I love Thanksgiving. It might be my favorite holiday due to the fact that I get to cook for a couple days straight. Last year I was planning 2 months in advance! This year, I only had 2 days but I managed to pull it off. We had the usual fixings turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mac n cheese, cornbread and pumpkin pie.
Our fridge is packed to the brim with leftovers. Last year I made a Turkey Fritatta with our Thanksgiving dinner leftovers. Vini has been looking forward to that fritatta the whole year! This time, not only did I make that fritatta but I also came up with a Thanksgiving leftover pot pie…kind of a Shepard’s Pie as well. It’s got turkey, gravy, stuffing, and mashed potatoes all baked under a flaky puff pastry. If you still have some leftovers, you’ve gotta try this!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm
Tags: american, baking, cooking, food, pie, recipe, recipes, thanksgiving
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Yes it’s holiday season again. I feel like it hit really early this year. I heard Christmas music at Bloomies before Halloween! This year I’m so happy to be surrounded by all the amazing holiday paraphernalia. Pumpkins all over the place! Turkey, stuffing, cranberry sauce, hams, you can’t miss it at any grocery store. Everyone gets into it. Starbucks with their special drinks, Dunkin Donuts with special holiday flavors so I figured it’s time for me to experiment with some pumpkin goodness.
We all love pumpkin pie. Those spices mixed with that rich pumpkin puree, mmmm mmm just reminds me of Fall. After 3 batches, I finally perfected the recipe for these scrumptious spiced pumpkin cookies. They’re more like muffin tops. Cakey and spongey like a moist muffin with a delicious maple icing on top. Perfect to fill the cookie jar for this holiday season!
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Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cookies, cooking, desserts, food, holiday, recipe, recipes, sweets, thanksgiving
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I apologize for the poor photos, I didn’t get a chance to take as many as I wanted… and I had poor lighting. Regardless, the food still tasted great! So Garlic Mashed Potatoes… this recipe is incredibly easy to make. It’s your basic mashed potatoes but I’ve gotten some feedback… people don’t know how to make mashed potatoes! Here it is, very simple!
Ingredients:
10 potatoes, washed, scrubbed & peeled - in America I would go with russet idaho potatoes, here, I picked some browned ones that looked closest to russet
5 cloves of garlic, chopped fine
6 tablespoons of butter
1 cup of heavy cream
3/4 cup of milk
Step 1: Boil away
After scrubbing and washing the potatoes, make sure they’re peeled and pat dry with a paper towel - this will help to avoid slipping. Personally, I like keeping the skin on and mixing it in with the mash but this time I thought I’d try to make them look creamy and smooth without the brown chunks of skin. It’s Thanksgiving, it’s all about presentation right?! OKAY, cut the potatoes into large chunks - probably around 2 or 3 inches. Throw them into a large pot of boiling water and let that cook for about 15 - 20 minutes or until soft. Poke a fork in a chunk to see if they’re ready, you want them soft but not at the point where they’ve crumbled to the bottom of the pot. Drain and throw them back into the pot.
Step 2: Mash and mix
If you have a masher, great, start mashing! Make sure the heat is down to as low as you can get it. Pour in the heavy cream while you’re mashing and get it all mixed in. Once it’s all mashed, slowly pour in the milk and keep mixing. In a small saucepan, melt the butter and throw in the garlic. Let that simmer and bring out the flavors for about 5 - 8 minutes. I personally like to brown my garlic but most people like the garlic to be an added flavor and not too overpowering so I just let it simmer a little bit. Pour in that garlic and butter mixture into the potatoes and mash away.
Step 3: Serve
So Australians don’t eat their mashed potatoes with sour cream and chives, I guess it’s an American thing. I think only a couple people used the garnish. You can mix in the sour cream and chives right into the mash before plating so it’s all mixed in or you can keep it separate. I like keeping it separate so I can put a heaping spoonful 
Hope this comes in handy! You can vary the recipe as much as you want to taste, that’s the best part about mashed potatoes. Add in bacon bits, cheese, whatever!
