Thanksgiving trial run

I decided I wanted a roasted chicken and fixings for dinner on Sunday so I went to the local grocery store to take advantage of BOGO roasting chickens.

First, I made a stuffing to stuff the chicken - bread cubes, celery, onion, and what turned out to be gross chicken stock (I made it from the chicken neck and other innards, it tasted yucky but I didn't know that until after the fact)


Here is the lovely pale chicken in its too small roasting pan, resting on a bed of onions, garlic, and celery.



A "spice" mix of salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning and the olive oil to baste the chicken


A side dish of asparagus is oiled, salted, peppered and awaiting the oven.


Here's the manhandled carved turkey (there was an incident with the carving). Mashed potatoes in the background, asparagus on the side.


A lovely plate of ok chicken, good potatoes, yucky stuffing, and fine asparagus.


All in all, it was an OK meal. Not great. The chicken tasted a bit weird, the stuffing was gross due to that nasty broth. The veg were fine. The gravy was fine.

Must work on my A game before Thanksgiving!

Pumpkin gooey butter cake!

Mmm. Fall. Fall means pumpkin stuff, including pumpkin gooey butter cake. I heart Paula Deen and her excessive use of butter.

Mix one box of yellow cake mix, one melted stick of butter, and one egg and press into the bottom of your baking dish:


Then mix a bar of cream cheese, 15 oz or so of pumpkin, 1 POUND of powdered sugar (I opted for slightly less), 3 eggs, some cinnamon, some nutmeg, and guess what? another stick of melted butter. This is an example of why you should really let your cream cheese soften before mixing - it tastes fine, but has little unsightly lumps of cream cheese. Pour over crust.


Bake the lot at 350 degrees for an hour or so. The recipe says 50 minutes, but I'm sorry, I don't like practically raw cake. I probably, all told, let this one got closer to 75 minutes. And it is still pretty gooey.


Decoratively top with squirty whipped cream. I went a bit overboard, but I don't care, it tasted good.

Beef beef and more beef!

When I went to Buffalo a few weeks ago, Miss M's parents made delicious beef shish-ka-bobs. As in, I couldn't stop eating meat good. I'm not a huge meat fan - I only really make it because Mr. R enjoys it so much. I'd go weeks without meat, probably, if given the choice. But I digress. This marinade was fabulous.

I took a London broil, and put it in said marinade (apple cider vinegar, soy sauce, ketchup, salt, pepper, garlic powder, Worcestershire) and let it sit for 2 days (oops, I didn't plan well) Then Mr. R grilled it.



Sliced it up and served with some mushrooms/peppers that will cooked on a high heat in the oven - roasted, I guess is what you'd say. And rice with green onion. Yum!

Steak and potatoes (sort of)

So, Mrs. Elle and I ventured to the lovely and strange MR. MEATBALL store on Saturday morning. Along with 5 lbs of meatballs, I bought a package of frozen gnocchi. I was very excited to try it ASAP, so I dug out some old filet from the freezer and decided to serve the gnocchi with a tomato-vodka sauce. Fancy, right?

Here's the meat - salted/peppered/awaiting the grill (sort of strange shapes of filet)


And lovely homemade marinara sauce, warming up

AWAITING THE VODKA! And there we go (classy, eh?)

Meanwhile, I got the gnocchi percolating in salted water


Once tender, I added them to the sauce

Ooops, forgot to add some cream to the sauce - added that in


Then cheese, a big handful


And the steaks are ready, thanks Mr. R.


And there we go - with more carbs in the form of garlic bread (I can eat that morning, noon, and night). The steak looks a little crispy there, it got slightly blackened on the outside, but was fairly red inside.

The gnocchi were lovely. I want more now.

Homemade applesauce

I went to Buffalo for a no-purpose visit last weekend. As part of our weekend of eating lovely food and drinking lovely beer, we also went apple picking at Becker Farms with Mrs. K and her lovely daughters and Mr. & Mrs. M&A and their lovely baby. I believe a good time was had by all, I particularly enjoying getting to PET GOATS! They were super cute. I loved them. I wanted to take one home. However, I don't think Miss M's mom and dad would have liked that. Oh well.

Anyways, I ended up with a half-bushel of apples, so now I'm finally getting around to doing something with them. I peeled/sliced/froze about 1/3 of the apples I picked, and I took another 8 of them last night and made applesauce. I wanted applesauce that was the same as the applesauce Miss M's mother had made on Saturday night because it was A-MAZ-ING! So, I did my best and it was pretty darn good, I must say.

First, 8 large apples were peeled and chopped and put into a pan with about a half inch of water. I had the heat on around medium to medium-high

Then, because I can't help myself, I added a pinch of salt.


After about 10 minutes, the apples were ROILING in the pan. So I turned it down a bit.


This was after 20 minutes - I decided that was long enough, they were very soft. I probably could have gone with 15 minutes.


Miss M's mother uses a food mill, but I don't have one, so I mashed the apples with a potato masher to get some good texture. I then added about 2/3 c brown sugar and close to 2 tsp cinnamon. I heart cinnamon.


And there you have it. There were still a few big lumps of apple, but they are soft, and I don't mind. It had good texture otherwise. And was VERY tasty - much better than jarred sauce. I cannot wait to serve it with pork this weekend!

Chicken casserole - blast from the past

I had a sudden craving for my grandmother's chicken casserole this week - so I hopped to it and made it.

As so many recipes start out, I sauteed some celery and onions in a pan - eventually seasoning with salt, pepper, and a tiny bit of poultry seasoning for kicks.


Meanwhile, the crowning glory and glue of all casseroles, cream of whatever soups - in my case a can each of chicken and mushroom. So appetizing to view, right?


I took about 1.2 lbs of chicken and roasted it with a bit of salt and pepper, then cubed it for the casserole. The softened celery and onion went in the bowl as well.


And a VERY generous gloop of Miracle Whip - the tangy zip makes the casserole. Even if you hate Miracle Whip, you shouldn't shy away from a recipe like this, it adds good flavor.

I added in some frozen peas then dished the mixture between two casserole dishes.


Do not, repeat, do NOT omit the crunchy topping - cornflakes and sliced almonds mixed with some melted butter.


Bake at 375 degrees until browned and bubbly. I put foil over the top for the last 15 minutes or so to prevent the top from overbrowning.

Mmm. A childhood (and adulthood) favorite. I'm done with summer - onto the season of soups, stews, and warming casseroles. I may try my hand at the much-maligned tater tot casserole in the future - there's something very appealing to be about using tots in a meal...