Perfect drop biscuits made with buttermilk or whey

If you make one thing I've shared all these years, make these biscuits. This is it. The one recipe I want you to make. My signature recipe.

When I have my grandparents over for dinner, I always make these biscuits. My Grandpa, who is the best, will forgo dessert every time for one more biscuit with jam. I wonder if it reminds him of a simpler time. He lost his mother at a very young age and had to take over the household chores, cooking and cleaning, while his dad and brothers worked during the great depression. In Oklahoma, no less. So, just know, these biscuits are special.

They're not the most beautiful. I'll give that award to rolled biscuits. But, my mom made drop biscuits, and that's what I make. They're craggy and tender and buttery and light, and beautifully easy. And that's beautiful enough for me.

Two things about these biscuits. You need buttermilk or whey (if you make yogurt and if you don't make yogurt, try it with this easy recipe), on hand. I quite often have both. Whey makes for a seriously soft crumb. The Mister prefers a whey biscuit to a buttermilk biscuit. And, they're a bit fussy. By that I mean, you have to melt the butter beforehand. If you forget, you have to wait a minute or two while the butter melts and cools so it isn't blazing hot. But once you get the hang of it, you can crank them out lickity split.

Best Buttermilk Drop Biscuits made from scratch
adapted from America's Test Kitchen

2 Cups all purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. Kosher Salt
1 tsp. sugar
1/2 Cup butter, melted and cooled slightly
1 Cup cold buttermilk or cold whey (I know, that's me for you. Random, weird-ass ingredient nobody else has)

Preheat oven to 450 F.

Now, the very next thing you must do, before anything else, is get a small saucepan, put your stick of butter in it, and start melting it over low heat.  As soon as it's mostly melted, remove it from the heat and let the residual heat from the warm pot melt the rest. This will also help cool the butter a bit faster.   

You want the melted butter to range in temperature from room temperature to just a bit warm.  The magic comes when you add the melted butter to the cold buttermilk or whey!

Combine all the dry ingredients in a  large-ish bowl.

Pour your buttermilk into a measuring cup, then pour the cooled, melted butter into the buttermilk.  Stir.  You want the cold buttermilk to rapidly cool the butter so that it makes hard little butter bits in the buttermilk. The reason for this is SCIENCE!!!  Once the biscuits go in the oven, the butter is going to melt and create steam which is going to make for light and fluffy drop biscuits.  

See, the cold buttermilk has turned the melted butter into hardened butter bits.

Now, pour your buttermilk/hardened butter bits mixture into the dry ingredients and mix until just combined.  

On a cookie sheet topped with parchment, portion out the dough into 12 dough balls.  I like to make them taller versus wider. This is because I find splitting a tall biscuit easier than a flat biscuit. Pro tip, there.

Now, I cook mine for 12 to 13 minutes. They come out lightly golden, perfectly poofed, and wonderful. Yours might take 11 minutes. Or 15. Pay attention the first couple of times. You're not looking for dark golden brown here.

And that's it. My family doesn't even let them cool before they're splitting them open and slathering on butter and jam.

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OMG Soup part deux. Life on a budget.

Eating on a budget has some challenges. I made excellent Instant Pot Stuffed Cabbage and had ingredients left over. In the olden days, wanting to make something easy the next day, I'd have headed to the store after dropping the young off to school, bought some artisinal rolls made with local, Utah cheese, some nice peppers, maybe a tossed salad and some exotic fruit, and would have made loose meat sandwiches for dinner.

Now I can't do that.

So, instead, I considered what I had. One pound of ground beef, half a bottle V-8, all my usual veggies... Well, that's the beginning of soup, right there. And, I had a base recipe to go off of, this more involved soup that tastes amazing, by the way, and is only more involved because I dredge and brown stew meat. Plus, bonus points, I get to free-style cook; cook intuitively with only my instincts to go off of, which I love!

Don't stress if we don't have exactly the same ingredients. Use what you've got and let me know how you did it so I can try it your way, next time. Every summer when they're in season, my local grocery store will roast you a bushel of Hatch chiles. I then portion them out and freeze them until needed. Remember to peel off the blackened skin. That's not delicious.

