Thursday, November 25, 2010

Thanksgiving

Ah, the Thanksgiving feast is over and everyone over the age of 20 is down for their nap except me.

The menu was:

Ham
Au Gratin Potatoes
Green Bean Almondine
Corn
Rancho Canyon Cookbook: Simple Sourdough Bread

Pickled Beets
Bread-n-Butter pickles
Pickled Mushrooms
Kosher Baby Dill Pickles
Chocolate Chiffon Pie
Sweet Potato Chiffon Pie
Apple Pie with Lemon Cream Sauce
Iced Tea with Mint

The Au Gratin potatoes, Chocolate Chiffon pie and Apple pie with Lemon Cream sauce recipes all came out of my 1963 edition of Pillsbury's Family Cookbook. When Mother was a housekeeper for the Wichita Public Library she found my cookbook in the trash. Other than a few stains it was in pretty good shape. I've had it over 40 years. If I want to make good solid American food it is the cookbook of choice.

Sister Suzy lobbied for a chocolate pie, so I, being a wonderful mother and all (tongue firmly in cheek, cough, cough), added another pie to the dinner. My twist on the chocolate pie was to use 2 Abuelita Mexican Chocolate disks instead of 2 oz. unsweetened chocolate squares and to cut the last 1/4 cup of sugar out of the egg whites. It was still plenty sweet. I bet I could have cut 1/4 to 1/3 more sugar and it would still be sweet enough.

I was going to link my Green Bean Almondine recipe but guess what? Nobody has a recipe the way I make it. So here is how I make it:

Green Bean Almondine

2 15 oz cans of green beans or 1 lb bag frozen, your choice of cut
1/2 onion, chopped
1/4 lb bacon, chopped, fried crisp, drained or Ham, cubed
1 tsp bacon drippings
1/4 cup sliced almonds
2 or 3 mushrooms, sliced
salt to taste

Put everything but salt in a 2 quart sauce pan. Cook until onions are translucent. Taste for saltiness and season accordingly. Serve

My twist on the sourdough bread was to replace 8 oz of plain flour with 8 oz. of whole wheat. This is the best bread recipe I have ever tried. If you have trouble making a decent loaf of bread try this one. I think my problem with baking bread is I don't knead it long enough. This bread isn't kneaded at all, yeah!

Hope you counted your blessings and Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Judy

2 comments:

Linda Lou and Senor, Too said...

I have been lookijng for new ways to use Abuelita's chocolate and your chocolate pie sounds great! Thanks!

Judy said...

Thanks! I've been hearing noises about brownies so I am going to try them with Abuelita's and see what they taste like.