Posted Thursday, November 19, 2009 5:58 PM
So I'm trying to collect up a couple family recipes to pass along to one of my friends who will be hosting her family for her first Thanksgiving...I'm sending her my stuffed mushroom recipe, and two other recipes I found in cooking light and tried this last weekend: roasted brussel sprouts with apples and upside down cranberry cake. Check out those last two on cook lights website. Very yummy.
I never ate brussel sprouts growing up, my mom didn't like them. Not until I made them at least. DH is English, they are traditional at Christmas so I made them. Roasted they are so yummy so if you don't like brussel sprouts but have yet to try them roasted do.
Anyhow... I was thinking...what are your favorite Thanksgiving recipes? She's getting married in a couple months and recipes are kind of something a bride traditionally gets at a shower, but I'm not sure she's having a shower as her family lives far away and we are planning on throwing her a bachelor party she is certain to forget rather than a shower, so I thought it'd be cool to share all our recipes as a little family/community of new brides.
I'll start off with my mushroom recipe:
Mushroom caps with basil-pecan stuffing (Recipe for stuffing ends up making a lot)
6 large mushrooms
Olive oil for brushing
Basil-Pecan Stuffing
1 T unsalted butter
1/2 c finely chopped onion
2 cloves garlic minced or 1 t prepared minced garlic
1/4 cup toasted wheat germ/or bread crumbs
2 T finely chopped pecans
2 T grated Parmesan cheese
1 T soy sauce
1 T flat leaf Parsley
1 T minced fresh basil
Ground pepper to taste
Preheat oven to 375. Remove stems from the mushrooms. Finely chop stems to 1/2 c and set aside. Lightly brush the mushroom caps with oil. Place caps, rounded side down on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Set aside.
To make stuffing:
Melt butter in skillet over medium/high heat. Add the onion and cook until fragrant (about 1 min). Add mushrooms, garlic and continue to cook until tender (4 min). Remove from heat and stir in remaining ingredients. Season with pepper to taste.
To finish off.
Fill mushroom caps. Bake for about 10 minutes or unti stuffing is heated through and lightly browned. I usually do longer becuase my oven runs cool and make the stuffing the night before and so it is coldish when I toss it in the oven.
Posted Monday, November 16, 2009 8:40 PM
Yeah! DH stood up for us. It wasn't a big deal. I didn't think it really would be, but sometimes MIL surprises me. For the most part, she's great, but anyhow here's the background.
My family has always done T-Day with my dad's side. Everyone, cousin's etc come and it's great. A little overwhelming, but it's great to catch up with everyone. This year it's around 68 I think and not everyone will be there. (we eat in the two car garage). DH's family always went away for that week, (Aruba, Paris...) because it's an American holiday and they aren't American. So when they got their citizenship, they started celebrating. I invited DH the first year his family didn't go away (freshman year college), but his mother wanted him at home for their first thanksgiving. Fair enough. So I stopped after my family dinner so I could see him and we played board games it was nice. I kept doing that and then eventually DH started coming with me. It was fine when I was living at my mom's a mile away, but when we moved out and in together after college, it became a little much to go to both houses, but we did it. It was 40 minutes to my uncle's, 30 minutes out of the way from there to ILs and an hour home. And then we'd go back on Friday to spend the day with them since we'd only had a couple hours late at night!
