Pumpkin Sandwich Cookies w/Pumpkin Buttercream Filling

If you love pumpkin, you'll be in pumpkin heaven with these cookies. The cookie itself taste cake-like and the filling is to die! The recipe for the cookies I got from the Land O Lakes website. And as previously mentioned they are cake-like meaning they are spongy and delicious! The cookies are incredibly tasty on their own and could stand on their own without the filling, if you're looking to cut down on the calories but why would you want to do that? It's the HOLIDAYS for crying outloud! So indulge.

The filling the Land O Lakes recipe calls for sounds absolutely amazing, well anything with cream cheese is absolutely amazing, but that's neither here nor there. I didn't use the filling in the recipe because I was shipping the cookies to another state and some people would frown on the mere suggestion of shipping unrefrigerated cream cheese across state lines. So instead I used a Pumpkin Buttercream filling I found at Ashlees Cooking Blog. And believe me when I say it's Thanksgiving decadence at it's best! These are a must try and disregard my crappy picture. I was going to take another picture today but there was only one cookie left -yep, they're that good!

The cooking time for the cookies is kinda tricky -I blame my oven- but incase it's not my oven I'm warning you they may have to be in the oven for almost twice as long as the recipe states. That is about the only draw back. The filling is enough to do all the cookies plus you'll have some leftover. I rolled the leftover filling in plastic wrap & popped it back in the fridge to solidify. I thought it would make a great compound butter to be served at Thanksgiving with rolls. Anyway, on with the recipe.

Pumpkin Sandwich Cookies with Pumpkin Buttercream Filling
Recipes Courtesy of Land O' Lakes & Ashlee's Cooking Blog

Cookie Ingredients:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice*
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/2 cup butter, softened
1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup milk
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
*If you don't have pumpkin spice substitute 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon plus 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger, 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg and 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves

Filling Ingredients
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. ginger
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1 1/2 cups confectioner's sugar




Directions:
Heat oven to 350°F. Combine flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder and salt in medium bowl. Set aside.

Combine brown sugar and 1/2 cup butter in large bowl; beat at medium speed until creamy. Add pumpkin, milk, egg and vanilla; beat until well mixed. Reduce speed to low; add flour mixture. Beat until well mixed.

Drop batter by level measuring tablespoonfuls onto ungreased cookie sheets. Bake for 9 to 10 minutes (I would eyeball it because again they are "cake-like" mine I timed at 32 min.) or until set and lightly browned around edges. Cool 5 minutes on cookie sheets; remove to cooling rack. Cool completely.

For the Pumpkin Buttercream: Cream butter and pumpkin with a mixer or in a stand mixer. Turn to low, add in cinnamon, ginger, salt and vanilla. Slowly add sugar 1/2 c. at a time until the buttercream is creamy.
**Note: The pumpkin will make it look grainy if there isn't enough sugar mixed in. (this didn't happen to me but if it does this is why another thing she mentions is seperating due to the pumpkin puree this also didn't happen to me.)

Spread 1 teaspoon or less of filling onto bottom-side of 1 cookie. Top with another cookie, bottom-side down. Repeat with remaining cookies and filling. Sprinkle filled cookies with powdered sugar.

Lake O' Lakes Recipe Tip:
For perfectly round cookies, pipe batter in 1-inch circle on parchment-lined cookie sheets, using piping bag without a tip

Grandma Trudy's Famous Cranberry Relish

So Ryan's cousin Suzie wanted to make her Grandmother's famous cranberry relish. She calls up her Grandma Trudy and asks her for her famous recipe, waiting in anticipation to be handed the precious family heirloom Suzie's jaw drops when Grandma Trudy says, "Just look on the back of the cranberry bag it's right there." That is one of my favorite stories kinda reminicent of when Monica from Friends finds out Phoebe's Grandma's famous chocolate chip cookie recipe is really the Nestle Tollhouse recipe that can be found on the back of the bag as well.

Personally I don't care for cranberry sauce but I like this relish. It's easy, tart & sweet all the things I like all rolled into one. I make it the night before so when it's served it looks more like cranberry sauce and less like a relish but I like it that way. I think it's the introduction of the water which can be omitted if you'd like it to be more like a relish. The Ocean Spray recipe doesn't call for water but the bag, which was a different brand, that I got my recipe from did.

My friend Rich at our Friends Thanksgiving said "I don't like cranberry sauce. As a matter of fact I think it's the nastiest most vile thing on the table at Thanskgiving, but I can't stop eating this. Is it bad that I just want to eat this by itself?" My friend Lisette said it would taste good over a plain cheesecake as well.

