Cooking Archives - Right At The Light

We hope You and Your Family had a Wonderful Thanksgiving!

Sometimes plans change on the road. I had planned Thanksgiving Dinner for Zach and myself, along with one friend. Plans changed for that friend, so it was just going to be the two of us.

I was just a bit off on the plan. I didn’t think Thanksgiving was on the 24th, for whatever reason, since there isn’t a 31st in November. But I realized this on the 22nd. Oops. No turkey, no dried bread for stuffing, pretty much only had potatoes and some veggies.

Shopping for Thanksgiving, a few times

Off to the store we went. Stopped at Aldi and lucked out on one fresh turkey being available that wasn’t $44!! Cause there were 2 available, but I wasn’t paying $44 for a 10-lb turkey. So $19.04 for an 11-lb sounded reasonable (but really not, my frugal brain was reeling from this purchase!!!). But we got it, and went home to be thankful we had a turkey!

And I realized I forgot anything that might be worthy for use as stuffing. I figured I’d just bake some bread.

Well, then comes the 23rd. And I realize in our downsizing spree, that we have gotten rid of anything that might have housed this 11-lb gem of a turkey to cook it! Off to the store Zach went

Baking, Cooking, Improvising

Now comes the “I forgot the stuffing parts bread baking” moment. I found a great recipe, followed it to a T! Didn’t have a dutch oven, so opted for the rolls instead. Didn’t matter, I was cutting it into cubes for the stuffing anyway. So I get all the way to the final rise. 30 minutes, then in the oven. 15 minutes in, our hosts stopped over to say Hi!

Never a problem, but I didn’t want to crank the oven up to 375°F while there were 4 of us in the bus!! Well, the rolls rose perfectly, and they should have been popped in the oven then. They weren’t, so they collapsed. Maybe they rose a little more before I got them in the oven, but I’m not sure. Oops .

But I went with it, because again, I was using it for stuffing. And it came out not so terrible. Slightly dense, which I’m sure is the over-proofing.

Here’s the recipe 🙂 It has seriously deep flavors, just savory enough for stuffing!! I was pretty excited!!

[mv_create key=”2″ thumbnail=”https://rightatthelight.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/IMG_20221124_135955_HDR2-1.jpg” title=”Thanksgiving Stuffing Bread” type=”recipe”]

I was set, for stuffing anyway! All I needed to do was dry it. So I put it on my oven-sized baking sheet and set the oven to 200°F and forgot about it for a while. It was getting chilly in the bus, so it served two purposes to turn the oven on

A Change in Plans

But then our current hosts invited us over for Thanksgiving Dinner with them and their family. So we bumped our meal a day, because why not? After all the craziness of getting what we needed, I was ok with a day break!

Black Friday Thanksgiving Dinner

So our dinner consisted of the usual, Turkey, Stuffing, Mashed Potatoes, and the rest… minus the Green Bean Casserole. Cause that’s not on our list of favs anyway (sorry, just can’t) .

The Sides

So maybe not traditional mashed potatoes, but they once were 🙂 I made them for dinner 2 nights ago! This is listed as an appetizer, but I planned on using it as a side!

[mv_create key=”1″ title=”Loaded Mashed Potato Balls” type=”recipe”]

I sooooo struggled with making this dish. First, I work on a gas range, which I’m not totally used to yet. And it has problems. The temps are WAY off. I could have it set at low and the flame is like it is set on high. So A LOT of improvising goes into my cooking.

But these potato balls were not having it the first go round. I used a stainless steel pan and olive oil. And it was a MESS! User error, I guarantee, but a mess all the same.

I had a moment of sheer frustration.. and then revamped the methods. Used a teflon pan, with butter, flattened the balls into more like a pancake and they were golden! A few minutes on each side and they were done! Perfect side for our turkey!

The Turkey…

Our Turkey and gravy, well … pretty traditional. The stuffing was a bit nontraditional in a few ways. First, I rarely bake my own bread for stuffing. I buy it either from the bakery department or get a bag of pre-seasoned cubes from Pepperidge Farms 🙂 . Second, I cannot find chestnuts, and I always put that in my stuffing. So, none in it this year since I just couldn’t find any. So sad

[mv_create key=”3″ title=”Easy Turkey and Gravy” type=”recipe”]

I followed this recipe closely and it made a very nice, moist turkey! It was just Zach and myself, so we have a lot of leftovers! I’m hoping to find some unique recipes to try with them!!

Dessert … Finally!!!

Zach wanted Cheesecake. That was the only thing he requested, so I was happy to find a cheesecake recipe to try 🙂 I love cheesecake also, so it wasn’t hard to convince me that it needed to be dessert. So here is what I tried !

