OT what's cooking?

:Heh. There are only six of us, but it's darn hard to get everyone together for Thanksgiving, especially with two shift nurses in the mix. We have tickets (2nd row!) to see the musical Little House on the Prairie with Melissa Gilbert on Sunday. We're all going, then going out to a favorite restaurant afterwards. And it shall be called "Thanksgiving." They're working on the real turkey day.

Sherry

We have a couple of shift nurses in our mix too. I hope everyone will remember them in our blessings we are truly thankful for. Polly ( or 'for which we are truly thankful if there's a grammarian here tonight.)

"Sherry" Heh. There are only six of us, but it's darn hard to get everyone together for Thanksgiving, especially with two shift nurses in the mix. We have tickets (2nd row!) to see the musical Little House on the Prairie with Melissa Gilbert on Sunday. We're all going, then going out to a favorite restaurant afterwards. And it shall be called "Thanksgiving." They're working on the real turkey day.

Sherry

Monday I will bring down a neck punkin from the attic. Then peel, clean, cut it up, and get it in the pan with water and a dash of lemon juice. Tuesday I will cook it down and spice it up. Wednesday I will add milk and eggs and bake it into pies. When the pies are cool I will put 3 or four into the freezer, and carry one over to the elderly gentleman next door. Thursday we will eat at least one and a half, and a couple frozen ones will be sent home with DD1.

What is a neck punkin you ask? The best pie punkin on the face of the planet!

It is not every year that I have one. I don't have room to grow them and have to depend upon the kindness of relatives.

This will be a fancy feast year. We have sunflower seed and pine nuts to put in the stuffing (baked in a pan with no turkey in sight), lingon berries to put with the cranberries, dragon's tongue beans, carefully kept late tomatos, and fresh green onions and fancy lettuces from the salad box in front of the window in my sewing room. I am going to experiment with some freeze dried pinapple and the sweet potatos, cross your fingers.

NightMist

Whaddaya know... I always thought those li'l pie punkins were sposed

2 B best. Learn sumpin' evry day around here - one of the perks of this place... Source says they're huge tho...

Now I'm > ...do you have any reminders for us?

I like cukes in sour cream, but I only have 'em once a year (a tradition from my childhood) so they're one of the things I take on personally. They can be tricky depending on how crispy/limp you like your 'cumbers. Variables include thickness of the slices, amt. of salt, setting time to remove excess water, and seasoning (if any). Just to complicate matters further, I seldom make anything exactly the same way twice, since I'm a seat-of-the-pants/mood chef. My recipes may be writ down, but they're all strictly just "guidelines". Nevertheless (and at the risk of yet another broken arm) I do pretty good in the kitchen (and it shows)... ;-)

Doc

We call those squash...cushaw. My granny in WVa used to grow them and I did also when I had a larger garden. They are The Best for pies. very flavorful!

Well, as I am cooking again this year, I decided to make a layered gingerbread/pumpkin trifle.

mmmm. Of course: Turkey with walnut/cranberry stuffing, mashed white potatoes and gravy (for dad), butternut squash with brown sugar and butter, greens salad, fresh green beans with almonds, roasted asparagus with olive oil and basil, fresh applesause, Italian wedding soup, pumpkins soup and Dessert as above, and pumpkin pie, pecan pie and apple pie... I have 15 ppl this yr. and we all love dessert!

I am making the youngin's clean up!

amy in CNY

On Wed, 18 Nov 2009 22:36:34 -0600, Polly Esther wrote (in article ):

I'm supposed to be making carrot casserole (an old recipe of my Grandma's), apple pie, and cranberries. (For NPR fans, we use a recipe that they usually put up this time of year, Mama Stamberg's pepto bismal pink cranberry relish. And it truly is pepto bismal pink)

Which reminds me, I need to check the freezer for the bag of cranberries David says is in there before I go to the store tomorrow.

Maureen

What a memory. We used to live in a house with a Pepto Bismal pink bathroom. It was so awful we should have just left it 'as is'. Everybody laughed when they saw it. Do I need to mention that the decorator even found pink peacock wallpaper? Polly

"Maureen Wozniak" I'm supposed to be making carrot casserole (an old recipe of my Grandma's),

Things are up in the air here. Dh had a second heart attack a few weeks ago and we have pretty much gone vegetarian. The fat has left the room so to speak. Last time we went through this I was really tough but I got lax on the eating and dr. says we can't do that. I have been surviving on my stash of leftover chocolate Halloween candies. ; )

This close to the holidays makes things a little more difficult than they would be. The KitchenAid mixer I ordered 5 weeks ago finally got here and has sat on the counter unused for two weeks. I called dibs on making the birthday cake for my dad's 85th bd this weekend though. : ) I miss fat but I am sure I would miss my dh more. Taria

Absolutely. And you neglected to include the color of the fixtures. Sounds like fitting decor for an edifice to the great porcelain god, Baru...

