugar and ketchup made it really sweet). I wanted to try it again, but I couldn't find a recipe that I liked. So, I turned to the BBQ extraordinaire, NukeDad, and asked what he had in his arsenal. He didn't have one of his own, but he sent me to this pulled pork recipe. Go ahead and take a gander at those lovely pictures. *drool*
My only changes were brining for 12+ hours and using my CrockPot instead of the oven (on high for 6 hours).
This recipe will be etched in stone and saved for all eternity in this household. It's that good.

Egg Salad
This one I can actually take credit for (which, as someone who is just getting into this cooking thing, makes me really happy).
Background: There is (was?) a little coffee shop/deli near my fosterdad's work that would serve the most YUMMY egg salad sandwiches ever. I interned at his office for a while and used to get that for lunch most days. The trick was to either get there just as lunch was being served or call ahead to have it waiting for you. They would only make so much egg salad and once it was gone for the day - it was gone.
I have no idea why, but I had a craving for it the other day. So I turned on my laptop to see how difficult it was to make. Most recipes I found had the basic ingredients of eggs, mayo, mustard, salt & pepper. Sounded simple enough to tweak.

Because I was so in love with what I made, I wanted to share it with you all.

(Pickle on the side. Toasted Udi's bread. Heaven)

Recipe:
6 jumbo eggs, hard boiled and peeled
4 tablespoons mayonnaise (the real stuff...not that low fat tasteless excuse for mayo)
1 teaspoon horseradish mustard
1 teaspoon yellow mustard
4-5 drops of Frank's Red Hot (or more if you're feeling saucy...)
Dash of celery salt
Dash of freshly cracked pepper

Directions:
Are you clueless on how to hard boil eggs? Go to the American Egg Board and look up their recipe. These people know what they are talking about (much more than I do).

Now, chop up the cooked eggs (to your preferred texture) and put in a bowl. Add 2 Tbsp of the mayo, horseradish mustard, yellow mustard, and the Frank's Red Hot. Add the celery salt and pepper. Add the rest of the mayo if you feel it needs it (I certainly did).

I probably would have added a little celery for a bit of crunch, but we were out. Oh well...it was still yummy.

Random #20

I've decided not to give my Random posts a name other than "Random #[insert current number here]"...because when the fancy strikes me, it's never on the day I schedule. I am assigning the arbitrary number of 20, because I don't want to go back and count what actual random day we are on. So, # 20 here we go:

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I think I should start with a confession. I've had two beers. An amount that typically has no effect on me, but tonight (as I am writing this on Tuesday night. Don't worry, I'm not a morning boozer) I feel like I've consumed a whole bottle of wine...and a few shots. Let the par-tay begin!

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This past winter, we had to move around our living room furniture to accommodate our Christmas tree. This meant the TV stand (with receiver, record player, CD player, and Wii) collected dust in a corner of our tiny bedroom...until now. Today I moved it back to the living room - but that meant I had to move the big couch, the little couch, and the ridiculously heavy coffee table (I think it was originally intended for a Wookie frat house). And since Peanut's birthday party is a mere 11 days away, I figured the crap collecting desk dining room table could go to the basement now. Though, I'm saving that big project for when ShankRabbit can help. Peanut doesn't know how to dial 911 just yet.

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I made a kick-butt pork roast today.
*looks to see what part of the pig a pork roast comes from...after 5 minutes of searching, realizes it said "shoulder" on the packaging. Saddened I cannot make intended butt / rump joke*
And because I like you, here is the recipe (I would love to give credit where credit is due, but I can't remember where it came from):

Plagiarism Pork Roast
1 pork roast (4-5 pounds)
1 garlic clove, halved lengthwise
salt
pepper
1/4 c. maple syrup
1/4 c. brown sugar
1 Tbsp corn starch
1 Tbsp Dijon mustard (I used what I had on hand: Jack Daniels horseradish mustard)
*optional* about a 1/4 tsp of Sriracha...because we put it on practically everything in our house.

Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Rub roast with garlic and discard the clove halves when done. Sprinkle salt and pepper over roast. Put on rack and bake for 2 hours (this is where I got creative with a metal wok rack and a Pyrex baking dish. Worked great!). Mix rest of ingredients together and cover the roast with it. Bake for an additional 30-45 minutes or until the internal temperature reads 155 degrees. Let rest 10 minutes before slicing. Supposedly serves 6 (bahahaha...more like 3-4).

For feeling like I'm buzzin' I did an AMAZING job at recalling all the details of this recipe with no visual assistance.
I better re-read this tomorrow and make sure I didn't just give you a recipe for a shepherd's pie truffle. Or feet.


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I use the oven a lot. You'd think with all the baking and cooking I do, I'd remember to preheat the darn thing - especially when the first direction is always "preheat the oven to..."
I forget every time.

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ShankRabbit is at his desk, playing a computer game. I stretch and without missing a beat he says, "SOOOO BIG!"
Can you tell we have a kid?

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Leave a comment on Code Monkey Daddy's blog to enter the "Song About You" contest. No purchase necessary.

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Dance Party Time!
(Have no idea what I'm referring to?...read the bottom of this post)

Artist/Band: New Radicals
Song Title: You Get What You Give
Kid-friendly?: Sorta...there is one swear at the end of the song