Happy Thanksgiving everyone! Here are some pictures from our celebration. What’s your favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal? Does your family include an “untraditional” dish in their Thanksgiving meal? Leave a comment and let me know! My family has sausage as a side dish (not sure when/how that started: I hate sausage!).
Golden brown turkey…
Dad making gravy (in between snacking on the turkey neck)…
Rotisserie chickens from the grocery store are a great standby meal for those nights you don’t have time to cook dinner. STOP! Don’t throw the leftovers away! Make your own chicken stock. This was my first time doing this and it was super easy!
First, throw the bones and leftover meat into a pot. Add whatever vegetables and herbs you have in your refrigerator (I used carrots, celery, onion, rosemary, and thyme).
Cover with water. Add some salt and pepper.
Cover and simmer over medium low heat for a few hours, until your house smells like Thanksgiving.
Strain the stock into containers for future use. As you can see in the picture below, you will need to skim the fat off the top. Use the homemade stock instead of the grocery store version!
When making this ginger pumpkin bread the other week, I accidentally bought a 28 ounce can of pumpkin puree, instead of the 14 ounce can I needed. So this is how I used up that extra pumpkin! Scones are a nice treat for breakfast (or anytime of the day). You can find the recipe for these scones on Vanilla Sugar. She has some awesome photos on her site.
Do you like peanut butter? Do you like chocolate? Do you like rice crispy bars? If your answers are “yes,” then you have to make these bars. I purchased this awesome cookbook earlier this summer and it’s now one of my favorites. I highly recommend getting yourself a copy of the book. I think these bars turned out pretty awesome. I sent half these bars home with Sara Beth (SB and Marc, if you’re reading this, I hope you liked them!)
Peanut Butter Crispy Bars Makes 9, from the Baked cookbook
For the crispy crust:
1 3/4 cups rice krispies
1/4 cup sugar
3 tablespoons light corn syrup
3 tablespoons melted butter
For the peanut butter layer:
5 oz milk chocolate, chopped
1 cup creamy peanut butter
For the chocolate layer:
3 oz dark chocolate
1/2 teaspoon light corn syrup
4 tablespoons butter
Crust:
Spray a 8×8 inch baking pan with cooking spray. Put the cereal in a bowl and set aside. In a small saucepan, stir together 1/4 cup water, the sugar, and corn syrup. Cook over medium-high heat until the mixture reaches the soft ball stage (235 degrees – use a candy thermometer). Remove from heat, stir in the butter and pour over cereal. Quickly stir together and press into the prepared pan.
Peanut butter layer:
Over a double boiler (place a bowl over a saucepan of simmering water) melt the chocolate and peanut butter together until smooth. Pour over the crust. Put into the refrigerator until firm.
Chocolate layer:
Again over a double boiler, melt the chocolate, corn syrup, and butter, stirring until smooth. Pour over the peanut butter layer.
Place the bars in the refrigerator until the chocolate layer hardens. You may have to let them come to room temperature so that you can cut them into squares and serve.
