Domestic Geek

Hope everyone out there in American Blogland had a Happy Thanksgiving. For the first time in five years, I didn't have to work on Thanksgiving, so for that I am extremely grateful. Preparing the Thanksgiving meal is one of the highlights of my year. I love to cook, but with just Marcus and I, I rarely get to go all out.

This year's menu included:

• Free range fresh turkey procured from Sunflower Market


• Mashed potatoes and gravy made from this recipe on The Pioneer Woman


• Broccoli/Cauliflower with cheese sauce (the cayenne pepper was a nice addition)


• Shrimp Stuffing (I had to use some stuffing I got at Sunflower since Kellogg's discontinued their stuffing a while back)


• Peas (Marcus always has to have these)


• Buttermilk biscuits


• Corn muffins


• Cranberry Orange dressing


• Pumpkin pie

Despite being sick, I managed to get quite a bit done this weekend.

On the crafty front, I finally got around to sewing the watch band for the iPod Nano that Dad and I got for Marcus last Christmas. I swore I'd get off my duff and get it made before this Christmas and I did it with a more than a month to spare.



I've been getting into making amigurumi lately. The first one I ever made was a Yoda for my desk at work. My most recent one is this cute little pumpkin pie:



I also finished knitting a dish cloth that was a test knit for a friend of mine. No picture yet as she has not yet released the pattern.

I made a really yummy dinner on Sunday night. Beer can chicken (free range) with sage, thyme & rosemary stuffed inside, baby red potatoes & broccoli with oregano, olive oil & sea salt and corn muffins. All organic, of course.



We had to board up the skirting where a raccoon tore into it to get under the house. I hate raccoons.

I got all the bedding washed, got the dishes caught up, bathed the rabbit and cleaned her cage, made a sketch for this week's Team Housewares golf poster...whew. Too bad the work week started again and is cutting into my productivity.

I have been wanting chili and cornbread for a few weeks now, but every time I had planned to make it, something came up. Well, today I finally had the time and the universe didn't throw any monkey wrenches in my plans. Except for having to pick up some more whole milk, I already had all the supplies (like I said, I've been trying to do this for a while):



Except for the chili powder and the bay leaves, everything I used tonight was organic, which made Marcus extremely happy. Who knew you can't find organic chili powder? Weird, huh? Even used grass-finished bison for the meat. YUM! Marcus is feeling a little under the weather and since I can't get him to drink my cough remedy with the vinegar and cayenne pepper, I upped the garlic, cayenne pepper and chili powder a bit.

The corn muffins turned out to be the best ones I've ever made. I used a recipe that I found on the Food Network web site: Honey Cornbread Muffins. These things were so moist. It must be the whole milk. Will definitely be making these again soon.



I'm so glad its Fall, I love being able to make stuff like this for dinner!

I'm so sick of buying bread full of artificial ingredients and loaded with sugar. I decided to start baking my own bread at home. I looked to my good friend, The Internet. I love how you don't need to have tons of cookbooks on hand anymore to find new recipes to try. I was browsing a site called CookingSpot.com looking for bread recipes and found something intriguing: Blue Cheese Biscuits. I'm going to have to give those a try! The site has interesting food-related articles, you can save your favorite recipes to your own recipe box, participate in the forum and even generate shopping lists. Since one of my goals has been to try new and healthier recipes, this is definitely a site I'm going to check out more in-depth.

Sorry about the glare in that picture I posted this morning. While at Atlanta Bread Co., I had my first ever bowl of French Onion Soup and I really liked it. I want to make it from scratch, so does anybody reading this have a good recipe for it? I'm dying to make my own.