Entries Tagged as 'thanksgiving'

Hawaiian Thanksgiving with Billy and Ging Ging

November 28th, 2011 · 4 Comments


Billy & Dallas


Dallas

Two Hawaiian guys, slippers, Hawaiian t-shirts, hibachi, kalbi. Yep, looks like a Hawaiian-themed Thanksgiving!


Hawaiian-Themed Thanksgiving Dinner

For the holiday we went to visit Billy and Ging Ging in the East Bay. We’d originally planned on skipping all the traditional Thanksgiving food and just ordering Hawaiian platters from L&L Hawaiian Barbecue, but whattaya know? L&L is closed on Thanksgiving. So we ended up making Thanksgiving dinner, but still tried for Hawaiian style instead of the American classics.


Hawaiian-Themed Thanksgiving Dinner

Dallas and Billy took care of the meats: Kalbi Korean short ribs and chicken katsu. Ging and I made the rest. Mostly Ging, ok at least under her supervision. We made a chinese salad with ramen crunchies, a warmed spinach/cranberry/pecan salad, tofu, mac salad (with and without wahoo/ono), mashed sweet potato, and fresh pineapple with li hing powder. For dessert we made haupia and a pumpkin mochi.


Damien & Matt

Matt and Amy joined us for dinner. Made made lemon meringue pie and they brought a couple bottles of wine as well.


Damien & Billy


Matt, Amy, Billy


Ging Ging, Damien, Dallas, Rachelle

Amy wasn’t sure what Billy and Ging meant when they said we were having Hawaiian foods for Thanksgiving but when we told her the menu she told us she was looking forward to all of that more than turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes!


Matt’s beautiful lemon meringue pie.


Lemon meringue pie, haupia, pumpkin mochi.

Ging and I prepared dessert plates for everyone. Each got a slice of Matt’s lemon meringue pie, a piece of haupia topped with chocolate pudding and freshly-whipped cream (kind of like haupia pie with no crust), and a piece of pumpkin mochi. The mochi didn’t really stand up to the sweetness of the pie or haupia, but when we ate it the next day on it’s own it was much better. The lemon mirengue pie was so delicious. I ate it for breakfast the next day too! And the haupia reminded me of Hawaii. I made it the night before. It was simple with a mix that Ging had from Lihue.


Ging (talking to her family & rubbing baby #2 due in April!), Matt, Amy, Billy, Damien, Dallas

After dinner and after Damien went to bed we watched a couple of movies: Super 8 and 50/50. I saw 50/50 in the theater and really liked it. I thought Super 8 was pretty good too.

I love turkey and stuffing and mashed potatoes and pecan pie, but this was a good alternative dinner and I was glad we did it! Also, remind us to tell you the story about how Billy and Ging don’t have a TV but borrowed one (+Direct TV). And then Dallas and Billy had to configure it so we could watch the football games on Thanksgiving. Craziness!

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Cranberry Sauce

January 26th, 2011 · No Comments

For Thanksgiving Dallas loves to eat those disgusting cans of cranberry jelly but I like to make homemade cranberry sauce from fresh or frozen cranberries. The sauce could not be easier to make and it’s so delicious! You can see in this photo from our Thanksgiving meal that we had both sauces on the table.

Cranberry Sauce
From: All Recipes

12 ounces cranberries
1 cup white sugar
1 cup orange juice

In a medium sized saucepan over medium heat, dissolve the sugar in the orange juice. Stir in the cranberries and cook until the cranberries start to pop (about 10 minutes). Remove from heat and place sauce in a bowl. Cranberry sauce will thicken as it cools.

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Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie

January 25th, 2011 · No Comments

Along with the classic Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie, we also had Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie at Thanksgiving dinner. I love pecan pie and decided to switch it up this year with chocolate and boooze. It was SO good. Very rich, but very good. We shared both of our pies with my family and everyone seemed to like them both.

Chocolate Bourbon Pecan Pie
From: All Recipes

1 (9 inch) pie shell
1 cup white sugar
1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup butter
4 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup bourbon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chips
1 cup chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F (165 degrees F).

In a small saucepan combine sugar, corn syrup, and butter or margarine. Cook over medium heat, stirring constantly, until butter or margarine melts and sugar dissolves. Cool slightly.

In a large bowl combine eggs, bourbon, vanilla, and salt. Mix well. Slowly pour sugar mixture into egg mixture, whisking constantly. Stir in chocolate chips and pecans. Pour mixture into pie shell.

Bake in preheated oven for 50 to 55 minutes, or until set and golden. May be served warm or chilled.

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Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie

January 25th, 2011 · 1 Comment

For part of our Thanksgiving dinner Dallas requested pumpkin pie. Plain pumpkin pie. No bars, nothing fancy, not cookies, just a classic pumpkin pie. SO, I made Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie. And he loved it!

Libby’s Famous Pumpkin Pie
From: All Recipes

1 (9 inch) unbaked deep dish pie crust
3/4 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
2 eggs
1 (15 ounce) can LIBBY’S® 100% Pure Pumpkin
1 (12 fluid ounce) can NESTLE® CARNATION® Evaporated Milk

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F.

Combine sugar, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves in small bowl. Beat eggs lightly in large bowl. Stir in pumpkin and sugar-spice mixture. Gradually stir in evaporated milk. Pour into pie shell.

Bake for 15 minutes. Reduce temperature to 350 degrees F.; bake for 40 to 50 minutes or until knife inserted near center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack for 2 hours. Serve immediately or refrigerate. (Do not freeze as this will cause the crust to separate from the filling.)

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Our First Thanksgiving Turkey

November 28th, 2010 · 3 Comments

This year for Thanksgiving Dallas and I decided to try to make our own Thanksgiving dinner. I’d made Thanksgiving dinner with Kelly and Jeff and Aunt Sue many times (2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006), but I never made the turkey before. We started out by brining the turkey overnight in a mixture of salt, broth, orange juice, and spices.

Jeannette used to make a pre-Thanksgiving feast when I lived in New York, so I asked her for some turkey guidance and she delivered! She sent us all kinds of tips, mostly from Cooks Illustrated.

We quickly learned that the big secret is….. BUTTER! Buttering the skin. Dallas also lifted the skin a little and shoved butter between the skin and the meat.

After the first check, this is what the turkey looked like.

We rotated it on all 4 sides to get even browning. Each time we rotated, we applied more butter.

And then one time we cut off some fresh sprigs of rosemary and stuck them in.

More butter!

Finished. Perfectly browned skin.

We stuffed the turkey with onions, carrots, celery, thyme and rosemary.

I made some gravy with the giblets.. another recipe from Jeannette. Dallas browned the bits in the pan so I could add them to the gravy. By the way, this gravy was kind of a pain and took a long time, but it was like the best gravy EVER.

Dallas then carved the turkey.

And we could see that it was cooked perfectly all the way through.

This was our whole Thanksgiving dinner.

I’ll have a few recipes to share in the upcoming weeks. As for the turkey? It was SO good. Very moist and flavorful. All in all, we agreed that this was one of our favorite meals we’ve ever cooked together. I know we won’t cook Thanksgiving dinner every year, but it’s nice to know that we can!

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