Post-Thanksgiving

Wedding china and silverware have been inaugurated.  Thanksgiving dinner has been eaten, and then eaten again, and then broken down into leftovers, which have also been eaten.  Family has been here and gone.  China and a few decorations await being put away, to make room for new.  

It's crazy how much thought and planning go into these single days, and then suddenly they are over.  I almost like the planning and the thinking and the dreaming part more than the actual holidays themselves.  Now looking towards Christmas, it's not even the day itself that I'm really excited for, at least not yet.  I'm excited for the wrapping, and the envelope addressing, and the tree put-upping, and the Christmas music listening, and the peppermint mocha drinking.  But not yet.  December 1st is the date for beginning my own personal Christmas season, but not before.  (Ok, I may indulge in a peppermint mocha or two in the meantime...)  I don't see the need to rush out and decorate in red and green and Nativities and candy-cane stripes and start listening to the fa-la-la-ing right away the day after Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving deserves it's own time and space, and I like the idea of taking a break between the two, even if it's just for a week.  There's too much pressure otherwise.  I like to step back and take a breath and do some of this dreaming and planning in my head, without having to actually dive into it all right away.  

Today I took a break to do some cooking and baking, not because it was necessary, but just because I wanted to.  Breakfast was pumpkin pancakes and sausages.  I accidentally thinned the batter out by adding too much milk, but I really enjoyed the end result.  The pancakes were almost crepe-like, thin and light without being too bulky.  

Then I moved on to cranberry crumble bars and banana bread (not shown).  I used homemade cranberry sauce from Thursday to form the middle layer of these bars...I'm not a big fan of cranberries on their own, but in these bars, they are delicious.  I look forward to eating them for breakfast all week.  And for dessert.  And maybe for a snack in-between.  Ok, so maybe they won't last all week.  I impulsively sprinkled some nutmeg and cinnamon on top before baking, which gave them some nice color and a smidgen of extra flavor.

Here's to one last week of the Thankgiving "season", before diving into the next one.

Thanksgiving Readiness

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.  I love that it's a celebration of fall, and food, and family, and there are no presents to worry about (except my brother-in-law's birthday gift, but that's okay), and the food, and the fall, and the leaves, and the colors, and the food...and it's awesome.

Tyson and I are hosting Thanksgiving this year with his family, so I've been menu planning, decorating, china washing (okay, drying, Hubby did the washing), and grocery shopping.  It's been fantastic.  

Our wedding china and silverware is all ready and waiting, prepped for it's inaugural use.  It's also currently taking up the majority of space on our dining table...waiting for me to get up the energy to find a proper spot in our kitchen cabinets.

The designer in me had to take a trial-run of the place settings the other night.  Clearly, the $4.99 roll of burlap that was an impulse-buy from Michael's has come to good use.

The napkin rolls have sparkly letters with each person's initials on them, too (kind of hard to see in this image).  The final napkins have a leaf attached to them, and you can see the initial better.  I live for this kind of stuff.

Happy Thanksgiving sign.  Hello again, sparkly letters and string.  Yes, the sparkles were an impulse-buy, too.  

I made this simple leaf garden with a perfect template from here.  I simply cut out the leaves from the template, and outlined them with metallic markers.  These are also the leaves that will be added to the rolled napkins. It's hard to tell from the image, but I printed the leaves and the Thanksgiving banner on sparkly paper left over from our wedding invitations and stationary, which looks makes them a little more elegant.

I love how everything looks.  The best part is that it looks like I tried really hard to get everything to coordinate, when really I was just working with a really small budget.  Meager budgets = more streamlined design.  It's like impossible to go overboard when you're trying to spend $15.00 or less.

Beer + Cabbage (Flowers)

My mom and aunt came to visit this weekend.  We made the most of our time by visiting the farmer's market, touring one of my favorite breweries, driving around campus, and checking out some of mine and hubby's favorite places to eat.  

The New Glaurus Brewing Co. has some seriously fantastic beer.  I enjoy being in Wisconsin where we have access to these local places.  AND we got to keep the glasses.  What more can you ask for?

Oh wait, these.

Cabbage flowers.  And eucalyptus.  Arranged together.  It smells fantastic.  This was my favorite find at the farmer's market.  For $5.00.  I'd never even HEARD of a cabbage flower before, so I bought it at the first vendor I saw.  Then as we were walking around I saw almost every single vendor with bouquets of these babies.  So...yeah.  Not as original as I thought.

It's purple.  And green.  And awesome.  Except I just picked up what I thought was a dead leaf bit on one of the flowers, and it turned out to be squishy.  And move-y.  So I shrieked and threw it back in the flower.  Cuz I'm brave like that.  Some sort of caterpillar thing?  I don't know, but it was terrifying.  And now it's still living in my flower arrangement.  Picking up something you expect to be not in any way alive and then finding out that it IS something alive = not cool.

