The Mild Thanksgiving Dinner Disaster

Twas the day after Thanksgiving and all through the home,
food was preparing and the families were come.
The rolls were all snug in the oven raising
and snitching fingers were veggie tray grazing.

The mashed potatoes were mixed to perfection
and ready for later were all the confections.
I stepped out to the garage to check on the turkey with care,
and the absent scent was first to make me aware

that with this bird there was something the matter.
And then to my dismay—oh how my heart did clatter—
I spied that the temperature knob of the roaster oven
had not been set at 325 for the past hours-half-dozen

but at 225 had my bird been comfortably warming
all while the the rest of us were busily swarming
to spread a buffet worthy to support its leading role.
I sighed and glared at the pinkish raw troll,

turned up the heat, slammed the lid down 
and trudged back to the kitchen, my lips in a frown.
I called all the poor turkey meat lovers by name,
"Now Jason and Aaron and Ammon and Dave,

the turkey won't be ready in time for our feast,
but do not dismay, we'll still eat the beast . . .
just probably after dinner, dessert, and cleanup."
We were disappointed, but we didn't give up!

No, not even after the rolls started burning
and the smoke alarm commenced its spurning
that made babies cry and my eyebrow twitch—
I wanted to scream or laugh, I couldn't tell which—

but we salvaged the roll guts and aired out the room
and though it seems like a tale wrought mostly with doom,
a moment of glory I am able to tell,
Spoon and I scrapped up a gravy that turned out quite well.

With the help of gratitude, humor, and deli meat slices
this year's Thanksgiving feast was something priceless.

And after the pie bar, family time, and holiday crafts,
from the garage came our turkey at last.

So if ever your turkey leaves you in a gravy lurch,
remember your potatoes; give your pantry a search
and I bet you'll find all these ingredients in sight.
Happy Thanksgiving to all and to all a good bite!

Emergency Gravy

I didn't take any exact measurements, so get your experimentation cap on and get mixing, to taste.
Ingredients
A can of broth
3 spoonfuls of Better Than Bullion paste (or bullion cubes or pearls)
Enough milk whisked with enough flour to make a thickener
2 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon dried onion flakes
1 (15 oz) can condensed cream of chicken soup
Poultry Magic seasoning blend, to taste
Salt and pepper to taste

Dump it all together, use your immersion hand blender (I just got the Breville hand blender. I did a little dance.) to emulsify those onion flakes as they soften. The onions, believe it or not, really make the gravy taste like it had anything to do with meat drippings. The butter helps give it a fatty taste and cozy all the ingredients together.

I think I used about 2 cups milk and oh maybe a 1/4 cup flour or more for the thickener. Bring to a boil whisking constantly/blending as needed. Add water to thin if needed. Add whatever you want if your taste tests beg it.

see (bottom right), it totally looks like normalish gravy, right?

And there you have it. A rather tasty emergency gravy. The kids kept dumping it all over their potatoes and dipping their deli meat slices in it, so . . . success. The adults loved it too, don't worry.

Keep those imaginations cookin'!

The Pie Bar

Make your Pi day (March 14th) or Thanksgiving day an event to remember because you actually get to join in and enjoy it!

I love pies during the holidays, but a perfect flaky-crust-to-filling ratio is hard to achieve and sometimes I just don't want to take the time. This post showcases my favorite way to prepare and serve pies: the build-it-yourself Pie Bar.

The concept is easy: separate filling from crust and let people put as much or as little filling on their cooked cutout crusts as they want.

Preheat oven to 450 degrees F.

Place flour and salt in a mixing bowl. Stir together. Use pastry blender to cut the shortening into the flour until it forms rice-size pellets. Sprinkle in water one tablespoon at a time, mixing with large spoon or rubber scraper until flour is moistened and dough almost cleans the sides of the bowl as you stir.

Gather dough into one ball. Flatten on a lightly floured surface and roll out to about the thickness of the ridge of a standard canning lid. The nice thing about the pie bar is you don't have to roll out a perfectly round dough. Just roll it out to whatever shape it becomes.

Cut out pie shapes large enough for one reasonable serving of pie and place dough shapes on ungreased cookie sheet (though I almost always clothe naked baking sheets with parchment paper and recommend it if you've got some). Take a fork and generously stab the dough shapes to prevent dough bubbles. With this leaf shape, you could make your fork stabs look kind of like leaf veins.

Always be adventurous in your creativity. You can brush some of the dough shapes with cream or egg white and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar for crusts to be eaten without filling. Or grate some gruyère and press it into some dough shapes for serving your apple pie filling.

