Thanksgiving 2013!!!

Thanksgiving 2013 is only a few days away!!! This is my Christmas and Super Bowl wrapped into one day, I couldn't be more excited.  Is any one else hosting? Or will you get to bring a side dish to somewhere?  Keep reading for some great ideas and to find out what we'll be devouring.

The Plan: 9 guests - A little bit smaller crowd than last year
The Place: We have 5 place settings in the dining room and another 4 on a table we have set up on one half of the living room.  You do what you have to do.
The Time: honesly, I still haven't planned my day of time line, maybe 2? but they'll be apps in case it ends up being 3
The Bird: we've ordered a fresh turkey from Whole Foods which I'll be picking up tomorrow after work to start the dry brine!
To brine or not to brine: dry brining the bird!

The Menu

§  Cheese Plate with Walnut Loaf

§  Kale Artichoke Dip

§  "Monkey" Bread Rolls

§  Rosemary Lemon & Orange Turkey

§ Traditional Mashed Potatoes

§  Bacon and Bourbon Stuffing

§  Dad's Potato Stuffing

§  Roasted Root Vegetables 

§  Olive Oil Sauteed Green Beans

§  Baby Kale and Mixed Green Salad with Pomegranate Seeds

§  Bourbon Pumpkin Tart

§  Apple Pie

§  Traditional Brownies

§  Chocolate Chip Cookies

     The plan this year was to keep things simple and traditional and ask for help where we need it.  Mom and Dad are helping with the potato stuffing and they'll be bringing the cheese for the cheese plate. Grammy and Uncle Mike are in charge or the mixed nuts for the cheese plate, white wine, and brownies.  And Jenny and Joe will hopefully bring some beer and the Apple Pie. 

How do you split up the meal?  I like to do the side dishes as well as the Turkey to keep all the flavors balanced.  But I sure love the help of appetizers, dessert, and drinks.  I'm hoping with this menu of very traditional items there will be a little less work in the kitchen, and more chatting and family time. 

What's your favorite part about the holiday?  Do you like to host?  I'm also looking forward to this years after dinner craft.  Last  year was candy turkeys!

  

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Yard Sale Flip!

Because we're not busy enough with the biggest DIY ever I finally refinished one of our yard sale finds last weekend.  It was my first soup to nuts furniture renovation and now I'm hooked.  I did renovate the $5 Ethan Allen side table we featured in the completed guest bedroom, but now I realize spray paint isn't for everything.  

We found this very basic and very beat up oak coffee table at a yard sale around the corner.  And after paying our new neighbor $10 to take it off his hands Matt carried it home.  

Some quality prep work (which we've become quite good at thanks to having to prep and entire House!) and patience during the painting gave us a beautiful result.

Though I'd LOVE a coffee table more like this one from West Elm, we realize if we'd like to have a family soonish it's completely impractical and will be beat on ferociously.  A yard sale find painted with the addition of chalkboard paint will be fun for that time, but until then it will be super fun to label food when we entertain!

The project broke down like this:

Time:

2 Hours - sand all surfaces

1 Hour - prime

2 Hours - one coat of color and a few coats of chalkboard paint. 

Cost:

Coffee Table: $10

Primer: $1 (we had some Gildden Gripper left over, we probably used less than a dollars work.) A gallon is $22

Paint: $15 - we bought a quart of semi-gloss Behr Premium Ultra in BM Adam's Gold.  Hardly used any of it - but we did buy the paint just for the project.

Chalkboard Paint: $2 (again, used leftover)

Total: 5 hours and $28

Have you flipped anything scored at a yard sale lately?!  We have lots of wooden furniture items we've now collected in the basement, ready for a make over!

Progress on the Exterior - Sanding & Scraping

We said it once before - this is the biggest and hardest DIY we've taken on yet.  The past few weekends we've devoted every daylight hour to our exterior paint job project. 
I took our last to do list on this project and combined all the steps so you can see everything all at once.

Back of house - fully scraped

Project List:

• Scrape any old paint that will come off
• New paint colors selected
• Finish the never ending scraping
• Replace any broken shingles
• New flashing above lower window
• New PVC window trim
• Sand all cedar shingles
• Prime everything - 75% complete as of 11/11
• Flash AC unit
• Correct bad flashing job on porch roof (wait until spring when we hire a pro and do a new roof here anyway)
• Final coat of paint (if this can't happen, we'll need to prime again in the spring)
• New fascia boards along eave (waiting until spring)

Dad flashes an exterior window the right way

Luckily we've been getting a bit of help from my Dad.  Between the three of us I've estimated we've logged about 150 man hours of very difficult labor.  

