DIY Family Thanksgiving Fun Run

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If you've been to my blog before, you know I'm a runner.  I enjoy 5Ks the most--they are fast and don't require the weeks of training that 1/2 marathons and marathons do.  I like themed runs the best--and I do like Thanksgiving Fun Runs--helps me justify the 2nd piece of pie.  My extended family is large and has quite a few little kiddos-enough that an organized race is probably more effort than everyone wants  on a holiday (wrangling strollers, babies, toddlers, teenagers)-especially since I know we will try and do a whole family photo this weekend.  Best to save the "be on your best behavior" bribes and threats for that event and not an early morning run.  So I thought it might be fun to have just our family do a run.  It means no traveling to a race early in the morning with little kids, no finding parking or waiting in the cold for the race to start. We'll just start at Grandma's house and run to a nearby park and back.  Cocoa for when we get back. I'm guessing we'll have about 16 people in our group--no bigger than a run club--and we won't be on busy streets, so I'm not worried that we will cause a safety hazard for ourselves or drivers.

The best part about races is usually the t-shirt and the medal--so I made sure to get them for our race too--and they were cheap! For about the cost of 1 registration, I got everything for the entire group (well, I only did t-shirts for kids.  I offered the vinyl decal for any adult who wanted to bring their own shirt).

I ordered some inexpensive finisher's medals from Crown Awards, made a simple design for a t-shirt on my Silhouette SD and designed some race bibs in Word.

Did you know that Dollar Tree has t-shirts?  They are not usually high quality (although I have occasionally found overstocked nice tech shirts).  For a family race, $1 shirts are perfect.





I found a clip art I liked and added some race numbers to the bib, which I printed on cardstock at home.

I'm off to the Dollar Store to find a couple prizes.  Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Make and Freeze Thanksgiving

Pin It Thanksgiving is a great holiday.  I have great memories of helping prepare food with my mom and my grandmother.  In the last couple years, my mom and I have noticed that even doing dishes as you go all day long, there is still a mountain of dishes at the end of the meal.  I love to cook--but I hate dishes.  Even though I'm not hosting Turkey Day at my house, I love the once-a-year foods for this meal, so I'm cooking my favorites and I'm doing some tricks to make things easier.

Make and Freeze Dressing
Serves 4-5
1 pkg  herbed bread cubes
1/2 c. butter
1 c. onion, chopped (1 medium)
1 c. celery, chopped (2-3 stalks)
1 can low sodium chicken broth (14 oz)
1 tsp. sage (or poultry seasoning)

Chop up the onion and celery finely and saute in the butter in a skillet over medium heat for about 10-12 minutes, until translucent and soft.  In a large mixing bowl, pour the cooked onion mixture over the breadcrumbs and stir.  Slowly pour about half of the chicken broth over bread and mix.  Add more broth until the cubes have absorbed and they are soft but not soggy.  Add the sage and stir.

Here's the time saver--at this point, you have two choices.  1.  Let the mixture come to room temperature, put it in a zipper bag and freeze it.  On Thanksgiving, you can put the mix in the nice baking dish and cover with foil and bake at 350 for about an hour or in a crock pot on low for 2-3 hours (you may need to add a bit more chicken stock as you bake).  2.  You  bake the dressing immediately then freeze and just use the microwave to reheat on meal day.

P.S.  I was watching America's Test Kitchen this morning, and they put their dressing in the bottom of the roasting pan and placed a "deconstructed" turkey (the breast and the thigh/legs) on top and baked it that way for extra turkey flavor.  Looked good to me, I might have to try that. 


