Turkey Day {aka Thanksgiving}

We have officially begun the holiday season! It is a busy time of year but I am hoping to bake as much as I can over the next few weeks.  I hope all of you had a wonderful Thanksgiving.  Living in Arizona, while the rest of the family is back in Illinois, can be difficult around the holidays.  However, we were still able to carry on most of those traditions including the big Thanksgiving meal.    However before we began a crazy day of cooking we enjoyed a delicious brunch. For brunch I made a Pumpkin French Toast Casserole.  In order to reduce the amount of things that actually had to be baked on Thanksgiving day, I prepared the casserole ahead of time.  The night before, I put together all the ingredients so I could put it in the oven quickly before we began the day.  I was able to wake up at 8:30, pop it in the oven, and enjoy a nice brunch before baking. Here is the recipe for the casserole: http://www.littlespicejar.com/pumpkin-french-toast-casserole/.

Before we began the cooking I went out to my wildflower garden and was able to put together a beautiful bouquet of flowers to use as the centerpiece for our Thanksgiving table. They were the perfect colors for Thanksgiving. 

Oh and Cleo decided to help too...  

The Thanksgiving meal included the turkey, green bean casserole, brown butter mashed potatoes, the Pioneer Woman's soul sister (taters), pumpkin creme cheese bread, stuffing, and pumpkin pie.  All of these recipes were very good and not to difficult to make.  

However the best part about Thanksgiving was when my sister offered to help me cook the meal.  Since she is in college she does not get to experience all of my fantastic cooking, so it was a lot of fun having her help me put together our Thanksgiving dishes.  The total preparation time for our meal was probably around 4 1/2 hours.  It was a little difficult managing my time because all of the recipes have different baking times and settings, but we got it done and it all tasted sooo good.

So the turkey was bought on Monday at our local Fry's, frozen.  We were a little worried it would not be thawed in time for Thursday, but we were able to make it just in time.  Although we did have to stick it in a cool water bath early on Thursday.  I opted not to brine my turkey, however I did use the Pioneer Woman's recipe for Turkey.  I had watched the episode where she used this recipe and wanted to try it out myself.  Here is the recipe I used for the turkey: http://www.foodnetwork.com/recipes/ree-drummond/roasted-thanksgiving-turkey-recipe0.html.

Along with the turkey we made three sweet recipes.  One of the recipes I used was found on Pinterest.  It is for creme cheese filled pumpkin bread.  I would highly recommend this recipe and it would be very delicious for breakfast.  It did take a few extra minutes than the recipe called for in my oven.  Here is the recipe for the bread: http://www.averiecooks.com/2014/08/cream-cheese-filled-pumpkin-bread.html. 

Of course my favorite part of Thanksgiving is the potatoes.  I chose my favorite mashed potatoes recipe (originally from Pinterest) to use on Thanksgiving.  They were fantastic and the leftovers are perfect for many different recipes including Potato Waffles, which is the recipe I will be using this weekend.  Here is the recipe for the browned butter mashed potatoes: http://www.myrecipes.com/recipe/browned-butter-mashed-potatoes.

 Another recipe included in our meal was sweet potato casserole.  My mom always makes this dish and uses her own recipe, however this year she decided to try something a little different.  She used the Pioneer Woman's recipe called Soul Sweet (taters).  It is very good and once again is perfect as leftovers and can be eaten anytime of the day, including breakfast!  Here is the recipe for the Pioneer Woman's version of sweet potato casserole: http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/soul-sweet-taters-step-by-step-recipe/.

Although it is not necessarily the most favorite dish of Thanksgiving, my family and I still felt it was necessary to include stuffing.  I am not a huge fan of stuffing, so I decided to try a new recipe I found on Pinterest.  I figured it would be good, considering it was named "Best Ever Stuffing".  It was actually very good.  Here is the recipe for the stuffing: http://www.chef-in-training.com/2014/11/best-ever-stuffing/.

Another must for the holiday meal is green bean casserole.  This is my oldest sister's favorite dish of the day.  We generally just use the recipe off the back of the green bean can, but I thought it would be fun to try a new recipe.  My sister panicked when we had to actually make the cream of mushroom soup.  To her surprise this recipe was delicious and ten times better than the can.  However, I did choose to use canned green beans instead of fresh.  It was very very good.  Here is the recipe for the green bean casserole also found on Pinterest: http://www.thenovicechefblog.com/2013/11/the-best-green-bean-casserole/.

Last but not least was the pumpkin pie.  I did slack off on the pie and chose to just use the can recipe. It was just as good and took less time than other recipes.  I did get a little crazy and put a fancy crust across the top. With the help of my sister we were able to get it done in less than fifteen minutes.  I used refrigerated pie crust and cut out tiny leaves which I then used to decorate the crust.  If you have a leave cutter you can save lots of time...

Overall the meal was delicious with lots of sweet, salty, and flavor!  I got ten thumbs up from my family, so I would say it was a success.

Even college students have big appetites...

