celebrating the best of Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's
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Leftover cranberry sauce? Put it in a smoothie! This makes one serving. It’s refreshing and filling (yogurt has protein) so it will keep you going through a morning of Black Friday shopping.
To a blender, add, in this order
Blend and enjoy!
When I grew up in the 70s in Richmond, Virginia, our community was not super diverse. If we saw a car with out-of-state license plates, we stopped and stared at it, slack-jawed, as if it were an escaped zoo animal, until it disappeared from sight. Continue reading
This reciped came from the back of Target’s “Market Pantry” Baked Whet Thins box 🙂 Check out these other cheeseball recipes..
Mix all ingredient except pecans in a bowl. Shape into a ball or log. Roll ball in peans to cover. Wrap in plastic wrap and chill in referigrerator at least one hour or overnight. Serve with crackers.
When we think of Thanksgiving, we think about turkey, corn, green beans and pumpkin pie. But did you know that seafood is also a traditional component? It’s believed that seafood was served at the first Thanksgiving.
An extra bonus: it’s protein. I don’t know who had the bright idea of having Thanksgiving dinner in the late afternoon but if you’re like me, by the time the turkey is finally ready, you’re HUNGRY. If you offer an appetizer, soup or early first course of seafood, not only is it unexpected and elegant, it also staves off hunger pangs that can cause grouchiness.
Much of it is also easy to prepare. Oyster stew, for example, takes just minutes.
Just keep in mind: turkey will keep, but seafood won’t. So, let people fill up on shirmp cocktail, crab dip or oyster stew. It won’t be good the second day like turkey will.
In Virginia and Maryland, crabs are still in season in November and oysters are also in season. Maryland restaurants offer crabs along with their carry-out Thanksgiving feasts. Nantucket Bay scallops and Atlantic Little Neck clams come into season in November. The biggest hauls of Canadian lobsters are also in November. Here are some regional recipes to try for your first course/appetizer…let me know if you have made any of these before!
Old Bay Hot Crab Dip Recipe (tip: add a teaspoon of lemon juice and a dash of Tabasco to this recipe, garnish with chopped chive)
Waypoint Seafood and Grill (Williamsburg, VA) Scalloped Oysters
Tangier Island, Virginia Crab Cakes
Legal Seafoods Little Neck Clam Chowder
I think this is pretty darn cute. It’s a standard cheese ball — nothing fancy in the way of ingredients — cheddar, chives, cream cheese, a little pepper and Dijon Mustard — but, ah, it’s the way you decorate this cheese ball that takes it into sublime territory.
My only worry is that people will not want to mess it up. But it sounds delicious! Put this out with your crudites this Thanksgiving!
From your friends at Hallmark. Download the recipe and decorating instructions.
Here’s a holiday recipe from Sara Ayyash, pastry chef at The Jefferson Hotel in Richmond, Virginia.
Candy Cane Brownies
Yields: 2 dozen brownies
In the microwave, melt the butter and chocolate, stirring every 30 seconds till melted.
Let the chocolate cool to room temperature.
Preheat the oven to 350 and grease a 13×9 inch pan.
All at once, add the sugar, eggs, flour, salt, and vanilla to the cooled chocolate. Stir until completely
combined.
Pour the brownie batter into the prepared pan and sprinkle the crushed candy canes and chopped peppermint patties on top.
Bake for 25 minutes. Let cool completely before cutting into squares.
My mom used to make this for us, as a breakfast dish. I can’t wait to make it.
In today’s Food Section of the Richmond Times-Dispatch, I noticed that they had included a recipe for Thalhimers’ Richmond Room Spoonbread in a “Recipes Remembered” column. What a great holiday side dish! Here it is for you to make at home. Mine never tastes as good as the ACTUAL Thalhimers’ spoon bread, but memories are always romanticized with the passage of time. Let me know how it works out for you by sharing your results on the Finding Thalhimers Facebook page!
THALHIMERS’ RICHMOND ROOM SPOONBREAD 
(courtesy: Richmond Times-Dispatch)
Makes 9 servings
1/4 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup white cornmeal
1 1/2 cups boiling water
1/2 cup flour
1 1/2 cups whole milk
4 eggs
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder (Must be Rumford brand, according to Thalhimers’ staff)
1 pinch salt
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Pour butter into an 8-inch-square baking pan. Place cornmeal in…
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Isn’t this a gorgeous salad for the holidays?
