Turkey Cider Butter Baste

Here is a quick recipe if you have some butter, herbs and apple cider lying around!

• Servings: 4
• Time: 1 hour
• Difficulty: easy
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Ingredients:

• 2 cups of apple cider
• 1 1/2 sticks of butter
• zest of one lemon and a squeeze of fresh juice
• salt and pepper to taste
• 2  tbsp of fresh herbs (poultry blend) I used rosemary, sage and thyme

Directions:

Boil your apple cider in sauce pan till reduced to 1/2 cup. Add your butter, zest, juice, salt and pepper, and fresh herbs.

Stir till butter is melted and incorporated into the sauce. Chill till ready to use.

I slather this stuff under the skin of the turkey, on top and brush some in the cavity of the bird before I stuff it! Yum the flavor is heavenly!!

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving Folks!

I hope everyone has a blessed day with great food, family and friends.

Here are a few things I have been up to….

My children are off school all week so yikes I haven’t had a chance to post much. I did some cookie decorating with the kids for the season 🙂

I have finished the top of my duvet cover…..TA DA!!

My mom sent me a package in the mail for the kids. She made my daughter a new outfit…..TA DA!!

I have been sewing some faux fur vests. One for me and one for Abby here is a sneak peek…

 

 

Homemade Donuts

Homemade Donuts

• Servings: 6-8
• Time: 2 hrs
• Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients:

• 5 cups of flour
• 1 1/2 tsp of salt
• 4 tsp of instant rapid rise yeast
• 1/4 cup of sugar
• 1 tsp of freshly ground nutmeg(optional) do not use regular ground nutmeg if you must then just use 1/4 tsp
• 2 cups of scalded milk
• 5 tbsp of vegetable shortening

Directions:

Combine dry ingredients together. Whisk to incorporate.

In a small saucepan combine your milk and vegetable shortening and bring to a simmer (scald). Once your vegetable shortening has melted, turn off the heat. Let the milk cool down to lukewarm. Make sure your milk mixture is not to hot or you will kill the yeast and the dough will not rise. (around 100 degrees F)

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a dough hook for 10 minutes or so. This is a very wet dough but the dough should clear the sides of your mixer. If the dough does not clear the sides of the bowl and is still very wet then keep adding more flour 1/4 cup at a time, until you get the right consistency. If you do not have a mixer and are kneading by hand this high hydration dough needs to be mixed by the stretch and fold method. You can watch Peter Reinhardt explain this technique. Use pam instead of olive oil as Peter does since we are making a dessert dough olive oil will be …well just weird 🙂 That all said and done this dough is not an 80 %  hydration dough and it is not quite regular bread dough (60%). Without doing the baker’s math right now I am going to guess-timate it to be around 68%  It should feel slightly tacky when you are done with the kneading.

Alright leave the dough rise for an hour in a greased bowl and cover the dough. I put plastic wrap right over my dough loosely then a tea towel on top of the bowl. The reason I do this is to prevent any of the dough from loosing moisture and developing a skin on top. After an hour take your dough and roll it out into a big rectangle approx 1/2 inch thick. Use two different size cookie cutters and start cutting out your donuts and holes 🙂

I also fried the donut holes and sprinkled them with powdered sugar when they come out. Yum. As you can see I also left some whole and piped in some jelly and lemon curd then dusted those with icing sugar as well.

Ok once all your donuts are cut out let them rise again till double in size.

In the meantime take out your fryer if you have one or else put vegetable oil in a heavy large pot, (dutch ovens work great). When you are ready to start cooking heat your oil to 375 degrees F.

Place 4 donuts (or however many will fit without overcrowding) If you overcrowd the donuts in the hot oil this will bring the temperature down drastically and your dough will absorb the oil and become greasy and heavy YUCK. So just a few at a time. The donuts will cook 1 min per side. Then let them cool on a wire rack.

The next step is the best step. Dip your donuts in whatever concoction suits your fancy or sprinkle with sugar, coconut etc. AND EAT!! YUM

I just used a little milk, icing sugar and few drops of vanilla extract to make my glaze. The chocolate glaze started off like the clear + chocolate chips and a pat of butter whisked over a double broiler until silky and shiny.

Crème Brûlée

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And yet another addition to my kitchen………

I got this from Amazon.com the reviews were great for this model and this butane in bulk was a great deal.

To make the best crème brûlée I also bought some vanilla beans.

