Flavor of the Month - Traditions

Here I am again and its time for Flavor of the Month. This month, the flavor is "Traditions". Not really a flavor, but a good theme nonetheless, especially in this season of wonderful holidays. I have a lot of traditions to observe in the next few weeks so it wasn't hard to find something to write about. But, as I considered all my traditions for this post I wanted it to include something a little less obvious. Of course, there are all the traditional foods that I have to have each year to make my Thanksgiving feast complete, but that seemed too easy. I wanted an old, family tradition to share. I found one! Even though I haven't used this recipe for more than a few years, and I'm not sure how often my mom used it, it came from my grandma so it classifies as an old, family recipe!

To prepare for Thanksgiving, I had to make several pies (although I didn't make a pumpkin pie this year and I was sad...but that's another story). In order to do that, I needed pie crust. [I know some people buy their pie crust pre-made, and that's fine, but I grew up where they didn't sell refrigerated pie crust so everyone just made them from scratch.] There are a million pie crust recipes and most of them work just fine, but several years ago when I was in need of a good recipe and I was making several pies at once, my mom passed on to me the recipe my grandma used. And my grandma was a baker so she should know! The recipe sounds absurd and its hard to believe it works, but it makes the best crust! Also, the original recipe is scaled to make 18 pie crusts, so the amounts can seem a little overwhelming. I usually cut it in half and make 8-9 crusts at a time. I roll them into balls and freeze them. Then, whenever I need a pie crust, I just defrost it and roll it out. It works wonderfully and I love the recipe. So, without further ado, here is my tradition: Grandma's Pie Crust.

Grandma's Pie Crust
5 lbs. all-purpose flour
3 lbs. Crisco
2 cans 7up
1 tsp. salt

Mix all ingredients together with your hands until well mixed (until it resembles pie crust). Form into 18 balls and freeze (or roll them all out and make 18 pies!). Enjoy!

a LOT of flour and a LOT of Crisco

don't forget the 7up

gooey and squishy (you HAVE to use your hands!) pretty pie crusts

Thanksgiving and Apple Pie

I hope you all had a Happy Thanksgiving! We had a good day with lots of cooking and eating and football watching. We celebrated the day at a friend's house and there was lots of food...more than we needed. So much food that we literally had the same number of desserts as people! The good part is that we still have lots of yummy leftovers. It was a delicious day full of thanksgiving! It was also the first thanksgiving in my life (that I can remember) when I didn't have pumpkin pie. I was sad about that, but I made a pumpkin trifle instead and it was tasty, so I guess I can wait until Christmas for my pumpkin pie!

I also used Thanksgiving as an opportunity to make another recipe from the cookbook. I made an apple pie, from scratch. I've made apple pies before but I usually cheat by using a can of pie filling. This time, I made it with real (fresh) apples. The crust recipe that came with the apple pie recipe was very frustrating (I prefer to make my grandma's crust recipe) and I almost gave up on it...but I kept trying and finally made it work. The pie tasted pretty good, but I think I'll use the canned pie filling in the future (its just easier).

part of our feast

pumpking trifle
recipe

apples (didn't know which type was better so I used both)

bowl full of apples

apple pie!

Comfort Food

Last week we had yet another recipe from the cookbook. In fact, I made two recipes for one meal. The title of the cookbook is "Comfort Food" and nothing sounds more like comfort food to me than meatloaf and mashed potatoes (Roasted Garlic Mashed Potatoes to be exact). It was the perfect meal for a Sunday afternoon dinner!

I have never made meatloaf before and what I ended up with was not exactly what I thought it would be, but it was tasty. We made a gravy to serve over it too, and that added to the flavor and helped with the appearance (a loaf of meat is not really the prettiest). It definitely tasted better than it looked!

The mashed potatoes were delicious. We both love potatoes and garlic so this was the perfect recipe. I roasted the garlic in the oven for over an hour and then mashed everything together. It was really tasty, but I'm not sure the "roasted" garlic was better than plain garlic. Next time, I might just save time and make Regular Garlic Mashed Potatoes.

In the end, it was a very yummy meal. And, we had meatloaf sandwiches the next day with the leftovers (delicious). I'd say these recipes were a hit!

ingredients for both recipes

meatloaf finished product
mashed potatoes roasted garlicfinished productSunday meal!

Next time, I'm going to try a dessert. I haven't made a dessert from this cookbook yet and there are plenty of choices. I'm going to include one in our Thanksgiving meal and after that, I'll experiment with some new ones! Something to look forward to...

