Holidays & Special Occasion Food & Beverages

I always make Ambrosia salad with our Thanksgiving feast. It’s the perfect fresh, clean and cold side to compliment the heavy food and it adds wonderful color to your table.

Ingredients:

– 4 large crisp apples
– 4 large firm but ripe Bartlet pears
– 4 large just-ripe bananas (not too many brown spots)
– 2 cups fresh blueberries
– 1 large can Mandarin Oranges (drained of all juice)
– 1 large can of pineapple chunks (drained of all juice)
– 1 small container of Cool Whip or 3 cups whipped heavy cream. (more or less to taste)

Instructions:

– Peel and cut apples and pears  into bite-size pieces
– Add blueberries
– Drain Mandarin oranges and pineapple chunks and add to the fresh fruit.
– Refrigerate until serving time, then add cut bananas (bite-size) and mix in cool whip to coat evenly.  You can substitute the Cool Whip with whipped heavy cream. I find it easiest to use Cool Whip  and let the nasty chemicals fall where they may. 

Serve immediately.

Serves 10 to 12
*Recipe can be reduced by half to serve less people. Replace large cans with small cans of Mandarin oranges and pineapple and reduce Cool Whip by half.

Thanksgiving Dinner

We taking feasting seriously around here.

My Thanksgiving menu includes:

Roasted Turkey
Apple Sausage Stuffing
Baked Yams
Mashed Potatoes
Ambrosia (Fruit Salad with Cool Whip)
Fresh Peas or French-cut Green Beans
Cranberry Sauce (I like to serve both chunky and sliced)
Gravy
Pumpkin Pie

I love cooking a Thanksgiving feast – it’s a lot of work but being able to spread the love in such a momentous way pays off big time

For more Thanksgiving cooking tips, see: Thanksgiving

Easy Corned Beef and Cabbage

Corned Beef and Cabbage with Spicy Mustard Sauce

A typical St. Patrick’s Day meal that’s good any time of the year. This recipe is easy to prepare because a typical beef brisket already comes with the seasonings. YAY for easy!

Ingredients:

1 large Beef Brisket (at least 3 pounds with seasoning package included)
1 Head of green cabbage
8 large (or 12 small) Red Potatoes
4 Large Carrots
1 Large Onion

Preparation:

In a large pot, add beef brisket with seasoning package and enough water to completely cover the meat. Cook on medium high heat for an hour or until water is lightly boiling. Reduce heat to a simmer.

While the meat is cooking:

Peel carrots and cut in half).
Wash potatoes and cut large potatoes into quarters.
Peel and cut onion into quarters.
Cut cabbage into quarters.

Add the onion, carrots and potatoes (if you’re using small potatoes, do not cut, leave whole) – cook another 15 minutes.
Add the quartered cabbage pieces and cook another 15 minutes.

Serve with Spicy Sweet Mustard Sauce (to dip meat) and fresh sliced French bread for a well-rounded, Irish-inspired meal.

Serves 6

Note for the confused: In the above picture, I used a small bag of white finger potatoes and left them whole. They work just as well as red potatoes in this recipe.

Halloween Dinner for Kids

Perfect Trick or Treater’s Halloween dinner: Halloween Dinner

Apple Sausage Stuffing

This is an awesome stuffing for turkey, chicken or whatever you want to stuff. LOL – It’s also good all by itself.

It does take some time and effort but it’s way worth it. Enjoy!

Ingredients:

-1 lb Italian Sausage
-1 cup diced bacon
-1 large onion chopped
-1 cup celery chopped
-½ lb mushrooms sliced
-2 crisp apples cored & diced
-1 cup chopped fresh parsley
-1 tsp thyme
-1 lb. firm white (French) bread (cut into 1 inch cubes)
-2 cups chicken broth (1 14 oz. Can)

Preparation:

-Chop sausage into 1 inch pieces – brown (or brown & chop later)-Cook Bacon in another pan
-Remove sausage – sauté onions in same pan (with sausage grease). Add remaining ingredients plus sausage & bacon through to the herbs to pan after onions are cooked. Heat through (about 5 minutes).
-In large bowl, pour all you’ve cooked over diced bread
– add chicken broth, salt & pepper. Spoon into a buttered casserole dish or into cleaned bird.

-If cooking outside the bird, bake for an hour at 350 degrees.

Baked Yams

Ingredients:

4 to 6 large yams

half a stick of salted butter

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup maple syrup

half a bag of miniature marshmallows

Preparation:

Partially boil yams in large pot (do not remove skin)

When yams are cooked through but not mushy remove from the stove, dump the hot water and cover yams with cold water and enough ice to cool them off (as much as you can fit in the pot is good).

When cool enough to handle, remove the skins (they should peel off easily)  and slice yams into 1/2 inch thick pieces and layer them in a casserole dish. Between layers and again on top of the last layer, add dots of butter and sprinkle brown sugar. After the last layer has been dotted with butter and sprinkled with brown sugar, drizzle the maple syrup over all and top with marshmallows.

Bake in 350 degree oven for 30 to 45 minutes or until marshmallows are golden brown.

Serves 6.