I woke up yesterday feeling thankful. Thankful that I have two great kids. Thankful that my hubby and I are besties. Thankful that he isn't deployed (while many of our friends are). Thankful that someone I love recently received a clear bone scan when being scanned for cancer. You never know what can happen and I wanted to take the day to show my family how much I love them. Why wait until a major holiday to have a great holiday meal?! Let's have a love celebration. (Ok, so I felt sappy. My hubby laughed when I called it a love celebration). Ha!
I got to work and processed 2 dozen cobs of corn. I bagged and froze it then decided to try something new. I wanted to make cream corn. I took the last six cobs (uncooked) and cut the corn off. I put about 4 tablespoons of butter into a saute pan. I melted the butter and added the corn, 1 tablespoon of sugar, salt, and pepper. I let it cook on low for about 25 minutes. I mixed one tablespoon of flour with one tablespoon of water. I stirred it into the corn. Then I added 3/4 cup of milk and let it cook for a few more minutes. Wow. This corn is so good!
My next project was making my hubby some hot pepper relish. I used the basics of a recipe my aunt gave me last year. I knew my hubby wanted it a little less sweet so I reduced the sugar. I started out by adding 1 jalapeno, 4 cayenne, 2 big habanero, 1 tablespoon fresh garlic, 1 1/2 cups green pepper (a small amount of it was red), and 1 cup onion into a little bit of oil. I cooked them for just a few minutes and then added in 2 cups of green tomatoes (way less than the relish I made last year because I wanted to highlight his peppers and not green tomatoes). I added a little less than 1/2 tablespoon each of mustard seed and kosher salt. I added 1/4 tablespoon of celery seed, 1/2 cup apple cider vinegar, and 1/4 cup sugar. I let it simmer for about an hour and then put it through the food processor. My hubby tested it and said "ooooh, that's spicy". Yay! I usually don't make things hot enough for him.
I decided to make meatballs (vegetarian ones out of chickpeas) and boiled potatoes with garlic butter to go along with the cream corn for dinner. I got the meatballs made and rolled. I got the potatoes cleaned, cut, and into water. Earlier I said that you never know what can happen..... yesterday was an example of that. I went into the kitchen to turn on the oven and stove and discovered that the kids had bumped the stove about 20-30 minutes earlier and our kitchen had filled up with gas. Yeah, that put dinner on hold. I figured it was probably best to air it out, order a pizza, and wait to cook the meatballs and potatoes until later in the evening and just keep them for dinner the next day. Once again, feeling thankful that I noticed it before I turned on the burner. Thankful I didn't blow up! Oh well, our celebration will wait for a night.
I wanted to make a dessert for us. I found a recipe on Taste of Home for a moist chocolate cake. It said it was so moist that it didn't even need frosting and was topped with a dusting of powdered sugar instead. It sounded perfect seeing as I didn't have any frosting or cream cheese to make a batch. I gave it a whirl. Mix 1 1/2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 3 tablespoons of baking cocoa (I used 5 because under the comments it said it needed more chocolate), 1 teaspoon baking soda, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt. Make three wells in the mix and add the following: 6 tablespoons vegetable oil, 1 tablespoon white vinegar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. Pour 1 cup cold water over it all. Beat on low. Pour into a greased/floured 8 inch square pan and bake at 350 for 30 minutes.
Dinner rolled around and seeing as it was all cooked all I had to do was heat it up. We had our meatballs, potatoes with garlic butter, homemade cream corn, salad with lettuce/arugula/peas/green onion/sunflower seeds, homemade pumpkin pie flavored applesauce, and my daughter's famous deviled eggs. When it came time for dessert, I couldn't figure out how to add powdered sugar to the cake without it clumping. My hubby had a great idea. He suggested I put powdered sugar into my skimmer (handheld little strainer) and tap the side. It worked great!
What did everyone think of our love celebration? Everyone loved the cream corn. I'll have to make that again. My hubby, daughter, and I all liked the cake. My son said it was too chocolatey. What?! It was light with just the right amount of sweet. I'll have to make that again too. It was fun having a nice big dinner. My daughter was so excited that she got to contribute; she had me video tape her giving a cooking show while she made the eggs. :) I enjoy cooking and often use food to show my love. Today was just another day. However, it felt great to take a little extra time and make something special for my family. We talked about how lucky we are as a family. As we sat around our picnic blanket (which has kind of become a tradition), I couldn't help but feel thankful once more. Now go. Go cook. Go spend extra time with your kids. Hug your hubby just a little bit longer. Be thankful for all you can do.
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