Fun at the Garden

For Thanksgiving, John and I went down to Louisiana to spend some time with his extended family. On Friday evening we decided to go out to the garden. The garden is where John's grandmother grew up and where they started to raise their family. Their house has since burned down, but the land is still full of memories for his entire family.
If you look closely at the tree, you can see bullet holes. This was the "target" tree they used when they shot guns with their Grandpa.

There are "grape vines" that grow from many of the trees. They pull/cut the vines down and make wreaths with them. (That's why John has the machette in his hand.)Since don't have a wreath from the garden, this was the perfect reason to make one.

John had all the hard jobs, some of the vines were stuck in the tree pretty good.

On the way back to Grandma Weaver's house we stopped at a Christmas Tree farm to get her a tree... but they all had flimsy branches so we went home with just this cute picture.

Dump Cake, yumm

My dear friend Katy suprised my at work yesterday by bringing me a "piece" of her dump cake. I have never had a dump cake before, but it was quite tasty. Check out her blog for the recipe. http://tickle--me--pink.blogspot.com/2007/11/dump-cake.html

Thanksgiving Recipes

For the story on why I made Thanksgiving already, scroll down to the previous post. :)

Homestyle Turkey, the Michigander Way
(Recipe from allrecipes.com, picture from me)
INGREDIENTS:
1 (12 pound) whole turkey
6 tablespoons butter, divided
4 cups warm water
3 tablespoons chicken bouillon
2 tablespoons dried parsley
2 tablespoons dried minced
onion
2 tablespoons seasoning salt
DIRECTIONS:
1.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Rinse and wash turkey. Discard the giblets, or add to pan if they are anyone's favorites.
2.
Place turkey in a Dutch oven or roasting pan. Separate the skin over the breast to make little pockets. Put 3 tablespoons of the butter on both sides between the skin and breast meat. This makes for very juicy breast meat.
3.
In a medium bowl, combine the water with the bouillon. Sprinkle in the parsley and minced onion. Pour over the top of the turkey. Sprinkle seasoning salt over the turkey.
4.
Cover with foil, and bake in the preheated oven 3 1/2 to 4 hours, until the internal temperature of the turkey reaches 180 degrees F (80 degrees C). For the last 45 minutes or so, remove the foil so the turkey will brown nicely.

Southern Style Dressing

(Picture from me)

5 cups Cornbread, crumbled ( make sure to pack it tight when measuring)

8 cups Bread, dried and cubed

1/2 cup Butter, melted

1 cup Onions, chopped

1 1/2 cups Celery, chopped

4 eggs

1 quart Chicken Stock

1/2 teaspoon Pepper

2 teaspoons Salt

2 1/2 teaspoons Sage

Saute onions and celery in butter. Combine all ingredients and mix well. Pour into greased pans. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 1 1/2 hours.

Easy Turkey Gravy
(Recipe from allrecipes.com, picture from me)

INGREDIENTS:
5 cups turkey stock with pan
drippings
1 (10.75 ounce) can
condensed cream of chicken
soup
1 teaspoon poultry seasoning
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
1 teaspoon seasoned salt
1/4 teaspoon garlic powder
1 cup milk
1/3 cup all-purpose flour

DIRECTIONS:
1.Bring the turkey stock to a boil in a large saucepan. Stir in soup, and season with poultry seasoning, pepper, seasoned salt, and garlic powder. Reduce heat to low, and let simmer.
2.Warm the milk in the microwave, and whisk in the flour with a fork until there are no lumps. Return the gravy to a boil, and gradually stir in the milk mixture. Continue to cook, stirring constantly, for 1 minute, or until thickened. Be careful not to let the bottom scorch.

Libby's Famous Pumpkin Pie
(Recipe from the back of the pumpkin pie can, and allrecipes.com, picture from me)
INGREDIENTS
1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 eggs
1 (15 ounce) can LIBBY'S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 (12 fluid ounce) can NESTLE® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 425 F.
Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell.
Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 F.; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. (Do not freeze as this will cause the crust to separate from the filling.)

Apple Pie
(recipe from Betty Crocker, picture from me)

INGREDIENTS

pie crust for 2 layers

1/2 cup sugar

1/2 cup Gold Medal® all-purpose flour

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

5 cups thinly sliced peeled apples (3 large)

1 tablespoon butter or margarine

DIRECTIONS

1. Heat oven to 425°F. Make pie crust, roll out, and lay in pie pan, except trim overhanging edge of bottom pastry 1 inch from rim of plate.

2. Stir together 1/2 cup sugar, the flour, cinnamon and nutmeg in large bowl. Add apples; toss. Spoon into pastry-lined pie plate. Dot with butter.

3. Roll remaining pastry; (I cut out little apple shapes before I put it on the pie. You need to have some hole to let the steam out. If you don’t want to cut out shapes, you can just cut some slits with a knife) seal the edges completely.

4. Bake 30 to 35 minutes or until crust is golden brown and juice is bubbly.

Thanksgiving! (Just a couple of weeks early...)

This past weekend I had "Thanksgiving" at my house. We are going to Louisiana to visit John's grandma and extended family on Thanksgiving, but we still wanted to have a dinner with John's mom and step-dad. I'm busy this weekend, so we decided to do it yesterday (Sunday).

Saturday I went to the store and bought a turkey (I know, very last minute...) and all the fixin's. I was going to just make an apple pie, but John put on his sad face and asked me to pretty pretty please make him a pumpkin pie, so I obliged. I made the pies on Saturday so we would have the oven free on Sunday for the turkey and dressing. Denise (John's mom) brought mashed potatoes, greenbean casserole, and rolls.

My first ever turkey!

Apple Pie

Pumpkin Pie

John and I

Salsa Chicken

Several of my online friends have been raving about Salsa Chicken. There are 2 versions of this recipe floating around; I thought John would like this one the best since he can wrap it in a tortilla or eat it with chips.

This recipe was posted on http://crazydeliciousfood.wordpress.com/?s=salsa+chickenRecipe from sparkpeople.com

Ingredients:
4 chicken breasts - put in frozen if you're worried about overcooking
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 packet reduced sodium taco seasoning
1 16 oz. jar salsa
1 can corn
1 can rinsed and drained black beans
1 cup reduced fat sour cream

Directions:
Mix soup, salsa, and taco seasoning together and pour over chicken. Cook on low for 8-10 hours. Before serving, shred the chicken, add corn, beans, and sour cream. Cook for a few more minutes until everything is heated through. Serve with tortilla chips or in a tortilla.

I forgot to go home at lunch to put this in the crockpot. So I boiled the chicken on the stove until it was done. Then I had John help me shred the chicken. Then we put the chicken and everything else in a skillet on the stove, warmed it on medium heat for about 20 minutes. Make sure you stir it every so often so it doesn't scorch. We sprinkled some cheddar cheese on top also.

John loved this recipe. He said to make sure I know where this recipe is so I can make it again.

Fun Evening Snack

I love fall. Nothing says fall quite like carmel apples. A lot of evenings I'll slice up an apple and heat up some carmel dip. I usually get the low-fatIt's a cheap snack and I feel like I'm being somewhat healthy since it is an apple. :)

New Fall Decorations!

One of my close friends, Katy, always has her table decorated so cute for different holidays and seasons. Since we received a large amount on Linen's-n-Things gift cards after the wedding, I think we will use the remaining to buy table decorations. Here are the first decorations purchased for Fall/Thanksgiving. The placemats are reversible which is a bonus. The metal food things were too cute to pass up. LNT didn't have any candles that fit in the holes, so I bought some from Pier 1 (also using a wedding gift card). So, I have a brand new table with $0 out of pocket. :)