{Thanksgiving Favorites} Scalloped corn & Thanksgiving plans

Posted on November 23, 2011 by Denise

Happy Thanksgiving!! The big day is almost here. How many of you are like me….you’ve found over the years that Thaksgiving day has found a special place in your heart? Being a “foodie” of course, we love the focus on food, but it’s more than that. I love, love, love that the focus is family, food, thankfulness and being together. A time to reflect and give thanks for all of God’s blessings in my life. A time to spend with each other without the hustle, bustle and worry that can accompany Christmas and finding the perfect gift. I love that the day is set aside to just BE together with no additional strings attached. It’s the perfect kick-off to the holiday season, don’t you think?

Every year I like to have my grocery shopping done early….the weekend before Thanksgiving. Then I set aside Tuesday and Wednesday to make my side dishes and desserts. I used to only have Wednesday for that, but this year I’ve incorporated Tuesday and I like this even better. It means instead of making all my sides and desserts in one day…by spreading them out into two, I have time to hang out with my girls reading them a special book or two and maybe even play a game or put on a movie in the background. A slower pace….ah yes, this is nice!!

Then tomorrow morning, my hubby will start the stuffing, get the bird in the oven and of course the Macy’s Parade will be on. When we are home (since many years we travel), we hang out, watch the parade and snitch stuffing all day long….which is why hubby makes extra. This sausage stuffing is amazing…..and though I know the recipe is found online, I’d have to get hubby’s families approval before posting it here on this blog. I’ll get back to you on that. 😉

We’re not black Friday participants…hubby doesn’t like crowds and I’m not a morning person, but some years we’ve wandered out that afternoon to see the leftovers and there are usually still pretty good sales all that day and weekend too, don’t you think? We won’t be heading out shopping this year though as money is super tight with hubby starting up his own business, but in times past we sometimes meet friends at the park for an impromptu playdate. Or it would be a great day for the beach or the wildlife sanctuary. Outdoors this time of year in Florida is beautiful.

Over the weekend we set up our tree and lights in preparation for our “tree decorating party” which is a tradition I’ve carried on from my mom. Sunday evening we’ll turn on Christmas music, let the girls decorate the tree while I hand them ornaments and eat snickerdoodles….our traditional cookie. Eating snickerdoodles while decking out the tree stems from my childhood. What are your tree traditions?

This corn casserole is very good. It’s the recipe you find that includes the Jiffy cornbread mix. I’ve been wanting to recreate it for a few years now without using the jiffy mix, and finally got around to it this year. It may be easier with a box of Jiffy mix, but there are many other ingredients I’d rather not have added in. It’s an easy & quick side dish to whip up!

I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving….I’ll leave you with a peek at our menu.

Thanksgiving Menu 2011

22 pound roast turkey (bought frozen & thawed in fridge)
The infamous sausage stuffing (family recipe)
Mashed potatoes & homemade gravy
Green beans
Scalloped corn
Homemade cranberry sauce
Scalloped pineapple

For dessert:

Cranberry apple pie
Sweet potato pecan pie
Chocolate pie
Derby pie
** Hubby mentioned pecan pie for the first time last night so I might sub that in instead of the derby pie this year. **

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!!!!

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Scalloped corn
Author: 
Recipe type: Side dish, Thanksgiving
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 12-15
 
Perfect side dish for Thanksgiving. It's more of a corn pudding/souffle consistency than cornbread. Some may consider it a corn casserole.
Ingredients
  • 2 cans cream style corn
  • 3 eggs
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • ¼ cup milk
  • ½ cup flour
  • ½ cup cornmeal
  • ¼ cup sugar
  • 1 tsp baking powder
  • ¼ tsp salt
  • 2 Tbsp butter
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 350.
  2. Butter oval souffle dish or corningware dish.
  3. In large bowl mix corn, eggs, sugar and milk.
  4. In smaller bowl mix flour, cornmeal, sugar, baking powder and salt.
  5. Add flour mixture to corn mixture reserving a small portion of flour mixture.
  6. Combine just till blended, and pour into souffle dish.
  7. Cut butter into small pieces and combine with reserved flour mixture. Spread on top of dish.
  8. Bake for one hour.
  9. ~~~~I use canned organic corn and made my own creamed corn. To make your own, drain 2 cans of corn and add to food processor. Add a splash of milk and a tablespoon or two of sugar (if desired). Pulse until creamed corn consistency.~~~~~

If you enjoyed this post, won’t you consider sharing it with others? Handy share and “Facebook recommend” buttons are below. It really makes my day when you pass things along! To make sure you don’t miss a post or recipe you can either follow Creative Kitchen on Facebook or subscribe by Email in the sidebar. Thanks for reading….I love having company in the kitchen!

