Happy (American) Thanksgiving!

Trying to plan out my day, so I figured I'd do it here, then update with photos tomorrow.

We have two turkeys to cook:

one 10 1/2 lb. free-range heritage turkey from our own farm, which Jim killed on Saturday, so he's been sitting for a few days to tenderize and has been in the garage brining for the past 36 hours,

and one 13 lb. kosher bird from the grocery store because my mother-in-law refuses to eat a "backyard bird."

Mashed potatoes grown on our farm

Green beans grown on our farm

Green onions grown on our farm for seasoning and stuffing

Sweet potatoes

Candied carrots


My mother-in-law is bringing the candied carrots, a coconut-custard pie and an apple pie.

I'm trying to motivate and make the pumpkin and pecan pies that I like, but I'm not feeling terribly motivated at the moment, which is why I'm sitting here typing this list rather than actually making any of it.


Goals for next year:
Homegrown pumpkins, which the deer crushed this year
Homegrown sweetpotatoes
Homegrown carrots, which we had but already ate
Home"grown" whipped cream from our goats
Homegrown sausage for the stuffing (yup! brought our piggies home yesterday!)

Food Blog

I've been inspired by all the delicious recipe posts and am trying to remember to take photos more often. Last week, I pulled out some pesto and oven dried tomatoes from my garden and sauteed them in olive oil with some garlic, coarse sea salt and pine nuts. Once done, I poured it all over cheese tortellini and served it with some homemade ciabatta bread. It was tasty, though the cheese tortellini weren't as tender as I would have liked. I miss having a place to purchase fresh pasta! I remember fondly the red pepper fettucine I used to be able to buy at DiSalvo's Pasta back in State College. Mmmmmm... Makes me almost crazy enough to want to buy that pasta attachment for my kitchenaid. Like I need one more thing to make from scratch!

Homemade Waffle/ Pancake Mix

Though we'd been making our waffles from scratch for a while, somehow the lure of opening a box of Dr. Oetker's was strong, as it seemed so much easier to muster in the morning than starting from scratch. Why not mix up my own, I thought, so I could just unscrew a jar of dry ingredients, mix up the wet and voila! I purchased the basics and set about making my own mixes.

Before long, Jules joined me and ended up mixing nearly all of them herself! We had a great time in the kitchen together, and she's so thrilled when we use the mix she made. Although it really was just a few basic ingredients in the mason jars, cutting out that one step does seem easier than scratch. Slowly but surely, we're breaking away from our dependence on grocery chains. We've recently joined an organic coop, which should make getting the staples I can't buy locally even easier, and buying in bulk not only means money saved on the food items but also translates into less gas used, less money spent on gas and transport, and less money into the Giant corporation. Woohoo!