My Thanksgiving plan: the food

{All pictures linked to below}

Thanksgiving is a week away and like I mentioned Tuesday, I'm hosting. I may have seemed nonchalant in that post but I assure you -- I'm stressing out. I have no idea what my table decor is going to look like (I have rainbow-colored plates and turquoise chairs!), my house isn't fully decorated, I've barely looked at recipes, and I don't have an outfit! I know I've done it all before but that doesn't make it easier! Especially when you're a perfectionist and you want to make each year the best one yet.

So I've decided it's time to get organized -- beginning with the star of the show:  the meal. Here's what I'm thinking of making for the main course (desserts and apps to come in a future post).

Cranberry sauce perfection

I promise this is delicious.

Thanksgiving is right around the corner and I'm hosting for the fourth year in a row. I love it -- it's so much fun to prepare such a big meal (OK there are only 5 of us but that's big for me!) and not having to travel is complete bliss. I'm not the world's greatest cook -- baking is definitely more my style -- but I do have T-day down to a science.

I recently perfected my cranberry sauce recipe and highly recommend trying it -- even if it looks like mush in the photo and you swear you hate cranberries. It's super sweet and has a jam-like texture.

I'm actually tempted to try it on toast.

Super basic - and super delicious -- Halloween sugar cookies

I love making sugar cookies. It's such a fun thing to do with kids, significant others, or -- in my case -- very vocal and hungry pets.

I WANT MY SUGAR COOKIES!

There are an endless amount of recipes online, but what makes these sugar cookies the best I've ever had isn't the ingredients but what I used to roll out the dough.

You know how most recipes tell you to dust your rolling pin and surface with flour before you roll out the dough?

This recipe recommends something else.

Move over pumpkin -- it's sweet potato time

 

Though I'm just as obsessed with pumpkin as the rest of the blog-o-sphere, I decided to take a break from the squash and show some love to another one of my favorite orange ingredients.

The sweet potato.

Inspired by a sweet potato recipe in the November issue of Runner's World, I tackled some muffin making Sunday evening. I didn't have the necessary whole wheat flour or buttermilk on hand for Mark Bittman's muffins so I just Googled for another recipe. I came across this oatmeal version, which is still (relatively) healthy -- and super delicious.

With just the right amount of cinnamon and nutmeg, these muffins pretty much taste like fall. (If that doesn't make any sense to you, it will once you have a bite.)

Oh and they complement pumpkin spiced lattes quite well.

Apple muffin recipes and some cold hard facts

Upon walking into the kitchen early Sunday morning and discovering two dozen muffins, boyfriend Jack asked a very wise question:

What's the difference between a muffin and a cupcake?

... well ... umm ...

I had no idea but instead of admitting my lack of baking knowledge -- and ruining his image of me as a cupcake-muffin-making goddess -- I did what any know-it-all girlfriend would do.

I lied guessed.

Cupcakes are sweeter than muffins ... and you can eat muffins for breakfast ... duh!

Sounds legit, right? Especially with the duh.

Boyfriend accepted this definition (he's just finding out I made it up right about now. Hi Jack! Love you!) but I wanted to double check the facts in case I'm faced with a similar question in the future. And after a quick Google search it turns out I was kind of sort of right.

You see, cupcakes are made out of cake batter and muffins are made out of quick bread batter. Cake batter is sweeter than quick bread batter so thus cupcakes are sweeter than muffins.

So like I said -- duh!

These two muffin recipes -- chunky apple muffins with a maple syrup glaze and cinnamon-apple cider muffins -- are delicious, moist, and perfect for breakfast. Plus they look fantastic in my brand new cupcake-muffin tree. Yes I used apples again (previous apple recipes here and here) but they're in season and my favorite fall fruit.

(OK, fine. All my apples were going bad and I had a gallon of barely touched apple cider and a pint of buttermilk from last week that needed to be used up STAT.)


Chunky apple muffins with maple syrup glaze
Inspired by Martha Stewart and Ina Garten

Ingredients

For the muffins:

• 2 (or 3) small tart apples, peeled, cored, and quartered (I like a lot of apple in mine so I did 3)
• 1 cup sugar
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon plus 2 pinches salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup buttermilk, room temperature
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted

For the glaze:

• 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
• 1/4 cup pure maple syrup (I used slightly more since I like my glaze to be a little runny. And super sweet.)
• 1/2 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line 12 standard muffin tins.
2. Cut 6 (or 10) of your 8 (or 12) apple quarters into 1/4-inch dices. 
3. Cut the remaining 2 apple quarter into 12 thin slices for garnish. (That make sense, right? It's how Martha put it so it should.) 
4. Whisk together sugar, flour, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon in a medium bowl. Add diced apple and toss to coat.
5. Whisk together eggs, buttermilk, and butter in a small bowl.
6. Gently fold buttermilk mixture into flour mixture until just combined; do not overmix. If you over-stir muffins, they come out dry and gross. According to the Joy of Cooking. 
7. Divide batter among muffin cups (they'll probably be super full) and top each with an apple slice.
8. Bake until muffins are brown around edges -- 16 to 18 minutes.
9. While muffins are cooling, combine the confectioners' sugar, maple syrup, and vanilla for the glaze. 
10. Drizzle each muffin with about a tablespoon of glaze. Feel free to use more if you like things on the sweeter side, just remember, as Ina Garten said,  "The warmer the scones are when you glaze them, the thinner the glaze will be." 

