Thanksgiving Recipe Blog Hop 2010

Welcome to the Hop...

this is the last stop in the hop...you made it!
if you've been 'hopping' then hopefully you just came from Jamie at Creating Home
and just enjoy browsing all the wonderful recipes that everyone posted for you

if you are just starting the Hop, then go to the beginning with Robin at Creative 2x Mom and follow the blogs thru, they will bring you back to me...

this is my very first blog hop and I am so excited to be sharing it with all of these wonderful ladies..

if you have NO idea what I'm talking about...just trust me...

grab a cup of coffee (or tea) and start hopping

I am actually sharing 2 recipes with you...
first it's my mom's sweet potato recipe...

and I totally cheated on my own blog hop and I'm using my Mom's recipe for Sweet Potatoes...and actually I think she uses Yams but we still call it sweet potatoes.... (you say potato we say yam)...

this is a tried and true recipe that isn't even written down anymore, but right out of memory (you know those are the good ones!)...but I did recently see a very similar recipe that called for pears rather than apples...since we've never tried that I didn't want to add it/change it in the recipe, but I wanted to give you guys the option....sort of on a pear theme today in my recipes!

When I asked her the name of the dish she told me that she got it from a long time family friend...named Linda (also my mom's name...and 20% of the ladies from that generation!) so it's appropriately called

Linda's Sweet Potato Recipe

2 large cans Yam/sweet potato

2 red apples (I use either Fugi, Gala or  Braeburn-my mom)  (maybe pears?)

½ cup brown sugar      

½ cup chopped walnuts  

     (or pecans...my suggestion not moms, my family will not eat walnuts but will eat pecans...such snobs!)

¼ cup butter

Marshmallows

Wash core and thinly slice apples into large casserole dish with yams.  Add brown sugar and walnuts. Gently fold together so that everything is evenly mixed and dot top with butter.  Bake for 25-30 min or until apples are done. Put marshmallows on top as thickly as you prefer and put under broiler until golden.

You can add more nuts if you really like them and it’s still yummy if you don’t put marshmallows on top although you might want to add a little more brown sugar. I actually prefer it without marshmallows, but to my husband aka my father, it’s not a sweet potato casserole unless it has golden marshmallows melted on top! (my mom's notes)

okay now my REAL recipe is for a pear tart...

and -confession- I've never made or had this for Thanksgiving...

but I feel like pears get the short end of the stick during this season...
it's their season too...
why do the apples and pumpkins outshine the pear...
maybe I'm just more supportive to pears since I grew up in pear town...
aka the Rouge Valley (Southern Oregon)...

or maybe it's because I have my kitchen decorated in pears...

whatever it is...I feel we need to give the pear it's rightful place at our Thanksgiving tables this year....

just to clarify...I HAVE made this recipe, just not for Thanksgiving!

Brown Butter Pear Tart

Browned Butter Pastry Recipe (follows)

1/4 cup sugar

4 tsp flour

1/4 tsp ground ginger (more or less depending on your taste...)

     or substitute nutmeg and cloves if your family doesn't 'do' ginger
4 cups sliced & peeled pears
1 Tbp lemon juice
1 Tbp sliced almonds or pecans (optional)
milk/cream
sugar
1.  Prepare browned butter pastry (recipe follows), set aside.  Cover a cookie sheet with foil, sprinkle lightly with flour.  Roll out pasty* into a 13-inch circle and place on foil.
2.  In large bowl stir together sugar, flour, and ginger.  Add pears and lemon juice; toss gently until coated.  Mound pear mixture in center of pastry, leaving a 2-inch border.  Fold border up over pears.  Sprinkle center with nuts (optional).  Lightly brush pastry with milk/cream and dust with sugar.
3.  Bake in a 375 oven for 35-40 minutes or until crust is goldeny brown (the color will be different than a 'normal' pie crust with the browned butter pastry) and filling is bubbly.  If necessary, cover edges of pastry with foil for the last 5-10 minutes to prevent overbrowning (aka burning!).
4.  Cool 30 minutes on the baking sheet.  Serve warm (you can microwave slices to re-heat them) with vanilla ice cream or whipped cream!