They still look awesome though.  And are supposed to last for 3+ weeks.  Caterpillars and all...

UPDATE:

I was worried that when I flung Mr. Caterpillar back into the flower I had hurt him.  Never fear, when I checked a little while later he was crawling around inside.  Now hubby has rescued me (and the caterpillar) by putting him outside where he belongs.  Except now hubby tells me that we didn't do the caterpillar any favors.  He will probably be eaten by a bird.  Or freeze to death.  Whatever.  My flowers are now caterpillar-free (hopefully) and Mr. Caterpillar is back with his own kind (also hopefully).

Stuffed Green Peppers

 Made this for deliciousness tonight.

It's a perfect fall food.  Hearty and filling.  Oh, and cheese-y.  Melted cheese is very important.  So is what you pair with it.

Like crusty bread and a smooth local beer.  These are crucial elements.  Something about this meal screams for a brew to go along with it.  At least to me.

The key to making this dish is in melting the mozzarella on top for just the perfect amount of time.  Enough that it's good and gooey, and just crispy around the edges.  Too much longer and it becomes an unappetizing blob.  Nobody wants that.  It also helps when you're able to pick up some hefty peppers from the farmer's market.  No puny peppers allowed.

Stuffed Green Peppers

This is what I normally use.  It's one of those meals that is easy to adapt.  Mushrooms would be a great sub for sausage.  Other spices work as well, such as basil or thyme.  I've even used red or yellow bell peppers when I can't find 4 green peppers large enough, which makes for a slightly sweeter dish overall.

1 cup rice (I prefer Jasmine, but I've also used Basmati.  Brown rice would probably work here, too.)

4 large green bell peppers

1 sweet yellow onion

3-4 tsp. olive oil

2 links Italian sausage

3/4 tsp. ground fennel

3/4 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

Grated Mozzarella

Salt and pepper to taste (I usually use garlic salt...which I tend to use in everything)

Cook rice according to package directions.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Coat 9x9 baking dish lightly with oil.  Trim bottoms and caps of bell peppers; remove seeds.  Place hollowed peppers in baking dish.

Dice pepper caps, bottoms, and onion.  Heat 2-3 tsp. olive oil in large skillet.  Saute peppers and onions for 5-6 minutes, until soft and onions are translucent.  Remove mixture and add 1 tsp. oil to pan.  Remove sausage from casing and cook until browned, crumbling as it cooks.

Add pepper-onion mixture back to pan, add fennel and oregano, and cook for 2 minutes.  Add cooked rice and Parmesan, cooking until mixture is heated through and cheese is melted.  Add salt and pepper, and additional spices (if needed) to taste.

Stuff peppers with filling mixture.  Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Remove and top with mozzarella.  Return to oven for 5-7 more minutes, until cheese is melted and edges are crispy.

Fall

Hubby told me that he thinks I've been happier lately.  I told him this can be attributed to one thing.

Fall.

It's a season where there are just too many good things going on to not be happy.

This, for example.

Yup, hubby and me at the apple orchard.  Also it looks all casual, like we were in the middle of blissfully picking apples on the fancy apple-picking ladder and everything, but in reality we were walking in the orchard and all of a sudden there was this vignette of a tipped-over box of apples and a 3-legged ladder.  I ignored the sign next to it that probably said not to touch anything, and promptly turned this opportunity into a photo op instead.

Also this.

Yup.  That photo was already taken two years ago.  Two years and six days ago, to be exact.  And since the second year was loads better than the first, that makes me all kinds of happy.  Not to mention we went away for a cuddly get-away this weekend.  Shopping in Galena (where I picked up this beaut and this deliciousness), a cozy overnight stay in Dubuque, and a massage to finish it all off.  Plus we spent our time resting (after shopping, and before going out to dinner) by watching Hercules.  The Disney version.  Clearly we know how to celebrate.

This, too.

I made creamy sorrel spinach soup last night.  It was an overall meh, and my favorite part was that I got to eat bread with it.  Until I warmed up the above for lunch today.  Totally.  Different.  Soup.  Some sort of magic must have happened in my refrigerator last night, because I ate two big bowlfuls of it.  And more bread.  It was amazingly good.  And it thickened up overnight, turning into a rich, veggie stew-like bowl of yummy-ness.  Note to self: make the day before consumption.

And the last thing that's making me happy: the hot apple cider I am drinking right now.  So good.  This place clearly knows their way around cider.  I was all sad earlier because I didn't want to make coffee and didn't have any tea, but wanted something hot to drink.  So I moped around for awhile until I remembered apple cider in the refrigerator and it turned out to be exactly what I needed.  Cheers.