A Very PW Thanksgiving

I had no idea that cooking an entire Thanksgiving dinner all by yourself would be so much work.

A few years ago, we hosted Thanksgiving at our house, but we had other people helping with food.  This year, however, our company was a bunch of college guys and it just didn't feel right to make them bring food.  Since there were only going to be a few of us, I decided to have a simple Thanksgiving--PW brined turkey, PW mash potatoes (but no sweet potatoes--sad), PW stuffing, Gramma Nadine's cranberry jello salad, some veggies (brussel sprout & asparagus), PW rolls and one pie.  Pumpkin.  Just your basic Thanksgiving foods.  Plus the special breakfast we needed to have (Gramma Nadine's egg sausage casserole, Bob's cinnamon rolls and pineapple & blackberries I found on super-sale).  I was actually disappointed that there weren't more people for me to cook for and that I was forced to do such a simple meal.  But on Thursday afternoon, after two days of cooking, I was very glad there was no one else coming.  Oh, did I mention that I decided I needed to make everything from scratch this year?  I've been reading too much Pioneer Woman, who is my new hero.  I'm just a little obsessed with her right now.  Ok, I admit it. I have a total crush on her.  Her food is easy to make, uses normal ingredients you have actually heard of before and will probably have in your kitchen, and it tastes delicious.  Plus, she has step-by-step picture instructions on how to make all her dishes.  You can never go wrong making one of her recipes (thus, the majority of my dishes were hers, some of them with my own little twist).

All my work was worth the effort though, because dinner turned out splendidly.  I was actually quite surprised and pleased that I didn't mess anything up.  Especially the turkey (last time I made turkey it was not so great) and my never-made-before, completely-from-scratch dishes--stuffing, gravy, cranberry jello, and pie crust.   Actually, I did totally mess up the jello salad and had to call my Gramma at 11pm her time for help. Fortunately, she was still awake making the very same jello for our east-coast family's dinner.  But that's the benefit of cooking things ahead of time--you can try again the next day and still have a wonderful dish to serve for Thanksgiving dinner.

Lessons I learned this year:

• It's ok to not make everything from scratch (stuffing from a box next year!)
• Start early (like days early) in case you mess up and need to do an entire dish over again
• Butter makes the best turkey baste
• Mashed potatoes can never have too much better
• Butter makes everything better
• Dried rosemary on Buttered Rosemary Rolls is not an acceptable substitute for fresh rosemary
• Pie Crust really isn't that hard to make
• Cooking turkey doesn't have to be a terrifying adventure
• Always have a Gramma available to call for help (or take the time to thoroughly read the recipe)
• It's not the best idea to plan a huge breakfast in addition to your Thanksgiving dinner if you're the only one cooking
• Never attempted gluten-free cinnamon rolls; nothing good can from it
• You can always trust the Pioneer Woman's cooking advice

Someone wanted turkey really bad


The cinnamon rolls...I started to frost them, then decided I should probably take a picture of the pretty swirls.  My MIL in gluten intolerant and I want to make these when she visits at Christmas this year, so I did a trial run and made some of these with gluten-free flour.  Gag. Me.  They were simply awful.  We threw them all out.  Poor, sad, gluten-intollerants.  I don't know how you do it.


Pioneer Woman Turkey Brine


My turkey was gorgeous, thanks to the Pioneer Woman. And much easier to cook than I remember it being.


Our spread (to me it looks very small for all the work I feel like I did)


Gramma Nadine's cranberry jello salad (2nd batch) not so prettily displayed


Amazing brussel sprouts


The stuffing had cornbread, sourdough bread and french bread.  Yum!

My Very Own Cooking Show

I just love the Food Network.  When we had cable, it was my absolute favorite to watch. And it's pretty much the only reason I'm sad that we no longer have cable.

I also love food.  I love to read about it, buy it, cook it, bake it, and, of course, eat it.  I also like to pretend that I'm Rachel Ray or Alton Brown or [angles singing] the Pioneer Woman (oh my goodness, isn't she amazing!?) or any other number of celebrity chefs with their own cooking show.  And I've always thought it would be so fun to have my very own cooking show.  Prior to Henry, I would pretend in my head and no one would know.  But now that Henry is here, I have a captive audience on which to practice my cooking show.  I just plop him up on the counter in his Bumpo and start working, talking through the various ingredients I'm using and the multiple steps taken to create a delicious dish.  He's learning many interesting things and will hopefully one day enjoy cooking for his family as much as I enjoy cooking for mine.

Learning the proper technique for chopping onion


Juicing and zesting lemons for Lemon Bars


Making the yummiest chocolate chip cookies in the world


Cutting more onion; we use a lot of onion. And garlic. Yummmmmm!


Even Daddy got in on the fun and taught Henry how to make brownies

Canning Peaches

Now that I'm a stay-at-home-mom....

Hahaha, I just had to start a post out like.

