How To Plan Thanksgiving

Freedom from Want, the Thanksgiving Picture by Norman Rockwell

Thanksgiving is right around the corner! For my British friends, Thanksgiving is when we get together with family to stuff ourselves silly and then watch Football. There are other traditions too, as unique as the families that celebrate. Most of you have probably already planned your Thanksgiving meal, but for those of you that haven't, here are a few tips. 

Know Your Crowd

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You may not be able to plan a menu in which every guest loves every dish, and you will almost certainly have the dreaded Picky Eater sitting down to your table. There isn't much you can do about that one, other than make sure they have at least one thing to eat. But for the rest, think about the people you are inviting. Are there any vegetarians? Allergies? Religious restrictions? If you don't know - ask! 

In my family, none of us are super crazy about turkey. However, none of us would feel quite right without it! Silly, right? But knowing this, I would never plan a Thanksgiving meal without a big fat bird. It also wouldn't be Thanksgiving without my mom's special cornbread stuffing or a big buttery pot of mashed potatoes. You won't be able to include everyone's personal favourite dish, but you can totally include the all around crowd pleasers.

Don't Overdo It

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Like I said above, you just cannot incorporate every beloved comfort food into your Thanksgiving feast. Don't forget, you have to actually cook all the food you serve. The more dishes you decide on, the more time you're going to have to spend cooking and the more money you're going to have to spend. Food can get expensive! Your Thanksgiving shouldn't be spent stressing over how you're going to get 20 dishes on the table. You should be relaxing with friends and family and basking in the praise heaped upon your glorious spread.

This goes for planning your presentation as well. Rather than attempting to make every single side look worthy of Food Network, choose one or two things to really make an effort on. Your big, beautiful roasted turkey won't need much - it makes a mouth watering centrepiece all on it's own. I personally like to make a beautiful desert. 

Those are CUPCAKES! That I made!!! 

Make Ahead

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Believe it or not, you can make a TON of food up to weeks ahead of time! This can make your life so much easier, it will also spread the cost of the meal out. Check out this list from Food.com for a few recipes! 

So, what am I doing for Thanksgiving you ask? Surely I'm going to be serving up a host of tasty American dishes just like momma used to make, right? Nah. My flat is way too small for that this year. So we're going to Frankie and Benny's. That's a great perk of spending Thanksgiving Day in England - all the restaurants are open! 

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What are your favourite Thanksgiving dishes? 

Poke's Thoughts on Online Relationships

Awww, wedding picture :) 

This past week a good friend of mine has been going through a rough time. Her husband is currently in the ICU, unable to breathe on his own.  My heart hurts for her, and as always in situations like this, I just feel so helpless. It's hard enough to provide help in a scenario like this, but harder still when you are thousands of miles away.

The thing about this friend is, I've never met her in person. That's right, our friendship has been entirely online. This is not exactly new to me, my husband and I met online almost ten years ago. Some people seem to find it odd that you can develop a deep and meaningful relationship on the internet. Yet, I have before and continue to do so. The things I feel for this friend in distress are just the same as the things I would feel if she lived on my street. So, this got me thinking about online relationships in general.

Image from Chibird

How They Start

I've never actively sought online friendships. They've just happened, just like in real life. When planning my wedding I joined a wedding forum. I became a frequent poster and grew close to other frequent posters. We've since created our own space which is much more private and intimate, and our friendships have grown as a result. Many of us have met in person.

My online friend and I on the way to lunch together! 

How They Work

The best way to make a relationship of any kind last with someone is time. This goes for online and offline. You need to talk, connect, show a real effort to stay in touch and stay involved. Before I moved to the UK, I talked with my friends daily. Now the time differences makes that difficult, but I still manage to log on a couple of times a week. Before we were able to live together, my husband and I talked every single day. Skype is a great way to keep in touch with people and feel closer to them. My husband even paid for an American number so I could call him from anywhere using any phone at no charge to me. It's something I still use to keep in contact with my family. 

Gestures that show you are thinking about your friend/significant other can really help when you're apart. These can be as simple as a sweet picture posted to their Facebook wall

Chibird is a new discovery for me. I love it!! 

To a gift in the mail! Obviously when you're friends with a large community of people, this sort of thing can get expensive. We have exchanges - we use Elfster to draw names out of a virtual hat and exchange gifts. It's a great way to connect with people and learn more about them. 

My gifts for the Halloween exchange we just did. 

So, essentially, you'll want to treat any online relationship or friendship the same way you'd treat it in real life! Simple, right?

Stay Safe

Be internet-smart. You don't want to have to call in these guys! (From Catfish: The TV Show)

This is probably the most important part - stay safe! This is a group of people I have known for years! Don't rush into giving anyone your personal information. Unfortunately, it's all too easy to become someone else online.