A Cruise

Last week, Bill and I took a vacation. I know it seems like we've been on vacation a lot lately, but I really needed to get away. And, this vacation helped me cross off another one of my Birthday Goals. In fact, I crossed off Number 1. That's right, we took a cruise. I love cruises and now that we are closer to the Caribbean, I knew it would be easier (and cheaper) to cruise more often. We got a good deal on a last-minute cruise and we got a good price on tickets to Miami. So, taking advantage of 2 work holidays last week, we departed on a 4-day cruise!

We took a Bahamas cruise but our goal this time was to spend less money. The last cruise we took was for our honeymoon and we went all out. We took extravagant (and super exciting) excursions at each stop and we bought a lot of souvenirs. This time, we wanted to take the cruise and save money by enjoying all the free/inclusive items. We decided not to take any excursions, except one...we wanted to go snorkeling. It was the cheapest excursion available and it was basically just the snorkeling equipment and a ride to the beach. We scheduled this trip for the last day of our cruise, when the ship was going to stop at a private island owned by Norwegian Cruise Lines. We planned to spend the day at the beach and relax and snorkel all day long.

Because of that plan, we didn't even get off the ship at the first stop. We arrived in Freeport, Bahamas and we just relaxed on the ship. We slept in, ate a wonderful breakfast, sat by the pool, attended the various events on board, and basically relaxed. It was really nice. At our second stop, Nassau, Bahamas, we ventured off the boat for about one hour to do some shopping. (We just had to buy some souvenirs and gifts for our family and friends!) We walked around the town and made our purchases and then returned to the ship for more free food and fun!!!

The third day, we got up a little earlier (but not too early because we were on vacation) and got ready for our day at the beach. While we were still sleeping, the captain made an announcement that I couldn't really hear because I was sleeping...but I didn't really think anything of it. We were both very excited to spend the day at the beach and swim/snorkel in the beautiful ocean. We got our stuff together and headed for the breakfast buffet - which was delicious. We noticed that there were a lot more people out by the pool (which is odd when they could be at the beach) but we didn't think too much about it. After breakfast, we headed down to get on the tender. Now, if you don't know how this works, I better explain it. Sometimes, a cruise ship parks at the port and you walk right off the boat on to dry land. Other times, if there isn't a port or its not deep enough, the boat anchors offshore and they shuttle you to/from dry land in little boats called "tenders". We were ready for our ride on the tender but we got down to the departure point and all the doors were closed. We were confused and wandered around for a few minutes before going up to the reception desk to ask how to get off the boat.

At that point, it all clicked: the announcement the captain made, the fact that they revised the schedule of events for the day, all the people out by the pool, and the fact that the water seemed to be moving quickly (considering we were anchored, or so we thought). Yup, that's right, we were still moving. Apparently, the announcement the captain made was more important than we thought because what he had to say was that the weather and water was too rough for the tender boats so we weren't going to stop. Nope, we were just going to continue sailing around aimlessly on our way back to Miami the next day. Which meant that everyone had to STAY on the boat. It also meant no snorkeling or relaxing on the beach for us. It also meant that we went all the way to the Bahamas for 3 days and we never once saw or touched the sand and we never went swimming in the crystal clear waters of the Caribbean ocean. I was angry! I was upset that we were going to miss the only experience we really wanted in the Bahamas! I was also upset that they saved the private island until the last day. If we had one more day in port, after the private island day, then we could have paid a little extra to spend the day at the beach to make up for the disappointment.

But, we had fun anyway. I was disappointed and a little upset, but the cruise staff tried really hard to make our time "at sea" fun. We attended all the trivia sessions and even won a few prizes. We ate as much delicious (free) food as we could and then some. We relaxed on deck and in the hot tub. In the end, we had a wonderful cruise. I think we'll have to go back to the Bahamas some day so we can enjoy the sandy beaches, but we certainly enjoyed our vacation. Here are a few pictures as proof!

our ship - the Norwegian Sky

our room - with a cute towel animal
proof that we really visited the Bahamas!

Bill looking cool and having fun on deck

we even attended a demonstration for folding towel animals

just one of the delicious desserts we enjoyed

the sunsets were spectacular

I can now cross off the first item on my list of Birthday Goals (and I will use a Sharpie to cross it off!).

Potato Soup

Tonight I made the next recipe in my adventure to cook thru an entire cookbook. I had the day off and it rained ALL day! It was a great day for cooking and nothing is better on a rainy day than soup. I made Creamy Potato, Onion & Cheese soup and it was delicious. It was fairly easy to make and it really tasted great. Bill liked it a lot! He said it was the best recipe from the book so far. He strongly urged me to make it again sometime. I think the next time I make it, I'll add bacon or ham...a little meat with potato soup makes it even better.

before
Ubi stayed close to the stove - hoping to get a taste!

after