I’ve got my hands on probably the coolest, most useful resource/recipe book on the planet (pun intended).

I highly recommend The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet to any parent/caregiver. Tons (and I mean tons) of amazing recipes. Easy ones (I like easy!) and tasty ones. I so could have used this book when my first was younger. I specifically remember stressing about what I was feeding her and searching for simple, yet nutritious and interesting foods for her developing palate.

I’ve got a second chance now and I’m putting these homemade baby food recipes to good use.  There are dishes in here that the entire family can enjoy!

I love the homemade baby food tips and the feedback chart included in the book.  I’m finding all of the information inside extremely inspirational, even now that I have a 5-1/2 year old and 23 month old.  I imagine I will turn to The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet for some time to come.  I’m equally thrilled to get copies of this baby food cookbook for family and friends who are expecting.

Here are just a few of the homemade baby food recipes you’ll find inside:

• 6 Months: Yummy Apple-Pear Puree
• 7 months: Orange You Cute Carrot and Sweet Potato
• 9 months: Curried Peas, Lucky Me!

Authors, Tina Ruggiero and Karin Knight get huge kudos from me.  This baby food recipe book is just brilliant and useful in so many ways.

The Best Homemade Baby Food on the Planet was sent to me for review.  To that I say, thank goodness!  Opinions expressed above are my very own.

For me, November is officially the one month where I look forward to a huge, guilt-free feast.  This year, we traveled 590 + miles to spend Thanksgiving with my family.  If I had to choose one meal out of the year to enjoy with family, this would be it.  No offense to my in-laws but, my mom’s Thanksgiving dinner menu will always be my favorite.  Childhood memories of Thanksgiving past came flooding back as the scent of pumpkin pies and turkey in the oven wafted through the air.  Heading to the Alleghenies last week to visit my family was such a treat.

As the meal preparations were being made, we introduced the little ones to our tradition of watching the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  They were ecstatic when Sponge Bob and Hello Kitty appeared and went floating through the streets of New York City.  Our 16 month old even danced to the beat of the marching bands as they played classic holiday tunes.  Their eyes grew pretty wide when Santa Claus rode by, waving at everyone from his sleigh.

My mom has a knack for putting together a great, home-cooked meal and this year’s meal was no exception.  We don’t get to spend every Thanksgiving with my side of the family, so I very much cherish the ones when we do make it out east.  I have many reasons why.

I don’t have any “special” recipes to share, well, because the food my mom prepares on Thanksgiving isn’t really any concoction of her own.  Most of the dishes are straight out of the Betty Crocker cookbook.  That doesn’t matter to me, though.  It’s the tradition that matters most to me.  We have turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cranberry sauce, gravy, warm dinner rolls and…PIE.  This year, my little family of four spent the day with four out of my seven brothers and their families.  It was a full house and never a dull moment.  I wouldn’t trade it for the world.

This isn’t a tradition (yet) but here is a snazzy roast turkey and brine recipe.  We experimented with it one Thanksgiving and it was delish.  We got it from one of our favorite celebrity chefs, Alton Brown.  You can get the details from this post: Can You Eat the Turkey from the Southside?  I highly recommend giving it a whirl sometime this fall/winter season.

Now that we’re safely back at home after being away for a week, I’m setting my sights on the upcoming winter festivities.  I have so much planned for this month by way of crafty stuff and baking!  How did you spend your Thanksgiving holiday?  Did you try any new recipes or make any new friends?

Sometimes I get these crazy ideas.  Several months ago, I decided that I should make a Perry the Platypus cake for the kiddo’s 5th birthday.  So, I went online and scoped out some sites where people had documented their Perry the Platypus cake process.

My-oh-my, this 5th birthday has snuck right up on me.  I have thought to myself, for as busy as I am, I must be crazy to even think I should attempt this project.  But, it’s for my little girl, who *loves* Perry, the quirky little teal-colored platypus on one of her favorite Disney channel shows, Phineas and Ferb.  In the end, it may not look like the most appetizing cake, in the shape of a platypus and whatnot, but it’s the thought that counts, right?  She has no idea that I’m making it and she’s going to love it.

Over the past couple of days, I have gathered my ingredients (kept forgetting things and had to keep going back to the store to get them) and now, I am ready to do this thing.

Since her birthday isn’t for another couple of days, today, I made preparations.  I followed the excellent instructions that I found over at Dabbled and Peggy Weaver’s site.

The first thing I did to prepare was make the base cake and Perry’s body, er, the pound cake.  I took a shortcut on this one due to time constraints and the fact that I don’t want to completely screw this up.  So, a box chocolate cake and box pound cake it is.  The chocolate cake will serve as the base (13×9) and the pound cake baked in a loaf pan (9×5) will be Perry’s body, which lays on top of the chocolate base cake.  I haven’t completely decided what the base cake will look like yet.  However, I can tell you that I do have a couple of cute ideas for it.