Make ahead fruit pie
I'm afraid that pumpkin pie is not my thing--although I can make one (and you can do it the day before).  If you want to do pie the easy way, like me.  Make the fruit pie filling in advance and freeze it in a zipper bag.  When you are ready to make the pie, just put it in the crust and bake.  No, I don't make my own crust--Pillsbury works for me.  You CAN make and freeze an entire pie, before you bake--it just takes about 2 hours to bake from frozen (and you have to shield the edges of the crust so they don't burn).  Here's how I do pie filling for the whole year all at once.  http://theprojectspot.blogspot.com/2011/11/apple-pie-filling-for-now-or-freezer.html


Cranberry Sauce

If you haven't ever made your own cranberry sauce, try it this year.  It takes about 15 minutes and its so delicious.  I did some instructions a few years ago, so give it a go and throw it in the fridge or freezer until Thursday.
http://theprojectspot.blogspot.com/2010/11/homemade-cranberry-sauce.html

Triple Chocolate Mousse Cake

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If you have a holiday party that you want to "WOW" everyone at, I suggest this tasty dessert from America's Test Kitchen (I've never been disappointed with one of their recipes).  Warning, while the dessert is not super challenging, it does take all morning to get it prepped and then it will need to refrigerate the rest of the day (or overnight).

Ingredients

 

Bottom Layer

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 stick) unsalted butter , cut into 6 pieces, plus extra for greasing pan
• 7 ounces bittersweet chocolate , chopped fine
• 3/4 teaspoon instant espresso powder (I didn't use this)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 4 large eggs , separated
• Pinch table salt
• 1/3 cup packed (about 2 1/2 ounces) light brown sugar , crumbled with fingers to remove lumps 


Middle Layer

2 tablespoons cocoa powder , preferably Dutch-processed

5 tablespoons hot water

7 ounces bittersweet chocolate , chopped fine

1 1/2 cups cold heavy cream

1 tablespoon granulated sugar

1/8 teaspoon table salt

Top Layer

3/4 teaspoon powdered gelatin

1 tablespoon water

6 ounces white chocolate chips

1 1/2 cups cold heavy cream

Shaved chocolate or cocoa powder for serving, optional

Directions

1. FOR THE BOTTOM LAYER: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 325 degrees. Butter bottom and sides of 9 1/2-inch springform pan. Melt butter, chocolate, and espresso powder in large heatproof bowl set over saucepan filled with 1 inch of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat and cool mixture slightly, about 5 minutes. Whisk in vanilla and egg yolks; set aside.



 
2. In stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, beat egg whites and salt at medium speed until frothy, about 30 seconds. Add half of brown sugar and beat until combined, about 15 seconds. Add remaining brown sugar and beat at high speed until soft peaks form when whisk is lifted, about 1 minute longer, scraping down sides halfway through. Using whisk, fold one-third of beaten egg whites into chocolate mixture to lighten. Using rubber spatula, fold in remaining egg whites until no white streaks remain. Carefully transfer batter to prepared springform pan, gently smoothing top with offset spatula


 
 
3. Bake until cake has risen, is firm around edges, and center has just set but is still soft (center of cake will spring back after pressing gently with finger), 13 to 18 minutes. Transfer cake to wire rack to cool completely, about 1 hour. (Cake will collapse as it cools.) Do not remove cake from pan.
 

 



4. FOR THE MIDDLE LAYER: Combine cocoa powder and hot water in small bowl; set aside. Melt chocolate in large heatproof bowl set over saucepan filled with 1 inch of barely simmering water, stirring occasionally until smooth. Remove from heat and cool slightly, 2 to 5 minutes.
 