Matt finishing sanding

We also wanted to take this post to share with you the tools we've liked the most while tacking this project.

Scraping Tools:

Huskey bend scraper - Matt's choice 

Huskey 14 in 1 tool - Meg's choice

Safety Glasses - we wear safety glasses alot around here, splurge and get yourself a good pair.  These are Meg's favorite.

Sanding Tools:

DeWalt orbiting sander - best sander for the job!

The Mouse - only used for the hard to reach spots

Dry Brush

Safety Masks - we're using protective respirators rated for harmful dust.

Oh yeah - and though we're trying to forget about it, we are only finishing one of the 4 sides of the house this year...

Blogger Pizza Party!

This is Paige's third installment of blogger food parties and I've loved everyone of them.  
Remember the tacos? and chili?  Today Paige asked us to have a party for a food that's had a party about it for a long time - Pizza!

BBQ Chicken Pizza with Arugula

So, this recipe is only half mine.  The BBQ pulled chicken is something I saw on Food Network by Ellie Krieger. We love the BBQ sauce from this recipe and that is uses a store bought roasted chicken, great when you have very little time.  Another great part is that if you get a large chicken you’ll get at least two meals out of this for a family of four.  (We’re not a family of four yet, we just eat like one!)

So make the BBQ pulled chicken sandwiches and save your left overs for this great pizza!

BBQ Chicken Pizza with Arugula Salad

Prep time: 10 min

Cook Time: 15-20 min

Ingredients:

2 cups of leftover BBQ pulled chicken (recipe here)

1 ½ - 2 cups of smoked mozzarella cheese, shredded

1 premade pizza dough such as buttoni

1 cup Arugula

pinch of salt

Juice of ¼ a lime

1 tsp. Extra Virgin Olive Oil

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.

We use the premade pizza dough here instead of raw dough because it stands up better to the loads of BBQ chicken we add on.  Top pizza dough with BBQ chicken, then smoked mozzarella and cook for about 15-20 minutes.    While the pizza cooks, prepare the arugula salad.  Combine salt, lime juice, and oil in the bottom of a bowl, toss with arugula.  Top the pizza with Arugula salad before slicing. 

Make sure you check out the Pizza's our blogger friends made in honor of today!
Paige from Little Nostalgia

Kristen from Milo and Molly

Heidi from Rowhouse14

Marilyn from Pulp Sushi

Meg from 18 Preston

Kelsey from Be Like the Fox

And just to remind you one more time - the sandwiches are delicious as well!  Enjoy!

Biggest DIY yet!

Yes - you're seeing that correctly.  We have taken on a full exterior paint job as a do it yourself project.  I can't say we won't hire a professional before this whole thing is done - but for now we are seeing what we can do.  We've started on the back side of the house and hope (NEED) to finish this side before our New England Winter shows up.

Steps taken so far:

• Scrape any old paint that will come off
• New paint colors selected

Steps needed before winter:

• Finish the never ending scraping
• Sand all cedar shingles
• Prime everything
• New PVC window trim
• Flash AC unit
• Correct bad flashing job on porch roof
• Final coat of paint (if this can't happen, we'll need to prime again in the spring)

What we've learned so far:

• Residing a house is expensive! We've priced out DIY options of just stripping the whole house and starting fresh with new shingles but we have red cedar (which are the best you can buy) and the cost to replace would be crazy.
• Don't caulk between every single shingle.  Sealing up the whole house with caulk = a house that can't breathe.  And a house that can't breathe = bubbling paint everywhere.
• A pressure washer cannot replace human scraping.... bummer.
• You get killer calf muscles when you're on a ladder all weekend.

The scraping supply bucket: safety glasses, variety of scrapers, bee spray!

We have a decent routine now for set up, clean up, and take down each night so that we're not spending too much time setting up our work space each day.  We'll keep you updated as we progress and what else we learn in the process.

