Thanksgiving Eve

Here we are at the Wednesday before Thanksgiving, the day on which households across America are filled with the smells and sounds of pre-Turkey Day preparations. Watching my mother-in-law is like watching a machine as she bakes the holiday pies and breads while she simultaneously prepares tonight’s dinner. Her level of multi-tasking is far ahead of my own, so I take the easier job of preparing one pie (see future blog post for the recipe).

I don’t know about you, but I always feel like the more I cook the hungrier I get. I love to snack while I’m baking, and snacking on chocolate chips intended for the pie isn’t exactly the best way to combat holiday weight gain…

One of my favorite snacks is my mom’s famous Toffee Apple Dip. It can shine at a party or be a great treat to snack on throughout the day. I always feel good about myself when I’m eating it because I feel healthy eating apples…I just ignore the fact that the dip contains sugar, brown sugar, and toffee bits…

So here’s the recipe for my mother’s amazing Apple Dip (seriously, its amazing):

Ingredients:

8 oz package of cream cheese, softened

3/4 cup of brown sugar

1/2 cup of sugar

1 pkg of bits of brickle toffee (optional, but I love it)

1 can of pineapple or lemon juice

2-3 Apples

How to:

Combine softened cream cheese, brown sugar, sugar, and toffee in a mixer or large mixing bowl and mix until well blended.

Slice apples thinly and dip in pineapple or lemon juice to prevent browning, blot dry, and set on serving plate.

She's everywhere...

Serve and enjoy! Refrigerate dip if you don’t devour the whole thing first.

Have a wonderful Thanksgiving and enjoy time with those you are thankful for!

Here Come the Holidays

The holidays are just around the corner and boy do I know it. As a part of my job with Oxmoor House publishing, I have been working on the sets for Christmas with Southern Living 2014 edition. Essentially, we turn a different home in Birmingham into a different Christmas theme every week. So while you may complain about eager Christmas lovers decorating before Thanksgiving, we started before Halloween.

 

My wrapping skills have been tested lately..

All the same, my love for the holiday season cannot be squelched by an overkill of Christmas décor. I can’t wait for the Friday after Thanksgiving, not for the deals but for the right to finally play Christmas music without the groans from my husband.

Thanksgiving, however, cannot be ignored. It is, believe it or not, my favorite holiday. I love family and I LOVE turkey, so any day that includes both is a good day in my book. This year we are spending Thanksgiving with Eric’s family in St. Louis, and thanks to my job and Eric’s class schedule, we are here for the whole week! We love being able to spend time in St. Louis; it’s like a vacation for us since we are rarely able to make the drive. 

Getting the two dogs together has been the most entertaining part of our trip so far. Eric’s family dog, Finn, is a good thirty pounds heavier than Lucy and a year older, but he acts like a goofy puppy around her. Lucy has taken on her role of annoying little sister and has enjoyed stealing Finn’s toys and parading them in front of his face.

It's a little colder in St. Louis than in Birmingham...

I’m excited about spending Thanksgiving with Eric’s family because I will experience something I never have before, a different family’s holiday traditions. Every family, it seems, has a somewhat concrete menu they have established over the years for Thanksgiving. This year, while I will miss some things about my family’s day (including getting to see my cousins and grandparents), I will enjoy the new things that come with spending holidays with new family. That includes FINALLY having pumpkin baked goods for Thanksgiving.

Now before I ramble on about more traditions (you will get enough of that in December), let me share with you one of my favorite holiday staples. These seemingly ordinary ham sandwiches are a classic in my family’s house around the holidays, especially when company is over. We made this when we visited my parents a week ago and the whole family loved them. If you’re looking for a small lunch or dinner to satisfy your guests before or after a big meal, this is the perfect solution. (Recipe adapted from Plain Chicken)

What you'll need:

- 1 package of Hawaiian Sweet Rolls

- 1/2 - 1lb of deli ham

- 1 package of sliced provolone cheese

- 1/2 cup of butter

- 2 Tbsp brown sugar

- 1 Tbsp yellow mustard

- 1 Tbsp Worcestershire sauce

- 1 Tbsp poppy seeds

How to:

Preheat the oven to 350. 

Keeping the rolls connected, slice the dozen in half and remove the top half. Lay the ham and cheese sliced on the bottom half of the rolls and replace the top half. Place in a 9 x 13 pan.