5. In clean bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, whip cream, granulated sugar, and salt at medium speed until mixture begins to thicken, about 30 seconds. Increase speed to high and whip until soft peaks form when whisk is lifted, 15 to 60 seconds.
6. Whisk cocoa powder mixture into melted chocolate until smooth. Using whisk, fold one-third of whipped cream into chocolate mixture to lighten. Using rubber spatula, fold in remaining whipped cream until no white streaks remain. Spoon mousse into springform pan over cooled cake and gently tap pan on counter 3 times to remove any large air bubbles; gently smooth top with offset spatula. Wipe inside edge of pan with damp cloth to remove any drips. Refrigerate cake at least 15 minutes while preparing top layer.
7. FOR THE TOP LAYER: In small bowl, sprinkle gelatin over water; let stand at least 5 minutes. Place white chocolate in medium bowl. Bring 1/2 cup cream to simmer in small saucepan over medium-high heat. Remove from heat; add gelatin mixture and stir until fully dissolved. Pour cream mixture over white chocolate and whisk until chocolate is melted and mixture is smooth, about 30 seconds. Cool to room temperature, stirring occasionally, 5 to 8 minutes (mixture will thicken slightly).
8. In clean bowl of stand mixer fitted with whisk attachment, whip remaining cup cream at medium speed until it begins to thicken, about 30 seconds. Increase speed to high and whip until soft peaks form when whisk is lifted, 15 to 60 seconds. Using whisk, fold one-third of whipped cream into white chocolate mixture to lighten. Using rubber spatula, fold remaining whipped cream into white chocolate mixture until no white streaks remain. Spoon white chocolate mousse into pan over middle layer. Smooth top with offset spatula. Return cake to refrigerator and chill until set, at least 2 1/2 hours.

 


9. TO SERVE: If using, garnish top of cake with chocolate curls or dust with cocoa. Run thin knife between cake and side of springform pan; remove side of pan. Run cleaned knife along outside of cake to smooth sides. Cut into slices and serve.

Pumpkin Pie

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Picture from McCormick.com

I've been a bit busy lately, so the projects have fallen behind, but with Thanksgiving tomorrow, I know I needed to get my assignments done for the family dinner.  I'm in charge of pies and yams...both things I really love.  I did the apple pie using some of my freezer pie filling, so that was a snap.  The pumpkin pie is SUPER easy--why buy it (even from Costco) when it takes about 5 minutes to mix up and about an hour to bake.

I used the recipe from McCormick's Pumpkin Pie Spice mix, found here.  You'll need
1 15-oz can pumpkin puree
1 14-oz can sweetened condensed milk (NOT evaporated milk)
2 eggs
1 Tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice mix
1 unbaked pie shell.

I par-baked my pie shell for 5 minutes before I started mixing up the filling.  Mix the pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs and spices with a mixer until nice and smooth.  Pour into the shell.  Wrap foil around the edges of the shell so it doesn't get too brown during baking.

Bake for 15 minutes at 425, then turn the oven down to 350 and keep on baking for another 40 minutes.  My foil was wrapped a bit too close to the filling, so when the filling puffed up during baking, some of it got stuck on the foil.  Oh well.  I'll be covering it with whip cream anyway.

Chevron Thanksgiving Word Art

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OK, so this post looks remarkably similar to the last one, I just changed holidays. I did bake cookies this week, some yummy ginger molasses cookies, so hopefully I can get that posted too.  In the meantime, here is my Thanksgiving word art.  I printed it in my home printer 8x10 with no trouble, here is the link to the large file, so you should be able to print it at least that large, maybe 11x14.  Gobble, gobble.

Thanksgiving Activity Booklet for Kids

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Placemat image from http://www.bedifferentactnormal.com/2011/11/printable-thanksgiving-activity-sheet.html

Last year I made up a booklet of mazes, puzzles, coloring etc... for the nieces and nephews. Here it is again, along with another booklet that I found at TLSBooks.com I also thought that Family Fun had lots of great ideas.

Here's the link to my Google Site where you can download both PDF booklets.

Apple Pie Filling for Now or the Freezer

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I had the good fortune of having some friends with an apple tree with so many apples, that they gave me a large bag! I love eating apples, but this was more than I could really eat in a timely fashion. So, I decided to get some apple pie filling made and frozen. I'm planning on using it for the Thanksgiving pies that I'm responsible for at the family dinner.



