Tropicalsenior

As expected, our Thanksgiving ran pretty much as true to form. You all thought I was kidding about the turkey and I now have the pictures to prove it. Whole turkey cooked. Close up of the cooked breast. Sliced turkey, quite dry but somehow it was head and shoulders better than turkeys from the previous years. Kabobs ready to go on the fire. In the process of cooking. Kabobs from my plate. Ground lamb, absolutely delicious, in the middle and Chicken on either side. Hamid explained the theory of cooking meat in Persia and the custom of overcooking is a cultural thing that predates the Islamic religion. Originally the Persians were vegetarians and when it became necessary to add meat to their diet there was always a danger of contamination so that they felt that the only proper way to cook meat was in the fire and to be sure that it was overcooked to prevent the diseases of that time. The process goes back 3,000 years. And as expected, Teresa's ham was delicious. The spaghetti salad brought by another guest.. not so much. Hamid's wonderful chicken Olivier salad that is served every year. Roasted potatoes. And they were probably five or six other dishes that I didn't get a picture of. My first plate. Dressing and gravy at 1:00, turkey at 5:00, butternut squash at 7:00, ham at 10:00, potato at 11:00, and I haven't the foggiest notion what the dish was that is at 12:00 but it was delicious. Some sort of beef, I think. Two of the tables for the appetizers and I didn't get a picture of the desserts nor was I in any condition to eat any of them. Two of the smaller guests at the party. The Doberman is an absolute sweetheart and the cat is an attack cat. I have the scars to prove it. She hates everybody. The guests were all terrific company. We had people from Venezuela, Columbia, Costa Rica, and Japan. And that was just one family. There were also people from Iran, Turkey, Canada, Argentina, and the United States. It was a wonderful Thanksgiving.

When are they ever going to give us a drool button?

Welcome back!

I have a recipe for a good, sweet homemade mustard that is terrific with ham. You've inspired me to try some maple syrup in it for some of the sweetener. Thank you.

That sounds like the good old family reunions that our family always had in the summertime. Does your family only do this once a year or is it a fairly regular occurrence.

Those Burgers look perfect and a hard act to follow. Since Carlos can't go with my friend Lenora and me to Thanksgiving at a friend's house, I decided to have a mini Thanksgiving dinner early. Roast chicken. Served with mashed potatoes with sour cream and Dill, roasted cauliflower with a mayonnaise sour cream cheese sauce, dressing, gravy, and homemade bread. My plate. Not terribly photogenic but it sure was good.

Maybe not funny food but certainly funny food ideas. Down here I have seen a bin of lettuce labeled cholesterol free and packages of steaks labeled gluten-free. Anything to charge more money.

I've been wondering about the same thing. After all, there is a science to baking cakes. Everything depends on specific proportions, the type of leavening agent for specific ingredients, and the size of the pan for support of the cake. The problem then is, which element do you reduce with the addition of the jam. Do you reduce the sugar element because jam has sugar? Jam has moisture. Which moisture element do you reduce? How will that jam affect the leavening agent? All of these have to be taken into consideration and I'm sure that a good food scientist could tell at a glance what to do. Unfortunately, I could only do it by trial and error. I can usually tell by looking at a recipe if it is totally out of proportion and it seemed to me that that grapefruit cake had too much moisture. And I almost always read the comments to see if people have had problems. But by reading the comments on that cake, there were people that seemed to have made it and liked it. Maybe their idea of a good cake is just completely different than mine.

It's a good thing that you don't live in Costa Rica. I find all kinds of things in my freezers. In fact, come to think of it, I found my car keys there one time.

Thank you. I remember it well and we had a lot of wonderful and different types of entries. @billyhill's is as good as anything on those pages.

Absolutely gorgeous and you've got that little puffy bubble that makes the crust so good. I had to go to Google and I found out that I have been making this for years but I just didn't know it was called that.

How much do you make for 100 people?

Happy birthday to your father and I hope that he is doing well and has recovered from his stay in the hospital and the hospital food.

That's exactly my feeling. When my husband was alive we had a lot of large dinner parties here in Costa Rica usually anywhere from 20 to 35 people. One Thanksgiving we counted and with 30 guests we had 11 countries represented. Sometimes it looked like a meeting of the United Nations. One of my guests said that she always enjoyed coming to our house because the company was so congenial. I told her that that was because we only invited people that we liked.

Wow! And I've been complaining about having to pay 75 cents for it here in Costa Rica and sometimes the heads are huge. Last year I was paying about 40 cents.

