Almost a Tuscan Sunday

Ilva at Lucllian delights made a Tuscan Kale Fritatta last week and that must of been on my mind Sunday morning. I was cooking up some chicken breakfast sausages when I remembered I had some kale in the fridge. I'd made a quick soup and kale can make a simple soup ever so hardy. I like the flavor more than spinach. My kale wasn't from Tuscany but it was tasty none the less.

I chopped the kale and sauteed it in the pan I'd cooked the sausages, then add a bit of water and turned up the fire. When the liquid had evaporated I added back the chopped sausage, small cubes of cheese, some fresh thyme, and beaten eggs. I like the cubed cheese because it leaves oozy little pockets of melted cheese in the frittata.

A little salt and pepper and a quick set of the eggs then under the broiler to brown the top and onto a warm plate. This was much better than the scrambled eggs I'd promised my beloved. He liked it better, too.

Reminder for pet photos!

We want to see our food blog friends whether they are furry, feathery or scaly so post a photo of your pet and don't forget a link back to us. Then send your permalink to our e-mail, pbetouffee@gmail.com.

Deadline for December's Food Bloggy Pets of the Month posts is November 30th (or so).

Then everyone drop by the first week in December to see who's who at the zoo.

A big thanks to Sweetnicks for adding our event to Sticky Dates.

thanksgiving - part 2

thanksgiving dinner
Originally uploaded by lornababy

check out that steam!

as we all know, the majority of the pbetouffee family had thanksgiving a few weeks back - without me. not one to go without my turkey and fixin's on turkey day, i had mother moon and my pa over for a little meal on thursday afternoon. we also had my bunky's dad over and took in a family-less quebecois for the day, as well. of course, there was the standard turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and gravy and, our family standby, broccoli casserole. new additions this year were braised brussels sprouts with pancetta and bertha's corn pudding from miss sylvie's soul fusion kitchen. the corn pudding was great, i think we're going to put that one in regular holiday rotation. mooncrazy brought the pumpkin pie and a good time was had by all. hope everyone's thanksgiving was just as great!

here's the family broccoli casserole recipe. it is so not low fat, but who cares!

10 oz package frozen chopped broccoli
10 oz can cream of mushroom soup
2 oz sharp cheddar cheese, shredded
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1 egg, beaten
1/4 cup bread crumbs
butter for top

defrost broccoli, drain well. stir together soup and cheese,
gradually add milk, mayo and egg. stir until well blended. pour over
broccoli in casserole. sprinkle with bread crumbs and dot with butter.

bake 350 until heated and bubbly, about 45 minutes.

Addendum from Moon,
In an earlier post, Doodles talked about our early Thanksgiving dinner. Although we missed lil bird and her husband not being with us, we did have a fine dinner, complete with all the trimmings. There is a dish the West Coast portion of the family would not think of leaving out of our holiday feast, Broccoli Casserole. Doodles prepared it when we were visiting them in Connecticut in the early 80s. My family loved it. Lil bird was much lil-er at the time and broccoli was her favorite so this recipe was taken home to California. Our father, who was a great cook, ate it at our house and it then appeared at each Thanksgiving dinner there after.

Jump to our recent Thanksgiving in the desert. All three of us, Mary, Doodles and myself prepared our meal and when it came to the casserole we were quite shocked when Doodles didn't recognize her recipe. What?! Although we'd spent many a Christmas holiday together, we'd not done Thanksgiving so our small tradition was unknown to the East Coast contingency of the family. We had a good laugh. I can't tell the amount of times I'd served this recipe and gave my sister credit.

This Thanksgiving, at lil bird wonderful dinner, we ate broccoli casserole as she explained the tradition to new guests at their table. The tradition continues.

Brussel Sprouts

Now don't turn up your nose like I used to. I also understand that brussel sprouts are one of the healthiest foods. just try this very, very easy method.





About 1 to 1 1/2 lb brussel sprouts
3 cloves of chopped garlic
sea salt
fresh ground pepper
extra virgin olive oil

Method

clean the brussel sprouts by cutting off the ends and any icky looking leaves, then cut the brussel sprout in half. Put all the sprouts in a bowl to coat with the extra virgin olive oil, salt and pepper. Place said sprouts on a baking sheet lined with foil. Sprinkle the sliced garlic to inter mix with the sprouts. Now if y'all are not garlic lovers leave it out. Place the baking sheet with the sprouts in a hot oven 400* is good, for about 25-30 minutes. Keep an eye on them cause they can burn quickly depending on your oven temp, so when you peek on them shake the pan a bit. You want them browned to give you the nutty flavor but not burnt to ruin the taste.

Serve immediately. You may also add crispy bacon or pancetta when sprouts are completed. I didn't take a photo of the completed sprouts cause dinner was ready and these are not good cold.


As a side note...
If you want to add a bit of zing to your mashed potatoes next time, add about a 1/4 cup of shaved manchego cheese adds an amazing flavor.

Hope your Thanksgiving, if celebrated, was wonderful. Now on to the Christmas holidays. Do remember to come back often, cause this family has some amazing goodies to share.

You do know that Thanksgiving can be celebrated anytime

And that we did!!!

It seems Sister Moon and her hunky husband, my Mr Doodles, stepmomma, oh and me, were all together last week. We missed niece Lil Bird and her Big Bird husband cause they are off to a conference in some far away place.

Anyway we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving last Friday. And we did it with all the trimmings. Well all the trimmings that we do as a family unit.





The bird was done on the grille, potatoes cooked for mashing, apple salad, sausage stuffing/dressing, and sister moon made some to die for turkey gravy. A little wine was served and of course dessert, compliments of Marie Callender's, which is a local pie shoppe. Our choice was a lemon cream cheese pie in a graham cracker crust with whipped cream as a topping naturally.

So HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all of our visiting friends.

Addendum
This is Moon and I'm adding my two cents here. We didn't miss having our obligatory morning Mimosa while we did the prep for dinner. We also learned a new card game, we love games, and that kept us busy all day long in between fussing with preparing dinner.

The turkey is a tradition my father started a very long time ago. They live in Palm Desert and the temp is usually in the 80s that time of year so why cook a bird in the oven, the BBQ is much easier. It's quite easy.

There are many ways to do this but here is what my Dad always did. Prepare the bird like you do for the oven but no stuffing. Instead we do celery, sage, and rosemary but most any herbs would do. Season it, rub some oil on the dried skin and roast on a pan on the grill. We start about 400 then turn it down to about 325. Just cook it as long as you would cook an unstuffed bird in the oven. If it starts to brown too much, tent with foil. Check with a meat thermometer, I like 150/160 for the breast. Of course there is always the "wiggle the leg" test, too, then let rest for at least thirty minutes. It give you time to have one more Mimosa.

Food Bloggy Pets for November

We have one exceptional Food Bloggy Pet, that's Buddy-cat who is part of Doodles' Gypsy Caravan. Seems Buddy likes his morning grits. Who doesn't want something warm in their tummy on a chilly November morn.




Want to see your pet here? Don't forget to send us a post for December. Be creative.