Thanksgiving has always been a pure excuse to cook for us. When we lived in the Boston area we would invite all the friends of ours who didn’t have family to go back to for the holidays (or who didn’t want to visit family, or whose family was too far away) and feed them a ton of food. It was great fun. Since we’ve moved away, it’s a smaller group—my husband and I, usually an old college friend of mine who comes to stay for a week or two, and a friend or two from the Maryland area.

This year, however, it was just the two of us. We weren’t about to let that stop us from cooking, of course, particularly seeing as we have holiday cookbooks to review! The one big change we made, however, was that instead of planning one big feast day, we made the various dishes whenever we felt like it over the long weekend, so we could take things slowly and enjoy ourselves.

Here’s what we made:

Before Thanksgiving day we made cranberry walnut scones, pumpkin pie, and cheddar rolls. These are all things that can be made ahead of time with no problem. All three recipes tasted amazing; the pie recipe had a few logistical errors, but that’ll come out when I review the cookbook soon.

We roasted a turkey, of course. We brined it as we always do—this contributes so much to a juicy, flavorful turkey that I can’t imagine not doing it now. Then we roasted it the Alton Brown way. This means half an hour in a “NASA-hot” oven (ie 500 degrees F), followed by putting a triangular foil ‘hat’ over the breast meat, and a temperature probe in the breast meat (not touching the bone), and reducing the temp to 350. The bird is done when the temperature probe indicates that the breast meat has reached safe temperature, about 165 F.

Why such a complicated method? Well, dark meat and white meat are safe at different temperatures. By the time the dark meat is safe, the white meat is usually overdone and dry. By tenting the white meat with foil, you end up with both types of meat done around the same time. The initial time in the super-hot oven then ensures an evenly, beautifully browned turkey, which you wouldn’t get if you kept the foil on the entire time.

We made a pear salad with chevre and pomegranate that was to-die-for; a four-bean salad with homemade robust Italian dressing; cheesy potatoes in milk; mushroom pancetta stuffing; sweet potato slices (oven-roasted with herbs, olive oil, seasonings, and orange zest—yum!); Mexican camp bread (wide, flat, pan-fried biscuits, essentially); date cupcakes with toffee filling and coconut frosting; green bean & bacon bundles; turkey dripping gravy; and apple & pear chutney.

My favorite dishes: pumpkin pie; cheddar rolls; stuffing; bean salad; sweet potatoes; pear salad; camp bread; cupcakes; chutney. The potatoes were a bit disappointing, and the green beans were overly greasy (at least the first night), but otherwise the rest of the dishes were quite good too. I’ll be able to review a handful of cookbooks quite soon!

Other things I’m working on and hope to make progress on this week: more T-shirt designs; a review of a book called Thirteen; playing some games (have I mentioned that I cannot WAIT until Pirates of the Burning Sea comes out?!); catching up with some blog reading; catching up with some email.

I hope everyone had a yummy weekend!

Cooking Addict
Lock up your kitchens!

When I review a cookbook I always make the dish as close as possible to the exact recipe—otherwise it wouldn’t be a true test of the cookbook. This is even the case when I’m pretty darn sure there’s a problem here.

The pumpkin pie recipe in the cookbook I’m using now looks delicious, and I have a feeling it’ll taste fantastic. That said, I looked at the ingredient list and said, “this makes two? No way this only makes two pies.” Still, I followed the recipe, because it’s a review book.

Now I have two very full deep-dish pies in the oven. I have a bowl of pumpkin custard waiting to go in. And I still have to figure out what I’m going to do with the remaining roughly one-pie’s-worth of filling. I may have to go around to the neighbors and see if anyone wants a spare pie!

Today’s book review is of Tan Twan Eng’s incredibly lovely and heartbreaking The Gift of Rain. I highly recommend it, even if you don’t usually like historicals. Go read the review… I honestly don’t know what I could say about it in a sentence or two.

Speaking of books…

If you’ve been wanting to pick up any of the writing- and reading-related designs from our Caffeinated Chicanery store, now’s the time! Cafepress sent me a “friends and family” discount coupon that can be used at the shop (fine print reads: “Excludes Gift Certificates, bulk orders, taxes and shipping fees. Cannot be combined with any other offers, discounts or coupons. Valid through November 27, 2007 at 11:59 p.m. (PST).”) for $15 off an order of $50 or more. The code is FRFAM2007. So if you’ve been wanting any Word Nerd, Book Nerd, Book Lover, Write with Grace, Write with Curiosity, Character Dictation, or Books are a Girl’s Best Friend items, get ‘em cheap(er)! (And consider a Needs More Coffee shirt while you’re there… I get comments on mine constantly!)

