Mini Chocolate Pecan Pies

 and today I also noticed that Mini Chocolate Pecan Pies are the way to go for a downsized Thanksgiving  dinner. A single serve dessert that has all the flavors of a traditional pecan pie but no slicing or sharing required. It's all yours and with a drizzle of chocolate and a dollop of whipped cream it's the piece de resistance- a  perfect finish for a Thanksgiving meal. A winner in my book for flavor and baking ease.  

Recipe adapted from BHG November 2020 and makes 10 mini pies with one box (two pie crusts) Pillsbury.

Cook's Notes:  These pies can be made ahead to freeze or if just baked a day ahead refrigerate covered lightly with foil and warm a bit before serving. With one box you can make 5 pecan (save leftover filling for another time) and 5 Apple Cinnamon or 5 Cranberry Pear.     

Ingredients: 

• 1 box 2 pie crusts
• All purpose flour for work surface 
• 3/4 cup granulated sugar 
• 3/4 dark corn syrup
•  1/4 cup brown sugar
•  1/4 cup melted butter
• 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 1/2 teaspoon fine salt
•  3 large eggs beaten 
• 2 cups finely chopped pecans
•  1/3 cup semi sweet chips

Directions:

Note: One pie crust makes 5 mini pie circles. 

• Work with only one pie crust at a time. Keep other one refrigerated until needed. 
• Lightly grease a standard muffin pan. 
• Sprinkle flour on large sheet of wax paper. Roll out crust lightly. Using a 5 inch biscuit cutter or glass close to that measurement cut out 4 circles. 

• Reroll scraps to get a fifth circle. 

• Press each circle into a standard muffin tin well, flattening any bunches of dough along sides and crimp edges. Freeze tin 30 minutes. 
• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
• In a large bowl whisk together granulated sugar, corn syrup, brown sugar, butter, vanilla and salt. Add in beaten eggs. 
• Remove pan from freezer. Sprinkle 3 tablespoons pecans into each pie crust. Carefully pour pie filling over pecans about 1/4 cup for each pie. 
• Bake until pie is set about 28-30 minutes. Remove and place tin on wire cooling rack. After 15 minutes remove each pie and place directly on cooling rack. 
• Add chips with 1 tablespoon cream, mix and microwave until drizzling consistency. Drizzle over mini pie. 

UP NEXT 

Mini Cranberry Pear Pie, Cranberry Pear Crumbles and Mini Cinnamon Apple Pies

Oven Roasted Carrots Glazed with a Maple Cinnamon Sauce Topped with Cranberries and Almonds

Thanksgiving Sides

Oven Roasted Carrots Glazed with a Maple Cinnamon Sauce Topped with Cranberries and Almonds

A colorful side of maple and cinnamon glazed carrots studded with jammy cranberries and toasted almonds for much needed flavor and texture contrast. This sweet and savory dish should be at everyone's Thanksgiving table. Assemble it early in the day and roast the glazed carrots while you are slicing the turkey. 

Recipe serves 2-4. 

Ingredients:

• 1- (16 oz.) bag of baby carrots
• 3 tablespoons butter
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup 
• 1/2 tablespoon brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon orange zest
• 1/2 teaspoon thyme
• 2 minced garlic cloves
• Salt and pepper to taste
• 1/2 cup dried cranberries
• 1/3 cup toasted  almonds

Directions:

• Cover a baking sheet with parchment paper or a silicone pad.
• Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
• In a saucepan add butter, syrup, brown sugar, cinnamon, thyme and garlic. 
• Whisk and on a low heat bring to a simmer but do not boil. 
• Add bag of carrots and coat in the glaze. 
• Spread out on a baking sheet.
• Roast 15 minutes. Add cranberries and cook 5 minutes more. Salt and pepper to taste. Sprinkle with toasted almonds and serve immediately.