Bake shapes 10 to 15 minutes or until a golden finish just begins to appear. Remove from oven and let cool in pan 3 to 5 minutes.

Remove from pan and serve or carefully set aside on display plates for when it's time for dessert.

For fillings . . . there are countless recipes out there. Mostly I choose the easier routes for the Pie Bar because the concept was engineered for laziness. Make your cream pies from box puddings. A couple scoops of a variety of puddings on as much crust as I want is kind of how I imagine heaven will be. Somehow correlated. . . .

I still cook up my favorite fillings, just without the crust where possible. The only pie I still make in a pan with the crust beneath the filling is the pumpkin pie, because, well, pumpkin pie.

I slice up fresh apples, mix them with sugar, flour, and pie spices and dump them in a ceramic pie dish and bake the filling without crust at 425, stirring occasionally, until the apples are soft. I even once dared mixed in one can of pie filling to make my apples go farther. It felt like I was sinning. The filling was still delicious.

I line the parchment-shod bottom of a pie tin with pecans and dump in corn syrup, brown sugar, butter, eggs, and vanilla; and toss them both in 350 degree oven until set. Then I take it out, mix up the gooey filling, and put it in a separate serving bowl.

Open up cans and boxes and make the holiday easy on yourself for once. No one complained at my house to have this freedom of pie choice. But if you think about the past, no one ever really gave thanks for the two hours each of those twelve homemade pies represented either. So if you love making pie for the sake of making pie, choose your favorite one and take as long as you want to make that pie your PERFECT pie. Then take a load off and serve up the rest Pie Bar style and I promise your holiday will still make everyone happy.

The best part about the Pie Bar is that you get to break all the traditional pie rules! You can have apple-coconut-creme-with-chocolate-shavings pie if you want. You only limit yourself to whatever you put on the table. Toast up coconut shavings; cut out even smaller dough shapes and serve them as "top crust" garnishing; dice up fresh pears and caramelize them with some butter and toss in roasted pecans, because why not?; of course make the Oat Crumble Topping because that's good on anything.

And so you see, by looking outside the pie pan, the height of creativity jumps over the moon.

Happy adventures in the kitchen to you, and happy holidays too!

Oat Crumble Topping

Because I like this on many things, I'm putting this recipe on its own so I can link to it at leisure.

Combine dry ingredients. Using a pastry cutter or fork, blend in butter until combined with dry ingredients. Press or crumble on top of your dessert and bake as your dessert directs.

Or, spread topping on parchment-line baking sheet and roast in 350 degree F oven stirring often about 15 to 20 minutes until crumbly. Then put it on top of whatever you want to taste a bit more heavenly.

Turkey Meatball Turkeys

I can't tell you how surprised I was to NOT find any pictures of this little edible craft online. Dare I claim to have had an unprecedented creative idea? Take that Pinterest!

With 4 pounds of Jelly Belly beans on my desk at work, you could say I'm definitely pro-sweets. But wouldn't you agree that a savory bite just really hits the spot sometimes? These little gobblers are entirely edible and have just the right kick and crunch to them. A sensible and festive appetizer—and that necessary something for the kids to "help" with so they're out of the way!

Ingredients
Turkey (or any meat) meatballs
Round tortilla chips
Jalapeño cream cheese spread (or use/make any savory flavor you prefer; I liked the spice. Laughing Cow soft spread cheese also works great.)
Variety cheeses, sliced
Twist pretzels

Just have enough of each ingredient so that you can "prepare the turkey" for as many people as you hope to impress. Heat the meatballs as directed. I chose to bake them so there wasn't greasiness, just heated meat. Set aside when done so they can cool for handling.

Meanwhile, if you've got a helper, have them lay out cheese slices or cut planks of cheese to your preferred feather thickness. Otherwise DIY! I used a serrated knife to slice blocks of sharp cheddar and Colby Jack cheese to get a textured plank.

 To make the feathers, cut teardrop or rounded diamond shapes out of the sliced cheese.

 If you can find or fashion little cookie cutters, you'll be happy!

If you've got another helper, have him or her carefully break or cut the top heart curves of the pretzel free from the rest of the knot. These pretzel curves look most like neck/head pieces to me, but that doesn't mean you can't think of a more creative and complicated morsel to make a turkey head from. Press longer curved end into meatball. Prepare a hole in the meatball with a quick poke from a knife if your pretzels don't skewer the meat very easily.