Let's make soup.

EASY OMG SOUP
1 lb ground beef
1 onion, diced
4 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 ribs celery, diced or sliced to your specifications
Frozen roasted Hatch peppers. Again, this might be unique to my soup, but it added some nice flavor. **Peeled, thawed, and diced
1 1/2 C. Soup base. A mix of beans, lentils, oats and groats. I use Bob's Red Mill.
Some V-8. I had about 3 cups. If you have more, use it. If you don't have it, that's fine.
Beef base
A couple Parmesan rinds.
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

In large dutch oven, add two Tbl. olive oil. Saute onions until translucent over medium heat.

Add ground beef and brown until dark brown and flavorful. Season with salt and pepper.

Add carrots and celery and cook until just beginning to soften.

Add peppers and soup base to pot.

Fill dutch oven with liquid until it's two inches from the top. I used a combo of V-8 and water. Scrape the browned bits off bottom of pot.

Throw in some beef base or chicken base (I'd normally use chicken, but had run out, so beef it was) equivalent to how much water you are using.

Add a couple Parmesan rinds for flavor and to thicken the soup a bit.

Season to taste with salt and pepper.

Bring to a boil and let simmer with lid on but slightly askew. This is where you'll have to read your soup base instructions. Mine says to cook for 1 1/2 hours, but that leaves everything awfully toothsome. So, I tack on an extra hour and go 2 1/2 hours.

Serve with the buttermilk biscuit recipe I'll share with you Monday and everyone will declare you to be the hero of the night. And I'm awfully vain, so I like being the hero of the night.

Update:
Here's the link to the perfect drop biscuits

And, on top of all this fun we've already had, hopefully the soup and biscuits will last you two meals. Now, that's a good time in my book.

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Instant Pot Stuffed Cabbage Rolls 1st time success

There's a puzzle piece missing in my life. Several, actually. But in this case, I need a friend with an Eastern European Jewish American mother, willing to take me under her wing and teach me all she knows.

As I currently don't have that level of support, but am taking applications, really sending out bribes, I was all on my own to figure stuffed cabbage rolls out. Also, I have never made an actual main course in my Instant Pot. So, this was a double first-time adventure.

I mainly used two recipes already available online. Grandma Lil's and my internet crush, Smitten Kitchen to come up with my own version of stuffed cabbage. And, I finally used the saute function on the Pot.

Let's get to it.

Stuffed Cabbage Rolls
1 head cabbage, I used regular green cabbage
1 lb. ground beef
1 onion, diced fine
1 large parsnip, grated (I love parsnips! Other recipes also used carrot, but not me)
1/2 C. uncooked white rice
3 C. Spicy V-8 plus an extra splash or two
1/4 C. brown sugar
4 Tbl. lemon juice, I used bottled cause it's what I had
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper

1. Par-cook cabbage. With trivet in bottom of Instant Pot, place cabbage head in whole. Select pressure cook, 5 minutes. I unfortunately only cooked mine for two minutes, and the middle was still raw. So, in doing further research, I'd up it to 5 minutes. Quick steam release when 5 minutes is up. The first couple leaves were a bit mush. I picked those off and saved them to layer on the bottom of the Pot. Apparently tomato-based dishes like to scorch.

2. Using the saute function on the Pot, add a couple tablespoons olive oil and saute the onions for a few minutes until translucent. Season with salt and pepper. Add the grated parsnip, another sprinkling of salt, and saute for another few minutes until softened. Set aside to cool. Wash Pot.

3. Filling: In large bowl mix ground beef, uncooked rice, a good pinch of salt, you want your filling to be well-seasoned, some pepper, and a splash or two of V-8. In other recipes they used tomato paste, but I didn't want to open a tomato paste just for a tablespoon or two, so I went with the tomato juice I was using for the sauce. Add sauteed onions and parsnips and mix until just combined.