In a small sauce pan, melt the butter, brown sugar, yellow mustard, worcestershire sauce, and poppy seeds. Once it is boiling, pour over the ham buns. Put in oven for 20 to 30 minutes until browned.

Lucy loves to help (photo cred to my dad for capturing this)

Soup Weather is Here

It’s finally here. The first day of freezing in Alabama. And by freezing I mean high of 50 and windy. However, combine that with a wind chill of 40 and a dog that is too interested in watching the leaves scatter than in doing her business and you have one miserable me. I should probably mention that I also nixed the coat, because my stubborn Northern upbringing often tries to cancel out my Southern exposure tolerance….

Tonight is one of those nights where I just want to come home and make something quick and warm for dinner to get that chill out of my bones. The less time I have to spend out of my cuddly blankets the better. Tonight is the perfect night for one of my family’s go-to soup recipes: Tortellini soup.

This soup is not only great on a cold night, but can really be served in any season. It’s perfect for a newly married couple like us because it only has three ingredients and can be saved and eaten for lunch the next day!

Here’s what you’ll need:

1 (20 oz.) package of three-cheese tortellini (you can really buy any flavor your want, we just love the three-cheese Buitoni tortellini)

2 (14.5 oz.) cans of diced tomatoes with oregano, basil and garlic seasonings (we use Hunts, but it is also available in other brands)

1 (32 oz.) container of chicken broth

Easy as 1,2,3…

Pour chicken broth and tomatoes into a stockpot and heat on med-high heat until it begins to bubble. Then add tortellini and continue to cook at med-high for 5 minutes or until the tortellini is plump and tender.

This soup goes great with a little Parmesan on top and garlic bread on the side! Stay warm friends!

Slow Cooker Snacking

Living on a budget is great, because it forces me to cut out the excess amount of snacking of which I have grown so accustomed. Eric says I eat like a bird, but in truth it is because I snack like a squirrel storing up for winter... often and excessively... so much that I am hardly ever hungry for dinner.

In order to continue this bad habit in a more cost efficient way, I've decided to try making one of my favorite snacks from scratch instead of buying it already made in the store. If you were to guess, you might think I was making potato chips, or maybe a healthy fruit and veggie dip. And while those are both good options, I would have to disappoint you and perhaps surprise you with my comfort snack of choice:
Boiled. Peanuts.
Not roasted, not salted (yet), not mixed with raisins and chocolate. Boiled.

Boiled Peanuts Poster

If you have never ventured off the interstate south of the Mason Dixon, you might be completely bewildered by the thought of boiling peanuts. For those of you who have, however, you know that boiled peanuts are a roadside staple in the South.

I have loved this salty snack since before I can remember. The twelve long years my family lived away from Georgia, I had minor withdrawals. So much that my mom had boiled peanuts shipped to Chicago for my birthday one year. Eric and I even had boiled peanuts at our wedding! Not that Eric enjoyed that, he claims to be disgusted by them, but lucky for him I love him enough to overlook that detail.

While boiling peanuts is nearly as easy as it sounds, it requires the right ratio of salt to peanut to water. And there's also the matter of boiling them for the right amount of time... and in our case, that's 18 hours in the crock pot. This might seem like a long time, but if you start them before bed, they'll be done in time to enjoy after work the next day! And the more tender the peanuts are, the better they taste, I promise.

Ingredients:

• 1.5 lb of green peanuts (make sure they are green, or raw, and not roasted)
• 1/2 to 3/4 cup of salt
• 12 cups of water

How to:

Wash the peanuts and submerge in 12 cups of water in a 6 qt. crock pot. Pour salt in crock pot and cook on high for 18 hours. When complete, drain and serve!

Leftover peanuts may be refrigerated and warmed up in the microwave.

So there you have it. An authentic Southern snack to warm you up on these increasingly chilly November days! Stay tuned in the coming week for some great Fall dinner options, on a budget!

P.S.

In honor of the month of Giving Thanks, my November motto to live by is:

Give Love, Give Grace, Give Food (see where I'm going with this?)

Help me celebrate a month of giving by giving back to those around you! All it takes is a kind word or a little patience with that difficult person at work or school, even giving back by serving food to those in need! Because giving is what the holidays are really all about.