Thanksgiving 2018 Recipes

I tried two new recipes for Thanksgiving this year. I love using phyllo dough cups since they are so easy and perfect for bite-sized appetizers. I thought I was bringing cranberry sauce, but turns out that dish was already taken. Since I already bought the berries, I coated them in sugar and added them to a sweet potato tartlet recipe that I found. They were so pretty and really added a lot of flavor! Plus, the original recipe topped the tartlets with brown sugar pecans, but I absolutely love Trader Joe’s sweet & spicy pecans since they have a kick to them, so I used them instead. 

In addition to the tartlets, I brought iced tea (I’m pregnant so no wine for me this year). We have a lot of rosemary growing in our backyard so I threw that into the tea with some peaches and a ginger simple syrup. The tea was really tasty but I should have given myself more time to make it. I put the hot water into my drink dispenser to brew the green tea but the heat ruined the seal so it started leaking. Luckily my grandma had a backup dispenser that we transferred it to when we got there.

Hope you all had a wonderful holiday and got to spend quality time with your loved ones! 

Sweet Potato Tartlets with Sugared Cranberries, Sweet & Spicy Pecans & Mint (adapted from My Recipes)

Ingredients:

• 4 (1.9 oz) packages frozen mini-phyllo shells, thawed
• 8 ounces cream cheese, softened
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 sweet potato
• ½ cup sour cream
• 1 large egg
• 1 T vanilla extract
• Trader Joe’s sweet & spicy pecans (if you don’t have a Trader Joe’s near you, you can follow this recipe to make them yourself)
• Sugared cranberries (recipe below)
• Mint leaves

Directions:

1. Wash the sweet potato, stab holes in it, rub in olive oil, wrap in aluminum foil, then cook in the crock pot for 8 hours on low or 4 hours on high (or cook the sweet potato by your preferred method).

2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Place shells on baking sheets.

3. In a food processor or with a mixer, blend cream cheese and sugar until smooth. Add sweet potato (no skin), sour cream, egg, and vanilla. Spoon filling into shells.

4. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes or until center is set. While still warm, press on pecans.

5. Once cooled, garnish with mint leaves and sugared cranberries.

Sugared Cranberries (adapted from Cincy Shopper)

Ingredients:

• 2 cups sugar, divided
• 1 cup water
• 12 oz fresh cranberries

Directions:

1. In a medium saucepan, heat water and 1 cup sugar over medium heat until boiling. Keep just at a boil for 10 minutes or until it thickens slightly.

2. Allow to cool for 15 minutes. Line a cookie sheet with foil and place a cooling rack over. Toss batches of cranberries in the simple syrup and transfer to the rack to dry (try to space the berries out so they don’t stick together).

3. Allow to dry for 30-45 minutes, then toss the berries in the remaining 1 cup of sugar.

Iced Rosemary-Ginger Peach Green Tea (adapted from She Knows)

Ingredients:

• 4 cups boiling water
• 6 green tea bags
• Several rosemary sprigs
• 2 peaches, slices
• ¾ cup fresh ginger, chopped
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 cup water
• Ice cubes
• Cranberries for garnish (optional)

Directions:

1. Add tea bags and rosemary to a pitcher and top with boiling water. Allow to steep for 6-8 minutes depending on how strong you like your tea.

2. Remove the tea bags and allow the tea to cool.

3. Meanwhile, boil 1 cup water, 1 cup sugar, and ginger in a small pot over high heat. Reduce heat to medium then allow to simmer uncovered until the syrup thickens Remove from heat and allow to cool.

4. Fill a drink dispenser part way with ice. Top with sliced peaches, cranberries, rosemary iced tea, and ginger simple syrup.

Trader Joe’s Curried Chicken Salad

 

One of the foods we came home with the other day at Trader Joe’s was their Curried White Chicken Deli Salad.  In my opinion it’s one of the best things that Trader Joe’s carries – I could eat it every day! 

Despite the curry, it isn’t spicy, just very flavorful.  And one of the things I like best about this salad is that you don’t taste the mayonnaise like you do in traditional chicken salads.  It is great for sandwiches, spreading on crackers, or even just eating it right out of the container.  I had it on Raisin Rosemary Crisps. 