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: american, cooking, food, potatoes, recipe, recipes, thanksgiving, vegetables, vegetarian
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Unfortunately, I cannot find a decent photo of this dish. I will have to remake and repost the image. For now, this will have to do… it’s blurry I know… deal with it, it tasted delicious! But before I forgot what I did, here’s the recipe!
Ingredients:
4 large sweet potatoes or yams (depending on where you live and what they call them)
2/3 cup of brown sugar
1 teaspoon of cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon of salt
5 tablespoons of butter
1/4 teaspoon of nutmeg
pinch of ground ginger
fresh ground pepper - to taste
1 - 1 1/2 cup of small marshmallows
preheat oven to 350°F or 170°C
Step 1: Pre Cook
Scrub and wash the sweet potatoes and then peel them. Cut into about 2-in chunks, make sure you keep them around the same size so they cook evenly. In a large pot, bring some water to boil and throw in the chunks. Boil for about 10 minutes or until soft. Drain and arrange evenly on a baking pan - I used about a 10 x 10 dish.
Step 2: The Glaze
In a saucepan, slowly melt the butter at a medium-low heat. Throw in all the spices and sugar and let them melt together. Once the brown sugar is melted and start to thicken, pour on top of the cut potatoes. Make sure the potatoes are covered with the glaze and throw it in the oven for about 45 minutes.
Step 3: The Marshmallows
The glaze should be thick and sticky on the potatoes. Evenly spread the marshmallows on top of the glazed potatoes and throw them back in the oven for another 5 minutes. Be careful to not put them in for too long, they will catch on fire if you put it too close to the top (that happened last year!). You want them just turning brown and starting to melt.
Enjoy! This was one of my favorite dishes this year, the glaze really does make it taste amazing.
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, thanksgiving, vegetables
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Now to clarify I can’t really claim it’s the perfect recipe for cooking a turkey, but it’s come out nice 2 years in a row without any complaints. Each time, I freak out about how long it’s taking and worry it’s not going to be done in time for dinner, but it always came out okay at the end. There’s a lot of people who don’t cook the turkey with stuffing in it, I like to cook it in because most people prefer the stuffing cooked in the bird.
Ingredients:
6-7 kilo/13-15 lbs thawed turkey (if you buy frozen, make sure you thaw it in the fridge for a few days)
5 sprigs of rosemary - leaves only, chopped fine
5-7 cloves of garlic - chopped fine
5 tablespoons sea salt - kosher would be better but I can’t find any so I went with pink sea salt flakes
5-6 tablespoons nice course ground pepper - fresh ground would be the best
6 tablespoons of olive oil
6 tablespoons of soft butter
4 cups of chicken or turkey stock - I couldn’t find turkey stock here, chicken works just fine
2 1/2 - 3 cups of stuffing (made and cooled to room temp)
preheat oven to 400°F or 200°C
Step 1: Prep the turkey
Unpack and wash the turkey in the kitchen sink. Take out the inside packet with all the giblets if yours comes with any. Apparently in Australia, they don’t come with guts. Place turkey on a rack in a roasting pan and pat the turkey dry with paper towels. OKAY, now we’re ready to get dirty. Turn the bird breast side down first - rub the entire area with butter, garlic, rosemary, sea salt, pepper and drizzle some olive oil once you’re done. Make sure to get it in the little pockets. Now flip over and do the same with the breast side up. I try to tuck some butter underneath the skin on the breast. Make sure to season the inside of the turkey with heaps of sea salt, butter (yes rub it in!), pepper, garlic and rosemary. NOW, make sure you tuck the wings back so they don’t stick out and burn. Just use some muscle and tuck it behind the body. Put some butter in the pockets and folds around the leg and wings and we’re ready to stuff! Carefully spoon in the cooled stuffing in the cavity of the bird - do not over stuff - it will expand. Just enough to fill the bird loosely. Now take some cooking twine and tie the legs together - I like to tie the legs down to the butt as much as possible to get it nice and closed. Put one last drizzle of olive oil and you’re ready for the roasting. Should look a bit like this:
Step 2: The roasting
Cover the legs with foil. Pour about 2 cups of turkey or chicken broth onto the pan - we’ll need this for basting. In it goes for about 20 minutes at 400°F or 200°C. It’ll start looking a little brown, now we turn the oven down to about 325°F or 180°C. Baste the turkey with the stock in the tray all on top, just a couple times and try to not let the heat escape the oven. Baste every 30 minutes and rotate the tray every hour. My oven is a bit uneven, even with the fan-forced on so make sure to rotate the bird to get it cooking evenly. At around the 3 1/2 hour mark, make a tent for the bird and continue roasting. It should be looking pretty good by now and we don’t want to burn the top. Make sure to check the bird with a thermometer in the breast, stuffing and armpit area. It should read around 180°F or around 80°C for the thickest part of the thigh. Stuffing should be around 150°F or around 70°C. It doesn’t have to be exact - if you have a trustworthy thermometer that tells you what’s best for poultry, go with that! You’ll be able to tell that it’s done when the juices runs clear when you cut into it.