Just posted it. I have the same problem you do with jelly. I see it it looks good and I buy it but I never use it. I also make pretty good size batches of orange marmalade and it just sits there. I make my own Greek yogurt or more properly Labneh and I mix it into that for breakfast. I also like to make kolache but I lost my good recipe and I haven't found one I really like since. I did use my orange marmalade in a recipe that I found for Chinese orange chicken. Probably one of the worst things that I have ever made in my life

Cinnamon Apple Cake 1 3/4 cups sugar, divided 1/2 cup stick butter, softened 1 teaspoon vanilla extract 6 oz block-style fat-free cream cheese, softened(about 3/4 cup) 2 large eggs 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder 1/4 teaspoon salt 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon 3 cups chopped peeled Rome apple (about 2 large) Preheat oven to 350o. Spray 8" springform pan evenly with nonstick spray. Beat 1 1/2 cups sugar, butter, vanilla, and cream cheese at medium speed of a mixer until well-blended (about 4 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition. Combine flour, baking powder, and salt. Add flour mixture to creamed mixture, beating at low speed until blended. Combine 1/4 cup sugar and cinnamon. Combine 2 tablespoons cinnamon mixture and apple in a bowl, and stir apple mixture into batter. Pour batter into prepared pan and sprinkle with remaining cinnamon mixture. Bake at 350o for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until the cake pulls away from the sides of the pan. Cool the cake completely on a wire rack, and cut using a serrated knife. Note: I prefer to use granny smith apples and real butter and bake in a 9" springform pan at 325 for about 1 1/2 hours or until done. I got this from the internet and I wish that I could get them credit but I have no idea who it was. My notes I cut the recipe in half and baked it in an 8x8 glass dish at 325°. I started testing at 35 minutes and I think I took it out at 45. I mixed it it just as they say and thoroughly creamed the butter, sugar, and cream cheese. I plan to try this with other fruits and the next one will probably be with mandarin orange. I will update as I go along.

Thanksgiving leftovers before Thanksgiving?

I just read the rules and proportions for pound cake and it sounds like this one has way too much moisture. Thank you for letting me know how yours turned out.

That sounds exactly what I have been looking for. I would be very interested to know how it turns out. Please let me know. I made a cinnamon apple cake the other day that, although not designated a pound cake, was one of the lightest, finest textured cakes that I have ever made. I'm going to be trying it with other fruits, notably grapefruit or orange to see if the results are as good. Let me know if you would like the recipe and I will put it in Recipe Gullet. I used half of the recipe and it made an 8x8 cake, just perfect for two people.

You think you're dying? I can't find anything like that here nor can I order it. If Steve keeps showing us things like this, I'm going to have to bury my phone in rice to dry it out.

I found this site when I was researching things to make for a friend that is diabetic. There are some really good looking things on this.

That bread looks wonderful. Is it something you make? If so, would you share a recipe?

I've got to tell you what my Thanksgiving is going to be like. For the last 10 years, I have been having Thanksgiving dinner at my friend, Teresa's house. (I always had mine on Sunday here in Costa Rica because, of course, it is not a holiday here and more people could attend). Teresa's husband is originally from Iran so some of the dishes are a bit different then what we usually think of as Thanksgiving fare. There will be about 15 to 20 people there from The States, all over Latin America and from the Middle East. Everyone will be bringing something. Teresa is cooking a big ham, her husband, Mike, will be making chicken kabobs, and their friend, Hamid, an Iranian chef will again massacre the turkey. Hamid will cook it at his restaurant until it is a falling apart carcass after which he will bring it to their house and reheat it for another hour to an hour and a half in their oven. Turkey jerky anyone? Mike will cook the kabobs on their barbecue and his idea of cooking is, if it is brown it is cooking, if it is black it is done. Teresa's ham will be delicious. Because the idea of some of our traditional Thanksgiving dishes are a bit difficult for Latin Americans to grasp, the state of the other dishes is always interesting. One year the mashed potatoes were the consistency of gravy and the gravy was the consistency of mashed potatoes. This year I will be contributing the mashed potatoes, gravy and dressing. The food is almost always a disaster but the company is so interesting and so congenial that the party is always a big success. No drunks, no politics, no fights, and hosts so lovable and generous that we come back for that turkey year after year.

Where do you live in Columbia? The best empanadas that I have ever had in my life were the little meat empanadas from Cartageña. I do hope that you will be sharing some of your recipes from Columbia. There are so many things there that are completely unique from other Latin countries. If you would like an idea of what we on eG are doing in our daily lives for food one of the most popular topics is Dinner 2022. And if you have questions about ingredients or preparation, just ask. We are all willing to help.