Holiday Jello

This is another Burnham Classic. This was also my first time making this. I made a few mistakes with the jello and whatnot, so it's not as pretty as my mom's usually is. However, it still tasted amazing and was gone by the next morning (pretty much).

Ingredients

1 package orange jello

1 package cherry jello

1 package lime jello

1 cup pineapple juice

¼ cup sugar

1 package lemon jello

½ cup cold water
¼ cup butter melted
one package of graham crackers (One section from the box. So like, 8-10 whole graham crackers. I'm spit balling here.)
2 cups whipped cream

Day 1: Dissolve each jello package separately using 1 cup hot water and ½ cup cold water. Chill in separate pans. Bread pans work well.

Day 2: Combine pineapple juice and sugar, heat until sugar dissolves. Remove from heat and dissolve lemon jello in hot liquid. Add cold water and chill until like egg whites. At least 30 minutes. Mix cracker crumbs and butter and press into 9 x 13 pan. Fold 2 cups of whipped cream into syrupy lemon mixture and beat slightly. Combine other jellos (which have been cut into cubes) with creamed mixture and pour over crumbs. Sprinkle extra crumbs on top. Chill about 8 hours.

This was so yummy. Just realized I didn't sprinkle crumbs on top. Would've been even better. Takes a few days, so you have to keep that in mind. But totally worth it. Yummy!

Turkey

Yes, the turkey. I made my first turkey.  I got the recipe from Alton Brown on Foodnetwork.com. It turned out awesome. A total success for a first time turkey. It was pretty darn juicy and tender and had a nice flavor. And for once, I preferred the light meat over the dark meat. Unprecedented.

Ingredients
1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the brine:
1 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 1/2 teaspoons allspice berries
1 1/2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
1 gallon heavily iced water

For the aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 leaves sage
Canola oil

2 to 3 days before roasting:
Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.
Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Early on the day or the night before you'd like to eat:
Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine.
Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan and pat dry with paper towels.
Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey's cavity along with the rosemary and sage. Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.
Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.

We did the first 30 minutes in the oven and then moved it to a roaster for the rest of the time. It took like 1 1/2 hours, or so. I don't remember exactly, but it cooked a lot faster than the intended time. And ours was like a 20 lb. bird. All in all, a good turkey, and a very successful recipe. I'd totally do it again.

Orange Rolls

This is a Burnham Thanksgiving Classic. Although it's no longer on my mom's menu, we will all remember it and many of us make it on our own. This was my first time making them and I made a few small mistakes in rolling them out and cutting them, so they ended up being huge. They still tasted great, they just weren't as elegant looking.

Ingredients
2 packages yeast
½ cup sugar
½ cup butter
¼ cup water
4 ½ cups flour
2 tsp salt
1 cup orange juice at room temperature
3 eggs
Butter
Brown sugar optional
Cinnamon optional

Day 1: Dissolve yeast in ¼ cup water. Cream butter and sugar, add eggs. Add yeast and orange juice. Add salt. Gradually add flour. Kneed. Refrigerate over night.

Day 2: 4 hours before serving, roll out on a floured board. Spread surface with 1 cube butter (and brown sugar and cinnamon if desired for a dessert rather than a dinner roll.) Roll up like a jelly roll. Slice 1 ¼ inches wide. Dip in melted butter and place in muffin pans sprayed with Pam. Raise for 3 hours. Bake at 400 for 10 to 15 minutes. They can be frozen after placing in muffin pans. It takes 5 hours to rise if frozen.

I've never tried them as a dessert, but I bet they'd be really good. I also think they' do well from some orange zest added in. But even straight from the recipe, they're amazing and an easy A+ at Thanksgiving, or whenever. Just remember, they can take up to 2 days to make.

Wassil

This has been in our Mom's Cookbook for forever and I've never had it. It's basically a fancy apple cider. It was really simple and pretty tasty. It was fun and we all really enjoyed it.

Ingredients
6 cups apple cider (I didn't have a jug of apple cider, so I just used enough apple cider mixes and water to make 6 cups worth)
1 cinnamon stick
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 cup honey
3 tbsp lemon juice
1 20-oz. can pineapple juice unsweetened

Heat cider and cinnamon stick in large pan. Bring to boil and simmer covered 5 min. Add remaining ingredients and simmer uncovred 5 min. longer. Keep hot ove rlow heat or heat in small batches.

I just did the whole thing in the crock pot. I heated the first ingredients til pretty darn hot and then added the rest and kept it on low. It turned out awesome.

Roasted pumpkins with bacon and brown sugar

This is another magazine recipe I found that sounded exotic and fun. In the end, I give it a B. We decided on one change for it that really would've made it better for us. But otherwise, it went over better than I could've expected. This is the sorta thing I would've gagged at last Thanksgiving, so for me it was a major success.