Then spread each rounded tortilla chip with cream cheese, covering only one side. (Triangle chips don't work so well. I had to keep breaking the pointed tip off so the turkey would stand, so that the feather fan didn't get as much glorious fanning action.) To ensure the chip will stick to the heated meatball, plop a glob of spreadable cheese on one edge of the chip. Like cheese glue.

Either stick the feathers to the chip in a fan formation first or press the coated chip against the meatball first and then squish the feathers into the cheese where there's still room.

If the meatballs don't stay up very well, you can use left over pretzel bits or cheese scraps to prop them up. You might also consider choosing cheese scrap props to double as little feet sticking out from the turkey's meaty body. Best to eat them sooner than later. The heated meatball can quickly get tough.

So simple and really the flavors and textures are quite enjoyable. But most important of all, cute! ;)

Note: not intended to replace actual Thanksgiving turkey. Your guests will love the meatball turkeys, but perhaps not enough to forgive the lack of turkey in the feast.

Off with you then. Taste the adventure!

Lentil Bean (and Sausage) Soup

Can you keep a secret? This recipe was given to me by my vegan aunt. If she were not still alive, she would roll over in her grave to know I added sausage to this soup, but luckily she is alive and doesn't use the Internet, so well, if you can keep a secret, she'll never know.

Just add 1/2 pound browned sausage and use as much chicken broth as desired in place of water for more meaty flavor.

There you have the original list of ingredients. My carnivorous soul adds sausage and chicken broth to the list because it reminds me of my favorite soup at my favorite restaurant. I fell in love with it the first time my spoon introduced it to my lips.

It's called Sausage and Lentil Soup and it's found at Carrabba's Italian Grill. Each bowl has just enough heat to make your tongue tingle and nose run. (If you're lucky enough to live near a Carrabba's, go there. Soon. Order the zucchini fries, the Chicken Bryan, and get this soup as your side choice. You'll never regret that hour in food heaven.)

When I received this recipe from my aunt it finally dawned on me that I could copy that Sausage and Lentil Soup recipe. I provided the link above to another recipe claiming to be a replica of Carrabba's, because that's what I do. These recipes are quite similar. If you want to try this one, it's simple and great!

First, behold the end result, to entice you.

Directions:
Rinse lentil beans then soak in hot tap water for 30 minutes at room temperature. While beans are soaking, prepare ingredients that need chopping.

Then, vegetarians, skip this next fatty step.

Brown 1/2 pound sausage over medium-high heat. Reserving grease in pan, remove meat and set aside. Add onion to pan and sauté for 5 to 7 minutes, until barely browned with grease. Remove onions. With the little remaining grease, brown the rice over medium heat until it browns, about 7 minutes, just for fun. Or don't, grease-party pooper.

Drain soaked lentils. A handy trick for draining the lentils without using a strainer:

Using the lid of the large soup pot you'll be filling in a minute, place it over the bowl of lentils. As you tip the bowl, water will flow through the lentils that catch against the lid. Worked like a charm. The soaked lentils can easily be damaged, so the less dumping and strainer-shaking to drain the better.

Pour 10 cups water/broth (don't use ALL broth; exchange up to 4 cups water with broth. I've used none and up to 2 and both were great.) and lentils into large soup pot. Add remaining ingredients. Add 2 tsp salt before boiling. My aunt says add it all at the end, to taste, but when I've done that, I ended up adding about 2 Tbsp salt before I could taste anything, then when it settled in, it was too salty. So, add some for starters, then the rest (or more) to taste at the end.

I've made this recipe using just spinach or parsley and both versions are delicious. I'd recommend chopping the spinach up before adding because otherwise its full, limp length when it's cooked hangs off the spoon and whips hot broth everywhere which isn't cool. Most recently I used parsley. I'd forgotten how wonderful fresh parsley is.

For 2 cups of fresh parsley, grab a bundle in your fist and if the stems have about the same circumference as a spice bottle, that should be about right.

Remember 1 stalk of celery is not 1 rib. A stalk is the WHOLE bundle. If you don't celebrate celery, use less than the whole stalk, as desired. 

 Make life easy on yourself. Use a package (about 8-ounces) of shredded carrots.

Pretty much, with this soup you can add more of your favorite ingredient or cut out what you detest. Unless you hate lentils. I can't imagine why such a person would read to this point, so let's move on, lentil lovers.

With all ingredients stirred together, bring soup to a boil over medium heat with pot uncovered. Reduce heat to low, cover pot, and simmer for 1 hour. Remove from heat and add remaining salt, to taste. Serve and be merry!

