wordsfromanneli

Thoughts, ideas, photos, and stories.

Category Archives: Thanksgiving


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Cranberry Upside Down Cake

Just in time for Thanksgiving, my sister-in-law sent me this recipe. As it happens, it’s a great recipe for any time of the year and any occasion. It was my first time making this cake, but it wasn’t that hard to do, and because it tasted SO GOOD, I have to share it.

I used my Kitchen Aid mixer but it occurred to me that it might have been even easier with a regular handheld mixer because you can just stick the beaters into a different bowl rather than wash the bowl and reuse it to do the two steps of mixing (you’ll see what I mean).

Step One

Take an 8″ square cake pan and put two tbsp. melted butter in the bottom of the pan. Then spread 1/2 cup of brown sugar over the bottom of the pan.

Set this aside to put in the oven at 350 degrees for a couple of minutes just before it’s time to add the batter. (You need to have time to make the batter before heating the butter/sugar mixture).

The recipe says to add about a cup and a half of fresh cranberries (or even two cups) to this butter and brown sugar mixture. I always have frozen cranberries for my baking so I put them into a big measuring cup and add hot water to thaw them, draining and replacing the hot water a couple of times to thaw the cranberries. These will be added later to the heated up sugar/butter combination.

About 1/4 cup of pecans will also be sprinkled onto the bottom of the pan after the cranberries are added.

** I heated the oven and put the pan in to melt the brown sugar into the butter when I was finished making the batter in the next step.

Step Two

Now let’s make the batter.

Put these ingredients in a mixing bowl and mix after each addition:

3 tbsp. softened butter

1/4 cup white sugar

2 egg yolks (save the whites in a little bowl for mixing later)

1 tsp. vanilla

Step Three

In a separate bowl, put the rest of the dry ingredients together:

1  1/3 cup flour

1  1/2 tsp. baking powder

1/8 tsp.

Step Four

Add the flour mixture to the batter, alternately with 1/2 cup of milk, ending with the flour mixture. If the resulting batter seems a bit too stiff, add a couple more tbsp. milk.

The second time I tried baking this cake I did add a bit more milk (say, almost 3/4 cup altogether) and it was better.

Step Five

This is about the time when I put the pan into the preheated oven, because the next step takes about the right time while the brown sugar is melting into the sugar.

In a clean bowl, put the two egg whites you have saved from when you put the egg yolks into the batter. Beat the egg whites until they are stiff.

Fold the egg white mixture into the batter. (Don’t stir it in. Gently fold it in.) The batter should look slightly foamy.

Step Six

Take out the pan with the heated butter and brown sugar, sprinkle the warmed up cranberries evenly over the brown sugar. Then sprinkle a few pecans over the cranberries. If you have a nut allergy you can easily skip this step.

Pour the batter over the cranberries in the pan and spread it evenly.

Bake at 350 for 45 minutes.

When it is done, let the cake sit for a few minutes; then loosen the sides by running a knife along the sides of the pan. Put a plate over the pan upside down and invert the cake onto the plate.

Step Seven

Make a pot of tea or coffee and cut the cake. Serve with whipped cream or ice cream or just have it plain. It’s really good all by itself.

The photo below is from my second try, where I added a tiny bit more milk and used 2 cups of cranberries rather than 1 and 1/2 cups. Better, I think.

 

I want to add that my five novels are now available on Amazon for Kindle for only 99 cents in time for the holiday season. Just click on the cover images on the side of the blog post.

If you have another kind of e-reader, you can visit smashwords.com where you can download my books for the same price of 99 cents for your type of e-reader.

 


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Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you’ve been as lucky as Lincoln has been in storing up food for his Thanksgiving feast. He has a message for you.

Hello, my friends and family brood,

I hope you’re keeping well,

Have you been saving up your food,

So supper will be swell?

 

We all work hard to make ends meet,

And put some food aside,

Then once a year we meet and greet,

Make happy our inside.

 

And as we sit around the feast,

We’re thankful for so much,

We’ve shared with those who have the least,

And lend a loving touch.

 

Our troubles may be huge this year,

But if each person shares,

We’ll face the future without fear,

And live with fewer cares.

 

Happy Thanksgiving to all my American

friends and family.


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Gratitude

With Canadian Thanksgiving coming up this weekend, I decided to read some background on the origins of this holiday and found that the information was a jumble of ideas and beliefs, historical evidence, and a lot of surmise. This holiday celebrated everything from a reunion of Martin Frobisher’s scattered windblown fleet in northern Canada in 1578 to Champlain’s feasts of thanksgiving for the harvest with the Mi’kmaqs and the French in 1606 (at which time the Mi’kmaqs introduced cranberries to the pioneers’ diet and helped prevent scurvy).

