Final Product: Thumbprint Cookies

I got 25 cookies from the recipe. They are like jewels. See previous post for recipe.

Evelyn Cera's Thumbprint Cookies Recipe

I made these this morning...I chopped up the walnuts in the food processor attachment that my blender has. Worked like a charm.
See the bowl of nuts, the bowl with the egg white?
I made 25 balls from this recipe and laid them on a cookie sheet. Then I took each one and dipped it in the beaten egg white and then rolled them in the nuts. It is kind of tricky to do this without getting lots of egg white and nuts sticking to your fingers. Half way through, you have to take abreak and wash your hands and start over. Then you press your thum into the middle of each unbaked cookie.


Evelyn Cera's Thumbprint Cookies
(Do read recipe thoroughly first)

1/2 cup butter, softened at room temperature
1/4 cup brown sugar, packed
1 egg, separated
1/2 teasp. vanilla
1 cup flour
1/4 teasp. salt (optional..usually there is enough salt in the butter)
3/4 cup finely chopped walnuts

350 degree oven

Cream butter and sugar together. Add egg yolk and vanilla. Add dry ingredients. Roll into balls (teaspoon size). Beat egg white until frothy in small bowl. Dip ball in egg white, roll in nuts. Place cookie balls 1 inch apart on ungreased cookie sheet. Press thumb gently into middle of each cookie before baking. Bake 10-12 min. or until set. Cool, fill with jam (use the tip of a teaspoon to spoon your jam into indentation) or candied cherries. (sometimes, you have to make the indentation with your thumb a little deeper after they are out of oven...because they puff up a bit and lose their indentatation somewhat.) Joan likes to use 2 kinds of jam: Strawberry jam (red for christmas)...and apricot pineapple jam (Makes cookies look like golden jewels) These cookies, with 2 dif colored centers look so good on a plate. If you use candied cherries, just one or one half in the center of the cookie is fine. The nuts on the outside and fruit-y center give good contrast to the tender melt in your mouth body of the cookie. Joan's all time favorite Christmas cookie.

What I Did While I Was Snowed In

I promised Larissa I would experiment and make tamales to see if I could maybe make them for our Xmas Eve dinner. Our tradition the last few years has been to have tamales on Xmas Eve. I lately found out that the traditional tamales that we buy every year from the Mexican restaurants, have 1 and 1/2 cups lard per 5 cups of masa. I went on the Internet and found a recipe that substitutes ricotta cheese
and a bit of canola oil for the lard.
This was my first time ever making tamales. I made vegetarian tamales
with a filling of black bean, butternut squash and goat cheese. I also made some with shredded turkey meat and diced green chilis. They needed to be steamed one hour. Our house smelled so good.

What I learned:
Make your ties twice as long (by tying 2 together with a square not)
and ahead of time so you can easily wrap and tie each tamale.

Soak more than enough corn husks to make sure you have enough good ones...some rip in the middle as you handle them, some are too small.

Take a break now and then from the busywork or you will get tense back muscles.

Making tamales is not for whimps!
Here is the recipe I used:
Squash, Black Bean & Goat Cheese Tamales
Makes 16 tamales
Ingredients
4 ounces dried cornhusks (see Note)

Batter
1 ¾ cups masa (see Note)
1 ¼ cups hot water
1 ½ cups part-skim ricotta cheese
¼ cup canola oil
2 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoons salt
2 cups quick-cooking grits or cornmeal
½-¾ cup vegetable broth or reduced-sodium chicken broth

Filling
20 ounces frozen winter squash, thawed (about 2 cups; see Tip)
1 15-ounce can black beans, rinsed
1 4-ounce can chopped green chiles, drained
¾ teaspoon salt
¾ cup crumbled goat cheese


Squash, Black Bean & Goat Cheese Tamales Instructions

1. To prepare wrappers: Place cornhusks in a large bowl, cover with hot water and weight with a heavy plate or pan to completely submerge them. Let soak for 30 minutes.