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving full of family, friends, and food.  Be looking for my next few blog posts before the holidays with lots of delicious recipes. Don't forget to follow me on Instagram and check out our Etsy over the weekend.  We will have a 20% off coupon for small business Saturday and Cyber Monday! Use code: shopsmall20.  Happy holidays and happy baking! 

Etsy: www.etsy.com/shop/izzabeleandcompany

Instagram: @izzabeleandcompany

Pumpkin, Cinnamon, and Apples

It has definitely been a while since my last blog post because it was summer then! It is fall now in Arizona, which means the weather has {finally!} began to get cooler and the farmer's markets are busy.  Although it is impossible to go every weekend we try to go at least a couple times a month.  My favorite thing of course is the food trucks.  Gilbert's Farmer's Market is the best market I have found in the valley and all of their vendors are incredible.  There are so many kind people and delicious products!

One of the best things especially around this time of year are the fresh fruits and vegetables.  Everything sold is grown locally and is perfect for any dish.

It was also fun to see the different pumpkins and gourds that they had set out just in time for the holidays.  I told my sister she needed to buy some to decorate her college dorm!

Of course one of the main reasons we go is to taste all of the amazing food trucks.  It has always been my dream to own a food truck, so when I am at the Farmers's Market I must taste all of the different trucks to seek inspiration for my future truck. Lately the Mustache Pretzels food truck has been at the farmers market.  Not only are their pretzels cute but they taste incredible too!  Between the four of us we shared two pretzels, their garlic parmesan and cinnamon sugar.  Both were very good but my favorite was the Garlic Parmesan.  Here is their website: http://www.mustachepretzels.com. I highly recommend visiting them if you are ever in the area.

Another one of the food trucks my sister and I tasted was Bites Mini Donuts.   Let me just say I was very glad my sister and I were the only ones of our family that visited the Farmer's Market that weekend because I would not have wanted to share.  Because there were too many flavors to choose from, we decided to do two separate flavors; half maple and half strawberry cheesecake.  I can't even decide which one was my favorite because they were so delicious. They were so good.  Here is their website: http://bitesminidonuts.com.

 Here are our deliciously gooey fried donuts from Bites Mini Donuts Food Truck.  {If you can't tell we have already eaten a few}

Along with the Gilbert Farmer's Market, we love to visit Trader Joe's for their unique products and fresh foods.  In order to prepare ourselves for the holiday's, we felt it was necessary to buy every pumpkin, cinnamon, or apple product they had. :)  The cinnamon pine cones outside every store kind of put me in the mood to bake holiday items.  You may remember my cookie butter blog post from a while back.  Thanks to my aunt for letting me know it was available, I found the Pumpkin Spice version of cookie butter.   There are so many different ways you can use this product.  We also bought a pumpkin cream cheese spread that is perfect, especially on homemade cinnamon bread, and Harvest Salsa that go very well with pita chips.  Last but not least we were so excited to see that Trader Joe's sells holiday Danish Kringle.  We had this once when we still lived in Illinois and had visited Wisconsin for our summer vacation.  It was greatly missed by everyone in my family, so thank you Trader Joe's. 

Using the Pumpkin Spice Cookie Butter I made a delicious crepe filling to go inside any basic crepe recipe.  All I did was mix about a cup of the cookie butter with a softened 8 oz cream cheese.  I mixed until it was completely smooth and then placed in the crepe.  

I then topped my crepe with caramel sauce and chopped pecans. Delicious!

Since not all veggies particularly favored in our house, I have made it my goal to find ways to combine them in a delicious and healthy way that everyone in my family would enjoy.  I found that if  you make it extremely colorful it is harder to determine what the veggies even are and you can focus more on the taste.  The veggies I chose for this meal were peppers, tomatoes, cucumber, carrots, onion, and {PURPLE!} potatoes.  

I love Martha Stewarts soup recipes from tortilla soup to vegetable soup.  The best part is they allow you to be extremely creative and choose what you want to put in them.  I think I have already shared this recipe on here but I chose to put it on again just to show you how creative you can be with it.  Everyone in my family LOVES this recipe even my picky brother.  Here is the recipe for the veggie soup: http://www.marthastewart.com/318100/big-batch-vegetable-soup. 

Another way to incorporate our fresh fruits and vegetable, I made a raspberry streusel muffin and spinach and mozzarella egg bake.  I also made this recipe for mother's day this year and everyone enjoyed it.  I personally don't usually favor eggs, but the flavor in the egg bake allows me to enjoy the flavor without even realizing there is egg in it.  The muffins are incredible and can even be frozen and thawed for quick and easy breakfast or snack.  Here is the recipe for the egg bake: http://www.kalynskitchen.com/2012/03/recipe-for-spinach-and-mozzarella-egg.html.  Here is the recipe for the raspberry muffins: http://cincyshopper.com/raspberry-streusel-muffins/.

That is it for this week! Don't forget to check out my Instagram page @izzabeleandcompany.  Be looking for next week's blog post just in time for Thanksgiving!