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Martha Stewart Giveaway Winner!!

Posted on November 22, 2011 by Denise

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for….

who won Macy’s Martha Stewart Professional cookware?

Even though I’m new to the world of hosting “giveaways” I’ve entered many, and have even won a few. My first was an “I-dog” (doggie speaker that you attach your Ipod to), so I know my food blogger friends use Random.org to generate a winner (aka….pick a winner out of a hat). I thoroughly enjoyed hosting this giveaway, and hope to do more of them in the future. So…..

DRUMROLL, please……..

 

True Random Number Generator 

31

Powered by RANDOM.ORG

 

And comment  #31 was ~ Cindy A.

Cindy A. says:

I “like” Creative Kitchen on Facebook – Cindy A.

~  Congratulations Cindy!! This was the comment that won, but the original answer to her question, “What makes Thanksgiving special to you?” was:

“Thank you so much for offering such a lovely and generous giveaway. My Thanksgiving is special because of family, friends, good food and great wine. ;) ”

Email me your choice of prize & your address so I can pass it on to Macy’s! I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving!!

In other news…..my mother-in-law is here visiting from Little Rock. She made it safely into town Friday night. We are having such a good time, and we’re so glad she made the 2 day journey to be with us. Since she almost wasn’t able to come, we feel especially blessed to have her here!! She’s a foodie like me, so we’ll be doing all kinds of great things in the kitchen this holiday season. Yesterday we made it to Costco, and I can’t tell you how excited I was to finally pick up that big 3 lb bag of cranberries!! I’ll be using them to make this pie, and might try my hand at homemade cranberry sauce this year. I made some cranberry orange scones this morning that are out of this world, and will be making cranberry bread (or muffins) soon.

Sunday night my family was privileged to serve with our church and the Big Heart Brigade in helping to put together Thanksgiving meals for local people in need. Every year….they meet their goal and this year they set their goal at 100,000 meals. Isn’t that amazing? It was the first time the 4 of us had served together, and my mother-in-law make it possible by watching our 3 year old at home. They had some nice grandmother/granddaughter bonding time. Thanks NeeNee!!

Make sure you stop by later today or tomorrow for another Thanksgiving Favorite….I’ll be sharing scalloped corn casserole. You know the one with the jiffy corn bread mix? I’ve figured out a way to substitute that with organic freshly ground cornmeal. It doesn’t have to be organic freshly ground, but I’ll share a recipe with you so that you can eliminate the 15 or so extra ingredients that you might not want in your dish. OR if you don’t happen to have jiffy corn bread mix on hand.

Have you started cooking yet? I like to make the sides and desserts on Tuesday and Wednesday so that Thursday can be all about the turkey, stuffing, mashed taters and gravy. And fortunately for me….hubby does all but the taters. I figure by the time he rinses and cleans the bird, he might as well pop it in the oven and babysit it for me….LOL…especially since he’s in the kitchen anyway making his family’s traditional sausge stuffing. 😉 And you know we’ll have on the Macy’s day parade….such a great tradition from my childhood.

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Birthdays past ~ part two

Posted on November 18, 2011 by Denise

Read part one

As a new mom, of course I had fun with the birthday parties. Oh yes….like all new moms I went completely overboard with elaborate themes. For her 1st birthday….it was pink, girly & we had a picture of her on her cake. Her 2nd birthday was her care bear birthday….she started talking in complete sentences before she was 2, and yes….she knew all the care bears by name. But I think the birthday song scared her….I felt bad!

For her third birthday party, we did a whole Strawberry Shortcake theme since that was her favorite. I named all the food to coordinate with the names of Strawberry Shortcake and her friends. Thankfully all smiles that year.