Grandma Trudy's Famous Cranberry Orange Relish

1 bag fresh cranberries

1 cup of water

1 cup of sugar

the zest of one orange

1 orange segmented

The night before in a food processor or blender combine all ingredients and blend. Put in a container and refrigerate until needed.

Awesome Sausage, Apple & Cranberry Stuffing

This recipe was ranked pretty high on allrecipes so I decided to try it. I must preface this by saying I do not like stuffing and did not try it, but Ryan had it and he said it was really good and our friends seemed to like it as well. Next time I think I will try it because I tried Mom MaryAnn's at regular Thanksgiving and I think I like stuffing now.

Awesome Sausage, Apple & Cranberry Stuffing

Courtesy of Stacy M. Polcyn posted on Allrecipes.com

INGREDIENTS
1 1/2 cups cubed whole wheat bread (Used sourdough)
3 3/4 cups cubed white bread (Used sourdough)
1 pound ground turkey sausage (Used 1/2 Jimmy Dean Sage Sausage & 1/2 Jimmy Dean Hot sausage)
1 cup chopped onion
3/4 cup chopped celery
2 1/2 teaspoons dried sage (Used fresh & doubled amount)
1 1/2 teaspoons dried rosemary (Used fresh & doubled amount)
1/2 teaspoon dried thyme (Used fresh & doubled amount)
1 Golden Delicious apple, cored and chopped (Used green Granny Smith)
3/4 cup dried cranberries
1/3 cup minced fresh parsley (Used fresh & doubled amount)
1 cooked turkey liver, finely chopped (Omitted for obvious reasons)
3/4 cup turkey stock (Used low sodium chicken broth)
4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

DIRECTIONS
Preheat oven to 350 degree F (175 degree C). Spread the white and whole wheat bread cubes in a single layer on a large baking sheet. Bake for 5 to 7 minutes in the preheated oven, or until evenly toasted. Transfer toasted bread cubes to a large bowl.

In a large skillet, cook the sausage and onions over medium heat, stirring and breaking up the lumps until evenly browned. Add the celery, sage, rosemary, and thyme; cook, stirring, for 2 minutes to blend flavors.

Pour sausage mixture over bread in bowl. Mix in chopped apples, dried cranberries, parsley, and liver. Drizzle with turkey stock and melted butter, and mix lightly. Spoon into turkey to loosely fill. I didn't stuff the stuffing in the turkey. I baked in a 13x9 dish for 30-35 minutes and then stirred it half way through cooking to make sure it cooked evenly. I must warn you this is a dry stuffing so if you like your stuffing on the moist side, you will need to add a lot more stock/broth. About 3 times as much.

Good Eats Roast Turkey

My roast turkey brings all the boys to the yard and they're like it's better than yours! You're damn right it's better than yours! I could teach you, but I'd have to charge! Okay so maybe I won't charge but I will teach you or should I say show you.

So this is the first turkey I have ever made and if I do say so myself it turned out quite AWESOME! It was golden brown, juicy, and flavorful. Pretty much everything a roast turkey should be. So I was a little scared of making a turkey but since I was hosting Friends Thanksgiving I couldn't very well ask someone else to bring the turkey so I elicited the help of my Domestic Superhero Aunt Trish. And she recommended I brine the turkey. Apparently anybody who's anybody is brining their turkey.

Here is the recipe I used. It's from Alton Brown on the food network and it was very, very good. As always I can never follow a recipe to the "T" so my changes are in parenthesis.

Good Eats Roast Turkey

Recipe courtesy of Alton Brown

1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey (I made a smaller 12-13 pnd turkey)

For the brine:

1 cup kosher salt (I used regular table salt)

1/2 cup light brown sugar

1 gallon vegetable stock (Used chicken stock because the store was out of veggie)

1 tablespoon black peppercorns

1/2 tablespoon allspice berries

1/2 tablespoon candied ginger (Used ground ginger about 1/8th of a tspn, next time I'll use more)

1 gallon iced water

For the aromatics:

1 red apple, sliced

1/2 onion, sliced

1 cinnamon stick

1 cup water

4 sprigs rosemary

6 leaves sage

Canola oil (Softened 1 stick of unsalted butter instead)

Combine all brine ingredients, except ice water, in a stockpot, and bring to a boil. Stir to dissolve solids, then remove from heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate until thoroughly chilled.

