Here’s a fun side project I did with my 6 year old daughter. Tis the season for gingerbread houses! This is a mini-review of a couple sets of instructions I downloaded and lots of pictures. Enjoy!
Thanksgiving Dinner Menu
Hi everyone! Today is Thanksgiving here in America, and I am planning some delicious and traditional dishes for our dinner later on today. Here’s our menu:
Roasted Butterball turkey
Green Bean Casserole
Stuffing
Mashed potatoes
Biscuits
Cranberry sauce – two kinds
Gravy
Wine
Sparkling cider
I chose a Butterball turkey because I have always had good luck with that brand. The smallest one my store had was an 18 pounder, so we will have plenty of leftovers! This year I will roast it, but I think next year I am going to try a deep fried turkey. My cousin has been deep frying turkey for several years and I hear it is delicious. An 18 pound turkey should cook 3 to 3 1/2 hours, so right around noon I’ll be sliding that baby in the oven. Oh delish!
The green bean casserole is an American tradition straight out of the 1950s. I had never had it until a friend encouraged me to try it a couple years ago. It really is good! I make mine with fresh green beans instead of canned for the most flavor.
Stuffing can be anything from cornbread to stale white bread, and I have made both. This year I will be making a white bread stuffing with sage, celery, onion, garlic and sausage. I precook Jimmy Dean brand breakfast sausage that comes in the 1 pound roll, then set aside. After the stuffing is cooking, I blend in the sausage. I do not stuff the turkey, so the sausage is served in a pretty dish right from the oven, nice and toasty with a bit of crust on top. Mmmm.
Mashed potatoes are hard to mess up. I like to use Idaho Gold potatoes because they are softer and blend nicely. For just my little family I would make garlic mashed potatoes, but a few of the adults coming tonight do not like garlic. So I will make standard mashed potatoes to be topped how each person likes them – mine with gravy!
Some people like dinner rolls, I like biscuits because they are softer. I have never liked hard crusty bread either because it hurts my teeth. :-)
Yesterday I made an apple-cranberry sauce based on my grandmother’s recipe. I subbed on finely chopped Gala apple (honey crisp would be good too) for one cup of sugar. The resulting sauce is sweet but still nicely tart. This is going to be wonderful with the turkey. I also serve jellied cranberry by Oceanspray because some people don’t like the chunky kind.
I admit it. I am a failure with gravy. However, my mother in law makes the gravy every year and is very good with it! Her gravy is always smooth and flavorful. My mouth is watering just thinking of it.
We will have Chardonnay and Sauvignon Blanc because that is what we like to drink, and Martinelli’s sparkling cider for the kiddies.
Whatever you find on your menu this Thanksgiving, I hope you have a lovely day of good food, good company, and many blessings!
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Goose Recipe
Here is an incredibly vague “recipe” of how to prepare goose. From everything I have read for this post, a goose is either the easiest bird to cook or the most difficult. You do not roast it as you would a turkey or chicken, but maybe you could roast in a similar fashion to a turkey or chicken. Some recipes say breast up, others say breast down! There does not seem to be a happy medium on opinions.
In a very general sense, the goose is browned, then stuffed and roasted. That appears to be the similarity in most of the methods I read. This little note appears to be for a method in which the goose is cut apart, then browned and roasted with the soup or broth. The apples and/or other fruits are added toward the end of cooking.
Being as a Christmas goose is more known as being a British meal, this link will take you to Gordon Ramsey’s method for roast goose.
Here’s a link to a method created by an experienced hunter that cuts the goose apart during cooking.
All seem to agree the meal is delicious and worth the effort. In the spirit of American Thanksgiving tomorrow, I hope whichever bird you decide to roast, bake, deep fry or otherwise prepare and serve tastes delicious and you enjoy a lovely time with family and friends!
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Wild Rabbit
The recipe can’t be *that old* considering it is on a yellow legal paper, but rabbit is not among the most common meats available these days. It enjoyed a renaissance of sorts in the 1970s as an alternative to chicken. Game meats such as rabbit are often more lean and higher in protein than our standard fare of chicken, turkey, pork and beef that is factory farmed for mass consumption. I remember my mother prepared rabbit like fried chicken and it was quite good.
Wild Rabbit
Brown rabbit in oleo and salt port (cut in cubes) on top of stove. Season lightly with salt & pepper.
After browning put rabbit in roaster. Add pan drippings & salt pork pieces. Cut up whole garlic (about 1 clove to 6 pieces of rabbit). Sprinkle about 1/2 tsp rosemary and one envelope Lipton onion-mushroom soup mix. Cover with water & roast slow all day in 225 oven in covered roaster.
Every so often check to make sure juice isn’t cooked down.
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Rye Bread
I often think that the more worn a recipe is, the more beloved it was. This well used note with the rye bread recipe appears to have been a note between friends, as it includes some words of advice on the method and “good luck” at the end!
Rye Bread
Place in a bowl or large kettle the following:
1 qt of very warm water
2 heap tablespoons lard
1 tablespoon salt
4 tablespoons sugar
4 tablespoons dark molasses – Aunt Dinah brand
4 cups medium rye flour
4 cups Post 40 pct Bran Flakes
2 pkg dry yeast dissolved in 3/4 cup warm (not hot) water
Mix and add white flour until stiff. Scrape out onto bread board or table top and kneed adding flour til it gets quite hard. Make into large ball, grease bowl and place dough in it. Cover with towel, put in a warm (not hot) place, let raise about 1 hour. Punch down and let it rise again. Then make it into 4 loaves. If you have large enough baking pan to hold 4 or place it in several pans. Grease each one and if more than one put some lard in between loaves. Cover with towel and let it rise until 1/2 inch over rim of pans. Bake in preheated oven 375 for 15 min then lower it to 350 for 45 min more. Watch it. Cool and wrap in waxed paper or bags, put some in freezer. Keeps a long time. This kind of bread molds if kept in too warm place. I keep my extra loaves in the refrigerator. Use only the Post Bran Flakes and the darkest molasses sometimes called black strap (Briar Rabbit is too moist). Good luck.
Gram's Recipe Box 