Recipes – Page 8 – Thimbleanna

October Book Group

58 Comments / October 30, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Books, Recipes

Last night was my turn for our monthly book group, which means it’s been a busy week in ThimbleannaLand. Our book discussion was The Almost Moon by Alice Sebold. Definitely not a fan favorite. As I heard one member put it, “That’s a few wasted hours of my life that I wish I had back.” I think the general consensus was that her writing was beautiful, but the story was awful.

My table setting was pretty simple. On Barefoot Contessa this week, I heard Ina say that when people start talking about tablescapes it makes her crazy. My sentiments exactly! A pretty centerpiece and nice linens and I’m happy. And for book group, as in previous years, I like to have a little takeaway. This year I gave the ladies some easy-to-make book labels found on this really cool site (spend some time snooping around there — they offer some really nice downloads).

I saw a centerpiece very similar to mine somewhere on the internet, so I asked BigDaddy if he could cut me a board to set the pumpkins on. Isn’t it pretty? I just love it and I’m sure I’ll use it for other centerpieces too. Thanks BigDaddy, the ladies loved your board and there was lots of oohhing and aahhing!

On the menu we had:

Crab Dip
Tossed Salad
White Chicken Chili
Sibley Station Swedish Apple Pie

Years ago, when we lived in Minnesota, the family all came to visit. We went to Pequot Lakes and ate at a restaurant that had wonderful food. They were giving away a few recipes and MyDadLovesMeBestSister wisely kept this Swedish Apple Pie recipe — it’s become a family favorite over the years. (We love it so much, it’s even in MyDadLovesMeBestSister’s section of our family cookbook.) I thought you might like the recipe too (and btw, it’s more like a cake than a pie, imho).

Sibley Station Swedish Apple Pie

1 1/2 cups peeled diced apples
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup flour
3/4 cup sugar
1/8 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
2 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg
1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a bowl, mix apples and nuts. Set aside. In a separate bowl mix flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, cinnamon and nutmeg. Add to the apple mixture. In a small bowl, beat egg and vanilla, then mix well with the apple mixture. Spread mixture evenly in a well oiled 8-inch springform pan. Bake for approximately 30 minutes. Serve with vanilla ice cream and top with carmel sauce. Makes 6 servings.

This recipe came with instructions for a carmel sauce, but I’ve never been able to get it to work. It failed again last night, but I just happened to have a jar of carmel ice cream sauce, so I heated it up and no one was the wiser. Just in case you don’t have a favorite carmel sauce, here’s a family favorite sauce that would work well too.

Gorgeous Sauce

1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. butter
1/2 c. whipping cream

Cook over boiling water for 5 minutes. Serve hot.

Oh, and big news! I heard on the radio that in the next 4 to 5 years, US book manufacturers are going to start printing all US cookbooks with measurements by weight. That should help with the recipe language conversion problems we have in blogland. ;-)

Have a great weekend!
XOXO,
Anna

Forgive Me Father…

51 Comments / October 19, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Recipes

…for I have sinned. Is that what you’re supposed to say when you’ve been naughty? It wasn’t my fault. I swear. I saw these cute little cupcake pedestals somewhere and thought “Hmmmm, I could put those to good use.” Then I promptly forgot about them. And pretty soon, Ms. Barefoot posted about them.

Good Grief, indeed. When they popped up in that second post, I took it as a sign. Permission granted, it was meant to be, and I obediently clicked over and ordered them. If you love dishes or cupcakes or white, good luck resisting. You’re welcome. ;-)

While we’re chit-chatting about things you need, have you seen this adorable owl pattern? And fabric??? Ohmygosh…I love that ric rac, those colors, and everything about this cute pattern — and it’s free!

So. Did you all have a good weekend? I actually got my 9-patch quilt top all put together — as soon as I get it quilted I’ll show you. Don’t hold your breath though — I’m terribly slow compared to so many of you at these things. Other than sewing, we continued to reminisce about our trip to Scotland and since it was a chilly weekend, I made Bangers and Mash. I’d never even heard of Bangers and Mash until our first trip to Scotland, but as soon as we got home I searched all over the internet for a recipe. I found several, but they didn’t sound exactly like the version we’d had, so I put several together. (Some of the recipes called for diced tomatoes — are tomatoes common in bangers and mash?) Anyway, since I had to search high and low for my recipe, I’m adding it here, on my little blog, so it won’t be lost anymore. With apologies to you vegetarians, mashed potato haters, and people who think sausages are disgusting, here’s my version:

Bangers and Mash

1 large onion, sliced into thin rings
Several garlic cloves, roughly chopped into small chunks
Mixed herbs: 1/2 – 1 tsp each of thyme, marjoram and rosemary
6 – 8 sausages
1 14.5 oz can beef broth
1 cup of red wine
1 T demi-glace (optional)
Olive Oil
Chopped parsley for garnishing
Mashed potatoes made to your own taste

Slowly cook the onion rings on lowest heat in olive oil until they are soft. This will take about 20 minutes. Remove onions from pan and add the sausages.