If you get ambitious and want to double the recipe for freezing portions (it freezes great!), you're going to need two pots. That makes it pretty easy to double, you know—same recipe twice in two pots. . . .

And to freeze, first make sure you let the soup cool to room temperature in 2 hours or less. This can be accelerated by dividing the soup from deep pots to shallow dishes—for example the dishes you intend to freeze the soup in. I scored a find at the local secondhand store for these 1-cup screw-lid containers.

Since the 1-cup container lids weren't perfectly leak-proof, I screwed each lid on with a square of wax paper to fill the seal. 

Out of a double batch of this recipe I filled about 15 1-cup containers and about two 9-cup (I think) containers—a lot of soup! A lot of quick and easy and delicious winter lunches stacked in the freezer! Thaw at room temperature or in warm water or on microwave defrost setting and then reheat in microwave 1 to 2 minutes.

Off you go now. Taste the adventure!

Fun Halloween Mystery Dinner Party

The Menu Meddler and Dinner Dabbler teamed up to stir up trouble with this spooky menu just in time for Halloween!

Feeling mysteriously hungry? :)

Years ago, my brilliantly creative mom and I came up with a fun menu for an awesome Halloween mystery dinner party. It was a hit with my twenty-something friends! Whether you plan to entertain kids or adults, this meddlesome menu will add some bewitching charm to your event. I provide our "interpretation" of the menu items, but as always, we encourage you to experiment with your own favorite finger foods and mystery names for them!

First thing we had to do was hide the kitchen. Tack down a wire and use clothespins to hang sheets from it. If you have Halloween sheets, all the better! Of course this provides little protection from the zealously curious youngsters that still peep through, but some sort of divider is vital to keeping the menu a mystery.

Warning: Be prepared to make a big mess!

My prep advice is to grab everything that can be set out and have it ready. Plan ahead to get the items that need to be cooked done in time for the dinner. Once your menu orders start coming, they'll pile up quick. Be sure to give yourself a "plating area"—room where you can set a plate down as you get it ready. It's super helpful to have food items organized so you can fill a plate quickly and get it back to the table of hungry little monsters.

If you are throwing a kid party, enlisting the help of some extra parents is a wise move.

Another tip: My mom is queen of collecting disposable to-go and single-serving dishes. These include little paper fry boats, plastic fry sauce cups, various-size to-go boxes, etc. These types of items come in extremely handy for dinners like this!

Rules of the Game

The guests receive their own menu and a marking device. Each guest writes their name on the menu (or you won't know who to return the order to). We placed each menu in a sheet protector and had the kids use erasable markers. When the menu is sent back to the kitchen, it can only have three items checked at a time. As soon as every menu has been to the kitchen once, guests can reorder as many times as they want, three items at a time!

Suggestion: Have people write numbers: three 1's for the first order, three 2's for the second, etc. to keep the orders in order!

It's really fun to watch guests react to the results of their selection. Pretty soon, after enough items come out to the table, people figure out the menu, but at least the first round of orders provides a good chuckle—or groan! Guests can reorder items they've already eaten, they just have to make it clear on the menu.

It gets really tricky, as you can imagine, guessing how much of each food item to have on hand so you don't run out. We had loads of leftovers, but hey—that means everyone who wanted to got to leave with a to-go container(s) of their favorite goodies! :)

Main Course

These are the items that require the most preparation, so be sure everything else is ready and time yourself to have these menu items hot and ready to serve when dinner begins.

Chopped Beetles in Mummy Shrouds (Taco meat in corn tortilla)

If you microwave the tortillas layered between moist paper towels, the tortillas will be less likely to split in half. Mix refried beans with the seasoned ground beef to make the filling go a bit farther.

Bloody Fried Fossils (Ketchup with dino-shape chicken nuggets)

These nuggets are the best! Maybe not necessarily for your health, but they're the best for fun dinners.

Moldy Mummy Toes (Lil' Smokies wrapped in crescent roll)

Cut strips of dough from each crescent triangle and wrap around each lil smokies dog. Bake according to crescent roll directions. Serve with ketchup.

I started wrapping two smokies in one crescent until my mom showed me how she envisioned the mummy toes. Both ways work, but I admit the individually wrapped smokies are cuter!

Bloody Brains (Spaghetti with meat sauces)

Just your typical red sauce on spaghetti! (Omit meat for vegetarian option.)

