So.

I have not made many turkeys in my life.

I think the grand total is 2.

For the vast majority of my 30-some years, we had Thanksgiving dinner at either my mom’s or my in-laws’. Both my mother and mother-in-law are very good cooks, and I usually showed up with some kind of side dish or dessert, feasted on all the delicious preparations, and didn’t think beyond that happy little routine.

Those two turkeys I mentioned above? One year we found ourselves having a quiet Thanksgiving, just the three of us (this was before L.(5) was born, obviously). I bought one of those turkey oven bags and just followed the directions. The turkey was “fine,” but nothing special. Another year, we ended up just having my mom over. Chad and I attempted the famous Alton Brown turkey. While it was good, it seemed that the stoneware pan we used (as opposed to the metal sheet pan called for) didn’t cook the underside of the turkey enough (a fact we didn’t discover until the carving process was just about done). No one got food poisoning, but I was more than a little nervous.

In recent years, my in-laws have taken to spending the cold months in a warmer climate, and we often don’t see them until Christmas draws them back home. And with my extended family growing, if we’re spending Thanksgiving with my side of the family, it makes sense for us to host the gathering. Which is no problem at all…except that the turkey-prep usually falls to the hostess.

Let me interject that I know my mom would be more than happy to come to our house early on Thanksgiving to prepare the bird and start the roasting process. But I want her to be able to enjoy a leisurely day.

And besides. It’s about time I learned to cook a yummy turkey, don’t you think?

So a couple weeks ago, I began my search for The Perfect — And Also Foolproof — Roasted Turkey Recipe.

I wanted one that was, naturally, delicious. A little different. Easy. And did I mention foolproof? I’m not bad when it comes to baking, but my cooking skills are just mediocre.

Finally, I settled on this one: Maple-Roasted Turkey with Sage, Smoked Bacon, and Cornbread Stuffing.

Here’s why:

A) It got a lot — a whole lot — of five-star reviews, many of which mention easiness, differentness, and yumminess (see above).

B) It involves bacon. And let’s face it: Even if everything else goes completely wrong, bacon can make things better. Right? That’s what I’m counting on.

So as I type this post, there is a turkey thawing in my refrigerator, sage growing on my windowsill, bacon chilling in the fridge, and more fixin’s for a Thanksgiving dinner stashed in random places throughout my kitchen.

Here’s hoping everything goes well!

Do you have a foolproof turkey recipe? Are you chief turkey-maker in your family or does that job fall to someone else?

I’ve purchased many pumpkins in my life, but they’ve always been for carving or other decoration purposes. And when I want pumpkin for baking purposes, I’ve always relied on good old canned pumpkin.

But since our CSA gave us several small sugar pumpkins last week, I decided that it was finally time for me to make my own pumpkin puree. It’s not really that hard. Time-consuming, yes, but easy. Here’s the process I followed:

1. Thoroughly rinse outside of pumpin to get rid of dirt and other gunky stuff.

2. Cut pumpkin in half vertically. Scoop out seeds and stringy stuff. (Save seeds and roast them later w/ butter & kosher salt!)

3. Place pumpkin halves flesh-side-down in a 9×13 baking pan. Add water to come 1/4-inch up sides of pan.

4. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-60 minutes, until pumpkin flesh is soft and scrapes easily away from skin.

5. Scoop out flesh into large bowl. (I used a cookie dough scoop.) Puree the pumpkin until smooth. (I used a stick blender, but you could also use a food processor, hand mixer, etc.)

From what I’ve read, you can refrigerate this puree if you intend to use it within 3-5 days, or put in freezer bags, squeeze out excess air, and freeze for months.

It looked like good pumpkin puree, but the real question is — does it produce yummy baked goods? I put it to the test this morning with pumpkin muffins:

The verdict in our house? YUM. I’m pretty sure these muffins will be gone by the end of the day.

Just one reason I love fall.

We’re trying something different this year when it comes to produce.

Last March, we received a flyer in our mailbox. A local farm was beginning a CSA…and would we like to join? Why yes, yes we would.

In case you are unfamiliar with CSAs (as I was until fairly recently), here’s how a typical CSA works. You purchase a “share” in a farm’s yield for the season. You pay the farm up-front, in exchange for the promise of a weekly (more or less) supply of produce throughout the upcoming season. Then you sit back and wait for the fruits and vegetables to start rolling in. And also hope for enough rain and favorable weather to create a bountiful harvest.

We signed up in April with our local CSA and today — finally! — I picked up our first box of fresh produce.

I’m not the kind of person to get overly-excited about vegetables. I generally save that kind of exuberance for foods of the chocolate variety.  But, still, I couldn’t wait to get home to see what awaited me in the white box of farm-fresh goodies.

Here’s what I found:

My first thought was: How in the world are we going to eat this much produce every week? We are going to have to get very serious about consuming our veggies.

My second thought was: What in the world are some of those things?

For example, in my apparently sheltered 30-some years of life, I’d never purchased or eaten things that looked like this:

Turns out they are Patty Pan Squash (I think…if my internet skills were reliable), and I can treat them pretty much like zucchini. UFO-shaped, thicker-skinned zucchini, that is.