4. Sauce: In medium bowl combine Spicy V-8, brown sugar, lemon juice, a Tbl. of olive oil, and salt and pepper to taste. Set aside until needed.

5. Rolls: Carefully pull off cabbage leaves and lay them flat. Cut off the bottom of  leaf where the vein is thick. It'll make folding unwieldy.

6. Place a scoop of meat mixture in the bottom-middle. Fold either side over the meat and then roll it up to the top. Continue until the cabbage leaves and or meat mixture is gone. I was stingy with the meat mixture, or something, but I ran out of cabbage leaves before I ran out of filling. So, I made some really pathetic rolls using raw cabbage that I kind of sandwiched around the filling. It worked fine.

7. Place a couple cabbage leaves in bottom of pot. Put trivet over cabbage leaves. Stack cabbage rolls in single layer on top of trivet. Pour a nice dousing of sauce over cabbage rolls. Cover the first layer with cabbage leaves or chopped up cabbage core and place another layer of rolls on top. Pour rest of the sauce over. Make sure you don't go beyond the max capacity for the Instant Pot. The rolls will swell thanks to the uncooked rice.

8. Here's where things get a bit sketchy. I had to leave before my cabbage rolls were done cooking. So, I had a couple things to consider. I could cook it on high pressure for 9 minutes, as one recipe suggested, and let it finish cooking until it naturally re-pressurized. But almost all the other recipes said cook for 18 minutes, let naturally re-pressurize for fifteen minutes, then quick release. So, I did my own weird thing and let them cook for about 16 minutes at high pressure, knowing the Mister would be home to do the quick release within about 20 minutes.

**Next time I make them, and there will be a next time, I'll cook them at 18 minutes, high pressure, let re-pressurize for 15 minutes, then quick release, so I'd recommend that method for you. Even though I was forced to go rogue.

9. Here's also where things didn't work out exactly to plan. As I wasn't home, the Mister tossed out the sauce the rolls were cooking in. Dagger to heart. So, when you make them, hold onto the sauce. If it's thin, remove the cabbage rolls and turn the Pot back to saute, letting the sauce reduce a bit. I imagine it's delicious, as the rolls were excellent and they cooked in the sauce. But I'm sure they would've been even better with.

Results: Both kids enjoyed the filling more than they enjoyed the cabbage around the filling. The adults though, enjoyed it as a whole. The parsnip added a sweet earthiness that I think really added something. And even though I used Spicy V-8, it wasn't the least bit spicy.

Give this a try and let me know what you think.

In case you want to make what I'm making, tomorrow's dinner will be my OMG soup and the best biscuits you'll ever eat. I'm using the other lb. of ground beef I thawed, and didn't use for this recipe, plus the left-over V-8. I've got carrots, onions, celery, beef base, and a bean soup-base already on hand.

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Cheers to the last month of 2017 and hope for a wonderful 2018

Happy 2018.

Now that the formalities are taken care of let me just say, the last week sucked! Sinus Infection. And despite an avowed dislike for antibiotics (I love my gut flora), I got a prescription and thankfully feel almost human again.

Luckily, my family ate during my illness thanks to pantry items, frozen meals, and my twelve year stepping up and wanting to cook. And the Mister didn't complain once as he helped me flush out my nasal cavities and carried cup of tea after cup of tea to my weakened form. Okay, I didn't make him neti-pot me. I did that myself. But he did everything else.

The best part, it was winter break. I didn't have to drag my pitiful ass out of bed to make breakfast and drive kids to school. And because my kids are fairly self-sufficient, I was able to fester in relative peace, watching as they tried riding the dog like a horse.

Christmas squalor built up a bit, but I couldn't have cared less because the pressure in the right side of my face felt like a balloon ready to pop. Well, that, and the Mister almost single-handedly installed my Christmas presents: new light fixtures. I've hated the lights in my house for almost ten years now. I did get up to help hold things and hand him tools as needed.

I even missed most of my annual New Year's Eve party. My sister pitied my mucus-filled soul and took over the event. Everyone had a blast while I slept for three hours straight for the first time in five days. Sorry helpful gut bacteria, I'm making homemade yogurt today, to help.