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Disclaimer:
This is not a definitive guide to online relationships and friendships or internet safety. It takes more than a few paragraphs on a blog to be fully informed about such things, it's just a little snippet from my own experiences! 

How To Halloween

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This is the start of my favorite time of year! So many fun holidays all one after the other, it's such an exciting few months.

There are, of course, many differences between life in the USA and life in the UK. One of those differences is how people celebrate Halloween. Americans do everything bigger and better, and this holiday is no exception! In America, old derelict shops are given new life as haunted houses and Halloween emporiums. In the UK, we get an aisle of everything Halloween. In America there are parades, costume parties, and trick-or-treaters clog residential streets. Here in the UK, not one masked child knocked on my door last year. In the UK, a few people put out a wreath and possibly a carved pumpkin or two. In the US, yards and homes are decked out to the max - sometimes more so than at Christmas.

Image from here

Image from here

Here in England, however, you get this.

You call that a LARGE pumpkin? It's just a baby!! 

So how do I celebrated a beloved holiday in a country that, quite simply, isn't that bothered? Generally, on my own. But that doesn't mean that it needs to be any less fun!

How to Set The Mood

MUSIC! 

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My husband and I subscribe to Spotify, and we love it! We pay a low monthly fee and get access to as much music as we want - no ads ! There is a free version with ads, for those that don't want to pay. Not all songs are available, but there is plenty of choice. Even better - you can download the songs to your device and listen offline. One great feature is that you can make different playlists for different occasions. So, off I went to create a Halloween playlist to get me in the mood! 

Here are a few tracks:

Thriller - Michael Jackson

Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran

Monster Mash - Bobby "Boris" Pickett

Men in Black - Will Smith

Superstition - Stevie Wonder

She Wolf - Shakira 

Nobody Likes You (When You're Dead) - Zombina & The Skeletones

Ghostbusters - Ray Parker JR

Jeepers Creepers - Louis Armstrong

Dance With The Devil - Breaking Benjamin

Dragula - Rob Zombie

Decorate!

Nothing says Halloween quite like a severed hand hanging from your window, amiright? No?

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Halloween decorations don't have to be bloody and scary - there are plenty of cute options out there. 

So adorable, it's SCARY! 

You may remember my witch pumpkin from last week's pumpkin carving post. Although it's hard to see, the candle is Candy Corn from Yankee Candle. And the candy bowl is just a plain glass mixing bowl with some Halloween tinsel and delightful little LED ghost lights that I got from The Factory Shop.

Ooooh, spooky bat! 

They make me irrationally happy.

Treats! 

What's Halloween without sugary goodness? Just another day, that's what! So grab some of your favorite confectionery and lay out your eerie spread.

Oh, and maybe save a few piece of candy for Trick-or-Treaters? Maybe.

I want it all!

If anything can make chocolate better, making it Halloween themed can.

Entertainment!

Now that you've set the mood with music and decor and set up your sweet tooth, the party can begin! Well, as much of a party as you can have when you work in the morning. Flip on some kind of Halloween movie or show. I'm way too wimpy for horror films, so I've opted for something much less terrifying.

The Siiiiiiiimpsoooooooooons.

You sang the theme tune, didn't you? 

How do you celebrate Halloween? 

Carving Pumpkins: Like A Boss!

PUMPKINS! Now imagine I said that in the voice of Lego Spaceship Guy from The Lego Movie.

There are so many ways to carve a pumpkin, from traditional Jack-o-Lanterns to intricate sculpting. The first thing I can suggest is to invest in some kind of carving kit. Generally, regular kitchen knives are too big to do a whole lot with design-wise. And a scoop tailor made for pumpkin carving is much easier than using a spoon! You can get a super basic kit, or spring for a super decked out one. The most important things you need are: A good scoop (for scooping), a thin knife (for carving), and a pokey stick (for poking).

Lifesavers - ALL OF THESE!

Fun Fact
There is a difference between carving pumpkins and eating pumpkins!

• A sugar pumpkin (also known as a pie pumpkin) is smaller in size in comparison to a carving pumpkin. The innards (pulp) has a sweeter taste and better texture and there is often more of it in relation to the size of the pumpkin. This makes it much better for cooking and eating. You can still carve them, too, it just is a little more difficult as you'll have less space to work with. 
• A carving pumpkin, on the other hand, was intentionally allowed to grow larger to make it easier to carve. As a result, the guts are much more stringy and grainy. Although you could puree the pulp into something edible, it wouldn't taste anywhere near as good as from a can or sugar pumpkin.