Smoked Garlic Mushrooms

Smoked Garlic Mushrooms
We eat these as just a side dish; they also go great as steak, chicken, or burger toppings.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Cook Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1lb Baby Bella Mushrooms – sliced (you can use button mushrooms, but bellas are the best)

2 Garlic Cloves – minced

1 tbsp Unsalted Butter

1 tsp. smoked paprika

¼ cup Parsley - chopped

Salt & Pepper

Instructions:

Melt butter in a sauté pan (or on the grill in any grill safe cooking vessel) on medium heat.  When the butter is melted, add mushrooms, salt and pepper (a good 1/4 tsp of salt) and about a ½ tsp of smoked paprika, depending on how smoky you like it.  Sauté mushrooms until soft.  When mushrooms are done toss with parsley.

Smoked Garlic Mushrooms top an 80/20 all beer burger with smoked Gouda cheese on a wheat bun.  The Patron tiki torch bottle project can be found here.

Deli Mustard Chicken and Summer Salad Bar

Deli Mustard Chicken and Summer Salad Bar

The Challenge: got home from a 2 week vacation the night before, having parents over for dinner to view vacation photos, and Mom is on a lean and green diet.

Challenges are my favorite way to come up with new things to cook.  It forces me to think more creatively and try something new based on the challenge restrictions.  In this case a lean and green meal was required, and something I didn't have to slave over considering there wasn't any food in the house and the humidity was killing us.  And time couldn't have been better because a Whole Foods opened about 1 mile from our house that I wanted to explore anyway.

The Plan: Chicken was my first thought because it takes a quick marinade well and I can grill it in no time.  And I wasn't quite sure about all of my mom’s diet restrictions so I went with a deconstructed salad, or salad bar with some special ingredients.

Deli Mustard Chicken

Prep time: 5 min

Cook Time: 10 min

Ingredients:

2 chicken breasts – butterflied into two thin pieces each and 4 large boneless skinless chicken thighs

¼ cup deli mustard – or Dijon with whole mustard in it

2 tbsp olive oil

2 tbsp white wine

Instructions:

Whisk together mustard, oil, and wine in a large bowl.  Toss chicken to coat and leave covered in the fridge until ready to grill.  I recommend about an hour, and no more than three hours.  When your dinner guests arrive you just need about 10 minutes to grill the chicken over medium high heat.  I grill 7 minutes on one side, flip and finish for about 3 minutes on the other side.

Summer Salad Bar

Prep each of the different elements before dinner, cover and refrigerate in separate serving bowls.  When your guests arrive; set out the different items for a build your own salad bar.

The Greens

Prep Time: 5 min

Ingredients:

2 cups baby kale

2 cup of baby spinach

2 cup of mixed greens

Toss greens together and they can be refrigerated in a serving bowl. Most people are used to mixed greens and baby spinach, but this mix is a great way to get the healthy kale hidden in there.

Assorted Tomatoes

Prep Time: 5 min

Ingredients:

1 cup cherry tomatoes halved

1 cup yellow pear tomatoes halved (or 2 cups of whatever tomatoes you'd like.)

1 tbsp Olive Oil

1 tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar

Salt & Pepper

Whisk together 1 tbsp. of good olive oil and 1 tbsp. of apple cider vinegar, salt and pepper, in the bottom of a serving bowl.  Toss the tomatoes and refrigerate up to 1 hour.

Pickled Vegetables

Prep Time: 15 min

Ingredients:

1 cucumber - sliced in half moons

1 small zucchini - sliced in half moons

1 red onion - quartered then thinly sliced

1/2 cup white vinegar

1 cup water

1/8 cup of pickling spice - Ball Kosher Dill Pickling Mix

Stuff the cut vegetables into a 1 quart jar – or you a large bowl.  Prepare the pickling liquid by combining water, white vinegar and pickling spice in a small sauce pan. Heat to a boil over the stove.  Pour hot liquid over the vegetables.  Let vegetables cool on the counter for a half hour then move to the fridge for at least an hour and up to three weeks.  Strain before serving.

Herb Goat Cheese

Prep Time: 5 min

Ingredients:

4 oz of plain goat cheese

pinch of salt

pinch of pepper

1/4 tsp. red pepper flake

1 tsp. of dried rosemary

1 tsp. of dried parsley

Combine all ingredients thoroughly with a fork, refrigerate until ready to serve.

Mustard Vinaigrette

Prep Time: 5 min

Ingredients:

1 tbsp. of mustard

pinch of salt and pepper

1/8 cup of apple cider vinegar

1/8 cup of white wine

¼ cup of good olive oil for the dressing

I like to shake up my dressing in a ½ pint jar or whisk in a bowl.  Combine all ingredients and refrigerate until ready to serve.