Getting Ready for Thanksgiving

As you know, Thanksgiving is just over a week away and if you are anything like me, you will be scrambling to get the house cleaned and trying to put together a menu. So, with this in mind, over the next week or so, I will dust-off some of my old Thanksgiving Day recipes and share them with you. Although I can't help you with the cleaning, maybe I can help you with the menu.

So, to start things off, I have included a few items that I make every year. These two items need to be made several days in advance, so I usually start the Crème Fraîche (for use in an apple pie) on Sunday and the compound butter (for use in the turkey) on Monday.


Crème Fraîche:

Things you'll need:

Heavy Cream...1 cup
Butter Milk...1 Tbsp
jar w/lid...1


Putting it together...

• pour heavy cream into jar


• add buttermilk


• mix well


• put lid on jar and let stand at room temperature for 24 hours, then refrigerate


• can be stored for up to a week

Any left-over Crème Fraîche can be used as a very rich sour cream.

Compound Butter:


Things you'll need:

Butter...1 lb. (4 sticks) unsalted, please
Fresh Sage...1 Tbsp
Fresh Rosemary...1 Tbsp
Fresh Thyme...1 Tbsp
Olive Oil...1Tbsp

These three (sage, rosemary, and thyme) are also referred to as a Poultry Mix. All measurements are considered a baseline; if you prefer a stronger flavor, you can increase the amount of herbs or reduce the amount for a milder flavor. If you cannot find fresh herbs and need to use dried herbs, you will need to reduce the baseline measurements by 1/2, as the dried herbs have a more concentrated flavor.


Putting it together...


• Place butter on counter to soften


• Take the herbs (try to avoid including the stems) and chop them very fine or, if you have a food processor, place them in there and pulse until finely chopped.


• Next take your softened butter and place in your food processor


• Add a small amount of olive oil (1Tbls)




• If you do not have a food processor (like me), place butter and herbs in a bowl and mix with a hand-mixer until well combined.




• Pulse until well combined


• Take plastic wrap and place on the counter


• empty butter onto the plastic wrap


• fold the wrap over the butter


• Using the edge of a cookie tray or other straight object, press it against the butter and tightly form into a log about 1-inch in diameter (the plastic wrap acts as a mold)


• careful not to get the plastic wrap under the butter, roll-up and twist both ends


• place butter in refrigerator

Friday Fotos: 11/13

Well, another week has almost come to an end. I hope you all have an enjoyable weekend. Unfortunately, I will be writing and cleaning the house for Thanksgiving.



Okay, what's wrong with this picture...

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Hmmm...

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Does this look familiar...

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Some Novel Progress

I've sat in front of this blank screen for the past fifteen minutes and I just can't think of anything to say. I guess spewing-out 1800 words a day has started to affect my tiny brain. So, I have decided to just include a short snippet of my novel.
Now, to reiterate, the 50,000 words that are to be written basically constitute a rough draft, so that is what you will be looking at. You will read it as I have first written it: with no proofing or modifications. The only thing I have done is spell-check, so you may even run into some words that don't really belong. As you will be able to see, I am still having difficulty with the dialog thing, but hopefully, I will get the hang of it eventually.

Well, the excerpt you will read takes place just after the main character, Eric, finds out about the weird things that are happening in the house he has just inherited from his uncle. Pam is his girlfriend and Bob is the attorney handling the estate.

Eric caught himself looking up at the ceiling and decided that he wanted to take a walk upstairs. “Let’s go to a look at the upstairs, everybody.” So, they all got up and moved across the room and started for the stairs. “You know, Eric said, “this is actually a really nice house.”
“I agree,” Pam said.
They all walked up the stairs and looked around the room. At the very top of the stairs and to the immediate right was the bathroom, newly enlarged due to the remodel. It had a nice Roman tub, which would be great for taking a leisurely soak, if guys did that sort of thing. There were also two windows that gave-off spectacular views of the farm. The first window looked towards the South side of the property and the other window, which was the newly installed window and directly above my uncle’s old bedroom, looked towards the east.

Looking immediately to the left, you will enter the main living area of the second floor. It was a large, open room that was divided by a chimney going through the center. There were also two banks of windows on either side of the room; one set facing east and the other facing west.

Looking around, Eric stated, “Well, this doesn’t look so bad. Okay, we have footsteps and lights turning on and off, anything else?”
“As I said, that was just the beginning. There are a few additional things that your uncle mentioned. For example, he also mentioned that he heard voices, growls, heard banging, and even saw something, but he never would tell me what he saw.”
“I see,” Eric responded. “And did he ever tell you why he continued to stay here, if he heard and saw all of this?”
“Again, he never did tell me why he continued to live here. I imagine that it could be because it was his house and that it had been in the family for all those years. I just don’t know. Anyway, I figured that you should know about this.”
Eric said, “Well, I do appreciate you letting me know. I must say that if it hadn’t been for those weird dreams and the fact that my uncle has had the exact same ones, I would not have given this a second thought.”
“Well,” Bob said, “I felt that you should know. Now, why don’t you two take a look around the rest of the house and then we’ll take a little hike in the woods; there’s something else that I would like to show you.”