Ingredients
6 slices bacon, crisp-cooked and drain, dripping reserved (I baked it, which is shown here)
2 2-4 lb. pie pumpkins
1 tsp. salt
1/4 cup coarsely ground black pepper
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tsp. fennel seed, crushed (It's practically impossible to crush fennel seeds, so just buy them crushed. Yes, I tried to crush my own. Didn't work. If you buy them crushed, I'd just use 1 to 1 1/2 tsp. instead of 2.)
2-3 green onions, diagonally sliced

Preheat Ocen to 400. Cut of top 1/4 of pumpkins. Remove seed and strings; reserve 2/3 cup pumpkin seeds. Place pumpkins, cut side up, in foil-lined baking pan. Brush insides with some of the bacon dripings and sprinkle with salt, pepper and brown sugar. Replace lids and roast pumpkins in oven 20 minutes. Meanwhile, in skillet stir together pumpkin seeds, fennel seed, green onions, and remaining bacon drippings. Add skillet to oven during last 10 minutes of roasting. Remove pumpkins and seed mixture from oven. Sprinkle inside of pumpkins with seed mixture and crumbled bacon. To serve, use a large spoon to scoop out insides or use knife to cut into wedges.

Excuse the not so great photo. The only problem we had with this was the pumpkin seeds were too chewy. I realize they may not have roasted well because the skillet wouldn't fit in the oven with the door shut, so I think I had the door cracked, which may have kept the seeds from getting toasty. So, that might have done it. If the seeds had been crunchy and roasted, it would've been really cool. But even without the seeds it would've been good. The skillet mixture smells really good, so I think it was just a texture thing. The flavors were all there and in sync. So if you're brave, you can try this one on for size.

Crispy Deli Wraps

These came out so good! They were awesome! Also an appetizer. I was pretty excited for these guys and rightfully so. I'm glad I doubled the recipe. I could've tripled it and maybe had some leftover. They were great.

Ingredients
1 box (9 oz) frozen spinach
2 cups Bugles corn snacks (I'm sure other corn chips would do, I imagine. I did use Bugles.)
1/4 cup butter, melted
16 thin slices cooked ham or turkey (I used both)
4 sticks mozzarella string cheese
1 can crescent rolls

Dipping Sauce
1/3 cup mayonnaise or salad dressing (I used mayo)
1/3 cup Dijon mustard (mine was just plain jain mustard)
1/3 cup honey

Heat oven to 375. Remove spinach from container; place in colander. Rinse with warm water until thawed; drain well. Squeeze spinach dry with paper towel; divide evenly into 4 portions. Set aside. Meanwhile, place corn snacks in plastic bac; seal. Crush with rolling pin until crushed fine. Pour into shallow dish or plate. In another shallow dish or pie plate, place melted butter; set aside. Unroll dough; separate into 4 rectangles. Press each into 6x4 rectangle; firmly pressing perforations to seal. (I didn't make mine any particular size, but just used the rectangle in whatever size it came out as.) Arrange ham or turkey in 4 stacks. Top each stack with 1 portion of spinach, spreading spinach evenly over ham. Place 1 stick of cheese on one short side of spinach-topped ham. Roll up each stack. Place 1 filled ham roll on one long side of each dough rectangle. Fold sides of dough up over ham and roll to opposite long side; press edge and ends to seal and completely cover ham roll. Roll each in butter, then in crushed corn snacks to coat. Place seam side down on cookie sheet. Bake 20-28 minutes or until deep golden brown. Meanwhile, in a small bowl, mix all sauce ingredients with wire whisk. Serve warm wraps with the sauce for dipping.

These came out great. One of the eaters even let me know that they do not like spinach, but enjoyed them. After reading the directions thoroughly, I realize I constructed mine wrong. I would be sure to follow the instructions. It will just turn out the best possible way. Ours still tasted great, but the construction could've been easier if I'd followed the instructions. So read them well and then enjoy, because they're really yummy!

Spiced Pumpkin Butter

This is something I, again, found in a magazine and thought it sounded exotic and fun. It was super simple and I made it ahead of time. It was pretty darn good. As reference for the remaining Thanksgiving recipes, some were appetizers that we ate as we hung out and cooked turkey. Then there are the meal recipes that were for the actual dinner. This was an appetizer. (Unless you think this will be ravaged or you're having an extremely large group, I might half it.)

Ingredients
4 cups Pumpkin Puree, or two 15 oz. cans pumpkin
1 1/4 cups pure maple syrup
1/2 cup apple juice
2 tbsp lemon juice
2 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
Chopped hazelnuts (optional) (I went through tons of trouble to find these darn things and then forgot to take them to the event.)

In 5 quart dutch oven combine all ingredients except nuts. Bring to boiling; reduce heat. Cook, uncovered, over medium heat, stirring frequently., 25 minutes or until thick. (It was pretty much thick the whole time to me, so I just did 25 minutes.) If mixture spatters, reduce heat to medium-low. (Okay, this is like tomato sauce, it spatters no matter what, so just keep a rag handy and mop it up as you go along.) Remove from heat; cool. Ladle into jars or freezer containers, leaving1/2-inch headspace. Cover; store in refrigerator up to 1 week or freezer up to 6 months. To serve, top with chopped nuts.

Can serve on pancakes, muffins, or toasted bread. Can top with favorite cheese. We just had it plain on cut french bread. I would definitely toast the bread. Just a simple, tasty spread.