THANKSGIVING APPETIZER RECIPE
November 24, 2008
One Thanksgiving, my sister invited the entire family to her home in Charlottesville, VA for the weekend. Everyone was assigned a dish to bring for the main feast. My Mom brought her famous dressing, I made my soon-to-be-famous turkey-shaped sweet potato biscuits, and my sister-in-law was in charge of the big bird. We were all expected for dinner the night before Thanksgiving, but my brother and his wife ran into traffic and didn’t arrive until about 9:30 that night.
My sister-in-law had some prep work to do on the turkey, so as soon as they settled in, she began scurrying around my sister’s kitchen. Big snag! No bacon grease. Turns out, the secret to my sister-in-law’s juicy, delicious turkey was that she slathered the bird with bacon grease before roasting. She was absolutely appalled that my sister, who claimed to be a Southerner, didn’t have any bacon grease. In those days, any Southern cook worth her salt had a coffee can sitting on the back of the stove for collecting drippings after frying a batch of bacon.
Luckily, my sister did have a pound of bacon in the fridge, so we uncorked a bottle of crisp, cold, dry white wine and set about the task of creating bacon grease. Before long, the free-flowing wine and the smell of the bacon frying made us ravenous. Suddenly it occurred to us that we were there simply to create grease. All that crispy bacon was just a scrumptious byproduct! Out came the sweet potato biscuits and a hunk of sharp cheddar and, within a matter of moments, a family food memory was born, and a Thanksgiving tradition created.
SWEET POTATO BISCUITS WITH BACON & SHARP CHEDDAR
Of course, you don’t have to cut the biscuits into turkey shapes. These beauties will taste just as good if you simply pat out the dough and cut it into squares with a knife.
(Makes 14 – 16 two-inch biscuits)
INGREDIENTS
2 cups all purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon each cinnamon and freshly grated nutmeg
¼ cup cold butter, cut into ¼-inch dice
1 cup baked and mashed sweet potato (about 1 medium sweet potato)
2 tablespoons milk
2 tablespoons maple syrup
16 slices crisp fried bacon
Sliced sharp cheddar
DIRECTIONS
- Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Combine flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg in a large bowl. Add the chilled butter pieces and, with an electric mixer on low speed (or your fingers) cut in the butter until the mixture resembles coarse meal.
- Stir together the mashed sweet potato, milk and maple syrup. With a wooden spoon, stir the potato mixture into the flour mixture until dough starts to form in clumps. Add a tablespoon or so of milk if the mixture is too dry. Do not overmix.
- Turn the clumps out onto a lightly floured work surface and gently knead once or twice until the dough comes together. Roll or pat the dough out into a 1/2 –inch thickness. Cut out shapes with a 2-inch cutter dipped in flour. Gently pat the scraps together and repeat with the remaining dough. Place biscuits on an ungreased baking sheet. Bake 10 – 12 minutes. Let cool on a wire rack. While still slightly warm, split biscuits and fill each with a strip of crisp bacon (broken into thirds to fit on biscuit) and a slice of sharp cheddar. Serve immediately.
FIND THE PERFECT GIFT FOR EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST AT www.elizabethwgiftbaskets.com
Craft a Holiday Wreath
November 10, 2008
COOKIE RECIPE! A few months back I mentioned that my recipe for Crunchy Peanut Butter Cookies had been chosen to run in a round-up of best fast recipes in Food & Wine magazine. My sister emailed me and said a friend had just seen it, so I guess it is in the current (December?) issue. Check it out. Meanwhile, you can also find the recipe here.
HOW TO MAKE A RUSTIC HOLIDAY WREATH
I am including fancy wreaths in some of my holiday gift basket designs, but when it comes to my own front door, I lean toward something a bit more rustic. This will be a snore for seasoned crafters, but the recipe for making this festive wreath couldn’t be simpler. What’s more, the wreath shown here will take you from fall through winter and all the holidays in between.
Start with an inexpensive vine wreath from a craft store. Assemble all the items you want to decorate your wreath with… pinecones, feathers, unshelled nuts, tiny dried gourds, paper or silk leaves, dried citrus or quince slices, acorns, dried berries, etc. Now simply hot glue them to the vine wreath with a glue gun. You’ll find that once you make your move and glue on that first item, all the rest will fall into place. Really! In fact, that’s the best part about this little craft project. It is virtually impossible to make a mistake! It’s perfectly OK that parts of the vine wreath show through. That’s the beauty of working with nature’s craft supplies. When it feels finished simply tie on a fancy ribbon and hang your masterpiece!
FIND THE PERFECT GIFT FOR EVERYONE ON YOUR LIST AT www.elizabethwgiftbaskets.com!
Wreath Detail:
Election Day Celebration Recipe
November 2, 2008
No matter who wins, Election Day presents as good an excuse as any to hoist a glass of bubbly with friends. Here’s a recipe for an easy, elegant, nonpartisan cocktail bite that’s great with champagne. For more celebration recipes click on “Party Recipes” at www.elizabethwgiftbaskets.com.
GOAT CHEESE & APRICOT BITES
To make 24 bites, toss 24 pecan halves in a plastic bag with ¼ cup confectioners’ sugar and a generous pinch of cayenne pepper. Use a slotted spoon to transfer nuts to a baking sheet, shaking off excess sugar. (Discard leftover sugar mixture.) Bake pecans at 350 degrees for 8 to 12 minutes until they are crisp and aromatic. Let cool completely.
Spread 24 dried apricot halves with about 1 teaspoonful of creamy chevre each. Sprinkle with fresh thyme and top with a toasted pecan.