The Little Mermaid was the theme for her fourth birthday, and we had it at a local park with the beach in view. In fact, it was at the same park & pavilion where we just had her 9th birthday. Ah…memories!

And for her fifth birthday she invited a couple friends to Build A Bear workshop which turned out very cute! After that (and my third daughter was born), I decided to follow suit of many wise moms before me and start establishing the birthday parties as every OTHER year for each child (except for their first 5 birthdays). At this point I had already thrown a minimum of 11 birthday parties between both girls, and now with a third child I was starting over with the parties. For each birthday through their 5th year, I like to have special parties for them where we gather with our friends. I’m currently doing that with my youngest while alternating parties for the two oldest girls.

It’s been a great compromise, and A LOT less work for mom. On the in between years we let them decide on something to do: have a friend sleepover and go out to dinner or a movie with the friend, or the mall. As the girls get older, they’ve been picking mall trips with friends that the moms and I chaperone. It’s neat to see how they are growing into young ladies who want clothes and accessories instead of plastic toys. I highly recommend keeping this in mind if you’re a new mom. It’s hard to believe…but one day you won’t want to see another goodie bag or party favor.

We’ve even “created family memories or weekend trips” as the birthday celebration. And living in Florida, and being such Disney fans mean we’ve done trips to Disney. We figured we’d spend the “party” money on making memories together….we did this for several of their birthdays. Mainly because of the 2 years we’ve owned season passes, we counted up that our oldest daughter has celebrated 7 of her birthdays at Disney! You can’t beat Disney!! Even at ages 12 & 9, our girls are Disney fanatics and can’t wait till we can go again. Our passes have been expired since last March, and we get twinges of Disney withdrawal now and then.

I’ve even learned to simplify the parties. They’re as close to our “backyard cake and Kool-Aid” parties we had as kids. In fact, that was my aim. All kids really want is to play with their friends, feel special, eat cake and open presents.

And as moms, we don’t have to keep finding and picking up plastic toys from favor bags all week. It really is a win/win. So Monday….we met at the park….moms, kids, capri sun and cake. Keep it simple….you’ll be surprised how easy and stress-free it can really be!!

** Your turn ~ How do you celebrate birthdays in your family? What have you done over the years to keep it simple, while still making the birthday child feel special? *Does your family also love Disney? **

If you enjoyed this post, won’t you consider sharing it with others? Handy share and “Facebook recommend” buttons are below. It really makes my day when you pass things along! To make sure you don’t miss a post or recipe you can either follow Creative Kitchen on Facebook or subscribe by Email in the sidebar. Thanks for reading….I love having company in the kitchen!

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{Thanksgiving Favorites} Cranberry apple pie & my FIRST giveaway!!

Posted on November 16, 2011 by Denise

I’ve got some pretty exciting news here at Creative Kitchen, and I hope this awesome giveaway will make up for my absence of late. I was contacted by Macy’s to do this special holiday post. Share a favorite family holiday recipe, a unique story and offer you guys a chance to get involved too. Isn’t that cool? I thought so!

Over the years I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving many different ways….as a kid with extended family (the BEST kind!), as a kid at a local restaurant (NOT my idea of Thanksgiving!), with friends while overseas in the Navy, with extended family as a young adult and finally the long-awaited Thanksgiving with my very own family. When our babies were little it was really fun to establish some of our own holiday traditions as I mentioned in a recent post, but still my VERY favorite Thanksgivings involve many family members milling about, stories being told, kids running around, football on the tv, and the anticipation of a great meal (whether I’m in on the action or not).

Over the years those extended family memories (of family members all traveling in from their homes far away) are the BEST ones. Now that I’m older I realize and appreciate how much work goes into planning those gatherings and preparing the food and other small details.

I’m blessed that in each of my families (my husband’s and my own)….we realize the significance of family, spending time together making memories and being together. I’m blessed that despite the fact we’re spending this year in our own home….we had TWO other Thanksgiving invitations extended to us. Hopefully next year we’ll be back on the road, but this year my Thanksgiving got a whole lot sweeter when we found out my mother-in-law will be visiting us. Yay!! You know I was disappointed when I realized we weren’t going to be able to travel to family this year.

