Happy Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I am thankful for:

My loving husband

My sweet girls(by girls I meant dogs but you already know that)

My parents

My brother & sisters

My cute little niece, Grace

My good health

My job

My landlord

What are you thankful for this Thanksgiving?

Hope you have a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.

May your stuffing be tasty

May your turkey plump

May your potatoes and gravy

Have never a lump

May your yams be delicious

And your pies take the prize

And may your Thanksgiving dinner

Stay off your thighs!

Thanksgiving Menu

Thanksgiving day is next week and I've got my Thanksgiving menu ready. This year I will be cooking for 3: hubby, his son and myself. Here's what we'll be having:

Soup: French Onion Soup
I usually make this in the crockpot with wine, beef broth, onions and garlic and just let it cook for hours. I will probably make a loaf of bread for the bread & cheese topping.

Salad: Bacon wrapped Shrimp on Mixed Greens with Maple glaze
Shrimp wrapped in bacon, pan fried, serve on mixed greens and drizzle with maple glaze.

Meat: Hickory Smoked Roast Beef
Sirloin tip roast seasoned with cracked black peppercorn and McCormick's Montreal Steak seasoning. Serve with horseradish sauce.

Side Dish: Twice baked Potatoes

Dessert: Cinnamon Apple Walnut Cheesecake
For recipe, click here.

What will you be making this Thanksgiving?

S5

You were probably thinking, S5? What's that? Please allow me to explain...

There is a sandwich shop about 1.5 miles from us that makes very good sandwiches. S5, roast beef on focaccia, is by far our most favorite. Now with the slumping economy lately, it is only wise for us not to order out often or at all. So I have decided to make my own S5.


I don't usually measure out the ingredients, it is really up to your own taste as of how much meat or mayo or greens you would like on your sandwich. Here are the basic ingredients you'll need to make this delicious Roast Beef sandwich on Focaccia:


Focaccia bread, For recipe see here
Roast beef
Blue cheese dressing (I use Marie's premium blue cheese dressing or you could use garlic mayo or tomato basil aioli)
Crispy fried onions (Pioneer Woman has a great recipe here)
Crumble blue cheese
Mesclun mix or any kind of mixed greens (I like Dole's Spring mix)
Salt & Pepper to taste

To assemble:
1) Slice the focaccia in half and spread the top half with blue cheese dressing or garlic mayo.

2) Arrange roast beef on the bottom half of the focaccia. Top with mixed greens, crispy fried onion and crumble blue cheese.

3) Season with salt and pepper and enjoy!

Focaccia Anyone?

I have been wanting to make some focaccia for a while now and I finally got around to doing that this past weekend. I found this recipe from Epicurious.com. The recipe makes two 9x13 focaccia but I only made one, so I only used 1/2 the ingredients. I made the Parmesan Focaccia to go with our Flank Steak dinner.


Thyme Focaccia and Parmesan Focaccia


Ingredients:
Two 1/4-ounce packages (5 teaspoons) active dry yeast
1 teaspoon sugar
2 cups warm water (105°‐115° F.)
1 tablespoon table salt
about 5 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons minced fresh thyme leaves
2 tablespoons cornmeal
1/2 cup coarsely grated Parmesan
coarse salt for sprinkling
freshly ground black pepper for sprinkling


Instructions:
In a standing electric mixer fitted with paddle attachment beat together yeast, sugar, and water and let stand 5 minutes, or until foamy. In a bowl stir together table salt and 5 cups flour. Stir oil into yeast mixture. With motor on low speed, gradually add flour mixture to yeast mixture. With dough hook knead dough 2 minutes, or until soft and slightly sticky.
Transfer dough to a floured surface and knead in enough remaining flour to form a soft but not sticky dough. Form dough into a ball and put in an oiled large bowl, turning to coat. Cover bowl with a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 45 minutes.
Transfer dough to a lightly floured surface and divide in half. Knead thyme into one half and knead plain half 1 minute. Form each half into an oval and invert bowl over them. Let dough rest 5 minutes for easier rolling.
Preheat oven to 450° F.
Oil two 13- by 9-inch baking pans and sprinkle each with 1 tablespoon cornmeal. On lightly floured surface with a floured rolling pin roll out dough halves into 13- by 9-inch rectangles and fit into pans. Cover each pan with a kitchen towel and let dough rise in a warm place until doubled in bulk, about 20 minutes.
Sprinkle plain dough with Parmesan and sprinkle both doughs with coarse salt and pepper. With lightly oiled fingertips make indentations, about 1/2 inch deep and 1 inch apart, all over dough rectangles and bake in middle of oven 12 minutes, or until golden. Remove focaccia from pans and cool on racks.

