Thursday, November 27, 2014

Cooking and Other Questionable Holiday Practices




Autumn is definitely over for us and it's about time!
Looking at my poor garden all brown and dead was starting to get me down.
Now that Mother Nature has tidied things up, it's time to party. 




In anticipation of the upcoming holidays Burt has been cooking up a storm.




Yes, even fruitcake. He doesn't add any of those weird, hard rubber-like squares of citron or plasticized cherries. It's all dried fruits and nuts, kind of an appropriate recipe for him. 




Of course his favorite part comes at the end, dousing it in cognac. He's a little behind this year, it needs to sit in the fridge for a least a month for all the alcohol to evaporate. Guess it will just have to wait until Christmas. It's a cake Nick looks forward to enjoying during the holiday season and luckily for him it lasts a long, long, long time. It's really not too bad after a couple glasses of port though.



Hmmm, which does weigh more? The bowling ball seems surprised.




Meanwhile, onto the cranberry sauce, another one of those questionable holiday dishes. At least it looks pretty and I have to admit that it wouldn't seem like Thanksgiving without the aroma of it cooking in the kitchen and seeing that ruby glow. If it's not on the table at dinner everyone asks where it is but considering how much is always left over, I'm not sure if anyone actually eats it!




Can you guess the special ingredient?



Finally, something almost everyone will eat. Nick made the pumpkin pie while Burt supervised.




Mad Hatter to Mad Scientist? Subtle difference.




The next challenge, adding a leaf the dining room table and rounding up enough chairs.
There's always something that turns up unexpectedly, thankfully this time it was only a catnip mouse.




Catnip always gets the attention of the resident bad kitty.
Come on Burt, no teasing even if he does deserve it for jumping on the table!





All finished and ready for overindulgence. Good job Burt, Mr. Carson would approve.
Now we just have to keep the kitties off the table.




Of course it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without some football games! The important ones for Burt and friends aren't until this weekend. The rivalry between the Universities of Wisconsin and Minnesota has been going on since 1890. For the first fifty years the trophy was a called "a slab of bacon", now it's an actual axe. Burt got out the music for the fight song and is boning up for the big game.



So what are your favorite holiday indulgences?
Do you have any great vegetarian recipes, seriously I could really use some!




. . . and so it begins!
 Happy Thanksgiving to all who are celebrating today from Burt and his crew!
Thanks for visiting. 

6 comments:

  1. I loves me a yummy dish full of oven roasted vegetables. Simply seasoned and sweetened by the heat mmmmmmm..... :D XXX

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    1. That does sound good! It's always the simplest ideas that get overlooked, I'll have to remember to try that one next time I have vegetarians dinner guests.

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  2. Yes, I do believe Mr. Carson would approve of that wonderful table setting! I was just telling Amanda how much I love your beautiful dishes! One of these days we will have something like that. I still adore your posts so much! you can tell Burt that Amanda and I would eat the cranberry sauce, we love it!

    My parents were vegetarian for about a year while I was growing up. I think if you can find a cookbook called Moosewood Cookbook that one might be all vegetarian or at least has some vegetarian recipes in it. I know it has one called cauliflower cheese pie and it's delicious!

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    1. Thanks for the recommendation on the cookbook, the cauliflower pie sounds like it would've been perfect for Thanksgiving.
      I've never had to set a table with that many bowls and plates before, I was afraid it looked like a garage sale! There was just no other way to accommodate all the vegetarian, food allergy, and traditional aspects of the dinner. Happily, we all ate and drank too much so it all worked out in the end.
      Glad to hear you like cranberry sauce, too!



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  3. Hello! Looks like some good eats and a lovely winter landscape out there! Glad to see Burt and your Mad Hatter were helping out! How lovely your table looked for the dinning festivities! We headed to my mom in laws house for Thanksgiving day and her name is Roberta but goes by Bert! Cheers!!!

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  4. Thanks for stopping by! It's great to have help with the holidays, fortunately His Madness likes to cook. Now if I could just get Burt to do all the cleaning up!

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