Oh, and… (the post that wouldn’t die!) I found an awesome mention of the writing resources on the site today, and wanted to thank Babblin’ on the Bayou! Such kind words! And The Code still thinks my ages-old (in web terms) articles on writing for RPG companies have something worthwhile to impart, which makes me happy.

Have a great Thanksgiving, those who get to take vacation. The rest of you, have a good week. I might drop in now and then, but mostly I’ll be cooking. The holiday is basically just an excuse to cook for us!

This morning I posted a rave review of Tosca Reno’s Eat-Clean Diet Cookbook. Why rave? Because it’s one of the first healthy-eating cookbooks I’ve tried that caters to those of us who are addicted to high-flavor foods, rather than bland, uninteresting stuff. Yeah, I know there’s a huge market for the latter, so I can’t in good conscience mark books down for catering to it, but damn it’s so good to find a book that caters to people who don’t want to sacrifice an awesome variety of tasty foods in order to be healthy!

We have at least three more book reviews coming out this week, two of which are also cookbook reviews. Stay tuned for a review of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Cookbook, among others!

Seriously, Tosca’s books have helped us enjoy our healthy eating enough that we’ve been able to keep up with it. And that’s great, because it’s helped me immensely. Finally one of those medical scans showed something; my gallbladder is contracting sluggishly. Not a clear-cut case of it needing to come out, so instead of referring me directly to a surgeon my doc is sending me to a gastroenterologist for another opinion. Eating so well using Tosca’s suggestions and things we’ve derived from her books has made me healthy enough that I can actually indulge in a treat now and then—like a small serving of chocolate bread pudding from the Ghirardelli cookbook—with only mild repercussions.

I’ve always had trouble getting myself to eat salads. They’re too much work to make interesting (i.e., include a variety of ingredients); they aren’t very good; etc. I have a new way of handling that, though. I prep some ingredients early in the week. For example, we take some hothouse (seedless) cucumbers, wash them, and run them through the food processor’s slicing disk. Then we stick them in airtight plastic containers in the fridge. I shred or slice some carrots, or buy them pre-shredded, and do the same thing with them. I’ve also started buying baby spinach instead of or in addition to lettuce, because it doesn’t go bad as quickly and it’s really good. Instead of buying large tomatoes I buy small pearl or grape tomatoes.

Anyway, this makes it much easier to toss together a salad quickly that contains plenty of interesting and delicious ingredients. I often add a few nuts or cubes of cheese; you can chop those in advance and store them too. And of course a small amount of dressing works wonders, too. Now you have a salad with lots of flavor that takes just a minute or two to create, no chopping necessary. And since you have containers of cucumber, carrot, spinach, and tomatoes on hand, you can easily toss a handful onto your plate any time you have anything else as well.

With all this need to eat healthy & low-fat lately, I’ve been experimenting with ways to keep meals interesting, easy, and good for me. Here’s my breakfast cereal recipe:

• 2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats (not instant)
• 2 cups mixed-grain hot cereal of your choice, or a mixture of whole grains of your choice (such as rye and barley flakes)*
• 1/4 cup toasted milled flax seed
• 1/3 cup unprocessed bran (oat or wheat)
• 1 cup unsweetened dried fruit, chopped if necessary (I like tart currants or mixed berries)
• 1/2 cup chopped pecans (or other nut of your choice, walnuts or almonds should work well)
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/4 cup raw cane sugar (optional)

Stir well and store tightly closed. If you don’t expect to go through it quickly, store it in the freezer. When you want breakfast, put 1/2 cup of mix in a microwave-safe bowl, add 1 cup water or skim milk (I prefer the milk), and microwave for 2 minutes 30 seconds on high, or until done (depends on the microwave). You can also do larger or smaller amounts as long as you keep the ratio roughly the same (2 parts liquid to 1 part cereal). Make sure the bowl is large enough to accommodate the bubbling up of the cereal!

If fresh fruits are in season, consider chopping some and adding to your cooked cereal.

I find I need a tiny bit of sweetening (the dried fruit and small amount of sugar), but you can leave it out if you want to. Another alternative is to leave the sugar out of the recipe but add approximately one teaspoon agave nectar to the cooked cereal; agave nectar is a very slow-absorbing natural sweetener with a low glycemic index.

If you want a quick, easily-transported lunch, make a batch of this the night before, chill in the fridge, and toss a container of it into your lunch box; it’s very good cold.

Variation 1: Add 1 tablespoon cinnamon and 1 1/2 teaspoons allspice.

*As long as they’ll cook in the microwave in roughly the same amount of time as oats, they’ll work. This is why I use pre-packaged 5- or 7-grain multigrain cereals from the hot cereal aisle, because they’re usually designed with quick cooking in mind.