Full recipe and assembly instructions here:
Image via Wikipedia
I was lamenting that I had lost this recipe forever. I cut it out of a magazine in the 1998 and couldn’t find it for a couple of years. Guess what. I found it in a bag of stuff in the basement, which is a good thing because this is the best soup ever. The cooks (N. Coult and K. Moerke) won a $400 prize for it. So it is award-winning soup 🙂
Lots of time I think it’s just fine to mess around and substitute ingredients. Not this time. If you make this exactly like this, it will be fantastic. But don’t wimp out and leave out a little detail, like the lime peel, because the lime peel absolutely MAKES this soup sing.
So here it is. So easy. Vegetarian! Only 129 calories a serving. Makes 6 small servings. Life is good.
Ingredients:
Directions: In a large saucepan, cook onion and ginger in hot butter until onion is tender. Stir in pears, cook 1 minute more. Stir in canned pumpkin and vegetable broth; heat to boiling. Reduce heat and simmer, covered, about 5 minutes more or until pears are tender. Cool slightly. In a blender container or food processor, cover and blend 1/2 of pumpkin mixture at a time, until smooth, about 1 minute. Return processed mixture to saucepan; stir in milk. Heat through. Season to taste with salt and white pepper (if desired).
Meanwhile, in a small bowl stir together sour cream, 1/2 tsp of lime peel, and lime juice. Top each serving of soup with a drizzle of lime sour cream mixture. Garnish with a little additional lime peel.
I’ve discovered a few tricks and gadgets that are making my holiday cookie baking much more successful this year.
Parchment paper. Most of my cookie recipes call for an ungreased cookie sheet. This year, I’m lining my cookie sheet with parchment paper. I just discovered how much easier it is making my cookie-baking. A sheet of parchment paper can be reused, batch after batch. When the cookies are done, you slip the paper, cookies and all, onto wire racks to cool (minimum 2 minutes). I am finding that the cookies bake more evenly, don’t break when I try to lift them from the paper, and I don’t have to clean the pan between batches. At Safeway, look for the display of parchment paper that offers a 75-cents-off coupon.
Cookie scoop and silicon turner. My sister swore by using this handled cookie scoop for cookie dough. (It looks like a small ice cream scoop.) At first, I wondered, why not just use spoons? But when I saw a Betty Crocker set of a cookie scoop plus cookie turner at Wal-Mart for about $3, I decided to try it. The scoop does a couple of things. It does make it a lot easier to scoop and produce evenly sized cookies. It is also easier to use every scrap of dough in the mixing bowl, so there is less waste (and more cookies!). I feel as if the scoop does not overly work the dough (the way scraping with two spoons might), which results in a lighter cookie texture. I am also a big fan of the thin, flexible turner that came in the set. It really does work better than the other turners I have for lifting cookies.
Cookie mixes. I usually make cookies to give as gifts, using recipes I have relied on year after year, and using the best ingredients, such as real vanilla and unsalted butter. This year, I find I just don’t have the time to bake from scratch. I still wanted to make cookies, however, so I bought several bags of Betty Crocker cookie dough mix in various flavors. They are on sale at Safeway for about $1.25 a bag (each bag makes 2-3 dozen cookies). I am having good success with all of them, and they save a great deal of time, and there aren’t as many utensils and bowls to clean. It’s a good compromise, if you are also pressed for time.
You can elaborate on the cookie mixes using these recipes from Betty Crocker, available online at http://www.bettycrocker.com. To save time, I may skip rolling out dough and making cut-out cookies this year and bake the jam-filled thumbprint cookies with the Betty Crocker sugar cookie mix, instead.
Cook Book. While we’re talking Betty Crocker, I should also mention that I think the latest Betty Crocker cook book is a winner, especially for less experienced cooks, like myself. The cookbook is unique in that it provides photographs of how your cookies should look when done. It shows what a cookie looks like if you use too much butter or flour, and how it should look when it is just right.
A few more cookie-baking tips…
Use fresh ingredients. For the best flavor, use fresh ingredients for everything. Don’t use last year’s shortening, oil, baking soda, baking powder, flour, candy or nuts. If you are in doubt, toss it. The exception is vanilla extract, which lasts indefinitely. Even spices lose their life after too long on the shelf (about one to four years, depending on the type). Also, some might swear by them, but I don’t have good experience with cooking sprays and I don’t like what they do to my pans.
Refrigerate the dough after you mix it. This will help prevent cookie spread (cookies baking too flat and thin).
Let your cookie sheets cool between batches. If you put cookies on warm sheets, they may spread while baking.
Toast nuts before adding to the dough. Toasted nuts have the best flavor. You can toast pecans, walnuts, and almonds in about 7 minutes or less in a 400 degree oven.
Using an expensive spice? Like cardamon or star anise? Try an Indian spice store. You may find good deals on spices.
What do you use to bake great cookies? Have you found the perfect cookie sheet? Do you have a great recipe? Feel free to add them in the comments!
Cool Yule 
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