Wednesday, November 26, 2008

Thanksgiving Preparations

I spent most of the day in our warm kitchen preparing the baked goods for tomorrow's Thanksgiving dinner. Usually I like to throw in a few new recipes/ingredients, but this year I am sticking with our customary fare.

I made two pumpkin pies complete with "leaf" decoration.

I use the recipe from the Libby's pumpkin can as I find it has the best combination of spices. Most recipes call for nutmeg in the custard, but for some reason I find it doesn't mesh well with the other spices (cinnamon, ginger, and cloves) in the pumpkin pie.

Confession: The other day I made a pumpkin pie using a different brand of canned pumpkin. I was in a hurry so I used the recipe on the back of the can. Not paying too much attention, I was throwing all of the ingredients into the bowl... the spices, pumpkin, evap milk. But because I didn't read the recipe carefully, I missed the fact it was supposed to be sweetened condensed milk. Therefore, that pie was sans sugar. Good, but not really dessert-like. Oops.

I was paranoid today about the sugar. No worries; this time around there is SUGAR!


My other traditional endeavor, which I decided to carry on this year, was two loaves of herb-braid bread.

My friend, Emma, taught me how to make these beautiful, regal loaves in college and I've been creating them for our Thanksgiving feasts ever since. The bread has dried rosemary, thyme and marjoram. I find it quite delectable. They are the only yeast breads that I can ever pull off successfully.


I have to share my lunch today.




It was a sweet potato topped with cottage cheese and cinnamon!


I've been watching Jenna over at Eat, Live, Run lunch on these for the past week and I decided it was imperative that I try it considering it contained two of my favorite ingredients: sweet potatoes and cinnamon! I was hesitant at first because I am not a huge fan of cottage cheese, but with the cinnamon on top, it was out of this world! (I even ate a little extra cottage cheese after I finished the potato garnished with some cinnamon. I suppose cinnamon makes everything taste stupendous! ;-))

It is SO easy to make:
The sweet potato bakes in the oven for about an hour or in the microwave for about 6 minutes...but make sure and poke some holes on top first! Then slice into the skin and stuff it with some wholesome cottage cheese...and don't forget the cinnamon!

3 comments:

Unknown said...

I don't know...is that sanitary because it looks a bit questionable to me...

Okay, so, I joke and I most certainly don't question your sanitation methods, but the mere thought of those three ingredients together is somewhat repulsive. And the texture...that's a whole other story... :p

Christine said...

Your pies look really nice! I like the idea of a braided loaf, it's a nice change from rolls and it's even more decorative.

I like nutmeg, but it can overwhelm the other spices if you use too much. It's one of those spices, like the zest of an orange, that I tend to want to use in more things than I need to. Nothing beats a mug of milk with freshly grated nutmeg, though!

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving!

Student Nurse said...

Those braids are gorgeous. You'll have to show me how to do it. I do a spinach dip wreath something like that. You would like that. I'll have to copy that recipe for you.