What Is Your Favorite Thanksgiving Dish?

Now that we're less than a month out (I am so excited; Thanksgiving is my FAVORITE holiday), I've been starting to ponder Thanksgiving food and my favorite dishes.

Which made me wonder: what are YOUR favorites?

Mine are (in no particular order):

1. Cranberry sauce
2. Mashed potatoes or potato side dish of any sort
3. Stuffing that hasn't been cooked inside a turkey, preferably with cranberries and apricots in it. And definitely WITHOUT oysters -- blech.
   
4. Brussel sprouts
5. Green beans

There's more, but then I'd be listing the whole meal and that wouldn't make the dishes especially favorite, now would it?

Post a comment with the dishes you most look forward to on Thanksgiving. And including recipes for them gets you extra super bonus points! Also let me know if you wouldn't mind my sharing your recipe here; this is a recipe exchange, after all.  :-)

NaBloPoMo is on the Horizon!

And I'll be joining in the fun this year again, too.

What the heck is NaBloPoMo?

November is National Blog Posting Month. Where did it get such a dorky name?

Here's what www.nablopomo.com tells us:

"The name NaBloPoMo is derived from NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, where participants try to write an entire novel in one month. We're here because we can't commit to an endeavor of such magnitude, but we can post on our blogs every day for a month! Weekends included."

So there you have it. Stay tuned in November as I wrench my way through posting every. single. day.

If you want to help me out, send me your recipes! In fact, I would love to post your favorite Thanksgiving recipe, whatever the dish may be. Send them on in!

Charoset: Looking For a Few Good Recipes

Okay so I have been a bad blogger lately. Forgive me. Life has been incredibly full lately, and this blog has taken a back seat.

But Passover is on the very near horizon, and this will be my first. And as I have no personal memories or family recipes from which to draw for this very family-and-community-oriented holiday, I thought I would ask you, my virtual community, for your personal or family recipes for charoset.



As wikipedia tells us, charoset is "a sweet, dark-colored, lumpy paste made of fruits and nuts served primarily during the Passover Seder. Its color and texture are meant to recall the mortar with which the Israelites bonded bricks when they were enslaved in Ancient Egypt. The word 'charoset' comes from the Hebrew word cheres — חרס — 'clay.'"

And it sounds like delicious mortar and clay, if you ask me. I want to make my own this Passover. I know I can find some good ones on the internet, but I'd love to get some of yours, imbued with your family history.

So bring 'em on!

And thank you.

Meal Plan for the Week

I'm a little behind on posting this, I realize. Better late than never, right?

• Sunday: Leftovers and grazing (like crackers and cheese and whatnot
• Monday: Mustard-Tarragon Roasted Chicken breasts and Balsamic-glazed Brussells Sprouts with Red Onion
• Tuesday: Bunless Burgers (made with very local and very non-factory-farmed beef), topped with cheese, avocado, tomato; Artichokes a la Citymama; and Platano chips for hubby
• Wednesday: Black Beans (with quinoa for hubby)
• Thursday: Mushroom, Kale, and Canellini Hash-ish (with quinoa for hubby
• Friday: Takeout of some sort...probably Season to Taste

Oooh and also I'm totally going to make these Black Bean Brownies this week too. I know -- black beans? WTF, right? But I trust Heidi of 101 Cookbooks. If she says they're good, they're good. And what's really delicious about them is that I can eat them, even with my funny limited diet! Woohoo!

And that's what we got goin' on here folks. If anyone has any good non-carb, non-sugar recipes, PLEASE SEND THEM! denasrecipeexchange at gmail dot com. I'm all ears!

Potato Latkes: Looking for a Good Recipe

So next Tuesday night is the first night of Channukah, and I am planning on making a special meal to celebrate, especially seeing how it's my first one as a Jew-to-be (or, as my hubby and I like to jokingly call me, as a "Jewbie" -- newbie Jew).

Potato latkes, and food cooked with oil, as well as dairy, are traditional Channukah foods. (Can I just pause for a minute and say YUM!) I would love to make my own latkes. But I don't have a family recipe. I'm scouring the internet for a good (and pretty easy, too, if possible!) potato latke recipe, but I thought I'd put the call out here too.

So please, if you have a recipe that this Jewbie could follow to celebrate her first Channukkah, please send it along. I promise to post the winning recipe with photos of my feast.