Browned Butter Pastry
1/4 cup butter
1 1/4 cup flour (wheat flour is very yummy with this)
1 Tbp sugar
1/4 tsp salt
4-5 Tbp cold water


1.  In a small saucepan melt butter over medium heat until butter turns the color of light brown sugar (slightly hard to tell because the butter will be frothy), stirring constantly.  

Cover and chill browned butter until solid, about 1 1/2 hrs (you can do this a day ahead).
*2.  In medium bowl stir together flour, salt and sugar.  Using pasty blender cut browned butter into flour mixture until it resembles pea-sized crumbs or smaller.  You can work your flour/butter mixture as long as you want...pastry gets tough once you add the water...but at this stage it's still forgivable...
3.  Make a well in the middle of the flour mixture and pour your cold water (the colder the better) and mix water into flour using a fork, work quickly, until dough forms a ball (you may need to use your hands).  Place pastry onto lightly flour surface, use your hands flatten out ball, coating it with flour on both sides.  Roll dough into a 13 inch circle with a floured rolling pin.

* If I can teach you anything about baking it is this....

handle pastry as little as possible, the more you handle it the tougher it will be, so opt for taste over beauty, if it's falling apart try to patch the pastry with extra pieces rather than starting the whole thing over and re-rolling it!!!  trust me on this...I have served many pies, and once it's cut and served how it looked gets WAY over shadowed by how it tasted!

Thanks everyone for joining us on my first every blog hop!  Hope you had fun visiting all the ladies on our Thanksgiving Recipe Blog Hop 2010!

just a re-cap here was the hopping order...

Robin from Creative 2x Mom http://creative2xmom.blogspot.com/ 
Kristin from Sweetheart Moments  http://www.mysweetheartmoments.com/ 
Krista from ~LopezFamily~ http://kristasuz.blogspot.com/ 
Becky of From Rookie to Rockstar http://rookietorockstar.blogspot.com/ 
Lisa from Juella Designs the Blog http://www.lisaski.typepad.com/ 
Jamie from Creating Home http://www.jamieschulz.blogspot.com/ 
and then ME...Kiera (that's me) from ChambersMade http://chambersmade.blogspot.com/ 

Happy Thanksgiving everyone, have a safe and thankful day!

Oh, Yeah...I signed up for that didn't I...

okay, so I'm a total planner...
so very organized that it's ridiculous!

okay, so I lie...

I'm one of those people that agree to do something and then forget until like 5 minutes before and then rush to get it done and usually stress my family out in the process!

so anyways, I signed up to bring a salad to a baby shower this past Saturday...
easy peasy....

Saturday morning...
doing a mini tri run thru
(oh, yea signed up for another one of those things and it's less than a week away now!)
and then the baby shower...that I signed up to bring a salad to...

hmmm...no lettuce in the house and no time to go to the grocery store...
how do you make a salad without lettuce...
what DO I have in the house...
a little spinach (very little, not even enough for a personal salad let alone a pot luck salad)
some onions...
can of black beans
and rice...

I posted on facebook that I was looking for a cold rice salad...and had some great friends post a few different recipes...none of them with what I had on hand, but with enough ideas that I was able to make a really delicious rice salad, one that will now go onto our dinner menu list...

I really don't have great measurements for this, it's all about taste and what you have on hand...

Spinach Black Bean Rice Salad
1 cup rice (uncooked)
1/2 cup onion chopped
1 clove garlic (grated)
2 cups water with chicken bullion or 2 cups chicken broth
salt and pepper to taste
1 tbs butter
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
1-2 handfuls of spinach leaves chopped
1/2-1 cup of chopped red or yellow peppers
lime or lemon (zest and juice)
mayo
1/2 cup toasted pine nuts or chopped almonds

1.  Sauté rice, onion & garlic in butter for about 5 minutes stirring constantly.  Add water and chicken bullion and salt and pepper, stir.  Bring to boil, simmer with lid on for 20 minutes. Remove from heat and cool

2.  Once rice is cooled, toss in beans, spinach and chopped peppers.

3. Mix juice of one lime or lemon (or more per your taste) and about 1 tea zest of same fruit and about 3/4 cup mayo, blend well into rice mixture.  Add more mayo and lime juice per taste, and salt and pepper.  Top with toasted nuts.

