Friday Find: Thanksgiving help

(I didn't post a Friday Find last week because I was hunting for things for the Decor Guide, and had just posted the Gift Guide. I thought about taking a break this week, but there's no time for that! We have things to discuss!)

I'll get straight to the point: I love everything Cook's Illustrated does (not sponsored, I just really love them). I've never made a bad recipe from them, and they have such useful ideas. I love that they explain what they tried, what worked, what didn't, and why. Lucky for us, they recently released a helpful Thanksgiving guide, and I am gleefully browsing it, in disbelief that Thanksgiving is just two weeks away! 

Photo from cooksillustrated.com.

There are lots of helpful tips and tricks, including when to buy brussels sprouts, a clever way to chop celery, and how to fix a pie crust (Daisy, my pie challenged friend, I thought of you!).

I want to do a Thanksgiving recipe round-up, but I'm not sure I'll get to it in a more formal way. So, if I don't, here are a few I've had great luck with. Some of the original recipes are behind a paywall, which, frankly, is worth it. Likewise, I always recommend the Cook's Illustrated cookbook. It's my go-to, and it's currently about $23 on Amazon.

Pumpkin Praline Pie. I am a pumpkin pie purist. For me it doesn't get any better than the recipe on the back of the Libby's can, but this classic twist with its crunchy, chewy, nutty top was a delightful treat. (Pro tip: Not currently behind a paywall, though it usually is. Enjoy it while it lasts!)

Sweet Potato Casserole with Pecan Crumble. Apparently you can put a pecan crumble on anything and it will win me over. I have tried many sweet potato casseroles over the years, and I think this one is my favorite. It's well balanced, but still a little whimsical with the addition of a handful of marshmallows. (Check out that Cook's Illustrated Thanksgiving guide for the secret to perfect marshmallow topping!)

Classic Green Bean Casserole. Look, I don't like green bean casserole. I don't like canned green beans and I don't like soup out of a can. But if we're being honest, I found some fancy fried onions at the store last year, and wanted an excuse to buy them. So I decided to try a fresh version of the mushy old classic, just for kicks. As usual, I turned to my friend Cook's Illustrated, and used their classic recipe (online behind a paywall, and also in the cookbook. I'd never tell you to google it so you can see if someone has posted the whole recipe on their blog, but if you think of that all on your own then there's really nothing I can do about it.) The differences are huge: it uses fresh, blanched green beans, and a mushroom cream sauce from scratch. For a few brief but precious moments on Thanksgiving morning, I stood at the stove stirring that sauce, and contemplated asking everyone to leave so I could have some private time alone with it and a spoon. This year I plan on skipping the onion and breadcrumb topping altogether, and just tossing some bright green, freshly blanched, nutritious green beans in that delicious, heartwarming, unhealthy, cozy white mushroom sauce. It was truly perfect.

I love menu planning, especially for Thanksgiving, and I'd love to hear what you're planning! Do you have any favorite recipes to share? What's on your menu this year? I know a lot of you have good stuff. Especially you, Sarah.

Friday Find: Happy Halloween!

I mentioned last week that I enjoy kids in Halloween costumes. I also enjoy a good pet costume, which is why last year I bought my big beefy nephew-dog something from the Target pet section labeled "Christmas Cocktail Dress". I think my brother is still really pleased about it.

FYI, the only thing that beats an enormous dog wearing a Christmas Cocktail Dress, is watching an enormous dog wearing a Christmas Cocktail Dress, while your 96 year old grandmother enthusiastically feeds him her Christmas morning omelette and thinks no one will notice. 

So anyway, have you seen any photos from the Tompkins Square dog costume competition?

Gotahmist's are here. (Hat tip to my friend Andrea for sending them to me earlier in the week!)

Some from Buzzfeed here.

And the most important one? Right here.  (Thinking about changing my twitter handle to IRAGLASS2016.)

Photo from Gothamist.com

Happy Halloween!

PS - A little Halloween bonus. 