2. To prepare batter: Put masa and 1 1/4 cups hot water in a large bowl; stir with a wooden spoon until a soft dough forms. Beat ricotta, oil, baking powder and salt in another large bowl with an electric mixer on medium-high speed for 2 minutes. Reduce speed to low. Add grits (or cornmeal) and mix until combined. Add the ricotta mixture to the masa mixture and stir until smooth. Stir in broth 1/4 cup at a time until the batter is very moist and spreadable, but not runny.

3. To prepare filling: Place squash puree in a fine-mesh sieve and gently press on it to extract excess liquid. Transfer to a medium bowl and add beans, chiles and salt; stir until combined.

4. To assemble tamales: Drain the cornhusks and pat dry. Sort through and pick out 16 large, unblemished husks to use as wrappers. Cut about 2 dozen thin, long strips from the remaining husks to use as ties (or use kitchen string instead). Cover the husks and ties with a damp towel to keep moist.

5. Working on a clean surface, unfold one of the large cornhusks so its completely flat. Spread 1/3 cup of the batter in the center of the husk in a 4-inch square, leaving a wide border at the top and the bottom. Spoon 2 tablespoons of the filling in a thin strip down the length of the batter. Top the filling with 1 rounded teaspoon goat cheese.

6. Bring the two long sides of the cornhusk together, causing the batter to completely surround the fillingbut dont fold the sides over the tamale yet. Fold the cornhusk ends in, then fold the sides around the tamale. If a cornhusk splits while youre folding the tamale, just wrap a second husk right over the first and finish rolling. Tie the tamale closed using a thin strip of cornhusk. Repeat with remaining ingredients to make 15 more tamales. (You may have a little batter and/or filling left over.)

7. To steam tamales: Fill a large Dutch oven with 1 inch of water. Place a steamer basket in the pot and loosely place the tamales upright in the basket. Cover and steam over medium heat for 1 hour. Check the water level periodically and add more boiling water if necessary. The tamales are done when the batter is firm and easily pulls away from the wrapper.

Squash, Black Bean & Goat Cheese Tamales Tips
The batter (Step 2) and filling (Step 3) will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days. Steamed tamales will keep, covered, in the refrigerator for up to 2 days or in the freezer for up to 3 months. Reheat tamales in a steamer or in the microwave on Medium power.

Notes: Cornhusks are traditionally used as tamale wrappers. They are sold dried and need to be reconstituted in water to make them pliable enough for tamales.

Masa is ground dried corn treated with lime, sometimes called masa harina or instant masa mix; it is used for making tamales and tortillas. Masa can be found near the cornmeal or flour and dried cornhusks in the produce department of most well-stocked supermarkets or Mexican grocers; both can be found on amazon.com.

Tip: To make your own squash puree, halve and seed one medium acorn or butternut squash. Place, cut-side down, on a lightly greased baking sheet. Bake in a preheated 375°F oven until soft, about 50 minutes. Cool, then scrape out the flesh with a fork. Or simply use frozen (thawed) or canned squash puree. Find frozen squash puree near other vegetables in the freezer section and canned squash near the canned pumpkin.

Squash, Black Bean & Goat Cheese Tamales Nutrition Information
Per tamale: 232 calories; 7 g fat (3 g sat, 3 g mono); 10 mg cholesterol; 35 g carbohydrate; 8 g protein; 4 g fiber; 612 mg sodium; 130 mg potassium.
Nutrition bonus: Vitamin A (25% daily value), Calcium (15% dv).
2 Carbohydrate Servings
Exchanges: 1 medium-fat meat, 1 fat
http://www.eatingwell.com/recipes/print/index.php?r=2574

Dedicated to Molly 4

The Art of De-Boning.

See the wishbone on the edge of the platter? It takes a few days to really dry it out, if you want 2 kids to make a wish on it.