Recipe:

6 C. sliced apples
1 T. lemon juice
3/4 C. sugar
1/4 t. salt
2 T. instant tapioca
1/2 t. cinnamon
butter
pie crust

I used an apple/peeler/corer to get all my apples done (I ended up with enough apples for five 9" pies). I mixed up each batch of dry ingredients and apples separately, mostly because I don't have a bowl big enough for 30 cups of apples! In a bowl mix the apples and lemon juice. In a smaller container mix the sugar, salt, tapioca and cinnamon. Mix the dry ingredients into the apples. Let the mixture rest on the counter for at least 15 minutes.



Option 1:
Make the pie right now! Put the bottom crust in your pan and pour the apple filling in, dot with butter; top with crust and pinch the seams together. Cut vent slits in the top. Bake for 50-60 minutes at 400 degrees.



Option 2:

Freeze just the raw filling so you can use in future pies. To freeze the pie filling, dump the 6 cups of apple mix into a large zipper freezer bag and squeeze out the air and close it. Put the zipper bag of apples into the pie pan that you will eventually be using to bake the pie. Smoosh the apples around until you have a pan-shaped pile of apples. Leave the bag in the pan and put both in the freezer. After the apples are frozen, you can take the bag out of the pan and just keep the bag in the freezer. You may want to double bag to help avoid freezer burn.



When you are ready to make the pie, get the bottom crust into the pan and put the frozen apples in it. Dot with a couple tablespoons of butter and put on the top crust. Cut some slits in the top and bake for 50-60 minutes on 400 degrees (you'll need to wrap the edges of the pie in foil so that the crust doesn't get too brown). Don't let the apples defrost before using them; they'll get too juicy and make for a soggy pie.

Option 3: Freeze a whole raw pie to bake later.

Make up the pie, as if you were going to bake it right away (crust and all) and freeze the whole thing, just don't cut the vent holes yet. Wrap it in plastic wrap and then foil (or if you have those giant freezer bags, you could try them too). When you are ready to use, take it out of the freezer, cut the vent holes and bake, do not defrost first--it will take nearly 2 hours at 400 degrees, so be sure to use foil around the edges for at least the first hour. (I did this method as a test run for Thanksgiving and it turned out PERFECT!!)


Now I'm stocked up on apple pie makings!

Update: I tried it with cherries and it also turned out super yummy. The recipe is slightly different. 4 C. sour cherries, 3 T. tapioca, 1 t. almond extract, 1 C. sugar

Thanksgiving Activity Book

Pin It I've got nieces and nephews to keep entertained today while the adults are chasing the triplets and getting the meal all ready--so here's a thanksgiving activity book that has a few mazes, puzzles and coloring pages. Have a great day!Thanksgiving Activity Booklet

Homemade Cranberry Sauce

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Most people either love or hate cranberry sauce on their Thanksgiving plate. I fall into the category of "love it"--providing that the cranberries are homemade! I suppose I grew up spoiled with a mom who is a great cook and does all of the Thanksgiving meal from scratch. For me the difference between that can of cranberry jelly and the homemade is about the same as the difference between fresh peas and canned peas--so different that one is edible and the other is not really food at all. So...if you haven't been a fan in the past, give homemade cranberries a chance!

Ingredients:

1 bag cranberries

1 c. sugar

1 c. water (not quite full)

In a pot put the water and sugar (I tend to use just a bit less water, like a Tablespoon or 2 less) and bring to a boil. Dump in the cranberries. Bring the mix to a boil and then turn the heat down to medium. The concoction will get bubbly and foamy--let boil for 10 minutes (set the timer). Stir it up every couple of minutes so it doesn't scortch.

If you like the chunky cranberry sauce (and I don't) you can be done now. If you want the clear jelly you need to dump the mix into a fine strainer over a bowl and push the mix through the strainer with a wooden spoon or rubber spatula. If you are going to make the clear jelly, be ready to strain as soon as you take it off the stove--cranberries have a lot of pectin and it will set up rather quickly. Once its all strained put it in a jar or container and refrigerate it.

That's it! Now you have delicious cranberry sauce for your turkey!