Sides

Sticks in Your Eye (Scoop of pretzel dip with stick pretzels stuck in it all around with an olive pressed in the center)

I love this side, but not too many kids ended up going for it. Serve in plastic sauce cup.

Frankenstein Teeth (Tater tots) (Don't forget these also require some of the prep time in your oven!)

Serve with ketchup.

Vampire Stake (Breadstick with garlic seasoning)

We used pre-baked breadsticks from the store, spread on some butter, sprinkled garlic salt, and heated them 3 minutes in the oven as directed. For kids we sliced the breadstick in half with a diagonal cut so the "stake" looked sharp. Serve whole for adults.

Mummy Skins & Hot Lava (Chips and salsa)

We used little fry boats to serve some of the items, chips and salsa included.

Sweet n' Salty

Mom just divided the rest of the menu into sweet and salty, but I would've made another category called Desserts, so it would have been divided: Main Courses, Sides, Sweet n' Salty Snacks, Desserts, Beverages. Or you can be mean and mix the items all up without headings and see how lucky (or unlucky) people guess! "Here are your three beverages for dinner!" :)

Pumpkin Poo (Cheetos)

Care Bear Poo (Rainbow chocolate chips)

Chances are there was a wedding in your life recently where, sadly, they served those pastel-color chocolate chips with white-sprinkle bases. This is the perfect recycle use for those plenteous leftovers!

Ghost Poo (Popcorn)

It just never gets old to hear people crack up about poo—and this time about eating it!

Night Crawlers (Jell-O worms; gummy worms)

Use stretched-out bendable-neck straws for the realistic earthwormy effect!

If you've never seen how to make Jell-O worms, here, visit this other site that already has all the instructions written out. Or take the easy route and buy gummy worms!

Werewolf Fingernails (Bugles chips)

Frog Legs (Baby pickles)

La Brea Tar Pits (Chocolate pudding with animal crackers)

Wish I'd gotten a quick pic of these, but the wild fun had already begun! Serve in plastic sauce cups. Scoop a spoonful of chocolate pudding into the cup and stick a couple animals "in the mud!"

Like this, except animal crackers IN the pudding.

Pirate Planks and Boo Juice (Graham crackers and milk)

Bloody Twisted Veins (Red licorice vines)

Devil's Inferno (Red hot candies—hot tamales, red hots, etc.)

Slimy Swamp Grass (Salad with dressing)

Dye the ranch dressing bright green if you want!

Skeleton Fingernails (String cheese and almonds)

We forgot to include these on the menu, so we had a lot of string cheese left over. :) One string cheese cut in half and the half cut into four makes eight "fingers" from one string cheese. Stuff almond slices into the end and serve in plastic sauce cup.

Ghosts in the Graveyard (Scoop of ice cream covered in Oreo crumbs and topped with decorative ghost) (Dessert)

Meringue Ghost Recipe. Hey, pretty much there are no new ideas . . . just new twists to the same old ideas, right? That's what this blog is all about. So if someone else already wrote it the old way, I send you there. No need to redo the work! Make sure your egg whites get really stiff so you don't end up with what look like snowmen on a warm day!

Frozen Tombstone (Ice cream sandwich cut in half) (Dessert)

Decorate the sandwich half with goofy writings in frosting.

Ground Grasshoppers (Mint chocolate chip ice cream) (Dessert)

Make sure you don't serve this scoop all rounded off and looking like actual ice cream. Scoop the ice cream and then stab it with a fork until it looks more like ground grasshoppers. It may prove cathartic after filling the twentieth menu order!

Beverages

Mad Scientist Brew (Soda with a chip of dry ice)

Serve in clear cup . . . or test tube vials if you have those kicking around like my mom does. (Truest queen of food containers, I avow.) We cut slits into the bottom of small plastic cups, turned those cups upside-down, and served the vial suspended upright in the cup holder. That proved to be VERY little beverage, so we started serving the soda in regular cups with the test tube as just described inside the cup.

As always, use caution with dry ice!

Haunted Spirit Tears (Sprite)

Ghost Blood (Water or milk)

Murky Moat Water (Chocolate milk)

Mom hot-glued spider rings to the bottom of the paper cups so the drinker would have a startling surprise after a few gulps!

Witch's Brew (Root beer)

Ghost in Witch's Brew (Root beer float)

Here's a peek into the kitchen sometime after the mystery dinner began:

And, if dinner wasn't enough for one night, stay tuned for a post about party activities you can involve the kids in while food is being prepared in the kitchen. No doubt, you'll be the hippest Halloween dinner party thrower on the block that people will brag about for years to come!