Canadian Thanksgiving 2008

All the girls: Kimber with Reese, Erica with Coco, Stephanie with baby :), Jaclyn, Maleah with Hallee, and me

Maleah and Erica with their babies and their homemade hooter hiders

Stephanie and Maleah

Myself and Jaclyn cleaning up the mess!

Canadian Thanksgiving happened for us a couple weeks late. I always love to do it even though I stress a bit before it happens. I love having people over and hanging out, but there's always a certain amount of work that goes into having people over. Planning the menu, shopping for the food, cleaning the house and preparing the food. I made a Sausage-cranberry stuffing recipe that I had seen in Wondertime Magazine and it was FABULOUS! I made it the day ahead, and it made enough for 2 9x13 pans, plus enough to stuff the 20lb turkey we had! We had a lot of yummy leftovers! We made the turkey with a fried pecan-bourbon glaze, also fabulous! The gravy even turned out perfectly! I wasn't planning on making mashed potatoes because there's always so much food, but when I happened to mention it to Dave a couple hours before the feast he was not too happy to hear that there would be no mashed potatoes! I had to run out to the store to get potatoes and a few of the other ingredients I needed for it. The potatoes were awesome, it was good that we had them. But... I had felt pretty relaxed most of the day until I realized I had to go to the store and make potatoes! I guess I can't blame it all on Dave - we did need some other things at the store too. But my friends say I'm a good wife and should be rewarded with a new pair of jeans or something!!

I had felt relaxed because everyone else helped out so much with the menu. Even the women that had newborns brought something! Erica has a 2 1/2 year old and a 1 month old and she made twice baked sweet potatoes and a pumpkin pie from scratch, complete from sugar pie pumpkins! Maleah has three kids (3 and under) and made an absolutely delicious cranberry sauce! These women amaze me!

I am very thankful for my amazing friends and for delicious food!

Big Elpah

I have been baking lately, and today Micah helped. He even called himself a "Big Elpah" because I told him he was such a big helper. He stood on a chair next to me and poured the sugar and flour and baking powder and soda and oil into the mixer and watched it mix up. He even tried to stir when it was too thick to mix. Grandma would be so proud! I baked it while he napped, but he got to try some of his yummy zucchini bread when he woke up. It's a delicious recipe, so I will share it with you!

Zucchini Bread

3 c. flour
1 tsp salt
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
3 tsp cinnamon
3 eggs
1 c. vegetable oil
2 1/4 c. sugar
3 tsp vanilla
2 c. grated zucchini
1 c. chopped walnuts

Grease and flour two 8x4 inch bread pans. Preheat oven to 325.

Sift flour, salt, b.powder, b.soda, and cinnamon.

Beat eggs, oil, vanilla, and sugar together in bowl. Add sifted ingredients to creamed mixture and beat well. Stir in zucchini and nuts. Pour into pans.

Bake 60 minutes at 325. Cool in pan on rack for 20 minutes. Remove from pan and cool completely.

Calling All Cilantro Recipes

I don't know why, but I saw the big thing of cilantro at Costco and picked it up. I like to buy fresh herbs, especially when they are called for in recipes I'm using (imagine that?). However, I usually only use a couple handfuls of the herbs and the rest spoil in the refrigerator. So, I'm not sure why I purchased the huge bundle of Costco cilantro except that we had eaten a yummy pasta dish that a friend brought to our home group last Tuesday, which had cilantro in it. So far I have made a couple blue cheese sauces with cilantro (I also got the big thing of blue cheese), I have made salsa and yummy guacamole. I have a recipe for a really good chicken and sweet potato chili, which calls for a little cilantro as garnish. Still, I may only use an eighth of the package. So, I need help! If anyone has recipes that call for cilantro, please, let me know!

Tonight we had steaks with a blue cheese sauce (with just a little too much cilantro), and artichokes. Micah had a little macaroni and cheese with carrots, but he really wanted what we were having - so we mixed his macaroni and cheese with the blue cheese sauce and he much preferred it that way. A kid who likes blue cheese and cilantro over regular cheese sauce? I hope I can accommodate his expanding tastes!

Eat Your Veggies

Micah has always been a great eater - in fact, he used to eat more than I could provide for him. I am waiting for the day when he will turn his head in disgust at everything I offer him. I know that a toddler happily eating broccoli and carrots and eggplant will one day come to an end. But for now, I'm a very happy Mama! I have recently made a Roasted Vegetable Lasagna that Micah absolutely LOVED. He asked for MOH in a low-to-high pitch frantic cry every time he finished what was on his plate. It tasted pretty good... for a vegetarian meal! Here's the recipe, if anyone is interested. I added more than the called for amount of cheese because, seriously, everything is better with more cheese! And it seemed to be a tiny amount.