Since I was doing this turkey so I would have lots of sliced and chunked turkey in the freezer for future meals of urkey sandwiches,turkey burritoes, turkey curry, turkey tetrazini, etc. I had quite a bit of turkey to take off the bones. After your feast on Thanksgiving Day, you are sure to have some leftovers. Sit down, relax and get your crockpot out! Take the meat off the bones and place this meat in storage containers to put in the fridge..Put all the skin, and bones and weird looking pieces of stuff...put it all into the crockpot. Add chopped carrots, celery, onion and a few cloves a garlic and a half a bunch of parsley or more and put water in to almost cover everything. Plug in crockpot and put on high...in a few hours, your mouth will be watering in anticipation of some wonderful broth. After 4 or 5 hours, I strained all the stuff in the crockpot by ppouring it through my colander into a big kettle. After it cooled a little, I put it in big contaer in fridge. Next day, I skim off the fat and make muyself a hot bowl of broth. Yummy. Black pepper and pinch of salt if you wish. You can use this broth for lots of things....

After I strained all the stuff in the crockpot, I put it back in, add more water and put it on low overnight and in the morning I get some more broth. Now that is using the bird down to the last drop!

Dedicated to Molly 3

Are you the kind of Thanksgiving cook who just bring some sliced white turkey breast to the table, or do you present the whole beautiful bird in all its golden splendor, adorned with parsley and maybe cranberries or grape clusters?

When I was doing this I went out and looked for grapes at the store. I thought small clusters of red, green, dark purple grapes would look good nestled in the parsley..plus, you and your guests can nibble on them while you are carving the turkey...I only bought dark purple, the other ones were too expensive...but it would have looked so much better with 3 kinds of grapes. On this picture, there are some loose cranberries in with the dark grapes.

At the end of the day, if you serve this, your kids will know they just had a real authentic Thanksgiving!

Dedicated to Molly 2

Taking a peak in the oven ...almost done. The little pop up thing is up...but I give it more time anyway, just to make sure. Besides, the alloted time is not up yet.
MMMmmmmm.....!!!!!!! Now isn't thismore fun than a boring turkey breast. How are your kids going to know if they prefer a wing, a drumstick, some breast meat, or some really nice tender dark thigh meat??? Kids gotta learn this!

Dedicated to Molly 1

When I heard that Molly is planning to serve just a turkey breast for Thanksgiving, I gave her a little pep talk on how kids need to really think it is Thanksgiving and you do that by bringing the big golden bird to the table for all to see. Afraid of carving it? It is easy...go look on the Internet for instructions. I think it is cool when the dad at the head of the table carves it.

Now here is my story. I bought a turkey that weighed 15 1/2 pounds last Friday and paid $4.03 for it...a Norbest turkey. (Go to norbest.com) I let it that in its wrapper in the fridge for 4 days. I took it out and put it in a clean sink, and unwrapped it, rinsed it, patted it dry with paper towels, preheated my oven to 325 degrees and lowered the rack.(all these instructions were written on the turkey bag itself). I then prepard some carrots, onions and celery to put inside the cavity. I took the giblets (I always throw out the neck) and put them in a pie tin to bake (for the dogs). This is all so easy to do.

Baking a turkey is easier than making scrabbled eggs!

I put it in the oven and didnt' look at it for 2 1nd 1/2 hours. I used a glass 10 x 14 oblong, and when i checked the turkey, the juices were bubbling away almost to the top! So I used a measuring cup and scooped out half of the juices into a bowl. This juice/broth can be used for gravy. By the way, I used no slat at all...did not salt the bird, not even in the cavity. I did not slather the bird with butter.

You can see from the picture that thebird turned nice and golden..I did not even tent it with foil at the beginning like the instructions on the wrapping said to do.

SO...To Review:
1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees.
2. Rinse and pat dry thawed bird
after removing neck and giblets from cavity.
3. Put some chopped carots, celery
and 2 onion halves in bird cavity
(we do this for a nicer smell when it is baking)
4. Put bird in pan (tie legs together with dental floss)and place in oven.
5. Check on it after a few hours and
scoop out any excees liquid so it doesn't overflow.

On the package it tells how many hours for how much bird.
My 15 pound turkey took 4 1/4 hours.

The fun part of Thanksgiving is have kids wander into the kitchen and take a peek in the oven as it gets more and more golden!!!!