Oh, exciting budget news to report, the Mister showed me a graph yesterday, and we spent just over $800 on food and dining out for the month of December. DECEMBER! Fist pump. I am not only succeeding at staying on a budget, but am officially rocking it. Let's see how it continues.

I'm in the groove now and have found the most important part of sticking to a budget is flexibility. I can't be pinned down to a weekly menu, I just can't. I can have ideas and if I want to make them, fine, but if I want to make something else, I just gotta. So, the importance of the pantry and freezer can't be understated.

I also have the Mister grocery shop with me. It's time spent together which is always nice, even if we are checking prices and tracking the cost of what we're buying with a calculator.

Coming up later this week, I'm making stuffed cabbage rolls in the Instant Pot. I've never made stuffed cabbage rolls in my life! And, the best thing is, the cabbage rolls have been waiting to be made for coming on two weeks, now. Thank goodness cabbage sticks around.

Also, my second batch of Pot yogurt. Instant Pot yogurt, that is.

Now, where's my neti-pot?

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Merry Christmas 2017

My Instant Pot life

It's not all been fun and games with the Instant Pot, but we're learning.

Bad: When the Mister made oatmeal using Instant Pot's recipe for steel cut oats, entitled, Three-Minute Steel Cut Oats. Can you say salt lick? I don't know what happened. He said he didn't stir up the oats after adding the salt. You'd think it would just absorb and spread throughout. Apparently not. And apparently I'm the one who got the salty bowl. Shudder. But it wasn't bad only because it was salty, I am not a fan of bloated raisins or vanilla in anything but dessert. So, I recommend you pass on this recipe. Unless you like big old mushy raisins, then go for it.

Bad: Chick Peas. To be fair, the instructions did say if you pre-soak the beans they turn out better. But, I thought the whole point of getting an Instant Pot was so you don't have to pre-soak. I should have pre-soaked. After 40 minutes they were still basically raw and couldn't go in my recipe.

Good to Amazing, depending on who you talk to: Coconut Mango Sticky Rice. Everyone in the family, including the daughter who claims to hate rice, enjoyed this! The Mister declared it his favorite dessert, ever. It's not too sweet and the mango, well, who doesn't love a mango, added the perfect sweet and sour touch. I didn't have the pandan leaf that was called for. And used slightly less coconut milk, but dang, it was good.

Good: That time I made the steel cut oats for 3 minutes without any additives and stirred in the salt. Although, I did find my oats to be a bit toothsome for my liking.

Almost Great: This morning's oats. I assembled 3 C. water, 1 C. steel cut oats, and a pinch of salt last night before bed. Gave everything a stir for good measure, and set it to begin cooking at 6:45 am. Settings: Pressure cook, high pressure, natural release, for 5 minutes of actual cooking time.

Oats get foamy so you don't want to use the quick pressure release valve to speed things along, otherwise the oat foam can gunk up the works. But, the reason it's not all the way great, it wasn't de-pressurized until nearly 7:30 am. I don't know, did I get the slow de-pressurizer. I read so many recipes saying it takes 12 minutes to depressurize. No, mine takes 30. Aside from that, the oats were creamy and a hit.

Random thoughts on the Instant Pot: The strange thing is, I've yet to use any of the individual settings. Not beans, rice, or steam, even though I've done all that in the pot. Only pressure cook. That's fine, but it has me thinking, are all the other settings a gimmick?

I am going to try yogurt next week, so, we'll see.

Maybe I just need Instant Pot lessons. Give me all your good tips and recipes.

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What Heather's making on $200 a week

If you're anything like me and trying to save money on groceries but don't have a clue how to do it, join me in learning how to be frugal when your heart wants to be anything but.

Day 2 of living on a budget. p.s. it sucks.

My new rule about protein is it cannot cost more than $3 a pound. Otherwise it'll eat up my entire budget. This will probably mean a lot of roast chickens going forward. Whole chickens are cheap.