Doc

You can make a marvelous angel food cake with that new KitchenAid. Use really fine vanilla or almond flavoring; serve it with the yogurt that looks like ice cream, strawberries and a scoop of fat-free Cool Whip. The closest we get to fat is watching that crazy Paula Dean and her butter in everything but iced tea. Polly

Thanks Polly. I have been nosing around and found this one:

don't generally use mixes but it is a start.I am getting thin though all of this. There is always anupside. Dr. Oz would be so proud. LOLTaria

Sorry to hear that. Hope he's doing well.

No doubt. FWIW, you might check into ostrich meat. I'm intentionally omitting any links because I have found some discrepancies in "facts", so it would be better to do your own research and consult with his Drs. ;-)

Doc

Are you sure about the iced tea not having butter, Polly? ;) I think I'm going to have to begin watching my fat intake, too, since my cholesterol seems a bit higher than my doctor would like. :S

Taria, I hope your DH recovers quickly. {{{Hugs}}}

Taria, Hope your DH enjoys all the wonderful fat free things you cook for Thanksgiving! Barbara in Fl

Sorry, but Nuh-uh. Her recipe was coveted by many when she was alive. When she passed away, it was one thing we never found in the house. Five years later we moved to another house, and several years after that, we happened to be talking to a neighbor across the street and down a couple, and lo & behold, she knew my mom from church. She was sharing a bit, and mentioned that my mom gave her a recipe for rhubarb pie. I stopped dead in my tracks... could it be? She went inside and came out with a piece of paper. Sure enough, there in my mom's own handwriting was the recipe. I had to leave because I couldn't hold back (and it's kind of getting to me now). She offered me the paper, but I had to decline. If mom had given it to her, she meant her to have it, because she never gave it to anyone, AFAIK - not even my sister had it. We compromised and accepted a photocopy, so at least I have the copy in her handwriting. Sorry, but I know how "special" it was to mom - one of the only recipes that was truly hers and truly THAT good, (certain people are *still* asking about it 25 years later) and out of respect for her memory I just can't.

There are some original recipes of my own that I share, and some that I don't; I think most people are funny that way, though some won't admit it. Nobody gets my chocolate fudge recipe - it took decades to perfect, but if you're interested in my pizza eggs, well... contact me off-list. ;-)

Doc

Since Doc can't/won't part with his recipe, I'll share mine. Nothing fancy or special but just really good pie.

Rhubarb Pie (thanks to The Fannie Farmer Baking Book)

Pie dough for a nine inch 2 crust pie

1 1/2 C sugar 1/3 C flour pinch of salt 1/2 t vanilla 5 C rhubarb sliced into 1/4 - 1/2 inch pieces 2 T butter cut into small pieces

Preheat oven to 450 degrees

Line a 9 inch pie pan with half of the rolled out pastry dough. Roll out the other half for the top of the pie and set aside.

Stir together in a large bowl the sugar, flour, salt and vanilla. Add the rhubarb and stir well. Pile the filling into the pie pan and top with the butter pieces. Cover with top crust, trim edges and crimp the edges to seal. Cut vents in the top crust for steam to escape.

Bake pie for 15 minutes. Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for another 30 - 40 minutes. Pie should be golden brown and filling should be bubbling.

Strawberry - Rhubarb variation: Reduce rhubarb to 3 cups and add 2 cups sliced strawberries.

I'm not cooking a single thing except for roasted yams with marshmallow topping. A requirement for Thanksgiving. We only allow it in the house for that one meal a year. Several years ago it caught fire in the oven. Big, blazing, roaring out of the oven type fire. Extinguishers were used. Then we made it again. It's that good.

As for the rest of the meal -- my husband has decided that our sons are going to cook Thanksgiving dinner. Cook it, buy it, design it, talk their way out of it ..... whatever food (other than the above explained yams) will be their doing this year. They seem to have taken to the task. A bit. Neither of them likes turkey. The older one won't eat ham or beef. The younger one won't eat chicken anymore (he worked for a year at Kentucky Fried Chicken and now gags when he sees or smells chicken). My husband won't eat green veggies except for salad greens. It could be a very light dinner. All the better for eating heaps and heaps of roasted yams with marshmallow topping.

Sunny