One year in particular stands out in my childhood memories. It was 1978, we’d recently moved to Salisbury, Maryland and I had been in a Thanksgiving play. I was a pilgrim and my mom made my costume herself. I wish I still had it for my girls to wear!! Here I am wearing the pilgrim dress in a photo taken in our dining room with my grandma and brother.

Anyway, it was the only year we had family travel to us to spend Thanksgiving at our house. Up until this point we had always traveled out to my grandparent’s house in the country singing over the river and through the woods to grandmother’s house we go……

This year my grandma swooped into my mom’s newly renovated kitchen,

and all the women set about making all grandma’s pies from scratch….homemade crust and all. There was pumpkin, apple, pecan and that elusive mincemeat pie that I loved and adored. As a kid you know you think there really is “meat” in that pie, and it was beyond my belief that it still tasted so good and sweet. I loved everyone coming to our house. I loved all the commotion and people milling about. I still do! Nuts were always set out, and Thanksgivings of my youth are when I learned to use a nutcracker and a small metal pick to pick the nut meat out of the shell to eat. Walnuts were my favorite.

I grew up in a quiet calm house….and because of my dad, quiet was really held to a high standard. So as a kid you can imagine how much fun it was to have a house full of people and action filling those normally quiet halls. This house in Maryland was my favorite. The three years we lived here felt like Norman Rockwell Americana at it’s finest. I have some of my best childhood memories here!

We lived in a 2-story house with a huge front porch and a big back yard. Upstairs we had a really neat balcony off my parent’s bedroom that I loved to sit out on. We had an old-fashioned attic with real stairs and real windows overlooking our street. I biked and ran all over that neighborhood with my friends, and we lived right across the street from my elementary school. We played on our school playground after hours unlike today where the schols are fenced off much like prisons. 🙂 We walked to school and the crossing guard was the retired mayor of the small town. See…very American!

About the cranberry apple pie. I ripped this recipe out of magazine years ago wanting to try it, but you know a lot of those recipes sit in a file for awhile. I finally made it in 2007? and it has made an appearance ever since! The tartness of the fresh cranberries pairs so nicely with the sweetness of the apples.

It’s my favorite pie during the holidays, and my girls as well. My mother-in-law and sister-in-law love it too. I’ve made it in pie form (crustless), but I’ve also doubled the recipe and made in a 9 x 13 dish so there would be leftovers for breakfast. It’s amazing by itself or with homemade whipped cream or vanilla ice cream. I hope you’ll try this pie and it makes it onto your “must make” list.

Macy’s is inviting fans to submit their favorite holiday recipes at their Facebook Page for a chance to win a dinner with a renowned Macy’s Culinary Council chef, including Emeril Lagasse, Wolfgang Puck, Cat Cora or Todd English! WOW!! That’d be amazing to win!

And now onto my very first GIVEAWAY here at Creative Kitchen…..

Macy’s is generously offering my readers a chance to win their choice of one of three Martha Stewart Professional Cookware items:

Ceramic Covered Casserole Dish
Hand Anodized Fry Pans (set of 3)
Stainless Steel 15″ Roaster with Roasting Rack

To enter to win:

Leave a comment below with the answer to the following question,

“What makes your Thanksgiving special?”

You can get up to 2 extra entries:

By following Creative Kitchen on Facebook and Twitter and leaving a comment below stating that you’re now following. If you already follow Creative Kitchen on Facebook or Twitter make sure you leave a separate comment stating that fact. If you have 3 separate comments, you will have 3 chances in the drawing!!

The contest is only open to U.S. residents and the winner will be chosen randomly MONDAY November 21, 2011!!


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{Thanksgiving Favorites} Cranberry apple pie & my FIRST giveaway!!
Author: 
Recipe type: Dessert, Thanksgiving, Christmas, Holidays, Pie
Prep time: 
Cook time: 
Total time: 
Serves: 8-10
 