So, as I'm considering what to make for dinner tonight, here's what I know: yes, roast chicken is the main using this tried and true recipe, sadly missing the potatoes.. But I need a side. It's always the sides that get me. 

There will be the last of my carrots and celery cooking with the chicken, and I have a giant pack of unopened Costco broccoli florets just giving me the eye. Sigh. Broccoli is fine, but just fine. I also have a batch of already cooked rice that I didn't use yesterday as I didn't make the dal I was thinking about.

After an exhaustive search I've landed on this rice casserole recipe. With the intent to swap out the spinach for broccoli. I've run out of onions, so will swap out some ancient dried onion flakes from goodness only knows when. Reminder for next week: 5 onions, at least.

Timeline
3:00 Prepare chicken by salting it all over, including under the skin. Put in fridge.
4:15 Turn oven to 425 and start prepping carrots and celery
4:30 Put chicken in oven without carrots and celery. Set timer for 1 hour and 30 minutes.
4:35 Prepare casserole and put in oven until the chicken comes out at 6:00
5:15 Scatter carrots and celery around cast iron skillet
6:00 Remove chicken from oven and let rest. Put rice casserole in oven and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.

As I have no picture of this meal, I'll tease myself with that which I don't have: an onion from Thanksgiving. Also, don't have the fresh herbs. I'm sure dried or just salt and pepper will do. Besides, basil seems weird, here, so that's not a loss.

I'll get back to you with how it all turns out.

Random observations:

I've bloody burned myself on the oven twice now, resulting in blisters and scaring my dogs because of the amount of cursing. Take care, will you?

Need staples on hand at all times. This includes flour, sugar, even yeast. Add to that long-lasting veggies like potatoes, sweet potatoes, garlic, onions, celery, and carrots. Legumes like dried beans and lentils. Dairy: butter, cheese, milk, cottage cheese, and sour cream.

And finally, time. Luckily I am a writer and have the time to make things from scratch. I just need to plan better. But, gosh, I sure am a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants-kind-of-gal when it comes to cooking.

Wish me luck, I'm going to need it, and happy frugal-ing.

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To love triangle or not to love triangle

Who else has an Instant Pot? I didn't until I succumbed to the enticement of Amazon's Cyber Monday deals. So now, I've got to learn to use the dang thing. Please give me all your recipes for tasty Instant Pot delights.

I'm going to try and use it 5-ish days a week and report back here my successes and failures. Plus, discuss and share writing tidbits. And, maybe an exclusive peek at Betrayal and Yearning. I've got cover art coming! Yay!

But today, because my newest space-taking kitchen appliance hasn't yet arrived,  I must ask your opinion on love triangles. I didn't know until recently that there is an entire group of people devoted to the art of hating love triangles.

That got me to thinking, is it the norm to hate love triangles or the exception?

Confession time, I was not a fan of the Twilight Series. In fact, I refused to read the fourth book because I had assumed it was a trilogy. When I found out there was another... ugh, forget it. But here's the thing, the only redeeming factor for me, and the only reason I read more than first book in the series, was because of the love triangle. Probably because I was team Jacob.

I asked my sister to fill me in on the details of the fourth, so I knew how it all ended, and then rejoiced that I didn't read it. Renesme? Is that how you spell it? I'm not going to google it. But, seriously?

All right, so that's the question, love triangles, or not?

Oh, and because I have no pictures about love triangles, here's a peak at all the fun I had while in France. Yup. France. I have been to France. Technically.

Oh heavenly delight. Thank goodness this pâtisserie was open at 3 am. I tried out my excellent French by ordering un cafe au lait y un pan au chocolat. Yeah... 'y' is Spanish for 'and', but that's what I said, and got what I wanted. Yay. Also, uncertain if I used the correct masculine or feminine. I do not know the gender of cafe au lait or pan au chocolat. C'est la vie.

And, Ladurée the famous macaron shop where I ordered un rose macaron y un pistache macaron. Again, with the Franglish. That's combing my awesome Spanglish with French. A pidgin mix of English, Spanish, and French. Not very useful in international situations. Dang. 

