...i was just playing around on Instagram when I coined myself "THE
SEWING GOURMET". But I do like pretty, interesting, tasty and colorful
food. And, I'm a sucker for a pretty table setting; having had an
appreciation for pretty plates and serving dishes since childhood -
learned from my Grand Mothers. As my Sister Brenda always says
"presentation IS everything"!
I do know that I am not
the only one who can cook, although I can throw down in the kitchen with
the best of them whenever I tear myself away from the sewing room.
Yes, there are many other fabulously skilled sewing cooks. Today, I
thought I'd introduce you to yet another "SEWING GOURMET". I've been
reading Marjie's blog for years now. Every year as it nears
Thanksgiving I watch her blog with much anticipation of her Thanksgiving
meal preparations.
So sit back, relax, Grab a nice cup of tea and let me introduce you to Marjie of
Modern Day Ozzie and Harriett.
Hello to all
of Faye's wonderful readers! I'm Marjie
of Modern Day Ozzie and Harriet; I have 9 children, 7 of whom are grown and
gone, cook a lot, sew less than I'd like, and remember every day to enjoy life,
because the good times are so precious.
I'd like to thank you, Faye, for inviting me to talk about our
Thanksgiving plans. It's one of the
biggest holidays in our household, and seems to be cherished by all of my
family.
To get
Thanksgiving off to a good start, I begin planning around November first. When I start planning, I peruse my cookbooks;
I have so many that my wonderfully talented third son built me a special
bookcase for them. Sadly, I took this as
a sign I need more cookbooks, and so now some of the books are double
stacked. But there are a few menu-type
cookbooks, and it gives me great inspiration for the days leading up to the big
day, when family is moving back into the house for somewhere between 4 days and
a week.
The ceramic house on the shelf
is the only piece of my holiday train set which survived our attic fire last
year; it's a great reminder that things could always be worse, so we need to be
thankful for the good things every day.
This
is an
outline of my menu for this year, starting the Friday night before
Thanksgiving, and proceeding right through the Sunday after. If it's
written down, it gets cooked. If not, it will never see the light of
day. With the menus laid down, I can
plan my shopping trips. You'll note
numbers in parenthesis after each date; that's how many people I think
will be
here on that day. Of course, the head
count can change a little, but I'm usually pretty accurate. Just
thinking through the census makes it
much easier to figure out what to make!
You don't want to broil steaks for a dozen people when you could instead
make a roast beef with a lot less work, for example.
My mother in
law was known as a great baker, and my husband encouraged me to expand my
baking horizons years ago, so our sons would always tell their families about
their mother's great desserts - he says that's what really matters to
boys. Long ago, when I was talking to
her about my Thanksgiving planning, she told me to take advantage of ready to
use ingredients: "It's a whole lot easier, and, honestly, tastier, to use
canned pumpkin than to try and cook and puree your own," were her words of
wisdom. "If God didn't want us to
use cake mixes, he wouldn't have made Betty Crocker and Pillsbury so very
good!" She also really liked the
pie crusts that are now available to roll out in your own pie plate (although I
have learned to make my own, and everyone loves them). I'm quite happy,
however, to use things like packaged quick bread mixes, add a few ingredients
to punch up the flavor, and no one ever suspects they're from a mix. For example, and seasonally appropriate, to
pumpkin bread mix add an extra teaspoon of cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, plus
a little vanilla extract. Cranberry
bread mix really shines if you use orange juice instead of water to make
it. Alternately, to your cranberry bread
mix, add a shredded apple and a teaspoon of cinnamon. And, of course, walnuts are always a great
addition, too.
On
Thanksgiving, I lay the table with snacks starting around noon. The Monday or Tuesday beforehand, I bake a
few loaves of quick bread, flavored up as mentioned above. I also buy grape tomatoes, cut and cleaned
carrots and celery, and arrange them on a tray with dip in the center. Sliced cheese (usually sharp cheddar) and
crackers like Wheat Thins go on another plate, and everyone keeps themselves
happy with healthy snacks, instead of attacking the desserts hours early. We always invite a friend and his (now adult
kids) and their wives, and he brings a huge platter of shrimp cocktail. The secret to making everything look inviting:
put it on a pretty plate; don't put the cracker box on the table with a
container of dip. For the record, I make
my dips with low-fat sour cream; I need to save a few calories wherever I can.
Spinach Dip
(My favorite with veggies or crackers)
1 cup sour
cream
1 envelope
onion soup mix OR
1 tsp beef
base or beef bouillon granules plus 1 to 2 tbsp dried chopped onion
10 ounce
package frozen spinach, thawed, squeezed dry and chopped
Milk for
desired consistency
Stir the
onion soup mix or beef granules and dried onion together in a bowl; taste and
add more dried onion, if necessary. Add
the spinach, stir together, and add milk to bring it to the right
consistency. Refrigerate at least 2
hours (overnight is better). Note that I use low-fat sour cream and nonfat milk
and no one has ever noticed that it's not full fat!
Planning
Thanksgiving for 20 to 25 people can be hard.
We have at least one vegetarian every year, plus people with blood sugar
issues, and my dearly beloved's heart issues, requiring low-fat and reduced
sodium cooking where possible. Skim milk
for mashing the potatoes and removing all the fat from the pan drippings are
obvious starting points. And I
gratefully accept whatever dishes my guests want to bring: our friend always
brings his own sausage stuffing, which he created about 4 years ago, and his
older son's wife brings a dessert and, last year, dinner rolls. Finding enough huge serving bowls is the
biggest problem.
To feed so many people,
and still have enough leftovers for one or two days, I cook a pair of 24 pound
turkeys, plus 4 to 6 extra drumsticks; we call it the Chernobyl Turkeys. (If
you aren't old enough to remember the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster,
you, like my kids, won't find that funny at all.) And we carve the birds before they get to the
table, so it will be easy for everyone to help themselves. I do decorate the platter with parsley under
the meat, and an orange cut into eighths, plus a few small stems of
grapes. Everyone is convinced that
pretty food tastes better, after all.
And, to make
Ms. Faye happy, how about a couple of quick and easy side dish recipes?
Sauteed
Brussels Sprouts
1 pound
Brussels Sprouts
1/2 tsp
salt
Olive oil
to coat the bottom of the pan
1 tsp
minced garlic
1 tbsp
bacon bits
Simmer the
Brussels sprouts for about 3 minutes in lightly salted water; drain. Cover the bottom of the pan with olive oil,
add the garlic and cook for a minute, then add the sprouts and bacon bits. Cook for about 5 minutes, until the sprouts
are done.
Glazed
Carrots
1 pound
carrots, sliced
2 tbsp
butter
1 tbsp
honey
1 tbsp
water
1/2 tsp
salt
Melt the
butter with the honey, water and salt; add the carrots, and cook until fork
tender (time will vary depending upon how thick you slice them; mine take about
5 minutes).
Parsleyed
Red Potatoes
2 pounds
red potatoes, washed and cut into chunks
Salted
water
4 tbsp
butter or margarine
Ground
black pepper
1 bunch of
parsley, leaves coarsely chopped
Boil the
potatoes until fork tender; drain. In
the same pan, melt the butter and lightly sauté the parsley. Return the potatoes to the pan, add pepper to
taste, and stir to coat. (You may want
more butter, but just 4 tbsp provides a nice light coating to the potatoes).
Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! And a special thanks to our gracious Sewing
Gourmet for letting me ramble on her blog!