Brown them all over. Remove the sausages from the pan and add the garlic, herbs, beef broth and wine. I like to add the demi-glace if you have it — it gives the gravy a richer flavor. Stir the gravy ingredients all together, then add the onions and sausages back to the pan.

Simmer on a low heat, partially covered, for 45 minutes to an hour while the wine reduces and the onions turn a deep red color. At the end, if the gravy needs to be thickened, I mix a tablespoon of cornstarch with just a bit of water and then add that to the gravy. Cook and stir a few minutes longer until gravy thickens up.

Serve sausages on top of mashed potatoes, covered with onions and gravy. Garnish with parsley. Yu – u – um!

Now, go forth and have a great week!

XOXO,
Anna

Monsters

51 Comments / October 13, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Holidays, Recipes

Holy Cow! Can any of you explain where this month is going? We’re almost half-way through the month already. How depressing — I have a bunch of Halloween projects I’d like to do and there’s no way I’ll get to them. Maybe I should just throw in the towel and move on to C-C-C-nope, I just can’t say it. Sadly, I guess I’ll just wrap some of those UFOs back up until next year. I wish I could remember how many years I’ve unpacked them, missed the deadline and then packed them back up. ??? It’s a sickness!

I meant to post last night but I was busy making a few Halloween snacks. Our public school system has a voluntary tutoring program where they partner with local businesses that provide tutors. Once a week they bus kids to our workplace and we have an hour to work with them. Today was my day to bring snacks.

Fortunately, the awesome Rachel at OnePrettyThing posted these Rice Krispy Monster Cookies from Woman’s Day last week. I had started to wonder what I would bring for my snack day and when I saw these, I knew they were perfect.

If you remember, I’ve mentioned here before that Rice Krispy snacks are one of my all time favorites. And smear icing all over them? H.E.A.V.E.N! Mmm…mmmm. They were yummy.

I have the cutest little guy for my study partner. We always get our snacks right after the children arrive and then we study while we snack. The snacks are usually healthy, but we agreed that once a month, we’d relax the rules a little and have something a little more fun. It was really fun watching my little guy munch on his monster while he read me his homework about Christopher Columbus.

If you have a Halloween snack need this month, these are really fun and easy. They’re a little unruly though. They squirm a lot when being stuffed into their little bags — you have to be careful … if you bump their scar, they bleed all over. And we had one escapee. I put them in the refrigerator last night and apparently he jumped out. We found him tucked into the back of the fridge when we got home last night. He only avoided his demise an extra few hours. ;-)

XOXO,
Anna

A Chili Cook-off

48 Comments / October 6, 2009 February 22, 2011 / Chat, Recipes

Well, how’s the week going so far? Are you all busy? I hope those of you going to the fall quilt market have a super time. When you’re in the middle of all that frenzy, try to think of the rest of us back here in blogland, just sitting around, twiddling our thumbs waiting for your reports!

We had a good weekend here in ThimbleannaLand. I cleaned and scrubbed and cleaned some more, for two days in the kitchen. Even the dome had a bath in a towel covered sink to protect it from breaking. Now everything is all sparkly clean, including uglygreentile.

On Saturday night, I took a break from the cleaning. I’ve been wanting to find a good white chili recipe, so MeMum, MyDadLovesMeBestSister, and I decided we’d each try a new recipe and test them all together. MyDadLovesMeBestSister lives in a 90+ year old house and they’ve recently added an addition that includes a beautiful new kitchen, so, what better way to break it in than with a chili cook-off?

My favorite part of the kitchen is the beautiful new stove. The middle section of the stove contains a grill and a griddle. Be still my heart. It’s so brand spankin’ new, they haven’t even had time to install the tile on the back wall yet. That didn’t stop us though, we got right down to mixing and cooking.

Of course, there was a funny wine bottle involved. Don’t worry though, no chili was harmed during the event.

Skinnyb*tch MyDadLovesMeBestSister even wore her birthday apron — notice how it matches the wine bottle?

We cooked and stirred and laughed and had a good time. After the cooking, we passed out a ballot to everyone and we put the chili in little numbered sample cups for everyone’s tasting.