But seriously, I've been working very hard to be a good housewife and do meal planing and budgeting (and then stick to the budget and meal plan).  And since it's summer (or the very end of summer), there have been amazing prices on fruit and veggies, and I feel like I need to take advantage of those prices. So I've started buying extra stuff and freezing it.  But my freezer is getting quite full and my new huge freezer isn't due to arrive for a couple more weeks.  Yes, I'm getting a full freezer. It's a hand-me-down from a family member, and I am extremely excited about it.  Notice all of the emphasis placed on "extremely."  I've spent lots of time thinking about all the stuff I'm going to put in it.  But that's a story for a different blog post.   Anyway, since my regular freezer is full, I decided that now would be a good time to begin canning.  What else is there to do with all of those $0.69 peaches?  So I convinced my friend, Sara, to join me, bought 30 peaches, which comes out to about 14 lbs, and a box of mason jars, and canned my peaches.  I would rate my first canning experience a "7" on a 1-10 scale. We had a few hiccups but we learned lots and I'm sure my next experience will be even better!  I haven't tasted any of the peaches yet, but Sara's husband said they were wonderful--he couldn't tell if they were store bought or the ones we canned (pat self on back).

Things I Learned During My First Canning Experience:

1) Canning is not a wait-til-you-put-your-children-down-for-the-night-at-7pm project.  It's a Saturday project.  Especially when you didn't do your homework about prepping the jars (see #3). And especially when your poor friend, Sara, gets violently ill in the middle of canning and you have to finish by yourself.

2) 14 lbs of peaches is a LOT of peaches (even when your husband's already dipped into the pile and snagged a few already); you can probably get away with a lot less next time.

3)  It's usually best to prepare enough mason jars for all of your peaches which are already cut and sitting in lemon water, waiting to be canned (and by prepare, I mean run the jars through the 45 minute dishwasher cycle so they're hot and sanitized because you're not going to do it again at 11:30 pm).

4) Really jam those peaches the jar because they shrink up during the boiling process.

5) The Pioneer Woman (my new hero) has an amazing peach crisp with maple cream sauce recipe for all those left over peaches that you couldn't fit the few sanitized jars you prepped.

Adventures in Homemaking

From now on, I imagine many of my posts will begin with, "Now that I'm a stay-at-home-mom...."

Yes, it's true! After 5 years at The Master's College and nearly 13 years in the work force, I am thrilled to announce that I'm trading in my dress slacks and perfume for yoga pants and the scent of baby spit-up! For the past year, AK and I have gone back and forth as to whether or not I should return to work after Henry was born.  Originally I didn't want to, then I did, then didn't....you get the picture.  To be honest, when I found out I was pregnant, I was not super thrilled. At the time, we didn't think we could get pregnant, and I had started to shift my thinking to become more career minded.  I was (mostly) loving my job, and I was good at it (at least I hope I was).  I took a lot of pride in what I was doing--improvements I had made, changes I was implementing.  And some really stressful situations were just starting to work themselves out.  Then I got pregnant.  It was difficult for me to give the job I had invested so much time and energy into over to someone else (I was working 2 positions, one of which was full-time; I quit that position when I went on maternity leave and was planning to return to the second, part-time position).  After Henry arrived, I really missed my co-workers and was excited to go back and really perfect and refine the position.  But as the weeks passed and Henry started to change, the less I wanted to leave him (I mean, in one morning he went from not being able to use him arms to knowing how to use them--it happened so fast!  I don't want to miss out on important stuff like learning to use body parts!).  I also began reading an excellent book by Sally Clarkson recommended by my dear friend, Carla, called The Mission of Motherhood.  The premise of the book (touching your child's heart for eternity) began to really resonate in me--when I invest in Henry, I invest in a soul that will live forever. And I only get one opportunity to do it.  I could go back to a job at any time.  I also began to realize that I wasn't going to be able to do everything well. I was barely managing day to day; the thought of adding a part-time job on top of everything else was completely overwhelming, and I knew some parts of our life would end up suffering.

AK and I had many, many conversations about my returning to work. Finally, one week before I suppose to return, we made the decision for me to quit.  It was with tremendous joy that I called my boss with the news.  Yes, I'll miss my co-workers, but I'm still friends with them and will see them.  And the Lord has shown me that the pride I felt in my job really was just plain old sinful pride. He's blessed me with a much greater job--being AK's wife and Henry's mommy.  I'm really surprised at how much I'm enjoying this new job--budgeting, meal planning, cooking, etc.  It's challenging and fun and I'm learning lots--I had no idea there was so much to know about homemaking!

I'm just so very thankful that the Lord has allowed me to stay home with Henry.  He's blessed AK with one of the few jobs where he can still work overtime if we need it. And we've found a number of ways to trim our budget and live more frugally.  I'm sure I'll be writing about those in the future.

I would like to end with a disclaimer and one final thought...First of all, I do not believe it is sinful to work outside your home if you have children. I hope I did not convey that in this post. I understand that the Lord gives everyone different life circumstances and some moms need to go back to work.  But...if you really believe that you should be home with your kids, just pray about it. I have had numerous friends who thought they would have to go back to work (or move their family to a different state) because of finances.  These friends didn't want to go back to work--their hearts' desire was to stay at home with their children. So they started praying; I prayed with them. And in every single family, the Lord provided exactly what they needed for Mom to stay home (or for the family to not have to move).  It;s been amazing to watch God work in each circumstance. He did it for my friends; He did it for us; and He will do it for you if you ask.

And Jesus answered them, "Truly, I say to you, if you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what has been done to the fig tree, but even if you say to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' it will happen. And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.
Matthew 21: 21-22

Until now you have asked nothing in my name. Ask, and you will receive, that your joy may be full.
John 16:24