I like to watch the Food Network cook shows.  The above goat cheese rolls look kind of festive.  One of the rolls is rolled in dill and the other one is rolled in cranberries and pistachios.  The recipe is from the Pioneer Woman, Ree Drummond.  I don’t particulary like goat cheese.  The French call it Chevre or something like that.  But it just has a taste that I have not acquired the taste for.

On the same episode of the Pioneer Woman, Ree had pomegranate juice and Champagne that also looked festive.  The recipes are all on the Food network website.  I love pomegranate juice and I love Champagne.  What’s not to like?   Yum.

I have read that tumeric is supposed to be very good for you.  The above smoothie sounds like it would be tasty as well as healthy.

Avon has the above 80 mini lipsticks for $30.00.  These lipsticks are on Oprah’s Favorite Things list this year.  It’s like a sample of all of Avon’s lipsticks I think.  Kind of neat.  I like Avon and sold it a couple of times as an Avon Representative.   I had a sister in law that bought a lot of it and a bunch of girls at work that bought a lot of it.  The problem was that I was my own best customer.

I like Butternut Squash soup.   A really easy recipe that I made up is just using that frozen butternut squash that comes in a little square block.  I put half a cup of milk and half a cup of chicken broth in a saucepan with the frozen squash.   Then I just add a little apple sauce and a little maple syrup.  Stir it over medium heat and it’s really delicious.  Melt a pad of butter over it and salt and pepper to taste.

I’ve never seen that Keller’s butter in the grocery stores around here, but what a neat idea for the Thanksgiving table to have the turkey butter sculpture.  I love it.

This morning on the food network Damaris Phillips made Pumpkin Brulee.   Instead of regular sugar for the brulee part, she used brown sugar.  Sounds good to me.  I pinned the recipe on my Thanksgiving ideas board on my Pinterest.  I would like to get one of those little cooking torches that they use to make brulee.

 

Today on the Food network, Ina Garten made stuffed mushrooms.  She used Marlo Wine and Sweet Italian Sausage and shallots for a few of the ingredients.  They sounded really good and I pinned the recipe on my Thanksgiving ideas board on my Pinterest but the recipe is also on the food network website.  You just go to the TV schedule and all the programs that were on Saturday, Nov. 18 are there with the recipes from one of her shows.  She has a couple of episodes there.

Ina Garten made place settings from pumpkin cookies that she bought at Eli’s Bakery on one of her shows today.

King Arthur Flour used to have a really cute pumpkin cookie cutter that would work good for that.

One year I had the whole family over for Thanksgiving and I made my own place settings.  I found the format for the place setting online and used the photo center online from Walmart to print out 4X6 photos of it and then just folded them in half and wrote names on them.  I surprised myself on how cute they turned out.

In Maine they have a lot of whoopie pies and my brother and his wife live in New Hampshire right on the border of Maine.  His wife makes him the above whoopie pies in the Fall and he loves them.  I put several recipes for the pumpkin whoopie pies on my pinterest under Fall recipes.  The recipe with the maple cream cheese frosting sounds really good.

Today on the Pioneer Woman show on Food Network, Ree made Giblet Turkey Gravy.  I can’t make gravy anyways and I hate that horrible bag that is always in the frozen Turkey that they call giblets.  But all she did was boil those giblets for 30 minutes and it looked like pieces of turkey in the gravy.  I don’t know.  It doesn’t look all that complicated when they show how to make the gravy but it just is not that easy to me.  They use the turkey drippings and a little flour to make a rue.  Then they add a couple of cups of chicken broth and stir it to make gravy.

I noticed that the important part of roasting a turkey is to let it rest for about 20 minutes before carving it.  I noticed that they do several different ways of preparing the turkey such as dry rubs, brining and herb butter under the skin as well as rubbing the butter all over the skin.   Then they stuff the cavity with lemon, onions and garlic and all kinds of herbs instead of stuffing.  The temperature has to be 160 degrees when the turkey is done.  Also a frozen turkey has to be thawed in the refrigerator on the lowest shelf with a sheet pan under it for one day for every 4 lbs the turkey weighs.

I watch so many cook shows.  And I’ve seen a ton of ways that a turkey is prepared.  Most of them baste the turkey quite a bit during roasting.  I love roast turkey.  And then the leftovers.  Nothing like a turkey sandwich or Leftover Turkey Tetrazzini.

And that’s my thoughts for today.  Have a nice weekend.