Holiday Cooking - Day 1

So here I am on my holiday cooking adventure. I'm breaking it down into what I can cook ahead so I will have more time to spend with my family and friends and NOT in my kitchen scrubbing pots and pans.

Day 1- make the cranberry chutney- done

Granted recipes are only a suggestion...and this one was just that-a suggestion. I added more sugar, more cinnamon and I added an extra ingredient-ginger. Talk about a wonderful condiment for "leftover turkey" sandwich! The cranberry compote is sweet and tangy...I want to share it with all of my friends! It is seriously YUMMY!!!!

So here is my version of a cranberry chutney of sorts...
2 cups granulated sugar
1 red onion minced
2 granny smith apples peeled and cored-shopped
2 pears (yes a pair of pears) peeled, cored and chopped
3 tsp cinnamon
1tsp ground ginger
½ cup fresh squeezed orange juice
½ cup apple cinder vinegar
2 -12 ounce packages of fresh cranberries
2 TBS olive oil

heat large skillet, put in oil add minced onions saute for 3 minutes. Add orange juice, apple cider vinegar sugar and spices, cook for 3 minutes more. Add in chopped apple and pear cook for an additional 15 minutes or until the fruit breaks down and the sauce is thickened.

This should keep for about 5 days- but I doubt highly that there will be anything left after Thursday afternoon.

Holiday Menu Planning

I can hardly believe how quickly this month is going by. I look at the calendar and another week has gone by. Yesterday I realized that Thanksgiving is on the 22nd-yikes! We're having guests this year and needless to say I am thrilled! My girlfriend Susan and her family are going to stay with us for the 4 day Turkey Day weekend. I want to make her visit here a memorable one...in a good way, LOL! So here I am planning out a menu for each day. I've got all sorts of things I want to cook and each of them I look at as "comfort foods". I want my friend and her family to feel relaxed and to enjoy their time here with us. I'll have all sorts of things made in advance in preparation for Thanksgiving Day. I'm going to have the desserts made and some of the side dishes made in advance too. I want to spend quality time with my best friend -it's been over a year since we last got to visit with one another.

I've got to plan out breakfast for every day...something yummy. Waffles, kids always love to eat waffles. Then there's Susan's tried and true recipe for a warm you up breakfast casserole that is just delightful! Now to sift through all of my recipe books and get grocery lists made!

Parchment Paper or heat resistant Silicone Mat?

For years I have used parchment paper for lining cookie sheets, cake pans and spring form pans. I had thought about getting myself a couple of sil-pat liners for years but to be perfectly honest, the cost was holding me back. Sil-Pat is a brand name and it's made from woven fiber glass with a silicone coating. There are silicone baking mats made by many different companies. The silicone mats that I happen to own are made by Wilton. They're fine to use for cookies but they (the mats) do become stained from the oils and fats (it's the butter) in the cookies. This kind of stain is permanent. I've long wondered about the silicone mats retaining residues and if they would effect other items being baked on them in the future. Well guess what...my beloved Cooks Illustrated did a comparison on parchment paper and silicone mats and guess what- my suspicions were right. Silicone mats do retain residues and it does effect the taste of other items being backed on them. For me...my silicone baking mats are only used for cookies, nothing else. But I know many others who use them for everything from fish fillets to baked sweet potatoes. Parchment paper came out #1 in this product test by Cooks Illustrated magazine.
I recently stocked up on more parchment paper at the commissary. Hey that 75¢ coupon brought the price of a roll down to $1.10 and between you and me, that's a horrifically GOOD price! Especially since a box of parchment paper generally sells in the $5 to $7 price range depending upon where you buy it. And there's always something about the winter holiday season that pushes up the cost...as if people don't bake during any other time of the year, LOL!

Baking pans and Cookie sheets

The October issue of Cooks Illustrated is wonderful! And the December issue is fantastic! I've been on the fence for quite a while about changing out my baking pans/cookie sheets (again). Have you ever heard that "twang" in you oven when you put a baking pan in with fish fillets or cookies on it? Well that's the pan...warping from the heat. I also get it when I pull it out of the oven and rest it on the cool stove top "twang" that's the heat leaving it I suppose. What ever it is, it bugs me to no end. I had switched over to using Wilton cookie sheets and jelly roll pans and I paid plenty for the Wilton name...those pans did the same thing as the cheapo pans from Wal-Mart and Target. Well I read the review in the December issue of Cooks Illustrated on baking pans...WOW! They review quite a few and lets just say I was surprised by it. The funny thing is...just a few hours earlier (that same day) I almost bought a heavy duty jelly roll pan from my local Kitchen Store- one for $22, YIKES! I hemmed and hawed on it and decided against it. Bought the magazine and said WOW, glad I didn't buy that pan. What I did so is to go to my local Sam's Club and check out what they had in their professional line...I was able to get a set of 2 heavy duty 15x20 jelly roll pans for a little over $10, for the set! I used my pans last night for the first time and am I ever happy with my purchase! No warping, no funky sounds coming from my oven from the pan twisting and turning in the heat. Everything cooked up evenly and to a crispy golden brown. Those Wilton pans of mine...off to the Thrift Shop they go!

Cooking Magazines...

Do you subscribe to any "cooking" magazines? I love to try new recipes or recipes that have a different spin on a traditional favorite. I like Southern Living magazine for it's unique recipes- heck I'll buy almost any recipe book created by Southern Living (yes I think that their recipes are that good). But I also like to get a couple other magazines that deal mainly with food. Martha Stewart's Every Day Food is a wonderful publication, lots of great articles and recipes that are out of this world YUMMY! Another publication that I really and truly enjoy reading is "Cooks Illustrated". I've glanced at it a few times but the $5.95 price tag had me putting it back on the shelf. But the other day I was at Lowes and I picked it up and thumbed through it...I was entranced by an article on baking pans ones that do double duty as a cookie sheet or jelly roll pan. I found myszelf a magazine that I couldn't put down. I enjoy the product reviews that they do in this magazine and they go into detail with so many things...oh yeah I am hooked!