The salad is made of chicken breast, carrots, raisins, scallions, toasted cashews, and mayonnaise.  It is spiced with curry, sugar, lime juice, ginger, turmeric, salt, and pepper.  If I didn’t have a Trader Joe’s nearby, I would try out this copycat recipe from the blog The Chronicles of Home, but having one in town, I’ll probably just stick with their pre-made version since it’s made so perfectly. 

Trader Joe’s Cheeses

We went on a grocery run to Trader Joe’s last night.  They have such an amazing selection of cheeses at a bargain, so every time we go, we buy a kind we haven’t tried before. 

So far we’ve have loved every single one we’ve tried.  The Smoked Gouda is one of our favorites (you can see it in this post).  Their Toscano cheeses are amazing (they have one coated in black pepper and one soaked in Syrah).  The Unexpected Cheddar is a crumbly cheese with bits of Parmesan mixed into the white cheddar.  Lance’s favorite is the Red Leicester with Chili and Red Bell Pepper, which is a mix of sweet and spicy.  I think my favorite so far has been the English Farmhouse Cheddar with Caramelized Onions (it was amazing in this salad, but also perfect for snacking with crackers). 

Last night we tried two new varieties – Blueberry & Vanilla Chevre Goat Cheese and Creamy Danish Havarti.  For dinner we snacked on a plate with these two cheeses, Kalamata olives, Italian salame, “More Than a Mouthful Trek Mix”, olive tapenade, Raisin Rosemary Crisps, and Fig & Olive Crisps. 

Both cheeses were fantastic – the Blueberry Chevre tasted like it should be a dessert.  And the Havarti is a nice basic cheese that would pair with anything. 

The Raisin Rosemary crisps are my go-to cracker at Trader Joe’s (I found a recipe for them in this post).  The Fig & Olive crisps were a bit chewier – still nice flavor, but I like the Raisin Rosemary better. 

The Trek Mix is a blend of dried cranberries, dark chocolate sea salt & Turbinado sugar almonds, pumpkin seeds, and Greek yogurt coated pretzels.  It was very good, but I think I’ll stick with just buying the dark chocolate almonds since they're the best part of the mix.  The sea salt & Turbinado sugar are a perfect sweet & salty combo - they are one of my favorite sweet treats. 

We buy the salame almost every time we go – the peppered kind is my favorite.  We also bought fresh garlic & herb pizza dough and Creamy Tomato Basil Pasta Sauce on this trip, so we're planning to use the rest of the salame as a pizza topping. 

I love that we can go to Trader Joe’s and make several impulse buys, and yet the total bill always ends up being much lower than I anticipate.  It’s like getting Whole Foods or Fresh Market quality foods for Publix prices.  So happy we have a Tampa location now! They’ve been spreading quickly, with 15 open or soon-to-open Florida locations. 

Trader Joe’s Tampa is located at 3808 W Swann Ave, Tampa, FL 33609 and is open 8am – 9pm every day. 

DIY Lemon Rosemary Room Scent

We had a bit of a kitchen catastrophe the other morning – we were heating up vegetable oil to make crispy breakfast potatoes, and the oil caught fire.  We put it out immediately and aired the kitchen out, but the entire house has had a terrible burnt oil smell since then. 

To fix this, I’ve been simmering a DIY room scent on the stove since I got home from work earlier tonight.  It’s super simple and the smell is incredible.  The recipe is apparently the one that Williams Sonoma uses to make their stores smell so homey. 

DIY Lemon Rosemary Room Scent

Ingredients:

·        1 lemon

·        2 sprigs rosemary

·        2 T vanilla (mine was homemade in a mason jar with fresh vanilla beans & vodka...which is why it looks lighter than normal vanilla extract in the photos)

·        water

Directions:

1. Slice the lemon.  Add all ingredients to a saucepan half-full of water. 

2. Simmer on low for as long as you’d like, adding water as needed.  That’s it! 

You can create your own combinations of scents by mixing up the ingredients. Here are a few other ideas:

·        Citrus spice – oranges, cinnamon, cloves, allspice, anise

·        Christmas scent – twigs from your Christmas tree (pine, cedar, etc), bay leaves, cranberries, nutmeg

·        Summer scent – lime, thyme, mint, and vanilla extract

And it’s all natural ingredients, so feel free to breathe deeply and know you don’t have gross chemicals like you would in normal air fresheners!  Yay!