Anyhow, on top of cooking all day Wednesday to make my desserts and apps that I bring to the Thanksgiving dinner, preparing dinner DH and myself since we'e vegetarians, and then visiting with my family, I'm just too tired to go over to ILs and I feel like I have to cut out early from my families dinner (there are a lot of people to visit). I used to go to my grams on the day after since I only get to see some of my cousins this one weekend a year, but I gave that up to go to ILs, so when the question came up again about whether to do both, or just my family's, DH agreed to spend ALL day Thanksgiving with my family and then we'll do Friday with his folks! I'm so happy to similify things. I know we could alternate, but some of my cousins do that with their ILs so we could get a year off from someone and not see them, and it is my favorite day of the year, and we spend every other major holiday with ILs and my mom together so my dad gets Thanksgiving. When we start having kids we'll re-evaluate, but I'm happy to have solved this problem for the year, and I'm happy that DH diplomatically let his mother know. I
Posted Thursday, November 12, 2009 10:24 PM
Just got home from work/dad's...was chaperoning a dance tonight with a head ache that started around noon today. Fun. The dance actually went really well, and was fairly well attended so that was good. Went to my dad's and good news: DH was there doing laundry already. I came home early (10) while he finished up with laundry. Before I left though he filled me on some good news. While we have a lot of credit card debt, he talked to a credit consolidating group, and they are going to help us lower the interest rate and we can get paid down in 3 years! which is really good considering what we can afford to pay each month. Other news he heard back from his company on the London transfer, they don't have any new positions for his job, but will keep him in mind as the office grows in the next year or so. Actually, it's a relief. I want to go to London; I loved living there in college, but right now I'd rather be at home where I know I have a job, my family is around and we can focus on starting our family with our family near by, rather than trying to put them up when we have kids cause their going to want visit them. Now onto looking for a new/bigger apartment. :) At least I've got a plan.
Posted Wednesday, November 11, 2009 8:22 AM
Yeah got the day off to catch up on grading and housework...but I always like to reflect today on why I have the day off. I feel that my team of teachers did I really good job reminding our students why they have the day off. One of the teachers is a Vietnam Vet, so all of the students in English class wrote him thank you letters earlier this week, and the letters were bond into a book and presented to him at the end of the day on Tuesday. We took all the kids out to the hall at the end of class, and a student presented it to him for his classmates and Steve gave a short little thank you speech to the students explaining what it means since our students are the first people who have really thanked him for his service. When he had come back from the war, the soldiers were treated so poorly because the war was so unpopular. After getting shot at over there, having to shoot other people, dealing with horrors, they come back and have to deal with being hated, ostracized, no support from the community to help them deal with the PTSD and adjust to coming back into the general population. Just so horrible for that generation.
I think it is really wonderful that even though Iraq and Afganhastan has not been a popular war, and I have personally been very vocally opposed to the war, protesting, petitioning etc, I have always supported our soldiers who are making whatever sacrifice they are asked to make. So anyhow...today I have sent my notes off to the soldiers and veterans that I know to thank them. Don't forget to send yours 
Posted Tuesday, November 10, 2009 4:57 PM
I'm thankful that my new meds are making my period more regular, but oh my.
When I was younger I had cramps that caused me to not be able to get out of my seat in school. I'd literally get stuck in a seat and not be able to stand up...then the periods stopped, I got diagnosied with PCOS and started on the pills, and the cramps were manageable. I figured these cramps would be something I'd grow out of, but now that I've been off the pill, I get the horrific, double over pain. Meds can help take the edge off, but not completely, and they come and go a little bit. So when I was just straight up off the pill and getting a period every three months or so, I didn't have to deal with these that much, but oh lordy. It's nice knowing when I ovulated this month, I had very obvious signs, and the timing was good, so when I finish my masters I'm going to have some good ideas for targets, but question to any of you moms out there: does the strength of cramping have anything to do with how labor goes...I'm hoping strong cramps = strong utereus, faster/easier labor...but the bad news is I definitely get really bad cramps in the small of my back, which I'm wondering does that mean I'm more likely to have back labor?
