Recipe #162: Garlic Herb Mashed Potatoes

You need:
5-6 potatoes, peeled and cut into big chunks
1 cup sour cream
1 Tbsp minced garlic
pinches (or more!) of rosemary and thyme

• boil potatoes until soft
• mix up garlic and herbs in the sour cream
• Pour out water and mash potatoes up
• add sour cream mixture and stir until smooth

Recipe #161: Gravy

• Transfer juice from turkey into a pan.
• Make a mixture of flour and water (equal parts)
• add to juice over low heat
• continue to stir until gravy thickens
• you made need to keep making the flour mixture
• 
  

Recipe #160: Stuffing

I love my mom's stuffing. Love it! She has used this one for a long time, I think it is from the Betty Crocker cookbook.

You need:
3/4 cup minced onion
1 1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup margarine
9 cups bread cubes (I used whole wheat)
2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp crushed sage leaves
1 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp pepper

• In a large skillet cook and stir onion and celery in butter until onion is tender. add spices
• stir in bread.
• stuff turkey just before roasting
• makes 9 cups enough for 12 lb turkey (I doubled the recipe)

Recipe #159: Turkey

You need:
Turkey
Stuffing recipe
Oil

• Take out all the inside stuff (of course) :)
• before baking baste with oil.
• use little skewers to keep wings closed over body, 
• put stuffing in turkey and cover with foil so it doesn't fall out.
• bake at 325 for however long the package says. 
• If the skin is browning too quickly cover with foil tent
• Allow to sit for 20 minutes or so before cutting to let juices settle

Thanksgiving Dinner

I know, that was a week ago, but life never stops moving and with some of my precious moments of time left over I was too tired to do anything!

Here is a picture of my plate. it might not look like much, but it turned out pretty good!

Recipe #159: Turkey
Recipe #160: Stuffing
Recipe #161: Gravy
Recipe #162: Garlic Herb Mashed Potatoes
Apple Sauce

Desserts coming soon as well as Turkey leftover recipes (for your next thanksgiving! :) )

Side Dish #13: Felt Christmas Trees

So on a rainy Sunday with a restless almost one year old, I decided to try out this felt christmas tree I found on pinterest. The original post is found here. I am not at all one for decorating before Thanksgiving, but I had just picked up the felt at michaels and was eager to make it! :) Michaels has large felt pieces for 4 dollars, and then using some more felt I bought, and other colors I already had, this was about a $5 project!
The original had ornaments with letters and such, but I was more into a 10 minute project so decided to focus on SHAPES this year with Alex...we can add letters later! :)
The creases on the big green felt made it easy to make an outline for the tree. I still need to attach the brown trunk on the bottom. I also need to figure out how to attach it better to the door. Alex tore it down just about as quickly as he took off the felt ornaments!

 Perfect Alex size!

(do not make fun of my star! I need to fix it!)

He doesn't really put ornaments back up, but he is certainly a pro at taking them off in record time!

I think that is what is making me nervous about putting a real tree up! :)

And suggestions for how to keep it up would be great! the 3M strips did not work! :(

Recipe #158: I wish I could make sasami cheezu... :)

I don't know what made me think of it, but when i was in high school we used to love going to this bento shop and the lady made this obento that has rice, some sides and this fried chicken that had cheese it in...it was so fun and so cheap. "Fast" food in Japan is so much healthier then it is here! I wish for convenient stores that would have delicious obentos or onigiris that were so fast and delicious, the rows of milk coffees and teas to choose from offered nice alternatives to soft drinks, it is so nice.

Anyways, we have to Chinese guys staying with us and so i figured rice and chicken would be a safe bet and in the process decided to see if I could recreate sasami cheezu... not really. oh well. But the chicken and rice were a hit so that was good!

You need:
3 chicken breasts cut into smaller strips
oil for frying
flour
eggs beaten
panko

• heat oil in a large frying pan so that bottom 1/2 inch is covered.
• dip chicken first in flour, eggs then panko so it is thoroughly coated by each one.
• fry until golden brown on both sides.
• if you are adding cheese i tried shredded which was probably part of the problem, but after I dipped the chicken in the flour and egg I rolled it in the cheese and then the panko. That really didn't work. Will didn't even taste it, we will keep trying!