Celebrate and honor the rich and diverse culture, traditions, history and important contributions of native people through MIA's (Minneapolis Institute of Arts) collection, attend virtual events, take in a Virtual Care Package created by Native artists, watch videos, explore online exhibitions, learn about community partnerships, and more. 

Once on MIA's website (link below) click on explore the art here and hundreds of MIA's  expansive Native American collection is available virtually to browse. 

https://new.artsmia.org/native-american-heritage-month/

Thanksgiving Sides

Thanksgiving Sides

For many this may will be the year of downsizing for Thanksgiving gatherings. Ever Ready is in the downsizing mode too featuring Thanksgiving recipes suitable for  2-4 people all this week. Hopefully you find a recipe or two that works for your holiday meal.

Wild Rice Salad with Roasted Butternut Squash and Orange Cider Dressing
A refreshing healthy salad made with nutty wild rice, butternut squash and fruits drizzled with orange cider dressing. Pair the salad with a turkey or roasted pork dinner. Some wine suggestions include: Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel, Syrah and Pinot Noir.
Cook’ s notes: Advance planning makes preparation easier by cooking wild rice, chopping fruits and celery ahead. The recipe serves four and was adapted from BHG.
Salad Ingredients:

• 5 cups cooked wild rice
• 2 cups butternut squash, small cubes
• 2 clementines peeled and segmented
• 1 cup each diced celery and red apple with skin on
• 1 pear, cored and coarsely chopped
• 1 cup dried cranberries or pomegranates (arils)
• Lettuce leaf
• Optional 1 cup roasted salted pistachios or toasted pecans

Salad Directions:

• Cook wild rice until porous enough to soak up dressing, about 45 minutes. Drain, rinse and set rice aside.
• Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. In a bowl toss squash with 1 tablespoon olive oil or Orange Olive Oil, 1 tablespoon maple syrup, salt, pepper and a sprinkle of cinnamon. Roast squash for 15 minutes or until softened and slightly caramelized. Stir once during cooking time. Remove from oven and cool to room temperature.
• While squash is roasting, in a bowl combine cooked wild rice, fruits and celery. Stir in cooled butternut squash. Place salad mixture on a lettuce leaf, drizzle with dressing.

Orange Cider Dressing Ingredients and Directions:

• In a blender add in ¼ cup apple cider vinegar, 2 tablespoons chopped shallots and salt and pepper to taste.
• Add in 1 tablespoon orange zest, 5 tablespoons orange juice, 2 tablespoons honey and 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard.
• Blend and slowly add in ¼ cup olive oil or Blood Orange Olive Oil to mix.
• Season to taste. Refrigerate a few hours in a screw type jar. Reshake before using.
  

Garlic Herb Mashed Potatoes
Cook's notes: Everybody seems to have their favorite way of making mashed potatoes. I have found that the single thing that makes the biggest difference for making perfect creamy potatoes is the type of potatoes you use. Best to stick with Russets or Yukon Golds. Of the two, the Russet will give you the creamiest mash, but many people prefer the flavor and golden color of Yukon Golds. It’s a trade-off and totally up to you. Yukon Golds have a slightly buttery flavor all on their own and make perfect creamy, buttery mashed potatoes. 

Recipe serves 4 and don't be fooled by size of the baking dish. Four of us managed to lick it clean!

Cooking Tip: Alouette does double duty for this recipe. You will only need 1/2 to 3/4 of the container for this amount of potatoes. (taste test) Use the rest of the spread on crackers for a small appetizer.  