In fact, I can only hold conversations with myself or my kids who roll their eyes at me and say not very nice things about me in grammatically correct French.  To which I then reply, tu es muy bonita, and let them think it's an insult, because they don't know it's not. Ha! French speakers!

I ate my beautiful Ladurée macarons without any guilt that my family was going to get the cheap pack instead of the fancy ones. But, just so you know, they were completely happy to enjoy real French macarons and begged me to go back to 'France'.

Maybe next time I'll make it out of the airport.

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You should already have this all figured out.

So, if you're just looking for a diversion on this big day, and I can't blame you as you'll probably find me hiding under the stairs, here's the newest member of the Hearth family.

Dot.

Isn't she a pretty girl with her haircut. But don't look too closely, I'm her stylist and my work is a bit scruffy still, to say the least. In my defense, I get a bit better every time. Tip: If you buy a standard poodle and want to groom them yourself, go with the fur grain, not against. Ahem, learned that the hard way. Bald patches.

Ginger had to get in on this action, too. She is getting her haircut today (p.s. today is really Tuesday).

Now for the shenanigans.

Eating each others' faces.

Dot exerting her dominance though she's only a baby. I know, she's huge, but she's only six months.

Ginger letting Dot know who's really boss.

 Nope, scratch that.

Just taking it, now.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Salad days

The title for the post is appropriate as this is my first time hosting Thanksgiving.

Now for the touch of green, aside from the green bean casserole, for your Thanksgiving feast. And I am not talking Brussels Sprouts. Ew.

It's green salad time, folks.

And while it might seem simple, there are some tips that will take your salad from ordinary to extraordinary.

The cast of characters. Already washed, gourmet baby lettuce and pre-sliced mushrooms because, easy. Feta, cucumber, croutons (of course), red onion, and some kind of protein. We're going with pepperoni here, but you could just as easily use shrimp or bacon.

There are some common pitfalls to avoid with the green salad.

The Mister was given specific instructions to feel the ends of the cucumbers. He said he did but... This isn't scientific but I always pinch the ends. If they're firm and not mushy, the cucumber is usually good.

Sort through your lettuce and pick out the slimy bits. Nobody wants to come across slime in their salad. This only takes a minute. Please, do it.

You have options when slicing your cucumber. The cucs on the right had the tines of a fork pulled through the cucumber flesh all around. Pretty.

My sister-in-law declared the pepperoni to be the perfect touch and the perfect size. I used a stick of pepperoni and sliced it myself, cutting the rounds into halves.

In my opinion raw red onion is a must, but do not go overboard with it. I sliced 1/4 onion into half-moons, giving the salad just the right amount of bite. Also, don't add it until just before dinner. Red onions are pungent and can take over the salad.

My vinaigrette of choice. A nice hit of...acid. Ahem. That sounds so wrong, but it feels so right. Plus, does anybody even do acid any more? I dunno, but Brianna's is a flavorful dressing that everyone likes.

For those who are less-refined, ranch. But not any ranch. Make it from scratch with the dry packets, buttermilk-style, with a dash of Worcestershire sauce. I love this whole milk buttermilk. So luxurious. I especially love it in my pancakes. 

One more thing, let's talk about a Thanksgiving necessity. Dish towels. In particular, flour sack towels, which are indisputably the best. 

Wash all of your dish towels ahead of time. They're perfect for the inevitable spills, hand drying, and in a pinch hot pads. But, I don't recommend that. I will probably go through all of these come Thursday and wish I had more.

Which is why I even include this one. Yeah...

Remember, the real work starts tomorrow. Bake pecan pie. Tear bread into cubes. Set table. Begin dry-brining the bird. Panic.

Happy prep! 

The perfect pecan pie

And cranberries

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Time for pie. But, not that pie. This pie.

A lot like my love for cranberries, I am also a fan of another of the less-celebrated gems of Thanksgiving.

Pecan pie.
 

