Reviews, Recipes, and Random Slices of Life

Well, we had a Thanksgiving. Not the best one, but it did happen. Unfortunately, Cassius was the only healthy one in the (extended!) family. Theia still had a very "productive" cough, Phil was starting to descend into the abyss of the Worst Cold Ever, I wasn't feeling great and it didn't help that I was recovering from getting my booster. Meanwhile, in Wisconsin, Phil's mom and dad got covid for the first time. His dad still has a lingering cough, but his mom has bounced back. And in Kansas, my dad and stepmom were also sick, because everybody's got The Crud.



We had the typical foods: turkey, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, slow-cooker stuffing, gravy, cranberry sauce, zwieback, and pumpkin and apple pies. Turkey: I tried the larded turkey cooking approach, in which you cover the turkey with pancetta or salt pork and then a wet dishcloth for the first part of baking. It was okay and produced a nice moist turkey, but the miso turkey is still the champion. Mashed potatoes: We had granulated frozen potatoes from Ruby's Pantry. They made quite nice mashed potatoes after proper adulteration. Slow-cooker stuffing: I added 2 diced apples, which added a little bit of tart sweetness. Quite nice. Zwieback: traditional Mennonite rolls. I tried making them for the first time and the rising wasn't quite right so they weren't properly round, but they tasted good. Pumpkin pie: Nobody in our family actually eats pumpkin pie. I threw it out today.



The day after Thanksgiving was Theia's birthday this year. I took her and Cassius to the zoo (masked, because The Crud) and she got all the birthday selfies. Birthday dinner of favorite pasta, unsuccessful Fruity Pebbles(?!?) funfetti-type cake. Cassius won Best Birthday Present by giving her an amazing WonderWoman book that he found at the Buy Nothing holiday present exchange.

From my mother-in-law's kitchen, a pretty tasty Thanksgiving stuffing recipe that is cooked in the slow cooker. (Yes, I am finally going through the monstrous stack of accumulated papers and stuff that's been building up for the last two months.)

14-15 c. bread cubes or stuffing mix (not StoveTop)
3 c. chopped celery
1 1/2 c. chopped onion
2 1/2 tsp. sage
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 1/2+ cups chicken broth
1/2-3/4 c. butter
2 eggs, beaten

Combine butter, onion, and celery. Cook until tender. Add seasonings. Stir in bread cubes. Stir in chicken broth and beaten eggs. Pour into slow cooker and bake on high 1 hr and low 3 additional hours.

I'm thankful for--

--not being crippled anymore. I'm so, so thankful that I can walk and run normally, and that I hardly notice my knee injury except when I'm pushing its limits.

--getting up the gumption to attend cons and join a live writing group this year. Useful and interesting things are already coming out of this.

--the non-flopping of my writing contest and my spec-fic market listings.

--the new, set*, part-time* work schedule.

I'm also, of course, grateful for the standard things: family, husband, friends, pets--and not being homeless, broke, jobless, and starving etc.




What are you most thankful for?


* Most of the time. Grrrr. Still a lot better than it used to be.

...two bites of which discoflamingo claims could keep Cthulhu from rising.

Ingredients:
5 lbs potatoes
yoghurt
1 stick butter
1 pkg cream cheese
dill weed
kosher salt
pepper
7 cloves garlic

(All seasoning amounts are to taste--this is a rough estimate of what I used.)

Bring salted water to a boil in a very large pot. Scrub potatoes, slice small ones in 1/2 and large ones into quarters. Boil for 25-30 minutes.

Microwave butter and minced garlic together until butter is entirely melted. Run 1/3 potatoes through ricer, then 1/2 pkg cream cheese, then another 1/3 of potatoes, then add melted butter and garlic, then rice other half of cream cheese, then rest of potatoes. Add enough yogurt to get the texture to your preference (about 1/2 cup), 1-2 tbsp kosher salt, enough dried dill weed to make the surface green, and about the same amount of ground pepper. Mix together until just combined. Keep warm in 250 degree oven.