Did I get any pictures? No, we were too busy. That would have been a good picture though — just imagine all those little sample cups all lined up and ready to taste. We even dragged the drywall guy (who was working in another area of the new addition) into the kitchen and made him taste and vote. This chili (recipe brought by MeMum) was the prettiest.

But, this chili (recipe brought by me) won, hands down. Everyone loved it. That’s because it’s the only one that has cream and cheese in it and it will probably cause your heart to sieze up. It’s soooo worth it though. I found this recipe courtesy of Ms. Farmhouse. She always has wonderful recipes – her oatmeal cranberry cookies are one of my all time favorite cookies!

Anyway, we did change this recipe just a teeny, tiny bit. The other two recipes had shredded chicken and we decided that we liked that better than chicken cut into chunks. We also like the addition of cilantro.

Creamy White Chili

2 – 3 baked chicken breasts, shredded
1 Tbsp oil
1 onion chopped
14 oz. can chicken broth
2 – 15 1/2 oz. cans Great Northern Beans, drained and rinsed
2 – 4 oz. cans chopped green chiles
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. cumin
1/2 tsp. dried oregano
8 oz. container sour cream
1/2 pint whipping cream
8 oz. bag shredded Monterey Jack Cheese
1 package Fritos corn chips
Chopped, fresh cilantro

Heat oil in large pot or dutch oven. Saute onions until tender. Add broth, beans, chiles and seasonings and bring to a boil over medium-high heat. Add shredded chicken, reduce heat, and simmer for 30 minutes. Add sour cream, whipping cream and cheese and mix well. Pour into soup bowls and top with partially crushed Fritos and cilantro and enjoy!

Thank you SO much Ms. Farmhouse for posting this delicious recipe — it’s sure to be a new family favorite here in ThimbleannaLand!

XOXO,
Anna

Peep Day

39 Comments / September 27, 2009 February 12, 2012 / Peep Days, Quilting, Recipes

Happy Sunday! Are you all having a good weekend? I’m having a Fabulous Fall weekend! I spent all day yesterday at a fun sewing day with my quilty peeps. We have such a hard time getting together this year and it was wonderful to be able to spend some time with my BFFs.

Junie outdid herself by playing hostess. She waited on us hand and foot! We always have a potluck of sorts for lunch (there is a little planning — we each choose what “course” we’ll bring.) She made this deeeee-licious Potato Bacon Torte. You should try it — the recipe is HERE, and I promise, if you like those ingredients, you won’t be disappointed.

Gurney brought our salad — it was fantastic too. I conned Gurney out of the recipe because I loved it so much. (In a large bowl, mix together: 1 lb. cabbage that has been shredded (or you can buy the preshredded cabbage mix that has carrots too), 2 pkgs. chicken ramen noodles, 3 chopped green onions, 3/4 c. slivered almonds, 5 Tbsp sesame seeds. Add to that a dressing that you’ve made ahead of time and chilled: 3/4 c. oil, seasoning packets from the 2 ramen noodle pkgs., 5 Tbsp vinegar, and three Tbsp sugar. After you’ve thoroughly tossed the salad and dressing, top with 1 c. shoestring potatoes.) It was yummy too and made the perfect side to the potato torte.

Jewels made her fantastic Lemon Dessert which we practically begged her to bring (ok, we did beg her to bring). I posted this recipe HERE several months ago, so this is a recycled picture. The dessert definitely wasn’t recycled though and it was even better than the first time!

I managed to be the big slacker in the group — I picked up donut holes for our breakfast and brought some fresh sliced fruit. Hey peeps, I think that’s a tradition we should keep — the previous hostess gets a slacker day — Junie, you’re up next!

As for projects, we were all busy all day. Gurney finished up this ADORABLE little pumpkin quilt as a gift for a friend. Her embroidery is perfect and we all loved this piece. Gurney gets the prize for cutest and most creative project! (And because I know some of you will ask, hopefully maybe Gurney will read this and leave her pattern source in the comments.)

Junie worked on folding her fabric stash — when she wasn’t meeting her hostess duties. Fabric folding is a huge project, so she’ll be at this for several more days!

Jewels worked on these adorable mini-dresden pieces. Jewels does beautiful hand paper-piecing and I can’t wait to see this project unfold. (Aren’t those fabrics pretty?)

I kept plugging away at my yoyos and also did a bit of handwork on a backpack that I’ve been working on. The backpack will be just like the black and white backpack in this post, without the little bride tag, of course!

So, as you can see, we had a wonderful day. Gurney has had a grandbaby explosion in the last few years (with another one on the way!) and since she lives two hours away, it’s made it really hard for us to all find a free weekend. Thank you quilty peeps for an awesome day — let’s not make it so long until the next one!

XOXO,
Anna