Coming up next: Roast beef sandwich on Focaccia

Dear God...From Dog

Just wanted to share with you this cute little email from my friend.

TO: GOD
FROM: THE DOG

Dear God: Is it on purpose our names are the same, only reversed?

Dear God: Why do humans smell the flowers, but seldom, if ever, smell one another?

Dear God: When we get to heaven, can we sit on your couch? Or is it still the same old story?

Dear God: Why are there cars named after the jaguar, the cou gar, the mus tang, the colt, the stingray, and the rabbit, but not ONE named for a Dog? How often do you see a cougar riding around? We do love a nice ride! Would it be so hard to rename the 'Chrysler Eagle' to 'Chrysler Beagle'? (This one is my favorite!)

Dear God: If a Dog barks his head off in the forest and no human hears him, is he still a bad Dog?

Dear God: We Dogs can understand human verbal instructions, hand signals, whistles, horns, clickers, beepers, scent ID's, electromagnetic energy fields, and Frisbee flight paths. What do humans understand?

Dear God: More meatballs, less spaghetti, please.

Dear God: Are there mailmen in Heaven? If there are , will I have to apologize?

Dear God: Let me give you a list of just some of the things I must remember to be a good Dog.
1. I will not eat the cats' food before they eat it or after they throw it up.
2. I will not roll on dead seagulls, fish, crabs, etc., just because I like the way they smell.
3. The Litter Box is not a cookie jar.
4.The sofa is not a "face towel".
5. The garbage collector is not stealing our stuff..
6. I will not play tug-of-war with Dad's underwear when he's on the toilet.
7. Sticking my nose into someone's crotch is an unacceptable way of saying 'hello'.
8. I don't need to suddenly stand straight up when I'm under the coffee table .
9. I must shake the rainwater out of my fur before entering the house - not after.
10. I will not come in from outside and immediately drag my butt.
11. I will not sit in the middle of the living room and lick my crotch.
12. The cat is not a 'squeaky toy' so when I play with him and he makes that noise, it's usually not a good thing.

P.S. Dear God: When I get to Heaven may I have my testicles back?

'Until one has loved an animal, part of their soul remains unawakened!

Happy Halloween!

Boo!
Have a save and happy Halloween!

Cinnamon Apple Walnut Cheesecake

Are you still drooling from the Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Cake post? If you are, you can still keep drooling for this next one: Cinnamon Apple Walnut Cheesecake.

This recipe was adapted from Kraftfoods Apple Pecan Cheesecake. Their recipe makes a 13 x 9 cheesecake with graham cracker crust and uses sour cream in the cheesecake. I didn't want to make such a big cheesecake and I wanted to try a different crust, so I changed a few things in the recipe. The picture below was from Kraftfoods site:

Ingredients:
1¾ cups ginger snaps crumbs
½ cup melted butter
2 tablespoons sugar
or you could use a pre-made graham cracker crust(which I usually do)

2 pkg cream cheese, 8oz each
½ cup sugar
½ tsp vanilla
2 eggs

1 big apple or 2 med apple, peeled, cored & chopped into little chucks, about 1 – 1½ cup
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Instructions:
1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Line a 9” round cake pan or pie pan with foil. Mix ginger snaps crumbs, butter & sugar and press in the bottom of pan. Bake for 10 minutes, remove from oven and cool.
2) In a large mixing bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until well blended. Add eggs, 1 at a time, mix until blended. Be sure to scrape sides of bowl after each egg addition.
3) Pour cream cheese mixture into crust and set side.
4) Mix apple chunks, brown sugar and cinnamon. Sprinkle apple mixture onto cream cheese mixture. Some of the apple chunks will drop in the cream cheese mixture but that’s ok. The remaining will stay on top of the cream cheese mixture. Bake for 25-30 minutes. Remove from oven and cool. Refrigerate for at least 4 hours before serving. (Trust me, it’s better cold. We couldn’t wait to try it, so we tried a small piece within 2 hours after it was baked, it was still a little warm and I did not like it warm.)

Note: The girls gave their paws up for this cheesecake. :-)