Happy Thanksgivukkah

Happy Thanksgiving and Happy Chanukah!

We were planning on eating barbeque for Thanksgiving when a visit to Annie's Eats inspired me to roast turkey breast, make green bean casserole from scratch and bake some honey rolls. Seem easy enough to cook for four, and so it was. Thank you, Annie!

I was also going to buy pie, when I heard Chef Matthew Raiford talk about his Nana's sweet potato pie on NPR. 

So indeed the universe is telling me to cook for thanksgiving. 

The Mushroom gravy recipe is from Splendid Table. (Yea, yea ... I listen to too much NPR.)

So here goes. My first home-cooked thanksgiving meal; except for the pie shell (after making sfogliatelle last week, I don't want to see a rolling pin for another month at least), and  the french fried onion (no mood to deep fry shallots today.)  All devoured within 20 minutes! With just enough left over for light lunch tomorrow. 

Sfogliatelle - The Daring Baker Challenge November 2013

Sandie of the lovely blog, Crumbs of Love, was our November hostess. Sandie challenged us to make a traditional Italian dessert, along with its American version – Sfogliatelle (or better known in the US – lobster tails!) The flakey, 1000 layers of super thin dough, shaped into a horn and filled with a scrumptious filling. Così buono!

O my ...  and a challenge it was!

I made the ricotta cheese and candied orange peel, for the first time ever. The Sfogliatelle Frolle came out OK, but for someone with my (lack of) patience, making the Ricci without a pasta maker was the most challenging part.I will definitely try making the ricci again, hopefully with a better result.

Thank you, Sandie and the daring bakers for the challenge and encouragement!

Ricotta, Candied Orange Peel, Ricotta-Semolina Filling

Sfogliatelle Frolle and Ricci.

PB and J Winter

Yeah. It's definitely not summer anymore.