• Servings: six
• Time: five hours (including chill time)
• Difficulty: moderate
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Ingredients:

• 4 cups of heavy cream
• 1 vanilla bean  (split and scrape the seeds out)
• 3/4 cup of sugar
• 12 egg yolks
• pinch of salt

Directions:

Heat 2 cups of  cream in heavy saucepan with vanilla seeds, sugar and salt till lightly boiling. Take off heat and let steep while you whisk the rest of the ingredients.

Whisk the egg yolks with the remaining cream till uniform.  Temper your egg mixture into the hot cream till you fully combine the two mixtures. The custard should be very smooth. If not strain through a fine mesh strainer before dividing mixture evenly amongst 8 ramekins.

The ramekins will sit inside a baking dish water bath. Prep your baking dish by putting tea towel on the bottom of the dish (prevents your ramekins from slipping around when you go to place in/out of the oven.) Or this is a great set for crème brûlée

Once your ramekins are in the baking dish pour hot water in dish till it reaches 2/3 up the sides of the ramekins. Careful not to get water into the custard.

Place in 300 degree oven for 35-40 min till your custard has set up (should be just a bit jiggly in the middle) it will continue to cook a bit as it cools.  Cool completely at room temperature then place in the fridge to get chilled for 4 hours.

When ready to serve sprinkle 2 tsp of sugar over top the crème brûlée and use a kitchen torch to caramalize the sugar. Let sugar harden for 1 min then serve.

Dog Cape Pattern Making Tutorial

Scooby Snack rating:

  This is fairly easy but I wouldn’t go more than sipping two……. until you finished the measuring and constructing of the pattern 😉 😉 The rest is easy peasy and soooo much fun!!

Supplies for Constructing your Pattern

• french rulers if you have any sort of curved rulers (or you can use measuring tape turned on its side to mark a curve)
• straight ruler
• pencils, erasers, pens
• constructing paper for the pattern of your choice

Supplies for Making the Pattern

• sewing machine, thread, needles, pins, scissors, seam ripper
• fabric ….the amount will obviously depend on the size of your dog. Lu-Lu is small so I think I used only about a quarter yard of fabric or so maybe a third and I had scraps for the ruffle.
• buttons, and or velcro

Measurements and Constructing the Pattern:

Basically the shape we are going for is a bib but we will take some measurements for some guidelines:

• Circumference of neck+ 1 inch for overlapping (Lu-Lu was 12+1=13
• 
• Length down the back from neck to rump or how ever long you want your doggie cape to be (Lu-Lu was 10 inches)
• 
• Mid back down the side of the dog for the width of the cape (not to wide we don’t want our furry friends tripping on it) This was 5 inches for me.
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Take some constructing paper of your choice that will be big enough to hold pattern for your size dog.  You will need a pencil, eraser, straight ruler and french ruler if you have it. Draw a single line down the center of the paper lightly with a pencil.

Decide how thick you want the material to be across the breast bone of your dog I decided on 3 inches for Lu-Lu.

 

Take your mid back measurement and draw the outer edge of your cape. Place this mark about 8 inches down from the top of the collar. Lightly mark this line in pencil.

Take  your neck measurement which mine was 13 and divide that by 2 so 6.5 I need to draw the curvature of our neck “cape” (aka bib) if you have a curved ruler than use that to form the gentle curve ending with 90 angle on the fold. You can also stand a measuring tape on its edge and flesh out a curve that way as well.

From your 90 degree angle measure down your magic number and draw a straight line until you get to the length you decided on mine was 10 inches.

You should now have the pattern fleshed out pretty well. You can have a curved edge on the bottom of the cape or you can leave it square. You’re the designer,  go crazy!

Don’t forget to add seam allowances to your pattern.

In addition to this basic shape we now have to make the tabs to secure our cape around the girth of the dog. I like the tabs fairly thick. I made mine 3 inches wide and I just made them approximately 4 inches long + 1/2 inch seam allowances (so 4×5 in this picture).

I adhered them to the sides of the cape and did “a fitting” on my dog overlapping them by 1 inch for the velcro to attach. I marked with chalk where this would be and cut off the access length off the tabs.

Now that you have your very own “doggy slopper” you can take these basic dimensions and design different styles, different neckline treatments (collars, hoodies etc)

I choose to use some bias tape I made to cover my raw edges for the neck.

I choose to add a full ruffle around the perimeter of the cape and top stitch it. The ruffles I ran through my serger with a rolled hem in a contrasting color for fun.

You can use velcro for the closure on the breast bone but I love the buttons I think it is more stylish with these big pink buttons!

 

And here is my dog modeling her new “digs” !