Gram's Blueberry Buckle

This post first appeared over at FoodLush, a site I loved writing for and probably would still be writing for if it weren't defunct. 

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Some of my fondest and earliest childhood memories are of being in the kitchen. Dad's homemade mac-and-cheese in the fall, or maybe Pot roast on a cold, dark Sunday in the winter, the whole family assigned to their tasks with music playing in the background. To this day I can't hear Eric Clapton, Fleetwood Mac, Paul Simon, or the Moody Blues without thinking of my parents' kitchen.  

I remember being 8, and Mom letting me make bacon and eggs on my own. (It's how I learned that eggs will stick to the pan unless you use something to keep them from doing so.) I remember my first cookbook: Put out by the library, it was a collection of recipes from people in the town, and many of them used the microwave. I was in love.  

My parents were pretty liberal when it came to use of their kitchen and ingredients, and for that I will be forever grateful. My brother and I loved making "potions" out of whatever we could find in the cabinets. It was a total waste of ingredients, but priceless fertile ground for our imaginations. Oh, how the concoctions would fizz when you dumped in baking soda.

My grandmother has always been a good cook, with a particular penchant for baking. I loved going over to her little yellow house, coming in through the breezeway, and making a direct right into the tiny galley kitchen. There was an orange ceramic cookie jar on her counter, and I can probably count on one hand the number of times that I lifted that little round lid -- oh delicious anticipation! -- to find it empty. Chinese chews, lemon squares, chocolate chip cookies, snickerdoodles, the beloved molasses crinkles. 

Oh those molasses crinkles. 

When I was first living on my own after college Gram and I used to exchange letters. I would ask her for certain recipes (blueberry buckle, her famous apple pie, lemon lush, cereal mix), and she'd write back about her recent activities, painstakingly handwritten recipe cards enclosed, just as I'd requested. I've saved them all, in a tin box she once gave me that she used to use for recipes. What a fantastic rainy day activity that is, pawing through cards and letters with Gram's handwriting on them. The truth is I've only used the recipes a handful of times, but I can't bear the thought of her someday not being here and no one knowing the recipe for her apple pie. 

She used to always tell me, back when she still lived in a place with a kitchen, that she was saving her cookbooks for me. That she'd even written my name in them, because when the time came, they were mine. Gram's a strong, feisty, independent lady and I guess I never imagined she'd ever not have a kitchen, ever not cook. But today she lives in an assisted living home, no longer has a kitchen, and somewhere along the way she passed on several of her cookbooks to me.  

(Fret not, she's doing pretty okay: She even has a boyfriend. He lives across the hall and they have their nightly cocktail together before heading down to the dining hall. She's robbing the cradle though. He's only in his 80s!) 

Flipping through those cookbooks, seeing the splashes and dabs on the pages, her notes in the margins, the well-worn spines: It's a piece of living history, a time-machine to my childhood and part of her life. I picture her in that little kitchen, bent over the cookbook, making notes as a cobbler sits cooling on the stove, the counter covered in mixing bowls. My favorite has to be the book put together by people in her hometown church. She told me it was her favorite cookbook, and she wrote my name right on the front. Taped inside the front cover is a piece of yellow paper that says "Anything made by Anita Buddington is good."  

Well-noted, Gram. 

Thanks, Anita. 

Image from FoodNetwork.com

Anita Buddington's Blueberry Buckle

(Gram made this often when I was growing up, usually in the summer during prime blueberry season. We often ate it as dessert, but it's great for breakfast too.) 

Cake

1/4 cup butter

1/2 cup sugar

1 egg

1 cup flour

1 1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. salt

1/3 cup milk

1 pt. blueberries

Topping
1/2 cup sugar
1/3 cup flour
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 cup butter    

Cream butter, add sugar and mix well, add egg. In a separate bowl sift flour, baking powder, and salt and alternately with milk to first mixture. Fold in blueberries and pour into an 8 inch greased square pan. Mix first three ingredients of topping, then rub in butter. Sprinkle over blueberry mixture and bake at 375 for 45 minutes. Also good with chopped nuts added to topping.