My third thought was: What am I supposed to do with all those chiles?

I foresee salsa in our near future.

My fourth thought was: 12 ears of corn?? Good thing L.(5) is a huge fan of buttered corn-on-the-cob.

My fifth thought was — wait, I’ll stop there. I’ll spare you the play-by-play of my produce-ridden thoughts.

We really are looking forward to this adventure in vegetables. To be honest, we’re very good fruit-eaters, but tend to be boring and half-hearted vegetable-eaters, so this will stretch us, introduce us to new vegetable types and dishes, and in the process, help us to eat more healthily.

All without having to weed a garden. I’d say that’s a win.

I know what you’re thinking.

You’re thinking, “Katrina, whatever those things in that picture are, they are disturbing.” You might also be wondering things like, “Are they really edible?” and “Did you force your family members to eat those things?”

Here’s the deal:

I decided that this weekend, I would attempt to make Bakerella‘s Cake Pops. I didn’t need to make anything fancy (like these or these or these). I just wanted to try a simple, basic, no frills Cake Pop.

I’m a decent baker. In some circles family settings, you might even say that I’m known for baking up yummy desserts and snacks. So a simple little treat shouldn’t be much trouble. You’d think, anyway…

Attempt #1

I decided that since I was new to this whole Cake Pop thing, I’d split the cake (and other ingredients) into four parts, and just experiment with a little at a time. I baked the cake early Saturday morning and started on Experiment #1 around 11:00 a.m.

At first, all seemed to go well. The cake crumbled beautifully; the icing turned it into a moist, smushable, formable mixture. The little cake balls were cute and before I knew it, I was ready to dip them.

I had purchased some Wilton’s Candy Melts in orange, and carefully followed the directions on the package in order to melt them. They melted just fine, into a smooth orange pool. There was just one problem: it was WAY too thick.

No problem. I just followed Bakerella’s suggestion to add some shortening to the mix to thin it out. I added a little bit of shortening. And then a little more. And a little more. And then even more, much more than suggested. It thinned it out a little, but not enough.

I tried to dip the cute little cake balls, but it didn’t work very well. I ended up half-dipping, half-spreading, half-glopping. (And yes, I know that’s three halves. That’s how bad it was.)

In the end, I had 12 cake balls — some on sticks, some not; some completely covered, some not. All of them were lumpy and glumpy. Definitely not pretty.

I didn’t even bother taking a picture of them.

However, somehow, they all got eaten.

And let me assure you that though they were ugly, they tasted oh-so-good.

Going for help

One o’clock Saturday afternoon found me at a local cake & candy supply shop, asking for advice. The very nice man behind the counter gave me a few pointers:

• He suggested using Merckens candy coating chips instead of the Wilton brand. As he kindly sold me two bags of Merckens, he assured me that they would melt better and taste better than Wilton’s.

• He gave me some tips on melting the chips in the microwave (start with 20 seconds, stir, then do shorter and shorter increments until it’s smooth).

• He sold me a little tub of some mysterious substance to add to the chips to thin out the final dipping mixture, if needed. I don’t even know what this magic ingredient is. It looks like shortening, but it isn’t. It’s unlabeled, white, and is kind of flaky-greasy. That is all I know.

Attempt #2

By 4:00, I had recovered from my first failed attempt and was ready for Cake Pop Experiment #2. I crumbled another quarter of the cake, added icing, and shaped the balls. Then I started melting my new-and-improved candy coating chips in the microwave. (Don’t ask me why I bought the bluish-purplish color; I just did.)

The chips melted nicely, but again…too thick. Aha! Time to stir in some of the mystery ingredient. I ended up adding at least a teaspoon to my mixture, but lo and behold, it worked! The blue dipping stuff was thin and smooth and ready for some yummy cake balls to take a dive in it.

You see the result in the picture above.

Yes, I know they are still a bit lumpy and bumpy. But I think that speaks more to my poor cake-ball-forming skills. And yes, the candy shell has its rough spots, but I’m still working on properly dripping off the excess before setting them up to dry. And sadly, most of the Cake Pops started cracking about 30 minutes after they were done — just little hairline fractures, but still. Not what I wanted.

However, this batch was about 50 times nicer and smoother and prettier than the first. If I had any creativity whatsoever, I’m sure I could have turned them into something adorable. Or at least enticing.

But instead, I affixed some candy eyes and made them into monster-like Cake Pops. C.(11) requested that I include a cyclops version.

And I assure you that — cute or disturbing — this batch was just as yummy as the first. I had to cut L.(4) off or he would have devoured enough Cake Pops to make himself sick.

What the future holds

My grand Cake Pop experimentation is not finished. I froze the other half of the cake, and plan to try again another day. I think I’ll stick with the Merckens candy coating and the mystery ingredient (though I do intend to eventually find out exactly what it is). I scoured the internet and see that it’s possible my cake balls were too cold before dipping — hence, the cracked shell.

And yes, I’ll try to improve my cake ball formation skills and excess candy coating removal skills. But I’m not going to promise anything in that department.

Maybe someday, I’ll even work up the gumption to try one of the adorable Cake Pop creations in Bakerella’s new book. But I have a feeling that day might be a long way off.