A Nontraditional Thanksgiving Dinner

It was just the three of us at home this Thanksgiving;

so we decided to do things our way.

We had the traditional Thanksgiving dinner last Sunday

with the husband's family

and we will be having a

"Thanksgiving Leftover" themed tailgate this Saturday,

so we wanted to do something different for our family dinner

tonight.

First on the menu was Carrot Souffle.

1 pound Carrots    

 Salt (to taste)

½ cup Sugar                

1 teaspoon Vanilla
4 ounces Butter        

3 tablespoons Flour     

3 Eggs                      

1 teaspoon Baking Powder

1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg*

*Not shown and a new addition to the recipe.

Peel carrots.  Cut into 1 inch pieces and place in salted water and cook until tender.  I cooked these in the microwave for about six minutes or so. 

Meanwhile, add flour, baking powder and sugar to a blender or food processor.  Pulse to blend together.  Add the eggs and the vanilla. 

Melt the butter.  Add the drained carrots and the butter.  Blend or process, until smooth.

At this point I decided to add the grated nutmeg to the recipe.

The mixture is ready for the next step.

Pour into a greased 2 quart baking dish.  This goes into a 275 degree oven for 45 minutes.  Remember that this is a souffle, so it needs to be baked low and slow.

Forty-five minutes later and the souffle is done. 

The Foodie Daughter worked on the Pumpkin Muffins.

 

Makes: 2 dozen Mini Muffins and 1 dozen Regular size Muffins OR 4 dozen Mini Muffins

1 Cup + 2 TB    Brown Sugar

¼ Cup + 2 TB   Molasses

¾ Cup                Margarine (butter will not work)

1 ½                     Eggs (1 egg + yolk)

1 ½ Cups           Prepared Pumpkin (Pumpkin Puree not Pumpkin Pie Filling)

½ TB                  Baking Soda

2 Cups               Flour

¼ tsp                  Cinnamon

 Preheat oven to 400 degrees.

Cream the Brown Sugar, Molasses and Margarine together.

Add the Eggs, Pumpkin and Baking Soda.  (Dough will be a bit grainy)

Add the Flour in stages.

Add Cinnamon and mix well.

Put in muffin tins.

Bake Mini Muffins for about 8-12 minutes and Regular Muffins for about 15-17 minutes.

Check with a cake tester.  Let cool and Enjoy!

The large muffins are ready to go into the oven.

The mini muffins have just come out of the oven.

The mini muffins are ready to be served for dinner.

The main course for our nontraditional Thanksgiving Day dinner.

Rib eye steaks and gulf shrimp cooked on the grill.

Dinner is served.

Surf and turf, Carrot Souffle and creamed corn

with Pumpkin Muffins for dessert.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours

from the Foodie Family.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Enjoy the day

and remember to give thanks

for all that you have. 

And thank you for following me
on my foodie journey through life.

A Disappointing Thanksgiving Dinner

As is my wont, I had researched places to go, things to do and restaurants to eat at prior to our trip to Panama City Beach, Florida. One of the restaurants that I had picked for us to try seemed particularly promising. Besides being lauded as being one of the best restaurants in Panama City Beach, the centerpiece of the the Saltwater Grill Restaurant is a 25,000 gallon salt water aquarium. We decided to eat there on Thanksgiving Day, foregoing the traditional day’s dinner.

Well, that was the plan. Too bad the restaurant had other ideas. Upon being seated, we were informed that ordering off their extensive and tempting menu was not an option. We were instead directed to the impromptu buffet that had been set up in a corner of the dining room.

Now here is a cautionary tale for restaurateurs. Stick to what you know and to what you do best. If, for example, you are an upscale seafood and steak eatery, don’t try to suddenly become a common family buffet, serving foods that normally don’t appear on your menu. If your customers really wanted the traditional Thanksgiving Day fare they wouldn’t be venturing into your restaurant to begin with, now would they? No, of course not. They would be coming to you in order to escape the same old boring menu that can easily be found at the clichéd family restaurant/country store chain just down the street. If you do try to venture into these unfamiliar waters, the results will likely be less than spectacular and those customers who do dine with you on this occasion will probably be vastly disappointed with your food. So do yourself and your reputation a favor by playing to your strengths.

Now back to the matter at hand: perhaps we should have just left at this point, but we were playing the part of meek little mice (we have that role down pat, thank you very much), so we stayed. Obediently we made our way to the buffet to see just what our choices were.

A tossed salad and a Caesar salad started off the buffet. Lobster bisque (where’s the lobster?) and some other soup were up next. Roast beef to be carved by the attendant preceded the turkey, honey ham, mahi mahi with mango salsa and a vegetarian dish consisting of penne pasta in tomato sauce sitting in their chafing dishes, slowly drying out, diminishing into the sunset as they awaited the diners. Similarly, mashed potatoes, sweet potato casserole, corn, stuffing (made with chicken stock and thus off limits to me), corn and rice pilaf suffered the same ignominy.