While my cakes were baking, I prepared the marshmallow fondant.  I put off doing this for a very long time tonight.  I don’t know why I was so nervous about making it.  Probably because it’s late and I didn’t want to end up just throwing in the towel.  Well, I did it.  I made it.  It “looks” right.  We’ll see how things go tomorrow when I’m actually sculpting with it and not just staring at it.  Oh yeah, and when we eat it.

First thing I did was melt marshmallows, which was really fun (I’m not kidding).  The fondant recipe that Dot from Dabbled and Peggy from What’s Cooking America calls for is a 16 oz. bag of mini marshmallows but I used a 10 oz. bag of regular size marshmallows.  I did cut them in half.  I don’t know why.  Maybe because – well, have you ever microwaved a Peep?

Nuking the marshmallows went very smoothly (pun intended).  30 seconds, stop and stir.  30 more seconds, stop and stir (mine were just about fully melted at this point), about 30 more seconds in the micro and stir and I had my own homemade marshmallow fluff.  Then, I dumped almost an entire bag of powdered sugar on top of the melted marshmallows.  Now, that’s what I call a sugar on sugar crime.

Next comes the FUN part.  First thing I did before slathering Crisco all over my counter top was antibacterial it and wipe it with a warm wash cloth.  Then, with a huge grin on my face because I was allowed to make this mess, I spread a thin layer of Crisco over a large area of my counter top.  I dumped my bowl of melted marshmallows and powdered sugar onto my counter top and Weee!  (Don’t forget to grease up your hands really good.)

Immediately, I started to knead the mixture like I was making bread dough for a Stromboli (which has been added to my list of things to make in the near future).

I kneaded that baby up for a good 10 minutes or so, adding a half tablespoon of water here and there to make the icing more pliable.  I dumped the rest of the powdered sugar on and kneaded it in.  I added several more half tablespoons of water because the icing seemed pretty dry.  Soon enough, I had a very happy lump of marshmallow fondant icing laying on my counter top:

Told you.

I greased up my ball of happy fondant and wrapped it in plastic wrap to store in the refrigerator.  I didn’t have a large ziplock bag, so I put my wrapped fondant into a grocery store bag and wrapped it up pretty tight, so no air goes in.  Hopefully the icing will be in tact tomorrow.  By the way, I did not color my fondant yet.

After the fondant was wrapped up and taking it’s spot in the frig, I took the cooled cakes out of their pans and wrapped them in plastic wrap.  They also went into the refrigerator overnight.

See how my cakes split on the top?  I over-beat the batter!  It was hard to tell what I was doing with my super powerful hand mixer.

So, that’s all for this evening ladies and gents.  I will check on my fondant in the morning and possibly add some food color.  I don’t intend to completely assemble the cake until later on tomorrow night, so it’s fresh for Friday.

Stay tuned for part 2 of my Perry the Platypus cake exploration!

With Thanksgiving less than two weeks away it is about time to determine just how you are gonna cook that tasty bird.  I’ve had deep-fried turkey (good), smoked turkey (even better), but my favorite way to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving (or even Christmas) is brined and roasted. Yes, I’ll admit that I borrowed the original recipe from the amazing Alton Brown a few years ago, but I’ve made some minor (and delicious) changes, oh yes.

Start with a 14 to 16 pound turkey.  You can use a smaller bird or a turkey breast, but be sure to reduce the other ingredients proportionally.  You’ll also need a 5 gallon bucket.

Brine stuff:
1 cup of salt
1/2 cup light brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 tbsp whole black peppercorns
1/2 tbsp allspice berries
1/2 tablespoon candied ginger
1/2 cup cognac
1 gallon iced H20

Aromatics:
1 red apple, sliced
1/2 onion, sliced
1 cinnamon stick
1 cup water
4 sprigs rosemary
6 sage leaves
canola oil

So what you want to do is combine all the brine stuff (except the iced water) in a pot and bring it to a boil.  Stir until the solids are dissolved, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until chilled. It is generally best to do this the night before. Save a little bit of the cognac for yourself and have a drink while you’re at it.

Early on the day of cooking, combine the brine (what you made above) and ice water in the clean 5 gallon bucket.  Mix it up and place the thawed turkey breast side down in the bucket, cover, and refrigerate or set it in a cool place for 6 hours. It is generally pretty chilly here around Thanksgiving so on the back porch works for me.

Just before you are ready to roast, heat your oven to 500 degrees.  Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water and microwave on high for about 5 minutes.  Once you get the aromatics in the microwave, remove the bird from the brine and rinse inside and out with cold water.  Discard the brine.

Place your turkey on a roasting rack inside a wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels.  Add the aromatics you just microwaved to the cavity of the bird along with the rosemary and sage. Tuck back the wings and coat the bird liberally with canola oil.

Roast your bird on the lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes.  Remove the turkey from the oven and cover breast with a double layer of aluminum foil and return it to the oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F.  A 14 to 16 pound turkey should require 2 to 2-1/2 hours of roasting.  Use a probe thermometer if you’ve got one and set it for 161 degrees.  Let your bird rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.