My favorite fruit pie of the holidays! The tartness of the fresh cranberries pairs so nicely with the sweetness of the apples.
Ingredients
  • Pie crust, optional (I don't use ~ I prefer crustless)
  • 2 cups apples, peeled and sliced thinly
  • 2 cups fresh cranberries, rinsed
  • ⅔ cups sugar
  • 1 Tbsp lemon juice
  • 1½ Tbsp flour
  • FOR TOPPING~
  • ½ cup flour
  • ½ cup sugar
  • ½ tsp cinnamon
  • 4 Tbsp butter sliced and diced
Instructions
  1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
  2. In a large bowl, combine apple slices, cranberries, sugar, lemon juice and flour.
  3. In a separate bowl, combine topping ingredients flour, sugar, cinnamon and butter by hand till mixture is crumbly and butter is well dispersed. Set aside for later.
  4. In a pyrex pie pan, add cranberry apple mixture. (if using crust follow crust directions first)
  5. Bake pie for 30 minutes.
  6. Lower oven temperature to 375 degrees.
  7. Remove pie and add crumb topping.
  8. Bake pie for an additional 25-30 minutes or until top is golden and filling is thickened.

 

If you enjoyed this post, won’t you consider sharing it with others? Handy share and “Facebook recommend” buttons are below. It really makes my day when you pass things along! To make sure you don’t miss a post or recipe you can either follow Creative Kitchen on Facebook or subscribe by Email in the sidebar. Thanks for reading….I love having company in the kitchen!

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Birthdays past ~ part one

Posted on November 15, 2011 by Denise

If you’ve been reading for awhile, you may know I have three girls ages 12, 8 and 3 1/2. Yesterday we celebrated a birthday in our family. It was a very special day because 9 years ago my middle daughter was born. 9 years ago yesterday I became a mom of two. On that day I never realized I’d one day ever have a third child. Happy Birthday Sweetie!! Let’s take a stroll down memory lane……

Every pregnancy I’ve had has been a difficult one. With my first one my health was in jeopardy, but I was so new to it and just excited to be pregnant that I was clueless. I developed pre-eclampsia, and at 33 weeks they delivered my oldest daughter by an emergency cesarean for my safety and hers. Not only was she 7 weeks early, her growth rate had slowed and she was only 3 lbs 10 oz and 16 inches long. Though completely healthy, she spent 18 days in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) to put on weight and learn how to regulate her body temperature. Today she’s a thriving (almost) teenager who’s already my size.

When I became pregnant with my middle daughter (whose birthday we’re celebrating!), they weren’t sure what had caused the pre-eclampsia in the other pregnancy, so they wanted me to take heparin shots (a blood thinner) throughout my pregnancy to make sure the same thing that happened during my first wouldn’t happen with my second.

Me….a needle phobic person….would have to have 2 shots a day exactly 12 hours apart for the duration of the pregnancy and until she was 6 weeks old. We found out after the fact….when they tested my blood….the shots had not been necessary (so I didn’t do them with my third child and my pregnancy was completely normal with a full-term birth). By the last month of the pregnancy I even began giving the shots to myself. Crazy……

Her birth was a normal one (no c-section), and I was able to bring her home when she was only 2 days old. I was thrilled!! Leaving my firstborn in the hospital had been the hardest thing I’d ever done. My middle daughter was such an easy baby. I thought, “Wow…this is what full-term infants are like.” Getting up twice a night, instead of every 2 hours with a preemie, and then eventually only once a night. She used to hang out in her bouncy seat just taking everything in, and hardly made a peep unless she was hungry. As a toddler when she learned how to open up the fridge, she’d bring me what she wanted to eat. It was cute!

At age 4 she taught herself to read. She had been watching the Leap Frog dvds and knew all her letter sounds, and one day she picked up the beginning readers and just started in, “The fat cat sat.” I was blown away. She’s very smart, and it’s uncanny the kind of math that she can do in her head, or what a gifted speller she is.

As usual with my “family memory” posts, this one got incredibly long so I broke it up into two parts. Stay tuned for Part 2 of this post where I go into birthday celebrations of years past with a lot of birthday photos (later this week). I’ll also be sharing another Thanksgiving favorite recipe this week as well.

** Your turn ~ I want to hear what you relate to in this post. Did you have a difficult pregnancy? Or a preemie? Let me get to know you! **

If you enjoyed this post, won’t you consider sharing it with others? Handy share and “Facebook recommend” buttons are below. It really makes my day when you pass things along! To make sure you don’t miss a post or recipe you can either follow Creative Kitchen on Facebook or subscribe by Email in the sidebar. Thanks for reading….I love having company in the kitchen!

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