Each year after Thanksgiving, I always look forward to making turkey and wild rice soup with the left over carcass and turkey meat. And this year was no exception, although I was looking to change it up this time around. Inspired by the curried roasted veggies that our friend brought to Thanksgiving dinner, I wanted to give a curried spin to this soup. With the … Continue reading Coconut Curry Turkey and Wild Rice Soup
I love a good, chunky cranberry sauce and think it pairs perfectly with turkey, and is a lovely addition to a turkey sandwich. However, a little goes a long way with cranberries and inevitably, every year, we have too much sauce left over. I was originally determined to not make cranberry sauce this year, but to buy a small jar or container of it instead. However, … Continue reading Cranberry Sauce with Dried Cherries
This weekend I had the opportunity, through the Master Food Volunteer program, to help promote Family and Consumer Sciences Day, which is supporting a commitment to “dine in” on December 3 to promote preparing and eating a healthy meal together as a family. They are aiming for 200,000 families to commit to this event. If you want to find out more and commit to “dining in”, … Continue reading Dine In on December 3
Making your own chicken stock is one of the easiest things you can do in the kitchen, resulting in a versatile, high-reward product. Some recipes suggest boiling a whole chicken or using chicken meat to make the stock, but that seems wasteful to me. So, I always use chicken carcasses or bones for my stock, and with the addition of vegetables, my stock is always … Continue reading Roasted Chicken Stock
Acorn squash lends itself well to being stuffed, with its little natural cup ready to hold whatever you have in mind to fill it with. I’ve done meaty fillings in the past, especially with ground lamb (very yummy), but I wanted to find a really hearty, meatless version that would go great as a side dish on a holiday table, but could easily work as … Continue reading Stuffed Acorn Squash
A few weeks ago, a frost hit our area, but since we are so close to the Potomac River, the temperatures didn’t hit low enough for the frost to hit the garden. My two pepper plants, along with the chard, buttercup squash and acorn squash were spared for now, but the frost will happen eventually. I’ve been playing around with recipes to use up or … Continue reading Stuffed Pepper Soup
Another Harvest Party is down in the books! I always love putting this party together, but this year was special as we had our awesome family, neighbors and friends over to celebrate the start of this blog, and the beginning of this new adventure for me. It was a lot of work, but I’m thrilled that the food I selected turned out so well! Below … Continue reading Menu Planning: Harvest Party 2015
Several months after Toby and I started dating, we took a trip to visit his extended family in Hong Kong and spend some time on our own in Beijing. It was a great trip to visit his family and see lots of sites, and importantly, eat lots of delicious food! And what else does one do in Beijing but eat Peking duck? Over the course … Continue reading Duck Tarts with Asian Plum Sauce
A few months back, I borrowed a copy of Ina Garten’s “Make It Ahead” from our local library to get some ideas for entertaining that can be made ahead with little fuss right before serving. Overall, she had some recipes that looked great, but I only found a few recipes that fit what I was looking for. One of those recipes was for a Truffled … Continue reading Truffled Chicken Liver Mousse
Each year at our Harvest Party, I like to have one large, warm dish in the crock pot available for our guests to serve themselves. In the past I’ve made a pumpkin turkey chili and a butternut squash soup and this year I wanted to try out pumpkin BBQ pulled pork sliders. I searched around for a recipe that looked good enough to try and … Continue reading Pumpkin BBQ Pulled Pork Sliders
Half Pint Garden 