Thanksgiving

11.20.

Thanksgiving Stuffing

ThanksgivingStuffing

That’s right, y’all!

Thanksgiving is NEXT WEEK!

Do you know what you are going to fix yet?

Did I just give you a mini heart attack?

If I did……..

I’m sorry!

Well, there is one thing that I know I am going to fix and it is good ole Stuffing!

I have a question though.

Do you fix Traditional Stuffing or do you fix Southern Dressing?

Well, I grew up with the Traditional style, while my husband grew up with the Southern Dressing. Though, I am not partial to either because I love both…….

You see, my mom would fix it the Traditional way and my Grandma would fix it the Dressing way.

So, I decided to fix each one and share the recipe!

First up is the Traditional Way. Rustic, large chunky bread and sausage, with celery and onions and LOTS of butter! 😉

I’m breaking the recipes up into two posts, but because I love you so much, I made a video. Make sure to check it out below and give it a “thumbs up” if you like it!

For the full written recipe, check it out below the video!

XOXO,

Esther

Recipe: Traditional Thanksgiving Stuffing

Ingredients:

• 8 Cups Cubed Bread (* 9 if omitting the Sausage)

• 16 oz. Sage Sausage (Regular is fine) * I used this to enhance the Sage flavor.

• 3/4 Cup Onion, Finely Chopped

• 1 1/2 Cup Celery, Chopped (with leaves)

• 1 3/4 Sticks Butter

• 1 1/2 Tsp. Dried Sage

• 1 Tsp. Dried Thyme

• 1/2 – 3/4 Cup Vegetable Stock , Unsalted (Use according to how dry you like)

• Salt and Pepper to taste

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

• In a large skillet , melt butter on medium heat. Add celery and onions and saute’ until just softened.

• Stir in 1/3 of cubed bread and toss for a minute. Transfer mixture to a large bowl and set aside.

• In same skillet, add sausage and cook until completely brown.

• Add cooked sausage to vegetable and bread mixture.

• Add remaining bread and ingredients to bowl and toss until well combined.

• Add salt and pepper to your taste.

• Spray a 9 x 13 casserole dish with non-stick spray and transfer stuffing mixture to pan.

• Bake 30-40 minutes or until mixture is completely warmed through and top is golden brown and crispy.

NOTE: * Tossing mixture in the middle of cooking time, may help keep bread underneath from becoming too moist.

Tags: Bread, Butter, Delicious, Food, Holidays, Recipe, Rustic, Side Dish, Southern, Stuffing, Thanksgiving, Traditional, Vegetable Stock

11.22.

Simple Thanksgiving Table Setting

I am beyond excited for Thanksgiving this year!

I thought I would share some of my ideas with you all in hopes that you may get a few ideas of your own. You know, in case you are in the same kind of tizzy. 🙂 (That IS a word, right?)

I am definitely a color person and I have been getting bored with my regular old white plates as of lately. I decided to go to Homegoods and “look” around.

However, I had a Starbucks in my hand and I can never just “look” when I have a Starbucks in my hand. All I will say is stores who have Starbucks in their stores know what they are doing. It’s like having waitresses serve you drinks when you are gambling in Vegas. The more you drink, the more you spend. It’s NO DIFFERENT with coffee. You are high on caffeine and BUY BUY BUY! Well, at least I do. LOL!

I fell in love with this blue and really built the color palette around this one plate. All the plates were $4.99 ea. at Homegoods.

Now, my centerpiece will be a little different come Turkey Day. I plan on lining mason jars down the center. Some with flowers and some with candles. I just didn’t have any flowers or candles on hand, so I thought this would look better than empty mason jars.

These Turkey salt and pepper shakers might get lucky enough to stay though……

I definitely have quite an eclectic taste, as you can see. I still get all googly eyed when I look at my new chandelier.

I firmly believe in using lots of natural looking elements like Burlap. I found this Burlap Runner at Target a while back for about $17.00. I love it because it is so versatile. It usually stays on the Coffee Center, but I’m going to use it here for the dinner.

I know you are probably thinking to yourself by now, where are the glasses? The answer to that is I haven’t figured that part out yet. If I don’t by the actual day, then I guess we will be drinking out of Solo Cups. 😉

Or, I guess I could just toss the flowers out of the mason jars and use them instead…….. RIGHT?

So, what kind of table setting are you doing this year? I would love to know!

XOXO,

Esther

Tags: Burlap Runner, Candles, Centerpiece, Homegoods, Mason Jars, Solo Cups, Starbucks, Table Setting, Thanksgiving, Turkey Day, Vegas

04.12.