Posted Monday, November 09, 2009 4:58 PM
I've been trying to cancel this gym membership for ages. I moved ages ago, and I tried canceling my gym membership then, went back to the gym, tried to do it in person, couldn't do it. They use a third party billing service who you have to contact directly. I jumped through hoops, e-mailed, called, wrote letters etc, still kept getting charged. The couldn't do it over the phone, "never" got the letters, and the e-mails were bounced back consistently. I even tried just not changing the account number when my credit card date expired, but then they sent credit collection notices. They can change the credit card over the phone but not cancel the policy, Wack. They can authorize that verbally but not terminate the contract verbally. So anyhow the credit card company I was charging it on wants to send my interest rate sky high like they are all starting to do if you want to keep an account open, so I'm canceling, and am again playing this jump through the hoop game with ABC financial. Word of warning ladies, do not sign up with a gym that uses a third part financial service like this. They are ridiculous. So far I know WorkoutWorld (WOW) and Gold's use them.
I came home and started dealing with all this after a lovely day of lip service from 13 and 14 year olds. I kept apologizing to the guy I was talking to on the phone saying this wasn't directed at him but these inane rules were driving me mad and I couldn't help but yell at how stupid the company was being. He kept asking is there anything else I can do for you, and I was like absolutely nothing, you can do absolutely nothing because your company refuses to provide any customer service whatsoever. Heck, I'm not their customer anyhow the stupid gym was.
Posted Sunday, November 08, 2009 12:17 PM
I'm loving this Sunday. I feel so productive.
I got the house cleaned in small spurts Saturday and Friday, ran errands, had my brother over for dinner with us, had time and energy to make the chili that is for dinner tonight last night (prepped in the crock pot so I just had to take it out of the fridge, plop it in the heater and turn on). My brother and FIL are coming over to have dinner with us tonight, so that'll be fun and nice to know that hte house is clean enough for company. DH even just finished vacuuming!!!! He asked what he could to help when he saw me wiping down the glass coffee table. This was huge after the weekly saturday morning fight about me not being able to relax if the house is messy and him wanting to relax and not being able to if I was going around cleaning.
I'm totally in love with those warm belly filling food right now. I made oatmeal with cinnamon and dried fruit for breakfast, whipped up apple crisp for dessert tonight and now the chili is cooking, so my house just smells soooo yummmy. Now we're off to Panera for lunch with friends, where I'm going to try the new mac and cheese. So sad they got rid of their corn chowder, it was a summer only thing, but it was sooo good.
After this, I have to go pick up my brohter to take him suit shopping on mom's dime. Jos A Banks was having a sale (buy one get second free and an outwear coat). Great deal. She didn't realize that while the suits are amazing quality and tailored, they also start at $500, so we'll find some good buys at Macy's or Kohl's. Beautiful day to sit in traffic trying to get to the mall :).
Only three things left on the must do list; grading, grad school and lovin'. Don't mind so much about grading and grad school cause I have Wednesday off and will catch up, but lovin' definitly has to happen. Last weekend it was like 4 times, this weekend nada. DH has had a cold so that has something to do with it, but I got spoiled last weekend and expect something before AF arrives and ruins next week.
Posted Friday, November 06, 2009 8:53 PM
Yeah the week is over, AND my house isn't a disaster this week because I've had energy to clean as the week went on, so it must have been a sort good week at work if I had that energy.
I'm going to be good this weekend. I went a little crazy on Halloween with the hard cider, and mixed with the Metformin, I started to get some nasty side effects and had to stop taking it for a couple days till things improved, so no more drinking for the rest of this weekend, and back on the meds. Even though I'm not up to full strength, I think they are already working a bit better. It's been almost 4 weeks since my last cycle and I've been having cramps already and cravings so maybe I'm going to get on a regular cycle. That'd be very cool, though DH has just thrown a bit of wrench into the baby making plans...he's applying for a new job that if he gets it he might have to go ahead to the job while I finish up the school year. I just don't like the idea of leaving in the middle of the year if I can help it, and if I stick it out this year I think I can get the federal government to basically pay off the balance of all my student loans, so it'd be a pretty good bonus, just would suck that for a couple months we'd be an ocean apart, hard to make babies like that too. I can't wait to here about this job though, it's kind of a dream opportunity.