Nothing makes Thanksgiving, Christmas, or Tuesdays, more special than this pie. My Grandma always made me a pecan pie for Thanksgiving (as well as my birthday), and now I'm the steward in charge. It's sweet, such is the nature of pecan pie, but this particular recipe isn't overly sweet, which is why it's the best. It's the perfect party in your mouth with its soft, caramelized custard base and the pleasing chew of the pecans.

If you've ever had bad pecan pie, give this one a try. It's not dry or gelatinous; two properties in a pecan pie that will ruin anyone's day.

There are some potential pitfalls when making pecan pie. And you don't want to blow it, so read carefully, and proceed with caution. As long as you follow these few rules, this pie is easy to make and a hit. No pumpkins needed.

1. Watch for the wiggle. This pie takes a bit of coddling. And you MUST take it out of the oven before it's completely firm. Wiggle in the middle, but not on the sides.

2. Watch for over-browning. The last thing you want is overcooked pecans or crust. If it's browning too fast, but the filling is still too jiggly in the center, throw on a tented piece of foil. As a rule, I always foil it with about 25 to 30 minutes left of cooking time.

3. Do not toast your pecans or they will end up dry and not delicious. That's it. Not too much to pay attention to for the best pie around.

Pecan Pie

1- 9" pie crust, unbaked. Use a frozen store-bought crust. Life's too short to fuss with crust.
6 T. Butter
1 C. light corn syrup
3/4 C. Sugar
3 eggs, whisked
2 t. Vanilla
1/2 t. Kosher salt
2 C. chopped pecans

Heat oven to 350 F. Place a cookie sheet in the center of your oven while preheating. This is your protective shield. In case the pie filling bubbles over the cookie sheet will catch the overflow.

Place your pecans in the uncooked pie crust.

In small saucepan heat the butter, corn syrup, and sugar over medium-low until the butter is melted

In  a mixing bowl combine your eggs, vanilla, and Kosher Salt.

Here's the marginally tricky part.  You must add the melted butter mixture to the egg mixture, but you do not want to cook your eggs. So, allow the melted butter and sugar mixture to cool a bit before pouring it into the eggs. Whisk constantly as you're mixing the two together.

Pour your filling over the pecans in the pie crust.

Bake between 60 to 80 minutes. I know that's a big time difference. Just watch your pie carefully. Mine baked for about 67 minutes and it was pretty perfect; nicely golden and custardy in the middle.

Let it cool completely (at least two hours).

You can even bake this pie the night before.

Serve with a dollop of very lightly sweetened whipped cream and experience Thanksgiving bliss.

Give pecan pie a try this year. You'll be glad you did.

How to make the perfect salad
And cranberries

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Cranberries, the unspoken hero

Let's face it, gravy is the hero of Thanksgiving.

Turkey a little bland? Nothing a little gravy can't handle.

Dressing dry? Go ahead, ladle a little extra gravy on top. Dressing or stuffing? I really go either way.

Got a spare bite of roll? Run it through the last drizzle of gravy on your plate.

But, the unspoken hero has to be the cranberries. They add the nicest zing to everything on your plate. Paired with the gravy, of course. And, you don't need jam to go with your rolls. The cranberries can be your jam.

The thing is, I'm not talking the cranberries from a can. While I know people swear high and low that they're the best, they're wrong. I think the only reason people believe this way is they've never had homemade cranberries. I might be talking about the Mister's family, here. Until I showed up they used the dreaded can. And nobody ate them! Now, I'm assigned the cran every year.

They're so incredibly easy and add the prettiest burst of color to your meal.

Of course, it's me here, so I meddle with the recipe. But to be fair, I learned this technique from my Grandma, so it's not just me being fancy. The secret is, in place of the water, use orange juice.

Couldn't be simpler. Here are the steps:

Go to store.

Head to the produce section.

Buy a package of fresh cranberries. Ocean Spray have never steered me wrong.

Bring 1 cup orange juice and a scant cup of sugar to a boil. Add the cranberries. Simmer ten minutes. Some will burst, some won't. It's all good.

