Thanksgiving

David and I celebrate our first Thanksgiving with both families together. We had a total of eleven people including ourselves. Oh my, was it a lot of work. My mom brought two pies and David's mother brother 4 dishes and I was still cooking all afternoon. I made a turkey, ham, and a few sides dishes plus two pies. Below is my pecan pie. I cheated and used Pillsbury roll out pie crust. No time to make my own. David's friends were suppose to bring pies but they didn't so I scrambled that afternoon. This pecan pie recipe is by far the best I've made and so simple too. Not that I am a pecan pie expert or anything but the last one I made from Dorie Greenspan's From My Home to Yours didn't go over so well. This recipe is from the back of the Karo Dark Corn Syrup bottle.

The turkey noodle soup is what I did with leftover turkey. Very easy, make stock with turkey bones, add some diced celery, carrots, onions, egg noodles, season with thyme, salt, and pepper, bring to a boil, reduce heat, add the cooked turkey and simmer.

The cranberry bars are a modification of a strawberry streusel bar recipe from BHG. I used leftover cranberry sauce in place of the strawberry jam. I omitted the icing. The bars were quite good. I thought 4 cups of flour was an awful lot but they turned out just fine. Next time I will use less crumb mixture for the base and use more for the topping. The 2 cups the recipe specifies is not enough. You end up with a thick base and little streusel on top. Still tasty though and are nice with coffee for breakfast.

S'more Bars

I've tried two different s'more bars recipes. Still trying to search for a recipe that was similar to the s'more bars that I had eaten during my high school tennis years. I have a recipe that I printed from the Hershey's website in 1997. 1997!!! I never actually got around to making these. The recipe is no longer available on their website, however you can find it through About.com Southern Food. If look for a s'mores bar recipe on the Hershey's website you'll find a recipe for S'more Cookie Bars. This recipe uses much more flour and marshmallow creme. It is define more like a cookie. The combination of the marshmallow creme and milk chocolate was too sweet for my taste. The 1997 version of the S'more Bars taste much more like real smores. The recipe has less flour and a little more butter which gives the graham crackers a nice crunch, plus it calls for miniature marshmallows. The milk chocolate is still a little too sweet for me. Next time, I am going to try Hershey's special dark. For the graham crackers, I used a rolling pin to crush them which worked well. You get a nice mix or crumbs with tiny pieces of graham crackers. I used 3 giant milk chocolate bars rather than 8 individual bars which worked just fine.

S'more Bars

3/4 C butter, softened

2/3 C granulated sugar

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla extract

3 C graham cracker crumbs, crushed

1/2 C all-purpose flour

1/2 tsp salt

8 Hershey's milk chocolate bars

3 1/2 C miniature marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a 13 x 9-inch baking pan. In a larger bowl, beat the butter. Add the sugar; beat on medium speed with an electric mixer until light and fluffy. Blend in the egg and vanilla. Stir in the graham cracker crumbs, flour, and salt. Set aside 2 1/2 C of graham cracker crumb mixture. Press remaining into baking pan. Place candy bars on top, side by side, breaking to fit if necessary on top of the mixture. Sprinkle marshmallows evenly over chocolate bars. Crumble reserved graham cracker crumb mixture on top of the marshmallows. Bake 25 to 30 minutes. Cool 10 minutes in pan on wire rack. Cut into bars. Cool completely.

Summer Berry Crumble Bars

Feeling baking deprived, I also made Summer Berry Crumble Bars from the King Arthur Flour's Cookie Companion this morning. David likes them for breakfast...easy to pack for work. Over the 4th of July, my mom and I went to the Raleigh Farmer's Market and came back with a couple quarts of blueberries. They were terrific, nicely plump and sweet. I've been hooked on the blueberries since then. I love the crunchiness of the crust and topping. Who doesn't like streusel topping? I think blackberries or even an apple filling would be yummy. The recipe calls for sunflower seeds but but didn't have any on hand. I am not sure I would add the sunflower seeds even if I had some. Not so sure about the combination of the blueberries with sunflower seeds. The recipe also includes a glaze but skip this also. I think the glaze would make the bars too sweet for my taste and take away from the streusel topping. A warning, do not store them on the counter top or they will get soft. Keep them in the fridge.

Summer Berry Crumble Bars

Crust and Topping

2 C unbleached all-purpose flour

1 C brown sugar

1 1/2 C rolled oats

1 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp cinnamon or 1/4 tsp ground cardamon

1 C unsalted butter cut into chunks

3/4 C sunflower seeds (optional)

Filling

3 C fresh or frozen blueberries (no need to thaw)

1/4 C light brown sugar

3 tbsp lemon juice

1 tbsp lemon zest

2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

1/2 tsp cinnamon or 1/4 tsp ground cardamon

3 tbsp unbleached all-purpose flour

Glaze

2 tsp lemon juice

2 tbsp unsalted butter, melted

2 to 3 tsp water

1 C confectioners' sugar

Preheat oven to 350 F. Lightly grease 9 x 13-inch pan

Crust and topping: In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, brown sugar, oats, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and cinnamon. Using a mixer or pastry blender, cut int eh butter until the mixture is crumbly. Transfer 2 C of crumbs to a bowl and combine with sunflower seeds if using them. Pat the remaining crumbs into the pan. Bake the crust for 15 minutes and remove from the oven.

Filling: While the crust is baking. In a large bowl, mix the berries with the brown sugar, lemon juice, zest, melted butter, cinnamon, and flour. Distribute the filling over the bake crust.

Sprinkle the reserved crumbs mixture over the filling and bake for 40 to 45 minutes, until the filling is bubbly and crumbs have browned.

Glaze: In a small bowl, whisk together the glaze ingredients. Drizzle the glaze over the bars while they are still warm. Cool completely before cutting.

Seven Layer Bars aka Magic Bars

David's going on a trip so I wanted to send some goodies with him. Since the trip was on short notice (today and he's leaving tomorrow), I decided to make something easy. I had all the ingredients on hand and he has never had seven layer bars before. These bring back good memories of high school tennis meets. My high school tennis team was not great by any means but we did know how to have fun. For a lot of meets, we use to bring baked goodies...caramel brownies, Special K bars, seven layer bars. Seven layer bars are super easy to make. The most involved task is grinding the graham crackers, otherwise it's one, two, three....

Seven Layer Bars
Preheat oven to 350 F
1) Melt 1/2 C butter or margerine in 9 x 13 inch pan in the oven.
2) Add 1 1/2 C crushed graham cracks
3) Sprinkle 1 C (6 oz) semi-sweet chocolate chips over graham crackers
4) Sprinkle 1 C shredded coconut over chocolate chips
5) Sprinkel 1 C (6 oz) butterscotch chips over chocolate chips
6) Dribble 14 oz can of condensed milk to cover the pan
7) Sprinkle 1 C chopped nuts on top
Bake 25 mins.