Cranberry compote, pumpkin pie, pecan pie and pecan bread pudding finished off the buffet.

The ham was decent, but the mahi mahi might as well have dated from the time of the Pharaohs. That poor fish, which is one of the most expensive fish in our neck of the woods, was dry, dense and tasteless. The potatoes (both varieties) were dried out and would have been tossed if found in my kitchen. Fortunately, it is nearly impossible to ruin corn, even on a forsaken buffet.


In the end I would have to say that the bread pudding was by far the best item on the buffet that I tried that evening.

Sadly, this ultimately disappointing fare set us back $90 with tip and that was entirely too much money for a sad excuse of a meal for these admittedly cheap Yankees*. Now, I want to believe that this truly is a very nice restaurant, but this meal did not advertise this fact and indeed leads one to believe the opposite.

*Please understand that we have no problem with paying good money for exceptional fare, but this barely qualified as edible food in our book.

Restaurateurs, please heed my advice and don’t try to be what you are not. You can only hurt yourself in the process. Either do what you do proudly or close for the day and save your reputation.

I really cannot tell you how much writing this post hurt me as I hate to disparage anyone. I hope to return someday to Panama City Beach and perhaps learn firsthand that this truly is a great restaurant. Unfortunately, this trip did not prove that fact.

Turkey Day Preparations

Each year we travel to Ohio to celebrate Thanksgiving with my husband's family. As such, I need only prepare a few dishes, rather than an entire feast.

Ah, it is a beautiful, cold morning.

Time to get busy. Last evening I played sous chef for my daughter, who made Outrageous Brownies. This morning it was time to cut them and put them in a container for traveling.

Then it's on to the Broccoli, Bacon and Dried Cranberry Salad. I clean and chop broccoli, celery and red onion. Cooked bacon is chopped and added to the salad. Dried cranberries are tossed in. Mayonnaise, white vinegar and sugar are mixed to taste. The dressing is stirred into the salad. Two dishes down.

Being such a nice mom, I chopped some green onion and beef for my daughter, who will later be making the cheese ball.

After making the cheese ball, she worked on breakfast for tomorrow. The dear daughter made a double batch of pie dough and rolled it out. A bit of milk is spread out and sugar and cinnamon are generously sprinkled on top. She then carefully rolled the dough up along one long side before cutting the roll into 1/2 to 1-inch pieces. The rolls were placed, cut side up, in a greased baking dish and baked at 375 degrees for about 30 to 40 minutes. These rolls will never really brown, so watch carefully and pull them out of the oven when the dough has cooked through.

And here are the cinnamon rolls as well as our three dishes that will travel with us tomorrow.

And now, on to dinner. I still have a few pomegranate arils left over from earlier this month and decided that I would used these in a vinaigrette for my salad. Here I have black pepper, salt, white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil and the pomegranate arils.

First I push the arils through a sieve to extract the juice. The remaining pulp and seeds are discarded.

I then whisk in the olive oil and season with a bit of black pepper and salt. A splash of white wine vinegar is added to the mix.




After tasting, I decide to add a bit of honey.

Very nice. And this is just enough for one salad. My family is so relieved.

Well, dinner is finished, the kitchen has been cleaned and we are ready for our trip tomorrow.






And now I wish you all a very happy and safe Thanksgiving Day.

Happy Turkey Day!

Thanksgiving Day Treats

A couple of days ago, I promised an update on the preparations for Turkey Day. Your patience has finally been rewarded. My lovely daughter finished classes prior to Thanksgiving break and immediately set to work in the kitchen.

Kelley has the ingredients ready for pumpkin muffins. Our friend, Jen, graciously gave us this recipe.

Kelley begins the mixing process. Can I tell you that she is very meticulous about everything being just right?

She's mixing in the flour - slowly.

Now Kelley has decided to add cinnamon to the mixture.

After making 2 dozen mini muffins, Kelley makes some regular sized muffins.




The finished product. So tender and moist. What a terrific recipe!

Kelley is using all the space available for her mise en place for Snickerdoodle cookies.

The Snickerdoodles are being mixed together.




Kelley uses the classic method to shape her cookies. Meanwhile, I roll the balls in a cinnamon sugar mixture and place them on the baking sheets.




The cookies are baked to perfection.

Earlier, Kelley made a coffee cake. I missed the chance to document the process. This too was delicious and was eagerly devoured. My daughter made all of these dishes from scratch. I'm so lucky.

What was I doing during this time? Besides taking pictures, I acted as sous chef, readying ingredients and cleaning up after my daughter. Aside from that, my husband had volunteered my services to the bank where he works as they needed a bow for a 5 foot diameter wreath. As my first job included bow making - hundreds of bows - I am quite good at this. There are 30 ten-inch loops in this bow with 6 tails. This bow had to be made in two stages as my hand was cramping quite badly.

Later I prepared a garlic studded standing prime rib roast. The roast apparently got tired after cooking because it fell over.

Roasted Yukon Gold Potatoes accompanied the beef.