Early on the day of cooking, (or late the night before) (I used my cooler. I did a layer of ice in the cooler then double bagged the turkey in Turkey size oven bags breast down. Placed it in the cooler over the ice. Then poured in the brine and the ice water into the bag. Then I weighted down the turkey using a small plastic cutting board and tied the bag. This kep the tukey submerged. Place some more ice around the turkey). combine the brine and ice water in a clean 5-gallon bucket Place thawed turkey breast side down in brine, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement) for 6 hours. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining.

A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees.

Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.

Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.

Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage.

Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil. (I just massaged the turkey with the softened butter, I must have used up a little over 1/2 of the stick of butter)

Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.

Chica Tip: Sorry I couldn't help myself, Ryan & I watch "Simply Delicioso" on Food Network and can't help making fun of Ingrid Hoffman's lameness. But I digress, back to my tip. I almost hate giving this tip away but I will. If you find yourself having to buy a lot of spices like here for the brine you will end up spending a small fortune in spices and this might deter you from making this recipe so... Instead of going to the spice aisle, ignore it all together and go straight to the Mexican or the Ethnic aisle of your grocery store. There in the Mexican section of the aisle you will find the spices you need in little plastic bags for the embarassing price of $0.79 to $0.99!!!! That's right for about 1/4 of the price of fancy schmancy McCormicks in the fancy schmancy bottles.

Friends Thanksgiving

You are probably asking yourself what is Friends Thanksgiving? Well in a nutshell it's an excuse for Friends to get together before Thanksgiving and have a good time while enjoying some good Thanksgiving grub. And best of all it's family drama free.

This was the first year we had Friends Thanksgiving and it was also the first time I ever made a turkey and if I do say so myself it turned out quite AWESOME!!!! But we'll get to that a little later. Friends Thanksgiving was everything I hoped for and more. The food was great, the drinks were great and I don't think any of us had laughed that hard in a while.

The little group in attendance was comprised of Ryan & I (of course), Lisette & Jeff and Rich & Steph. Lisette brought an awesome broccoli casserole, a nice tossed salad and an amazing dip called Dr. Pete's Praline and Mustard Glaze she purchased on a recent trip to Savannah, GA. If you have never had it, and there is a good chance you haven't, you must! It's like heaven, I kid you not. It tastes like the best pralines you ever had in a reduction of maple sugar kicked up by a team of spices like cinnamon, cloves and of course mustard. She served it over cream cheese with an assortment of crackers and it was to die!

Stephanie brought an apple pie with vanilla ice cream and chocolate pie. She was supposed to bring a relish tray (crudite) but forgot it. And when she forgot it she probably made the worst mistake of her life because Lisette and I have yet to let her live that down. Especially since Lisette was looking forward to putting black olives on each of her fingers tips and then eat them off one by one. Yes I did call her a five year old for this.

I made the turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes and cranberry relish. And I was very pleased with how they all came out. Ryan, the hater of all things potato minus french fries, even LOVED these potatoes but who wouldn't love something that has a boat load of cream cheese in it, I mean really!

Anyway when the girls arrived I greeted each with a split of champagne with a straw and of course a smile. The "women" hung around in the kitchen working on the finishing touches and talking about "girl stuff" a.k.a. gossiping while the "men" hung out in the balcony enjoying their beers and cigars. Unfortunately dinner took a little longer than expected and the "men" ended up getting drunk before dinner was served. And when we finally announced dinner was ready Jeff jokingly answered "Wow there's food too, I thought we were just getting drunk."

We then all gathered up around the table and believe it or not we held hands and went around the table saying something we were thankful for. I kid you not! I thought the guys were going to refuse to do it but they didn't, mostly they were joking about what they were thankful for, but they did humor us girls and did it. And then it came time to grub and boy did we ever! So much so that Stephanie felt the need to relieve herself at the table, not pee just gas. I thought Lisette was going to throw up because she had the unfortunate luck of being seated by her. After dinner all the boys except for Ryan fell asleep. I couldn't believe Ryan was awake he's usually the first to pass out but there he was awake. But it didn't last very long he got tired of our girl talk and put himself to sleep but not before Stephanie did a booty dance over Rich's head. Which he woke up half way through and all he saw was Stephanie's butt and thought she was farting on him, he quickly shielded himself. And that is how Friends Thanksgiving came to an end.

We are all looking forward to doing it again next year except we'll have to put someone else in charge of the crudite, Steph I'm looking in your direction.

P.S. I must warn you if you do have a Friends Thanksgiving, it will feel like you are cheating on real Thanksgiving.