Post It Tuesdays

Monday Quiz About Me

Decided to give my brain a break and just participate in a new quiz.

Thanks to Acting Balanced and Touristic for this one.



1. What is your favorite kind of soup?

Dan's homemade turkey noodle soup. That will be coming up shortly after Thanksgiving thanks to the turkey carcass.

2. When was the last time you saw snow?

This summer on our Alaska trip. Lots and lots of snow.

3. What is a must have trait if someone is going to live with you?

No snoring allowed. Believe me I had to quiz Dan on that one before we got married.

4. Who was your favorite James Bond? 

Daniel Craig. Have you been reading my posts? LOL

And don't forget to add a 5th Question on your own blog so we can answer as we hop around!

5. Is it dressing or stuffing?

Stuffing goes in the bird and dressing is cooked outside the bird. Lucky us, we make both!

Embassy Row

I usually try to do something new every time I go to Washington, D.C. This year I did go to the cooking expo but wanted to add one other thing. My hotel was near Embassy Row so I took a short walk over after the sessions were over. The homes in DC are spectacular and these were no different.










This is outside the Indonesian embassy.


There are two of these on the bridge just off to the side of Massachusetts Avenue.





This is the most unusual flag I saw. It is from Turkmenistan. I had never heard of that country but figure it was part of the former Soviet Union.


I'm glad I walked around while in DC.

Bargain shopping

I'm sure most of you like a good bargain. Sale and free are two of my favorite words, just ask my family. So as I walked through Walmart today for the weekly grocery shopping, I stopped at the clothing. I really need a new OU shirt. I didn't like any of them so I kept going towards the dog food. But that took me right by the clearance clothing. I normally wouldn't stop but I caught a glimpse of Greek letters. Who knew Walmart had sorority letters? And they had two shirts for Whitney's sorority for three bucks each. I bought them figuring she can sleep in them or give them away if she didn't like them. Then they had their Halloween tshirts. I wasn't going to get any but then I glimpsed the price tag. I ended up buying two of them. One was 1.32 and the other was 2.39. Can you believe that? I figure even if I wear them only once I got my money's worth.

Then i was passing the row that had the fall decorations. I figured they would only clearance the Halloween stuff but it was all half off. So I got a little basket of fake mums for 2.50. I almost bought a gravy boat for two dollars but I passed.

So for twelve dollars I bought all of this. The purple tshirt is long sleeve.

Friday Fragments - James Bond is BACK!!!

I'm joining up with Mrs. 4444 for Friday Fragments.

 

The new James Bond movie comes out today. It is getting great reviews. Whitney and I are going to go see it during Thanksgiving break. Yes I can last that long. After all I have a photo of Skyfall on my ipad as my backdrop. I even wrote about the movie in January 2011. That's how excited I was.

I had a blog post all typed up about walking around Embassy Row in Washington DC and then I lost it when I was at the airport. I'm going to recreate it and post over the weekend hopefully.

Top Chef started this week along with The Next Iron Chef. I do believe my cooking competition show fix will be taken care of. Add that to my daily watching of The Chew and I should be ok. I hope everyone got to read my post over the weekend about seeing Carla Hall and Michael Symon at the Metro DC Cooking Show. I'm still telling people about it here. People must think I'm a stalker.

I can't believe in two weeks it is Thanksgiving. I have no room in the freezer to buy any turkey yet and I saw that Target had Butterball's at a decent price. Guess I'll have to wait another week and hopefully be able to either clear it out or get it close enough so it can thaw in the fridge and then we will brine it.

I still have to buy a Christmas tree too. Last year we threw away our old one and I need to replace it. Nothing has looked good and we always put it up the day after Thanksgiving. Just another thing to get done quickly.

I also need to get my oil changed (I love that my car tells me it is time) and I need to pick a paint color and paint a room so I can blog about it in the next two weeks. I would like to get my carpets cleaned before I decorate too. 

My conference provided me with lots of good information (it is nice when that happens) and I also got a lot of good information to study for my certification test which is scheduled for December 4.

Cornbread and Sausage Dressing

This month's Crazy Cooking Challenge was for stuffing/dressing.



As many of you have experienced, the stuffing/dressing debate is probably one of the most hotly contested one early in a marriage. Both parties want what they grew up with (as long as their family made a good one). Lucky for us, we both came from a heavy sage/white bread stuffing legacy. There were some differences but we've melded together to create the best stuffing ever. Literally we could stand and eat the raw dressing (we don't use eggs) before we stuff the turkey.

But for the challenge I wanted to try something new. Since we normally make white bread stuffing, I thought I'd go the other way and try a cornbread recipe. So after hours of searching and weeding, I presented Dan with about 5 versions. He picked this one.

Cornbread and Sausage Dressing
Recipe courtesy of AllRecipes.com


1 (12 ounce) package corn bread mix
1 pound sausage, cooked and drained
1 tablespoon butter
3/4 cup chopped onion
3 stalks celery, chopped
1 teaspoon dried thyme
2 teaspoons ground sage
1 teaspoon garlic powder
1 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1 cup vegetable broth

Directions

1. One to two days ahead, make one pan of cornbread according to the box instructions. Let this sit out overnight and get a firm (almost hard) crust.
2. Place sausage in a large, deep skillet. Cook over medium high heat until evenly brown. Crumble, drain and set aside.
3. In a skillet, cook onion and celery in butter until soft. Remove from heat, allow to cool.
4. In a large bowl, combine crumbled cornbread, sausage, onions and celery. Add sage, garlic powder, salt and pepper. Mix well.
5. In 1/4 cup increments, add chicken or vegetable broth to stuffing mixture. Toss gently until evenly moist. Loosely stuff in fowl or casserole dish and bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 30 minutes or until heated to 160 degrees F (70 degrees C).

We halved the recipe and it made a lot for just the two of us. My first thought was it seemed so loose compared to our normal dressing. But it was moist when I added all the broth so I didn't add anymore. The photo on the original recipe looked loose so I went with it. It didn't firm up any while cooking (as you can see from my photo). If I were to make it again, I would cut back on the sausage. I thought that it overpowered everything else. I also would add more seasoning. You have to understand that when we make our normal stuffing, we probably triple the amount of sage it originally called for. We just love that.

Final verdict - I'm glad I tried something new with just Dan and I. But we'll be serving our normal stuffing on Thanksgiving.

Check out what everyone else made below.

My Date with Chefs

I'm in Washington, D.C. for a work conference. I got here early to go to a test review course and saw on my twitter feed that said my favorite celebrity chefs, Carla Hall and Michael Symon were going to be at a food convention here on Sunday. On a lark I checked out the tickets and when I found one in row eight I jumped and bought a ticket. I also go an autographed copy of either of their books plus admission to the convention center.

I got there early and started sampling all the food that was there. I saw where Michael Symon was autographing books. I went over just to take his picture (I know very geeky) and then I found out if you bought any of his books you could get an autograph and photo. Woohoo. I was sold. So I bought The Chew cookbook and got in line which wasn't long at all.







He was very nice.

Later I went to the cooking demo. I've loved Carla from her first season on Top Chef and I watch The Chew every day. The camaraderie you see on tv is really true. The two of them were so great together.













Sorry for the quality but it was no flash photography and I had the camera guy right in front.

Needless to say I loved my day. My autographed copy of Carla Hall's book is going to ship to me. They got held up in NYC from Sandy and since they don't come out until Tuesday they just couldn't just go to a store to get them.

So two autograph books and photo with a chef. Not bad for a work trip!