Step 3: You wait
Once the bird is done, take it out of the oven and let it sit for a while before carving. Best to take out the roasting tray and turkey and put it on a cutting board so you can start on the gravy. But if you’re not serving for a while, it’s okay to let it sit in the tray, make sure you keep basting to keep it moist and cover with foil.
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: baking, food, mmmm, recipes
Tags: baking, cooking, food, recipe, recipes, thanksgiving, turkey
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I didn’t get a chance to take a picture of the bird before it was cut! This is the one shot I snuck in before it was carved entirely. Thanksgiving this year was fantastic. It was my second Thanksgiving, learned a lot from last year, still repeated some mistakes - I always underestimate the time it takes to cook the bird. Before I forget, I need to write down what I made and some notes. I didn’t get very many good photos - lighting issue! - so I don’t know if I’m going to post the recipes just yet.
The Turkey - rosemary, garlic, pepper rub - roasted for about 6 hours.
The Stuffing - carrots, celery, onion + stovetop box
Garlic Mashed Potatoes - Garlic butter, cream, milk, potatoes - this was the easiest to make
Glazed Sweet Potatoes with Marshmallows - aka YAMS! the glaze was perfect
Roasted Veggies - carrots, zucchini, pumpkin, onion, rosemary, olive oil
Green Bean Casserole - came out perfect this time - 3/4 cup milk is perfect
Mac n Cheese - Smoked Gouda, Cheddar, Colby, Pepper Cheddar, bell peppers & jalapenos
Cornbread & Jalapeno Cornbread Muffins - Jalapeno Cornbread was DELISH!
Gravy
Cranberry Sauce
Spinach Ricotta Salad
AND Pumpkin Pie!
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: food, mmmm
Tags: baking, cooking, food, thanksgiving
{1 comment}
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I’ve been really busy preparing for Thanksgiving and lots of freelance work to catch up on. And… there’s been some drama at the house. Last year’s Thanksgiving drama was that my dining room table that I had ordered just in time arrived without legs. We ended up having thanksgiving dinner on my patio outdoor table. This year, my neighbors upstairs decided to flood their appartment. Leaving me with a hole in my ceiling and a wet carpet. Needless to say, I was furious. Carpet has been tended to, steam cleaned and back to normal. Ceiling is waiting for a repair man but should be fine… but this was definitely not needed!
I’ve been a little stressed about Thanksgiving, only because I’m just so excited for it! So much so that I have written out my groceries list twice, planned my to-do list for both the day before and the day of. And today, I planned out my oven timeline:
So far my Thanksgiving menu will be:
Garlic & Rosemary Roast Turkey w/stuffing
Vegetarian Stuffing
Garlic Creamy Mashed Potatoes
Gravy
Chef Barnaby’s Mac N Cheese - with my own twist of course
Green Bean Casserole
Brown Sugar Glazed Yams with Marshmallows
Cranberry Sauce
Spinach Salad with Ricotta and Balsamic Glaze
Cornbread & Jalepeno Cornbread with Honey Butter
Roasted Vegetables
Pumpkin Pie
I will post recipes after the big day so I can include pictures.
Hope everyone has a happy turkey day!
Posted by: Maggie Ha
Category: random
Tags: cooking, life, random, thanksgiving
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