Remove from heat and let cool to room temperature. Best part, they can be made way ahead when you have a free burner. After they come to room temp, throw them in the fridge until they're needed.

What you'll have is a lightly jammy, tangy-sweet accompaniment to your meal that cuts through the richness of the gravy to give your turkey that slight nudge towards brilliance.

Try cranberries from scratch this year, you won't regret it.

Also, in the Mister's family we always have pumpkin chocolate chip cookies to accompany the various pies for dessert. I'm in charge of these this year and gave this recipe from Food Network a shot.

I couldn't be happier with how they turned out. They are soft, moist, and flavorful. Plus, they use butter and didn't need to be chilled. That's a bonus in my book.

Mine didn't take as long to cook as the recipe called for, more like 12 to 13 minutes. Also, I didn't get 60 cookies out of this batch, more like 4 dozen.

Now, this is very important, the thing to remember about pumpkin cookies is they are very moist. So, beware stacking them for transport otherwise they'll stick to each other and look all dumpy. And that would be a tragedy.

I know it's not beautiful, but this is how I'm doing it. A piece of parchment between the layers.

So, if you're looking for an amazing pumpkin cookie and are overwhelmed by recipe options, give this one a try.

Coming tomorrow: How to make an amazing salad. This might seem like a joke to some, a post on how to make a salad, but there's a skill to making a well-balanced, finger-licking salad. I mean, how many people slide right passed the salad because, mashed potatoes. But, if you make the salad right it'll be just as popular as the green bean casserole. Well... maybe not, but you will go home with an empty salad bowl.

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T Minus 1 week and counting

With one week to go here's what's happening at the hearth.

Well, the stock I said I was going to make yesterday is simmering, as we speak.

I know, the first picture is beautiful, fresh, and lovely. The second picture is ew. But hopefully it turns out tasty and my gravy is a hit. I'm using this bon appetit recipe but not exactly. The way I figure it, stock should use what you have on hand. I don't have white wine, peppercorns, chicken wings, or a ham hock.  Right, apparently I'm only barely following this recipe.

Instead, I am using several grinds from my pepper-mill that doesn't open (which is why I don't have peppercorns), a roasted chicken carcass that I froze a few weeks ago, a couple pieces of bacon, and a giblet. Don't even ask me what a giblet is. All I know is my grandma made turkey neck and giblet gravy. They didn't have turkey necks so I went with the giblet.

Tonight's dinner prep is also happening. We're having breakfast for dinner. The Mister is headed home after being on business for a few days, and my young declared breakfast was what he'd want to eat most of all upon returning to the good old U. S. of A.

Well, breakfast for dinner in this house means sourdough pancakes or waffles. So that means, make the sponge!

My starter lives in this quart jar and gets quite neglected. I really should feed it once a week. Which I  often do, but only if we're eating pancakes on the weekends. If we're not eating pancakes regularly... it'll go two, maybe three weeks between feedings. Bad sourdough starter mama. Bad.

I'll go into more detail on what's happening here, but not today.

The view from my table: Sponge sponge-ing and starter gobbling up its first meal in a while. Plus the pile of backpack detritus my oldest left before heading off to school this morning.

As all this is happening I'm also scrambling to do a mountain of laundry. Don't want the Mister to see the squalor we live in when he's not home.

Basically, my children wear dirty socks and subsist on soup straight from the can and cold hotdogs, while mama wears her sweatpants for the third day in a row and eats whatever is left on their plates and anything we have floating in jars in the fridge. I try not to cook or clean while the husband is away.

Oh, remember to buy your frozen pie crusts before they run out. Do it soon. They'll probably get a shipment but were running short this morning, and I don't want to mess with that crap.  I no longer make scratch pie crust, it ruins my day.

That's about it. Off to fold some more towels!

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4 1/2 hours later...

Here's what I pulled out of the stock pot. Lots of little bones. 

And the final result. Nice hue, good flavor, and not too salty. Making stock for Thanksgiving wasn't hard, and hopefully it will result in superior gravy.