The  American influence brought the North American turkey, pumpkins, and squash to the Thanksgiving feast in the 1750s.

On January 31, 1957, the annual harvest time feast became an official holiday. In Canada it was to be held on the second Monday of October. An earlier November date was changed so it would not interfere with Remembrance Day on November 11.

 

Whatever the historical reasons for dates and for celebrating, it is commonly accepted that it is a time to give thanks for our many blessings.

These blessings may differ from one person to another, but the feeling of gratitude is the same.

Some traits to consider, one for each letter of Happy Thanksgiving:

Humble

Aiding

Providing 

Patient

Yielding 

 

Thankful

Helpful

Active

Noble

Kneeling

Satisfied

Gracious

Inviting

Volunteering

Innovative

Natural

Goodness

I hope you all have a million things to be thankful for this year. I know I do.


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American Thanksgiving

Just when you think things are so bad that you have nothing to be thankful for, along comes the Thanksgiving holiday to remind us of so many blessings in our lives.

I won’t begin to name any of the thousands of things we have to be thankful for. Each of us has a perspective uniquely our own. Some might be thankful for good health, while others in failing health are thankful for other things that they have come to appreciate. Some might be thankful for having lots of money, while others are just as happy with much less.  My own thought on that is ,”Money isn’t everything, but it sure helps.”

Whatever your circumstances allow, it’s important to make the most of the good things in life.

If you are lucky enough to be with friends or family on Thanksgiving, why not share some of the things you are truly thankful for.

H     Home for holidays is fine,

A     Appetizers, and some wine,

P     Pie dessert is understood,

P     Pumpkin’s always pretty good,

Y     Yams and taters fill the plate,

T     Turkey dinner would be great.

H     Happy family, sisters, brothers,

A     Aunts and uncles and their “others,”

N     No one needs to be left out,

K     Kinship’s what it’s all about.

S     So much to be thankful for,

G    Guests and family we adore.

I     It’s a happy time of year,

V    Valued friends that bring us cheer.

I     It’s a ritual affair,

N   Nothing else can quite compare,

G   Giving thanks for all we share.

 

In case you have trouble getting a turkey this year with all the supply chain problems just choose one of these Merriam’s wild turkeys I “shot” for you by the Missouri River.

 

To all my American friends and family, I wish you a happy Thanksgiving holiday.

 

 


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Being Thankful

What do we have to be thankful for?

That depends on your perspective. We need food, water, shelter, and enough warmth for comfort. To varying degrees most of us have that and we are grateful for it.

But it is all secondary, if we don’t have our health. For those who are not in good health at this time, we can be thankful to live in the days of modern medicine for making our illnesses bearable. Without modern inventions and medical discoveries, many of us would not even have made it to adulthood. The smallest infection might have killed us in the days before penicillin, and appendicitis would have claimed countless lives before the days of operations and anaesthetics. Childhood diseases would have taken their toll.

This year’s Thanksgiving may be bittersweet. Actually, forget the sweet part – it will be bitter for those who have lost loved ones, many of them to Covid. But we have to muster a positive attitude and continue to strive to beat this virus.

This is one of the hardest times for some of my generation. We missed the World Wars and most of us were not affected greatly by the smaller wars that followed. We have lived fairly free of world scale disasters … until now.

At first everyone was extra careful about social distancing and wearing masks, using hand sanitizers and washing hands, but I see all around me that people are giving in. They are tired of being careful, tired of being isolated. But, as in any battle, if you stop fighting before it’s truly won, the backlash can be devastating.

We are almost there in the push to beat back the virus, so I hope that people will not become too cavalier about relaxing their precautions until we are clear of this pandemic. Take care, especially at times of celebration, like Thanksgiving and Christmas.

One day soon this ugly virus will be eradicated, and we will truly have something to be thankful for.

Have a happy Thanksgiving, America, and take care to stay healthy.


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Turkey, not the Country

Meet my friend, Meleagris gallopavo merriami (Merriam’s turkey).

When guinea fowls were brought from Africa to Europe, they were thought to have come through Turkey (the country), so they were named “turkey.”

Later when Europeans came to North America, they saw a local bird that looked liked their guinea fowl (which they had called a turkey), so they called this bird a turkey. There is no real connection between the bird and the country.

The native people of eastern North America hunted and ate turkeys, and this is how that bird came to be associated with “what was for dinner” at the first American Thanksgiving feast.

Turkey must have made quite an impression on the pioneers, since it became a traditional component of the Thanksgiving dinners that followed every year since then.

By the way, if you can’t remember when American Thanksgiving is: it’s always the fourth Thursday in November.

Happy Thanksgiving, America. We have a lot to be thankful for.