Playing Catch-Up: October and November Bucket List

Fall is a bit of a hectic time for our family.  There are horror conventions, Thanksgiving, a plethora of birthdays, Halloween, National Novel Writing Month, and to top it all off I was taking Neuroscience this session.  Neuroscience has sort of been the Boss Villain of my college career.  This is my third time taking it and I am happy to say it will be the last. I turned the big paper in, late, but much improved upon the last two attempts where I got so overwhelmed and frustrated that I just gave up.  Now I have also taken the final and can happily say that the third time WAS the charm and I earned a B this time.  This perfect storm of constant busy left me with many late nights and this post is overdue.  I decided to combine what I checked off in October and November in one post this go around.

I started in on my new food lists in October and November.  It was a lot of fun!

October:
The first thing I did was make a roux in order to make some cheese sauce for pulled pork nachos on my favorite day of the week, Taco Tuesday!  Now I had made a roux before, but never a proper roux, in the past it was more of a winging it to thicken a sauce thing.  This time around I made sure I did it properly with equal amounts of fat and flour.

Photo by Poison Megz

Next up on the list I decided to tackle poached eggs.  I have been trying to make poached eggs for a long time.  It never ended well.  The whites were always a mess and if I did them the cheater's way in the microwave I always overcooked them so the yolk was solid.  I had tried every trick in the book and every combination of them.  My sweet as pie friend Lida sent me some videos of her poaching eggs to encourage me to keep trying and finally after watching them and combining advice from the Black Milk Foodies collective I had success two days in a row! The first I poached in water and ate on toast, the next I poached directly in my ramen!

Photo by Poison Megz

Look at that perfectly runny yolk and the white all held together! It is a thing of beauty.  I am so thrilled that this a skill I have acquired.

The third thing off of the new food lists I checked off in October actually happened a bit accidentally.  I had a large, thin steak for another Taco Tuesday that I marinated in beer and chipotle in adobo and some other taco seasonings.  I seared it off in a pan and it turned out perfectly! So I was able to cross steak off of my 30 before 30 list, but learn to properly grill a steak is still on my summer list since I did not grill this one. 

Photo by Poison Megz

Now, I also made chocolate chip cookies from scratch in October, but we ate them before I could take a photo.  They were espresso chocolate chips and they were so yummy. It happens, sometimes you eat the food without taking a picture.  I know that's shocking to hear from me, the queen of food photos, but it happens. 

November:

In November I discovered the joy of the Indy Winter Farmer's Market which led to me making Fennel Hummus.  It was so good! I had to use an immersion blender so it was a little chunky, but the flavor was outstanding. 

Photo by Poison Megz

Now for the big one! The most intimidating item on the 30 before 30 list, at least in my mind a complete thanksgiving dinner. I was pretty ambitious, but the only thing I wound up scrapping from my list was making my own rolls from scratch.  Other than that I did everything I wanted to!  The turkey was rubbed with an herb citrus butter inside and out and stuffed with oranges.  It was so good I didn't get a picture of the finished bird because the boys ate it too fast! There was also cider thyme gravy, sweet potato casserole, everything bagel stuffing, green bean casserole with fried shallots on top, pumpkin cheesecake, stuffing muffins with pancetta, cranberries, and apple, salted maple pecan pie bars, mashed potatoes, cranberry-orange sauce, and a white cheddar sage cheeseball crusted with pomegranate.  All of this (except the mashed potatoes) are included in the photo collage below.

Photos by Poison Megz

Everything was a hit with at least one family member.  Our teenager ate an entire cheesecake himself in under 24 hours and our 22 yo ate an entire tray of stuffing and almost all the turkey in under 2 days.  I ate the whole cheeseball with very little help from my mini monster.  Now leftovers are my favorite part of Thanksgiving.  I made Thanksgiving poutine with a little bit of all the leftovers and also my leftover fries from Kuma's Corner Indy.  I also made a Thanksgiving sandwich, which is probably the most popular way Thanksgiving leftovers are enjoyed. So good! 

Photos by Poison Megz

And that's it! Now again I am so sorry these posts were so late and I swear next month's will be much more timely even with Hanukkah and Christmas this month! Maybe I'll finally get to check off having a mistletoe kiss year! A girl can dream right?

What's your favorite way to have your Thanksgiving leftovers?

Until next time, remember to Live Life Decadently

XOXO

Poison Megz