Let's get to the carving!

Clear a large-ish space, I chose to do it on the floor. I recommend cutting up a garbage bag to work on - cleanup will be a breeze!

It's okay to squeal in excitement

Crack that pumpkin open! Make a circular opening in the top so you can scoop out the guts (you'll want to use a big knife, not your little carver). Don't make a perfect circle, though. Make sure you make a tab so that it will be easy to put back on. Also, make sure you cut at an angle - otherwise your lid will just fall through!

Look at that gorgeous angle

Using a combination of scoop and hands, gut that pumpkin! Scrape it as clean as possible. The less pumpkin ick left behind, the longer it will last.

Squishy!

This process will take quite a while, so make yourself comfortable and put on a festive Halloween movie!

That's one clean pumpkin

Don't throw your squishy innards away! Set them in a bowl and put them aside until later - I'll tell you what to do with them.

INNARDS! 

Time to carve! There are a few different ways to do this. You can freestyle a traditional face, use a template, or draw your own template. Carve anything you want into the pumpkin! My first pumpkin this year was a large letter G, for my last name.

I'm so classy

It's super simple to do. Pick a letter (or a couple letters if you want to do a full monogram) and make it huge in word. Pick a font. Remember, you'll be carving this into a pumpkin - a font with large lines will work best. For letters (such as D), use toothpicks to hold the middle in place.

For the other pumpkin, I found a super cute raven template. I also found a load of others that I have filed away for future use.

Starry Night

Haunted House

Skull

Raven

Candy Corn

Boo

If you're free-handing, then just go for it! Have fun, you're obviously much more talented than I am. 

If you're drawing your own design, I recommend using a piece of paper to create a template. Also keep in mind what you will be able to do with your carving knife.

Tape your template to your pumpkin. Don't be afraid of over-taping the edges! You may need to do some folding so your design is not compromised.

Nice and flat!

Now you'll use your pokey thing to transfer your design to your pumpkin. Working around the design, create a nice dotted line that you'll be able to follow when carving.

It's actually very satisfying

This will more than likely hurt. It sure made my hand cramp up! Power through the pain, it's worth it.

So much pain

Carefully remove your template and wipe off any clinging paper.

Well, not ALL clinging paper. You don't have all night.

And now for the part you've all been waiting for! CARVE IT! Take your knives and CARVE IT! If you have a kit with multiple sizes of knife, use the bigger ones for the wider bits and the smaller one for thin lines. I only had one size, so I just had to be really careful around the tricky thin bits (the legs and feet, mainly). 

AWWWWWW YES!

Take your time! You wouldn't want to slip and totally ruin your awesome design. Especially if there are any fine lines in your design.

Once again, SO satisfying!

Carefully push the cut parts of your design out. If you have a design with multiple "holes" you'll do this during carving rather than all at once.

Slowly.......slowly.....

If you're really careful, you'll be awesome and have a whole cool pumpkin shape.

LIKE THIS ONE!

And you're done! Stick in a lit candle and display wherever it makes you happy. Just don't leave it unattended!

Ta-da!

Now it's time to clean up your mess. If you listened to my rubbish bag trick, this will take you about 10 seconds.

Yeah I know, I missed some paper. Let it go.

Remember those stringy pumpkin bits from before? Now I'm going to tell you what to do with them!

Firstly, you need to separate them from the pumpkin pulp. You know, the gross stringy bits. Preheat your oven to 325F (160C) while you do this.

Yep, you gotta put your hands all up in that.

Once you've got the seeds out, you're going to want to wash them as well as you can. You won't get all of the pulp off of them, but you should be able to get them clean enough without too much effort. 

These are before I cleaned them. I totally spaced on taking a photo of the clean seeds.

Bring a pot of salty water to boil. Add the cleaned seeds and boil for just about 10 minutes.

See? Clean!

Drain your pumpkin seeds and pat them dry. It's fine if they're a little damp, you just want them to be mostly dry-ish. Then spread them on a foil lined pan. There shouldn't be too much overlapping going on. Next drizzle a little of your favourite oil (or in my case, the only oil in the house) and add your seasonings. You can get super creative with this and add all kind of crazy flavouring. I just went with some sea salt.

You're very close to pumpkin seed perfection.

Roast these bad boys for about 10 minutes, then remove and stir. Add a bit more seasoning, if you'd like. Pop them back into the oven for another 10 minutes. About halfway through you'll want to crack one of the shells open to make sure the seed isn't burning. It shouldn't turn brown.

All done!

