Fixin' Supper

Got this recipe last year from my aunt Judy. She is an awesome cook and specializes in things that taste amazing but don’t require much effort.

Orange Ball Candy
1 lb. orange slice candy
7 oz. coconut
2 cans sweetened condensed milk
1 c. chopped nuts
1 t. orange extract
1 t. vanilla extract

Chop the candy into small pieces. This is actually hard because the candy is so sticky. This year I sprayed my knife with cooking spray and it seemed to help somewhat.

Mix all ingredients. Spread in a 9×13 Pyrex dish. Bake at 275 degrees for 45 minutes. The milk will start to caramelize. Remove from the oven, and stir the candy. Let it cool until you can handle it comfortably.

Drop candy by teaspoonfuls onto a plate of powdered sugar. Roll into balls in the sugar. Place on waxed paper and refrigerate. Once the candy firms up a bit, you can stack in layers, separated by wax paper. Store in airtight container in the refrigerator. Not that you’ll be storing it for long.

It happens every year at some point during the holidays. I wake up one morning, typically with no previous plans, and I am seized with the idea that Today We Must Make The Christmas Candy.

Today is that day.

In most years, I make the candy I grew up making:

• Fudge
• Caramel
• Chocolate covered cherries
• Divinity, if the weather is dry

Over the past 10-15 years, I’ve added one or two candies a year to my repertoire. I made chocolate covered cherries last week — delicious and SO worth the effort — but today, I’ve decided to make some newer additions to the rotation.

Coming later today:

• Date balls
• Orange balls [Update: Photo and recipe!]
• Graham cracker bars

Maybe more, we’ll see. I’ll steal Ashby’s camera for pix — mine has been missing for a week and it’s about to kill me. One of the best parts: Ashby just went to the grocery for me. The hardest work is done already!

The big day arrived. It was awesome!

I did make a trip to the store this morning. I decided at the last minute we needed a carrot casserole too. But we didn’t actually have carrots. So I went for those and came back with the fixings for ham rolls. I figured they’d be good later this weekend. More on that as it happens.

The report on the main event: We had 19 guests total. Despite my miscounting the silverware and chairs twice each, everyone ended up with a chair, a plate and a fork. This may have been the most collaborative Thanksgiving we’ve ever done. We had seven cooks involved total.

Highlights:

• Only one dish broken
• Only one, maybe two, dish towels set on fire
• Only one drink spilled

Quote of the day: It’s really been a pretty uneventful year, so far.

Yes, we had way too much dessert, but some of everything was eaten. There is lots left over, but I’m not even contemplating more food yet. Possibly tomorrow.

See more on Flickr, but here’s the cheesecake.

The extravaganza begins here in the early afternoon. Watch for pictures tonight and tomorrow. I’m off to roast the roast, caramelize the caramel for the cheesecake, pie some pumpkins, and possibly casserole up some carrots. Oh, and to direct Ashby on rearranging the furniture to accommodate 18 for a sit-down dinner.

Poor guy. I’m not sure if that’s a good birthday present for him or not.

Happy Thanksgiving!!

If you’ve been reading this blog long at all, you know we’re coming up on The Biggest Holiday Of The Year here on Thursday. Forget your Halloween. Your Fourth of July. Forget Christmas, people. Thanksgiving is the one.

We’ve firmed up the menu. Here’s an update from a couple of weeks ago.

• Fried turkey [From the men's group at church.]
• Roast [Me.]
• Homemade rolls [Nashville aunt]
• Broccoli casserole [Nashville aunt]
• Cornbread dressing [Nashville aunt]
• Green bean casserole [Nashville sister]
• Golden Baked Potatoes [Nashville sister]
• 7 layer salad [Jackson aunt]
• Cranberry sauce [Jackson aunt]
• Hors d’oeuvres [Jackson aunt]
• 2 chocolate chess pies [My mom]
• Mincemeat pie [My mom]
• Pecan pie [My mom]
• Cheesecake [Me]
• Pumpkin pie [Me]

Before you say anything, I already know that’s a ridiculous amount of dessert. Trust me when I say, it will all be gone by Saturday at the latest. The only really crazy item is the pumpkin pie. We only know of one person for sure who will eat it. But the one person is Ashby, and his birthday is Thursday. So, he gets the pie he wants.

You know we don’t do anything small around here. I was just telling the MIL that the other day — she’ll be joining us for the first time for Thanksgiving this year. And she was so nice, saying, hey, please don’t go to any trouble, etc. I just laughed when I read her email — I wrote back and said, Oh, it’s no trouble. And I really don’t think I could do Thanksgiving small. I’ve tried. One year, it was just the 9yo and me for Thanksgiving. So she was probably 4 or 5. And for 2 people, I made enough food for a party of 6-8. I even did a turkey breast instead of a turkey. But still, we had leftovers for days.

This year, we’re having 18 at last count. Respectable, but nowhere as big as we used to have growing up — all my mom’s brothers and their kids would come to our house. And most years, we had a few “extras” as well — other friends or family we’d pick up along the way. [Nowhere to go on turkey day? Let me know. I just warn you, we can be rather overwhelming. And loud. And the after-dinner Scrabble is a match to the death.]