Turkey Tenderloin w/ Blueberry Sauce

I am always looking for something different to cook for dinner. Don’t get me wrong. Sometimes, I just want to fix spaghetti or order out a pizza, but I think we can all agree that we tend to get into a “dinner rut” from time to time.

Well, the other night, I had a Turkey Tenderloin that I had been wanting to cook. I new I wanted to do something different, so I started searching Eating Well’s website. I heart that site by the way. They have plenty of healthy recipes and the ingredients are not foreign sounding names that you look at and go , “HUH???”

Anyway, I searched Turkey Tenderloin recipes and this one came up: Turkey with Blueberry Pan Sauce

Now, before you go “HUH???” again, trust me on this one. It was REALLY good!!! Normally, I would put something like this in front of my kids and they would look at it…… sniff it…. and walk around it like a curious animal before pushing it with their nose over to the side, then eating the stuff they really wanted. *Did I just refer to my kids as dogs?

But NO! They ate it up. Even the little one!

It has the most subtle sweetness to it and let’s be honest. Cranberry Sauce goes just fine with Turkey at Thanksgiving, right?…….Cranberry haters, don’t answer that!

I liked this recipe so much, that I think I may just switch out the traditional Cranberry Sauce next Thanksgiving for something like this instead.

I did notice that the longer the sauce had time to sit in the pan, the sweeter it became. To tell you the truth, I preferred it that way.

I used frozen wild blueberries in mine because I didn’t have fresh on hand. I think either would work just fine. The recipe didn’t state whether or not they needed to be fresh or frozen.

If you want to look up the nutritional info, I have put a link to the recipe here. However, if that kind of thing doesn’t interest you, you could also just look below for the recipe. Notice the *’s . This is used wherever I substituted ingredients for the things I had 😉

Turkey Tenderloin w/ Blueberry Sauce

Ingredients:

1/4 cup all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt, divided
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
1 pound turkey tenderloin
1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chopped shallots (*I used regular onions)
1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme (*I used what I had, which was dried ground)
2 cups blueberries (*I used frozen)
3 tablespoons balsamic vinegar

Directions:

Preheat oven to 450°F. Whisk flour, 1/2 teaspoon salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge turkey in the mixture. (Discard any leftover flour.)
Heat oil in a large ovenproof skillet over high heat. Add the turkey; cook until golden brown on one side, 3 to 5 minutes. Turn the turkey over and transfer the pan to the oven. Roast until the turkey is just cooked through and no longer pink in the middle, 15 to 20 minutes. Transfer the turkey to a plate and tent with foil to keep warm.
Place the skillet over medium heat. (Take care, the handle will still be very hot.) Add shallots and thyme and cook, stirring constantly, until the shallots begin to brown, 30 seconds to 1 minute. Add blueberries, vinegar and the remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt; continue cooking, stirring occasionally and scraping up any brown bits, until the blueberries burst and release their juices and the mixture becomes thick and syrupy, 4 to 5 minutes. Slice the turkey and serve with the blueberry pan sauce.

Enjoy! and let me know what you think!

XOXO,

Esther

Tags: Blueberry, Dinner, Eating Well, Healthy Recipe, Recipe, Thanksgiving, Turkey Tenderloin, Wild Blueberries

12.01.

Oh Christmas Tree!

Like most, my family was on the road this past Thanksgiving.

And also, like most, we always get our Christmas Tree right after Thanksgiving.

When we first moved almost 3 years ago, we couldn’t seem to find a Christmas Tree stand around our new house, which was completely crazy to me since there were probably Christmas Tree stands just about every 5 miles where we were from.

SO!

After the first year where I had to suck it up and go to Food Lion (which I will never do again)…….. (No OFFENSE Food Lion), and got a tree that DIED (I’m talking Brittle Dry Twigs People!) within the first week……

We decided that we would always get our tree while we were visiting home for Thanksgiving.

This year, I was VERY excited. This year would be the first year I wouldn’t have to measure anything. This is because our new house has 12 ft. ceilings. I know, I can hardly believe it myself.

I have NEVER, EVER, EVER, EVER had a house with 12 ft. ceilings.

The kids on the other hand, just wanted to play hide and seek.

Aidan was really the first one. I lost him for a while, but thankfully he showed back up again before we were ready to leave. I know, great parenting.

Even Z was playing….. ok, not really.

Now was time to get down to business. Would it be that one?

Or that one? Or that one? Or that one?

And then, there I stood…. across the ~~room~~ grass. I could have sworn I heard music playing, something like “Why do birds…… suddenly appear….. everytime! You are near!”