Roasted Vegetable Lasagna

3 medium raw eggplant, cut into 1/2 inch pieces
3 medium sweet red peppers, chopped
4 small plum tomatoes, seeded and chopped
4 medium garlic cloves, peeled and chopped
2 tsp olive oil
1 tsp table salt (or more to taste)
1/2 tsp black pepper (or more to taste)
9 lasagna noodles, cooked and drained
1/4 cup Parmesan cheese (or more)
3/4 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded (or more)

Instructions:

1. Preheat oven to 425.
2. In a roasting pan, combine vegetables and garlic with olive oil. Bake until vegetables are tender, stirring occasionally, about 20-25 minutes.
3. Place half of vegetables, salt and pepper, and 1/2 cup water in food processor and process until smooth.
4. Spoon 1/2 cup vegetable puree into the bottom of a 9x13 baking dish.
5. Place three noodles over puree. Top with 1/2 cup puree, 1/2 remaining vegetables, 2 Tbsp Parmesan cheese, and 1/4 cup mozzarella cheese. Repeat layers and then top with remaining 3 noodles, puree and cheese.
6. Bake until bubbly, about 40-45 minutes. Slice into 6 pieces and serve.

Happy Canadian Thanksgiving!

We celebrated a week late, but it was fun and fairly stress-free. Unfortunately, we didn't have our huge crowd of 16 guests in for the feast, but it was cozy with two other couples and one single guy. Almost everyone has kids, though, and so they brought them, which made for a much rowdier Thanksgiving than we've had in the past, but still fun. Times are a-changin, so we're changin with them! Since there were just two other couples, the girls helped out with bringing the sweet potatoes and salad, but we made everything else.

We made our Thanksgiving celebration a day of Ina. Her cookbooks: Barefoot Contessa have been facetiously labeled "the Bible" in Dave's family because it is the only thing his sister cooks from and everything in it is absolutely delicious. The day before our celebration I was able to make a cranberry conserve, which was pretty good, but a lot of the people still opted for the jar of solid cranberry jelly. As Jesse put it, Ruffles have ridges and so does cranberry sauce. :) I also made the dessert the day before the festivities, which was pretty good... but I am used to apple crisps and pies made without orange or lemon zest, so I still like my mom's apple crisp recipe. However, this apple-pear-cranberry crisp was still delicious and fun to try for a change. (Note: the recipe online doesn't add dried cranberries like the recipe in the book does.) David was a saint and took care of preparing and roasting the turkey and another year went by where we didn't have to order pizza! I usually make a hassle-free crockpot stuffing, but this year, since I was going all Barefoot-Contessa, I made the stuffing out of baguettes and sauteed onion, celery and granny smith apples. Oh, and from my herbs in my little flower pots outside on my patio! I think it would have been much more moist if I had actually stuffed the turkey with it. Oh well, I cooked it on the side in the oven and it still tasted pretty good. Whew, what else? Oh, a green bean casserole, which is a tradition that Kimber usually brings and if she hadn't just have had a premature baby, she probably would have brought it. So I made it in her honor... plus, it's really good! Okay, last but not least, I made the gravy earlier in the day with a touch of Brandy and I made the mashed potatoes, using buttermilk. Simply divine!

By the way, the sweet potato recipe above is worth checking out. It's the only one the Wolfrom family will eat now at every Thanksgiving, thanks to Dave's brother-in-law, Mike, who brought it from his family in PA. However, for the health conscious, it is more like dessert than a vegetable dish. No wonder everyone loves it!

I love fall and the cool crisp air, and the smell of apple cider and spice. I love snuggling up under a warm blanket with a cup of hot cocoa and a good book, and I absolutely love the autumn colors. I do miss the beautiful colors of fall that Ontario majestically boasts. I am jealous of my Ontario friends who get to bask in the warm "Indian Summer" that they've been enjoying for weeks now. I have been cowering away in my cozy little house while the winds and the rain have been pounding away outside. Okay, okay, it hasn't been THAT bad, but still... it IS the northwest and we DO get lots of rain. And there's supposed to be a wind storm tonight.

What do you love about fall? What are some of your favorite fall recipes?