Ingredients:

• 2-1/2 lbs. Yukon Gold baking potatoes
• 1 container Alouette Cheese with Garlic and Herbs, room temperature
  
  
  
• 3/4 cup half and half or whole milk
• 1 tablespoon dried parsley flakes
• Salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

• Peel, cube potatoes and place in a large pan. Fill with enough cold water to just cover the potatoes. Add a pinch of salt.
• Bring to a boil then reduce heat to medium and cover. Cook until potatoes are tender. About 20 minutes.
• Pan “dry” after cooking. Immediately after the potatoes have been drained, return them to the hot stockpot, and place it back on the hot burner over low heat. Hold the stockpot handles with oven mitts, and gently shake the pan for about 1 minute to release some of the steam and moisture from the potatoes. Then remove the pan from the heat and set it aside, and your potatoes will be ready to mash or use a potato ricer.
• Stir in parsley, half and half or milk and 1/2 to 3/4 of the container Alouette Garlic Herb Cheese. Add salt and pepper to taste. Beat until smooth. Serve immediately. If making ahead place in a greased baking dish, cover and refrigerate. Bake at 350 degrees until heated through.

Spotlight on St. Kateri Teckakwitha

 

Spotlight on St. Kateri Teckakwitha
She is the first Native American to be declared a Saint.
St. Kateri was canonized on 10/21/2012 by Pope Benedict Her feast day is July 14. She is the patroness of the environment and ecology as is St. Francis of Assisi.

Kateri was born near the town of Auriesville, New York, in the year 1656. Tekakwitha is the name she was given by her Mohawk people. It translates to "She who bumps into things."
Kateri was the daughter of a Mohawk warrior. She was four years old when her mother died of smallpox. The disease also attacked Kateri and transfigured her face. She was adopted by her two aunts and an uncle. She refused to marry and converted to Christianity as a teenager. She was baptized at the age of twenty and incurred the great hostility of her tribe for becoming Christian. Although she had to suffer greatly for her Faith, she remained firm in it.

Kateri went to the new Christian colony of Indians in Canada. Here she lived a life dedicated to prayer, penitential practices, and care for the sick and aged. Every morning, even in bitterest winter, she stood before the chapel door until it opened at four and remained there until after the last Mass. She was devoted to the Eucharist and to Jesus.

She died on April 17, 1680 at the age of twenty-four. Immediately after her death it was reported people noticed a physical change. Her face that had been so marked and swarthy, suddenly changed and became beautiful and so white. Later Kateri became known as the "Lily of the Mohawks". Devotion to Kateri is responsible for establishment of Native American ministries in Catholic Churches all over the United States and Canada. Kateri was declared venerable by the Catholic Church in 1943 and she was Beatified in 1980. Hundreds of thousands have visited shrines to Kateri erected at both St, Francis Xavier and Caughnawaga her birth place at Auriesville, New York. Pilgrimages to these sites continue today.

A poem to carry with you this week- one of those poems that deserves more than one read 

"Eagle Poem" 
by Joy Harjo, a poet and a member of Creek (Muscogee) tribe

To pray you open your whole self
To sky, to earth, to sun, to moon
To one whole voice that is you.
And know there is more
That you can’t see, can’t hear,
Can’t know except in moments
Steadily growing, and in languages
That aren’t always sound but other
Circles of motion.
Like eagle that Sunday morning
Over Salt River. Circles in blue sky
In wind, swept our hearts clean
With sacred wings.
We see you, see ourselves and know
That we must take the utmost care
And kindness in all things.
Breathe in, knowing we are made of
All this, and breathe, knowing
We are truly blessed because we
Were born, and die soon within a
True circle of motion,
Like eagle rounding out the morning
Inside us.
We pray that it will be done
In beauty.
In beauty.

A week of Thanksgiving sides for good for 2-4 people for smaller gatherings  

Sweet and Sour Shrimp Quinoa Bowl

Start the weekend with a winning recipe made with a bagged lettuce and topping kit from the produce section, fresh cooked shrimp from the meat department and a prepared pouch of quinoa brown and red rice. It's the makings of a whole meal. Recipe serves two but can easily be increased to serve more though you will need another packet of dressing. It's a convenient meal to put together when you don't feel like cooking. 

Smoked Salmon, Stir fried pork or chicken can stand in for the shrimp. 

