Week 19: Ready for Thanksgiving

Recipes to Go: 507 324

Weeks to Go: 52 33

Recipes Made This Week

Cowboy Beef Dip

Bavarian Pork Loin

Fiesta Chicken Chowder

No-Bones Chicken Wing Dip

Savory Pumpkin Ravioli

Rustic Autumn Fruit Tart

Fruit-Nut Pumpkin Bread

Mexicorn Grits

The Cowboy Beef Dip was very good and very spicy. We had a bit of an adventure trying to find mexicorn, luckily I have the internet on my phone, so I could Google image search for it in the store and find the equivalent store brand. Handy, since I needed it not only for this recipe, but for the Mexicorn Grits on Saturday. While this was fine as a main dish, but I probably should have made something else, because I think it makes a much better side dish.

I needed to use the rest of the sauerkraut in my fridge, so I made the Bavarian Pork Loin. The pork was nothing spectacular, in fact, it was a little dry, but the rest of the stuff in the slow cooker was amazing.

The apples, especially. I couldn't get The Captain to eat them, though. He wouldn't believe that they were apples. It took all week to get him to try them, then he loved them as much as we did.

The Fiesta Chicken Chowder was good, a fairly typical southwest soup. But it gave me the opportunity to use the rest of my brown rice. I don't normally buy brown rice, being a jasmine rice eater myself, so it was nice to not have leftovers.

I don't normally think to add rice to my soups, maybe this will help me remember. This soup was very spicy, which means The Captain really liked it. It stored really well in the fridge, except for the chicken, which got a little chewy, sadly.

The No-Bones Chicken Wing Dip was good, but again, I should have made something else, too. While The Captain was happy to eat nothing but condiments and a little chicken, I missed something else to eat. And I found out that The Husband doesn't like blue cheese, which was a big flavor aspect of the dip.

So, I finally found a baking pumpkin, and again, I was supposed to peel and cube it. Well, after pretty much the same routine--cooking it, only to puree it, I will next time just cook it in the oven. So this was the first time I've ever made my own pasta. I was really worried since I don't have any pasta making equipment or attachments for my Kitchenaid. But the dough was really easy to work with and really easy to roll out. Overall, I was quite impressed with myself. Although, the stuffing needed a little more salt, and I overcooked the pasta a little. Also, because it looked different, I couldn't get The Captain to try it. And he's normally such a fan of pasta . . .

The Rustic Fruit Tart was divine. It really did taste autumny with apples and pears and pumpkin pie spices.

The dough had cream cheese in it, so you know that was good. It turned out beautifully. And because no one came to Game Night again, we got to enjoy it all.

Saturday morning we made Fruit-Nut Pumpkin Bread . . . without the nuts. It was delicious, but one loaf fell, and the other loaf fell apart when I tried to take it out of the pan.

We still enjoyed it for breakfast all week long. I will definitely try this one again. The crust was so nice.

For dinner that night, I made the Mexicorn Grits. I've never tried grits before.

They were a lot like cous-cous. The Captain really liked them. Other then the excessive butter used (I will more than half that next time) it was delicious, and was possibly better as leftovers.

The best thing was that I got to make all of this and still make the stuff for a hugely successful Pre-Thanksgiving Day Feast.