Total muffins: 12
Total time: 30 (ish) minutes


Cinnamon-apple cider muffins
Inspired by Food.com 

Ingredients

For the muffins:

• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour 
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar 
• 2 teaspoons baking powder 
• 1/4 teaspoon salt 
• 1 beaten egg 
• 3/4 cup apple cider 
• 1/4 cup cooking oil 

For the topping:

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar 
• 3 tablespoons all-purpose flour 
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 
• 3 tablespoons cold butter

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line 12 standard muffin tins.
2. To make the topping, stir together the brown sugar, flour, and cinnamon in a small bowl -- then cut the butter in with a pastry blender. Set aside.
3. In a medium bowl, stir together flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, and salt. 
4. In another small bowl, combine the egg, apple cider, and oil.
5. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until JUST moisten.
6. Divide batter among muffin cups and sprinkle with the topping,
7. Bake until golden brown -- about 20 minutes.

Total muffins: 12
Total time: 40 (ish) minutes

Muffin. DESTROYED.

Apple cider doughnuts

I've never made doughnuts before but my mom used to all the time when I was kid -- and they were incredible. (We're Polish -- we're big on doughnuts -- we even have an official doughnut day.) This past weekend I decided to see if I inherited the doughnut-making gene by whipping up a batch of what I consider the quintessential fall doughnut.

I used this recipe from The New York Times and I think my favorite part of it is the apple chunks. In fact, I recommend adding more than one apple and cutting the pieces super small so that there's fruit in every bite. (Gives the illusion that these fried babies are healthy.)

I don't own a doughnut cutter (does anyone really?!) and I couldn't find one at the store when I haphazardly looked so instead I just used a regular glass for the outside and a shot glass for the doughnut hole.

(Not going to lie - I'm pretty impressed with my MacGyver-like resourcefulness.)


My first frying attempt failed miserably because not only did I not wait for the oil to get hot enough but I also put about seven donuts in the pan. Yeah -- don't do that. You end up with a soggy mess.

Luckily, I recovered from the initial mishap and successfully fried the rest of the batch before rolling the doughnuts in cinnamon and sugar.

 
While the final doughnuts aren't as moist as the ones you buy at apple orchards (though my lack of frying skills could potentially be to blame for that) --  they have a nice crunch to them and are perfect with a glass of apple cider or -- as boyfriend prefers  -- chocolate milk.

Looks like doughnut making didn't skip this generation!

Monday mashup: a little rendez-vous and a lot of food

Photos of me by Alex

This past weekend I mingled with some fantastic bloggers at rendez-vouz: new england. We gathered at Grey's Fabric & Notion -- a cute fabric boutique in the heart of SoWa  -- and chatted about blogging while devouring grilled cheese sandwiches from Roxy's food truck. The weather was gorgeous -- high 60s and sunny -- and I wore my new favorite skirt (BCBG), my old favorite jacket (H&M), and carried a picnic basket (an $8 thrift store find) instead of a purse.

Back on the home front, I successfully used all of of my Costco peaches by making Eat Live Run's Earl Grey peach preserves. It turned out surprisingly well -- even though I swapped out the Earl Grey tea for English Breakfast. I ended the weekend by baking an apple-caramel cupcake -- potentially the perfect fall dessert -- which I'll share the recipe for tomorrow. 

{Thank you Jillian of Cornflakes Dreams and Alison of Long Distance Loving for organizing such a great event. And thank you Grey's Fabric & Notion for hosting us Sunday morning -- I can't wait to check out your "how to make a yoga bag" class.}

Peach party

I occasionally quite often lose all sense of reality at Costco and end up filling my cart with random items that just aren't very practical in large quantities (though they are fantastic deals!). In that moment of wholesale insanity, I think it's completely feasible for two people to eat 10 avocados, four loaves of bread, and 24 Greek yogurts before their expiration dates.

My latest impulse (great deal) purchase was a box of a dozen peaches. They were already semi-mushy at the store but that naturally did not stop me. I grabbed the box and started fantasizing about all the recipes I'd make -- one last summer peach hurrah!

Fast forward to today -- one week later -- and those peaches are still sitting on my kitchen counter.

But this time -- unlike the avocados and the breads and the yogurts -- I refuse to let Costco win. This weekend I'm going to throw a peach party* and (for real!) make one of the following (easy?) recipes:

• Peach-basil ice cream topping. (From The Pioneer Woman) The only thing I have more of than peaches is basil. No one told me it grows like a weed -- so I planted two plants on my front porch. And now I'm swimming in the stuff.
• Earl Gray peach preserves. (From Eat Live Run) I'm not quite sure how I feel about the Earl Gray-ness of this recipe but I have all the necessary ingredients in my kitchen so I might as well try it out. (Plus Jenna's never steered me wrong before. She's legit.)
• Vanilla-roasted peaches with raspberries. (From Martha Stewart) The idea of roasting peaches with butter and vanilla just seems right to me. Could be the perfect summer to fall peach recipe.
• Peach hydration mask. (From bien-etre) Yes this is a face mask. No it's not edible (sorry boyfriend). Let's hope this plan doesn't backfire.

Which recipe do you like?


*I don't know where this peach party nonsense is coming from. I've never had, been to, or even heard of a peach party.