[mv_create key=”4″ title=”Apple Crisp Cheesecake” type=”recipe”]

Now, let’s talk about my experience with this recipe.

First, I didn’t read the instructions, just the ingredient list. I’ve made a billion cheesecakes, so didn’t even think about it. Turns out, I don’t own a 6″ springform pan I own a 9″ and didn’t think this recipe would translate well in that pan.

Well, I bake cakes at events, and usually bake them in single(ish) serve pans from Walmart.

At that time, I wanted bulk so I ordered some from Amazon. And they were TEEEEEENY!!!! Too tiny for the cakes I was making back then!!

So, I used them here. Making them individual cheesecake cupcakes, sort of. I had to improvise on everything but the actual recipe. I made it just as it stated. I layered in the tiny pans just like I would have in the springform.

It was the bake time I had no clue on. Cheesecake is such an exact timing thing. So I searched online for some answers and came up with 22 minutes. But all of those recipes had me pull them right after the bake time, instead of resting for the hour in the cooling oven. So I took my chances and left them in. Good move.

I followed the rest of the timing on this recipe above, and it was perfect. Cooling times were spot on. And I have to say they were absolutely delicious.

Here are my final thoughts on the ebook 🙂

These recipes were easy to follow, good home cooking dishes. They were a hit at my Dinner table. The ingredients were simple, yet delicious. I was able to make the dishes I prepared with ingredients I already had in my home! I’m adding these recipes to my collection of tried and true, and to my definitely try lists !!

Go check the book out for yourself!

HERE

So that’s it! Our First Thanksgiving together, the First Thanksgiving in the bus on the road! Was it a success? We ate, we were full, we have leftovers…..I say yes!!!

When it comes to living in a bus, the one thing you need to do is downsize. And after you are done with that, you need to downsize some more. We had a rice cooker, and a crockpot, and an air fryer, and while we used the rice cooker a lot, the crockpot was too big to make meals for 2 and the air fryer rarely made its way out of storage. So we thought if we got an instant pot, we could essentially downsize from 2-3 appliances to just one.

We ended up finding a GREAT deal at Walmart for a 6-qt Instant Pot Duo. We tried to find a 3-qt but had very little luck and when we did, they cost as much as the larger ones. So as long as it FIT under the floor to store it, we have a nice freezer to put leftovers in 🙂 I purchased this one because it had the features I wanted, and it was $50* with Free Shipping. Black Friday pricing to my door? I’m in!!

So, the first night we tried it (after doing the recommended water test), we found a recipe for using frozen chicken breast, uncooked rice and vegetables. We had the frozen chicken breast and uncooked rice, but we used frozen vegetables instead of fresh. Followed the instructions for cooking and away we went. To Mushy Rice Boulevard. The chicken was cooked great, the vegetables weren’t terrible. There were these pockets of herb bombs that came with some of the vegetables. But a fail

Pretty sure it was the extra water in the frozen vegetables that caused the excessive mushiness.

That’s my story, and I’m sticking with it.

Fast forward to the next night and I decide to make us Sesame Chicken. Halfway through cooking it and I remember our disastrous dinner from the previous night included the last of our white rice. So, Zach offered to go to the one store in town, Dollar General. Where they had no white rice. No brown rice. Just Knorr side dishes, and instantly ready in 90 seconds in the microwave rice. All fine, but… I’m looking to use it with Sesame Chicken :/ So I just tell him to get whatever might go with the meal being made and continue cooking.

He ended up with a Knorr Side dish, herbs and butter, or something like that. Best option.

We really had no clue how to make it in the instant pot, and maybe should have just stove topped it, but we had a new toy, so into the instant pot it went. Like we were making straight up white rice.

It was mushy

I’m sure this time it was the fact that the rice was pre-cooked in some fashion for quick cooking at home?! Maybe?

((Funny thing is, the next morning… I realized we DO have rice. We have a bag of Sushi Rice. Not sure how that cooks up ))

So it gets better. Zach LOVES BACON. It’s almost a daily in this house. Normally cooked on the stove in cast iron. Zach decides he’s going to look up how to cook bacon in the Instant Pot. Something about opening and closing it a billion times with 2-3 minute intervals of flipping bacon. And it was a fail. A finish it in the cast iron skillet kind of fail

I am trying hard boiled eggs in this thing today. So many people rave about this one thing. Hard boiled eggs, easy in the instant pot. For us too??? I’m not into “new” so it may be my unwillingness to give up the pots and pans, but I’m willing to try. Hopefully eggs will win me over. I’m very particular about my eggs

Stay tuned. I’m determined my next post about the Instant Pot is filled with success !!

*Price as of this post is $50. Regular price listed is $81.99.

Tag: Cooking

Thanksgiving Dinner, Just A Day Late!