The guest list to date:

• Ashby, me, the 3yo [the 9yo will be with her dad this year]
• Ashby’s mom
• My parents
• Nashville sister and her husband
• Nashville aunt and uncle
• Nashville cousin C and her fiance
• Nashville cousin N and her son
• Murfreesboro cousin [I think.]
• Jackson aunt and uncle
• Whiteville uncle

The menu to date:

• Fried turkey [From the men's group at church.]
• Roast [Me. I haven't decided what recipe yet, though I really loved the one I did last year and apparently failed to blog about. I have no idea how I'll find that recipe again. And you thought I was blogging for you.]
• Homemade rolls [Nashville aunt]
• Broccoli casserole [Nashville aunt]
• Cornbread dressing [Nashville aunt]
• Green bean casserole [Nashville sister]
• Golden Baked Potatoes [Nashville sister]
• Chocolate chess pie [My mom]
• Mincemeat pie [My mom]
• Cheesecake [Me. I blame Twitter.]
• Some other stuff — possibly salad or hors d’oeuvres [Jackson aunt. She and I have to get together.]

Still to be figured out:

• How to sneak a healthy item or two onto the menu
• Who’s bringing the wine besides Nashville aunt [Volunteers for white? We already have lots of red.]
• What we’re having Wednesday night [Odds say it will be spaghetti, though.]
• Who’s cleaning up after dinner while I go for a walk [Don't be the one to point out how little I'm cooking on that menu.]

Hey, you there with the purse and the sticky fingers. Just stop it, will ya? Don’t ever buy candy for Easter, Halloween or Christmas that you personally like. And while you’re at it, put half that back in the first place. Because your kids don’t like candy as much as you do. Except for that one kid. And the other one. And they don’t need to eat it any more than you do.

But when it comes right down to it, for real, buy the c-r-a-p that you don’t like. Starburst, Jelly Bellys, Sour Patch kids. Buy that. Because they’ll eat it and you won’t. Or it will eventually turn to little rocks and you can throw it out with a clear conscience.

But no more chocolate, ever, unless it’s Mounds or Almond Joy, or Butterfinger. Because you don’t like any of those.

You’ll thank me later!

Hugs and kisses,

Yourself

  Chess pie for Easter dinner 

I made a chess pie this morning and I really enjoyed my piece after dinner. Strangely, neither of the kids wanted any. I promise they eat barbecue and grits both — well, at least until the 8yo became a vegetarian last year — but for some reason, I have apparently failed at getting them to appreciate this particular Southern delicacy. I’ll keep working on it.

I got this recipe from my mom. It’s always great.

Chess Pie
2 c. sugar
2 heaping T. flour
1 heaping T. cornmeal
1 stick butter, melted
3 eggs, beaten
1/2 c. buttermilk
2 t. vanilla
1/4 t. lemon extract
Pinch of salt

Combine sugar, flour and meal. Add melted butter. Add eggs, buttermilk, vanilla, salt and lemon extract. Beat until well mixed. Bake in a pie shell at 400 degrees, for 10 minutes. Then lower heat to 350 degrees and bake for 30 minutes. Pie should be golden brown on top, and should jiggle just a little when you shake it — not like water or soup, but not as firm as Jello, either.

I took vacation this week because the 8yo is on spring break. We usually go to Florida to visit my parents on such occasions [free lodging at the beach!!] but this year, she wanted to stay home. For various reasons, it was a good idea to go along. I’m waiting for my mom to call and tell me how it was in the 40s there all week anyway and not to feel bad for missing the beach.

Hmm. She hasn’t called yet.

[Of course, that's probably related to her being in TAMPA with the VANDERBILT COMMODORES. Woo hoo! Pause. I bet the weather sure is nice in Tampa this time of year.]

Nonetheless, I’ve been hanging out with the kiddos all week, but it took until tonight, when I was sitting in the choir loft for the Maundy Thursday service at church, for me to realize: Easter is Sunday.

There is no dinner planned. There are no hidden stashes of candy. There is no Easter grass! Well, I take that last part back. I am now remembering that several years ago, I bought enough Easter grass at a post-Easter sale to keep me in plastic and paper greenery til my children are out of graduate school.

Frankly, I likely would have been better prepared had I worked this week, since I would have overheard other people’s conversations about Easter preparations, thus reminding me to get on the stick, and I would have had a lunch hour to dash over to Target.

Now I am stuck with counting on an almost-3-year-old to not really pay attention when we go to Target on Saturday. Not to notice all the chocolate and trinkets I’m stashing in the cart. Umm, right.

Easter dinner will be easier — no subterfuge required — though it is going to take a lot of brainpower to come up with something that the 8yo picky vegetarian will eat, and that I consider worthy of serving for Easter dinner.

On the bright side, I have been kicking ass and taking names this week when it comes to wedding planning. I have:

• Bought my dress
• Ordered invitations
• Ordered announcements
• Lined up the florist
• Lined up the photographer

Cakes were ordered last week and chapel has been secured for a couple of months. All that’s really left is to figure out what I mean by the "reception" we have invited people to on the invitation. Well, and I have to decide what the kids are wearing. Though we got some ideas about that when we were out at Shopryland today. I just couldn’t be in that place one more minute, after we got the 2yo an Easter outfit and both of them shoes. Well, there was a little more to it than that…but my lack of patience with shopping malls is not a secret. I got out while I still could.

Stay tuned….we’ll see what I come up with. I’m sure I’ll get lots of planning done tomorrow night while the 8yo has a friend over to spend the night.

  It’s not Christmas without it. 

Several years ago, Santa brought the 8yo a chocolate orange. While she was intrigued by the idea that you first banged the candy on the counter before eating it, she declared it to be disgusting.

I ate the whole thing in two sittings, which was kind of disgusting now that I think about it.

I’ve managed to be a bit more restrained in the years since, but I do have to have one every year. I’m halfway through the 2007 chocolate orange.