Sweet and Sour Shrimp Rice Bowl

Ingredients: 

• 1 bag of Asian Chopped Kit

• 1 pouch Seeds of Change Quinoa Brown and Red Rice

• 12 shrimp (I bought fresh large cooked shrimp with tails on ) 
• 1 cup diced cucumbers, divided
• 1/4 cup green onions diced, divided

Directions: 

• Cook quinoa following directions on pouch using skillet method. Set aside. 
• In each bowl place 2 cups lettuce mixture and 1/2 cup cucumbers. Divide quinoa among the two bowls. From the bagged lettuce add wonton strips and almonds.
• Top with shrimp and drizzle dressing over the top and green onions.

Sweet and Sour Dressing Directions: 

Enough dressing for 2 bowls.

From the packet inside lettuce mix, squeeze the dressing contents into a small bowl. Add 2 tablespoons ketchup and 1 teaspoon sweet chili-garlic sauce, mix well.   

Alberto Álvaro Ríos is a US academic and writer who is the author of ten books and chapbooks of poetry, three collections of short stories, and a memoir. Ríos is a Regents’ Professor at Arizona State University, where he has taught for over 30 years and where he holds the further distinction of the Katharine C. Turner Endowed Chair in English. In August 2013, Rios was named Arizona's first state poet laureate, a position he held until 2015. 

He was born of a Mexican father and a British mother in the border city of Nogales, Arizona. Rios has lived his life between cultures. He extends the metaphor of in-betweeness to language, claiming that he speaks three languages: Spanish, English, and a combination of the two. This linguistic richness gives Ríos’s verse a touch of magical realism,

"The Sheet Music of Place" 
by Alberto Rios

The river through its centuries has made a line on this place,
A child's line, wanting to be straight but distracted at every move,

A little left, a little fast, around a big rock, sliding straight away
Through sand, this crawling, leaden line echoing

The line made by the tops of the mountains in silhouette against the sky.
The railroad track makes another line, a double line-

The highway, too, and the telephone poles strung with wire.
All these lines work in sure if uneasy concert

Written on the arid air of this place, which has made everything
Dry and white, off-white, some darks but on their way to white,

All this landscape a great and delicate paper.

These lines make a musical staff borrowed from the world of dream,
The world that then fills these lines with its profundo notations,

The careful placement of one moving thing next to another,
The train engine and its cars-those drudging bass notes,

Birds everywhere in their thrill, 64th notes every one,
Everything scored onto the pages of this world suddenly heard.

Day and night, that ceaseless baton, unforgiving metronome:
Bees lumber along but their work is to stop, whole stops and half,

Busy at their honeying, these respites of work, these moments loud
Too-resting the ear so as to hear composed this place into music-

Every sound a new performance of the great song of this world.

These photos were taken in Tubac, a town close to where Rios grew up. I was a bit awestruck when I took the top photo noticing the diffusion of light in the sky behind the mountain contrasting it against the starkness of the desert landscape. It gives a sense of place that's prevalent in Rio's writing.

World Kindness Day 2020

World Kindness Day November 13th 

Spread kindness wherever you go-its free and goes a long way.  

During the month of November and into December Ever Ready will post ideas to keep the kindness going right through 2020 into 2021.  
1. Donate to a local food pantry and/or thrift shop
2. Volunteer for a worthy cause
3. Start a gratitude journal-be good to yourself
4. Support and buy local whenever you can 
5. Share  a dinner with a neighbor or friend
6. Donate a coat
7. Thank a cashier for their service
8. Volunteer to drive someone who needs some extra help
9. Pay for someone’s meal
10. Thank a veteran
11. Show your gratitude to a loved one
12. Write a note of appreciation
13. Offer someone words of encouragement
14. Let someone else have the parking spot
15. Donate to Toys for Tots
16. Make someone a handmade gift