...so this is the recipe I used...I would have loved to use lime but only had lemon, and also wanted to add chopped cilantro but also didn't have any of that...
other things to add that would be good...artichoke hearts, broccoli, asparagus, cherry/grape tomatoes, feta cheese crumbles, crispy bacon pieces....

I was actually surprised how good this was, and the little that came home from the shower was devoured by the husband...

Not Your Grandma's 3 Bean Salad

So I stumbled upon the classic 3 bean salad recipe this summer and it was so good and yummy that I've made it a ton and kept it in our fridge, such a nice cool side dish during the summer months...

only my kids ratted me out...
I don't just use 3 beans...
after about 2 weeks of calling it the "3 Bean Salad" the boy child said,
"Why do you call it 3 bean when it has 4 and sometimes 5 beans in it?"...

"umm, cuz...."  was my brilliant answer!

and then this past Sunday I needed to bring a side dish to the annual church summer bbq/baptism...
and since I forgot until like Saturday night about 10 pm and wasn't going to make a trip to the store after church on Sunday to get anything I had to throw together something with what I had on hand...

and just fyi, there are ALWAYS beans in my pantry...it drives my husband CRAZY that I buy beans every time I grocery shop whether I need them for something on the menu or not, and I never check to see if I need to replenish my supply, I just always have to buy beans...
black beans,
pinto beans,
kidney beans,
green beans,
white beans,
...I have a thing for beans!

so I knew I'd be able to throw together the "3 bean salad" as my side dish....
only guess what I get home from church on Sunday and start to assemble my salad...and I wanted to make a double batch...and I didn't have enough beans...I wanted 2 cans of each "flavor" and I was out...I had like 5 cans of black beans, but only 1 can of kidney, green, and white...so what else do I add to my 3 bean salad now that I've mixed up double the amount of dressing but only have 1/2 the amount of beans that I needed...

so here is my
Not Your Grandma's 3 Bean Salad recipe that I came up with...and we LOVE it...
2 cans of black beans
1 can of kidney beans
1 can of green beans
1 can of white kidney or wax or garbanzo or whatever bean you want...
....or a mixture of at least 5 cans of beans...
1 cup sweet pepper chopped*, optional
1/2 cup chopped red onion (optional)
3 cups broccoli slaw**
1/2 cup vinegar
4 Tbs sugar
4 Tbs oil
1/2 tea celery salt (optional)

1.  Drain and rinse all the beans and place in large bowl.  Toss in veggies and slaw.  Mix vinegar, sugar, oil and celery salt together in small bowl until sugar is dissolved (or shake in a dressing container)
2.  Coat beans with dressing and refrigerate...serve cold, this salad gets better the longer it marinates, and it lasts up to 2 weeks in the fridge.

I choose the color of pepper depending on the color of beans I've used, if I need more green in the salad I use green peppers, more yellows/oranges or more red...it's all about presentation!

*I've been getting bags of small sweet peppers, red, orange, yellow and green, this bag had no green... all summer, so yummy

**my husband just, like within the past 2 weeks, decided that he likes broccoli...so I am so excited to start adding it to more dishes...you can buy the broccoli slaw in the veggie section at your grocery store, that makes me so happy!

do you have a twist on a "classic" like this?

Put the Lime in the Rice...

We like rice in our family, but we like to change it up a lot...

I have lots of tricks to change the flavor you just need to always remember the 1x2 ratio of dry rice to liquid...and all will usually turn out great.

The recipe that I threw together last night had a hint of lime, I'll put more in next time...so I'll write my recipe to how I should have made it and not how I actually did...

Lime Infused Rice
1 Tbl butter
1 cup rice
2-3 garlic cloves, finely grated
1 1/2 cup chicken broth
1/2 cup fresh squeezed lime juice
zest of 1-2 limes
1 tsp salt
1 Tbs fresh parsley chopped

Melt butter in sauce pan, add rice & garlic and sauté until the rice turns white.  Add the rest of the ingredients, stir once, cover and simmer for 20 minutes.