Bam! You've got yourself some gorgeously roasted pumpkin seeds! I prefer mine less crispy, so if you're looking for more crunch maybe slide them back into the oven for a few minutes. You do not want your shells to get much more brown than mine, as this will cause the inner seeds to burn. If you're looking for the most crisp seeds possible, use sugar pumpkin seeds!

Was that too much work for you? You can always take the lazy (but still adorable) way out and use a product like this. I couldn't find a link for mine, it was a gift from my mom. But there are a lot of other cute options!

How To: Stick the pumpkin with the pointy ends.

I'd love to see pictures of your pumpkins!

RECIPE! Salted Caramel Pots de Creme

That's right, friends! Today I'm going to show you how to make these delicious little treats using this recipe from Better Homes and Gardens.

Salted Caramel Pot de Creme

A little information:

A Pot de Creme is essentially just a fancy name for custard. Made with egg yolks, cream, milk, and a flavor (usually vanilla or chocolate), they're baked in the oven in a water bath and generally served cold in the small pots they were baked in! It's looser than other custards or flans.

Caramel is basically burned sugar. Sugar is slowly heated, and as the temperature rises the molecules reform into compounds with the beautiful amber colour and rich deep flavor we all know and love.

Mmmmm, Science! (photo from Wikipedia) 

The Ingredients: 

(note: I halved the recipe, since it was just for my husband and I)

• 1 1/4 cups sugar
• 1/4 cup water
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups whipping cream
• 1/2 cup whole milk
• 6 egg yolks
• 1 teaspoon sea salt

Yep, that's it! 

Method

First thing's first, you'll want to preheat your oven to 325 degrees F (160 degrees C). Next, you'll want to set 8 ramekins in a large roasting pan to be used later.

Next, combine sugar, salt, and water in a medium sized saucepan

And now the waiting begins

Cook and stir over low heat until sugar is dissolved. This is going to take a LONG time, I would say it probably took me about 25 - 30 minutes to get the sugar where it needed to be. I started out on heat setting 2 (my electric stove goes from 1 - 9), but I ended up increasing it to 4 by the end to speed things along. 

Super blurry - whoops! 

Once it's finally at the lovely consistency above, turn up the heat! Bring to a boil over medium/high heat and boil gently WITHOUT STIRRING for 8 - 10 minutes or until the dissolved sugar turns a lovely amber colour. Remove from heat.

This is what happens when you stir it

Yep, no stirring. I'm not a fan of hard burned on food ruining my pans, so I stirred. And what happened? Crystallisation happened. It's okay, it just makes the next few steps a bit harder. Lesson learned, don't stir.

Anyways, while whisking constantly, slowly add whipping cream and milk to the caramelised sugar.

I mixed my cream and milk beforehand to make adding it much easier

This is going to cause some steam and your sugar will harden, but that's okay!

Blurry again. It's hard to whisk and photograph, y'all.

Return this mixture to the heat and whisk for about 2 minutes, or until the sugar is dissolved. This will take a bit longer if you stirred when you shouldn't have.

Now, in a large bowl whisk your egg yolks until light and foamy. Actually, I did this while waiting for my sugar to caramelise.

Top tip: pre-measure your ingredients before starting, the whole thing will go much more smoothly
Also - separating egg yolks is super gross when you do it with your hands. Ick.

Don't make fun of my super-sized bowl. My smaller one was in use for something else. 

Slowly whisk your cream mixture into the beaten egg yolks

It's all very yellow...

Pour the mixture through a fine meshed sieve into a 4 cup measuring jug with a pouring spout. I don't have a fine meshed sieve at the moment, so I just carefully poured the mixture into the measuring jug while trying to trap any clumps of sugar with my whisk. It worked fairly well. Divide the mixture into your ramekins.

Remember - I halved the recipe! 

Add enough hot water to the roasting pan to come about halfway up the ramekins. I just put the kettle on and poured it in until I had enough. Carefully place onto your oven rack.

If your mixture looks darker than mine, don't worry! I took mine off of the heat a little earlier - also it would have been darker if I DIDN'T STIR! 

Bake for 40 minutes or until the edges of the custards are set but the centres jiggle when shaken. Transfer to wire racks and cool for about half an hour.

They smell so good. Must resist.

Cover and chill for about 4 hours.

That's right, 4 hours. You can do it!

When they're finally ready to be devoured, sprinkle with a little sea salt and TUCK IN! 

OH MY GOD! FINALLY! I'VE WAITED SO LONG! 

This recipe was amazingly simple and super satisfying. A great make ahead dessert for dinner parties or just something to keep in the fridge for a sweet treat any time. The rich buttery flavor and the hint of salt is just magic on your tongue. This is happening again. And again and again and again. 

Warning: The sight of your empty ramekin may cause tears

What's your favourite caramel treat?