17. Help a neighbor put out their garbage cans curbside.

18. Email or call an old friend
19. Donate to a local rescue or animal shelter
20. Thank your local police and firemen
21. Thank your delivery drivers
22. Be more courteous and patient driving 
23. Let someone checkout before you
24. Bake something for a friend or loved one
25. Return someone’s cart for them
26. Compliment a loved one
27. Send flowers to someone
28. Hold the door for someone
29. Thank a health care worker
30. Check on a neighbor-see if needs something  

31. Shovel someone's sidewalk 

"Kindness"
by Naomi Shihab Nye

Before you know what kindness really is
you must lose things,
feel the future dissolve in a moment
like salt in a weakened broth.
What you held in your hand,
what you counted and carefully saved,
all this must go so you know
how desolate the landscape can be
between the regions of kindness.
How you ride and ride
thinking the bus will never stop,
the passengers eating maize and chicken
will stare out the window forever.

Before you learn the tender gravity of kindness
you must travel where the Indian in a white poncho
lies dead by the side of the road.
You must see how this could be you,
how he too was someone
who journeyed through the night with plans
and the simple breath that kept him alive.

Before you know kindness as the deepest thing inside,
you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.
You must wake up with sorrow.
You must speak to it till your voice
catches the thread of all sorrows
and you see the size of the cloth.
Then it is only kindness that makes sense anymore,
only kindness that ties your shoes
and sends you out into the day to gaze at bread,
only kindness that raises its head
from the crowd of the world to say
It is I you have been looking for,
and then goes with you everywhere
like a shadow or a friend.

From "Words Under the Words: Selected Poems." Copyright © 1995 by Naomi Shihab Nye. Reprinted with the permission of the author.

Diverse Children's Picture Books for World Kindness Day

https://kidlit.tv/.../diverse-books-for-world-kindness-day/

Kindness is the glue that binds us all together and here are some wonderful booklists to help reinforce that message for young people put together by Becky Flansburg. She is an author, freelance writer, and project manager for the non-profit online children’s literacy initiative, Multicultural Children’s Book Day.

#readyourworld

Kindness Matters

 

World Kindness Day 2020
World Kindness Day is a global day that promotes the importance of being kind to each other, to yourself, and to the world. It's celebrated on November 13 of each year, with the purpose of helping everyone understand that compassion for others is what binds us all together. This understanding has the power to bridge the gap between nations.

Now more than ever we need to remember 

                                                             ALWAYS 

Ever Ready will take up the 30 day Random Acts of Kindness again this year starting November 13th.

To jump start the campaign here's an early holiday gift giving idea. 

Who doesn't like a random surprise. During this time of COVID isolation think of a neighbor or friend who might enjoy this unexpected gift in a holiday bag. 

Oatmeal Chocolate Butterscotch Cookies

The jar was from Walmart. I attached a recipe card on how to make the cookies from the layered ingredients inside the jar. All the recipient needs to do is add an egg, butter and vanilla to bake their own cookies.

I made a batch myself and the cookies are so delicious with a bit of a crunch just the way I like them. YUM YUM! 

Cookie Mix
Recipe adapted from Taste of Home Magazine and makes 2 dozen cookies.

Ingredients:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon Saigon cinnamon or 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 3/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup packed brown sugar
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 cup old-fashioned oats
• 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
• 1/2 cup butterscotch chips
• 1/2 cup sweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 chopped walnuts 

Additional Ingredients: 

• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:

• In a small bowl, whisk to combine the first five ingredients. In a 1-qt. glass jar, layer flour mixture, brown sugar, sugar, oats, chips, coconut and walnuts, packing well between each layer. Cover and store in a cool, dry place up to 6 months. Yield: 1 batch (4 cups).
• To prepare cookies: In a large bowl, beat butter, egg and vanilla. Add dry cookie mix and mix well. Place dough in freezer 20 minutes for easier handling.
• Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 
• Roll into 2 in. balls and place onto parchment lined baking sheets. Bake 11 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 2 minutes before removing to wire racks.