Happy Thanksgiving!! ^_^

In most parts of our country, Thanksgiving (that the US celebrates every fourth Thursday of November) is not a known event. Needless to say, we don't celebrate it. But with the advent of online shopping, we became more aware of this event because of the Black Friday and Cyber Monday deals. The former happens the next day after Thanksgiving and the latter, on the Monday after Thanksgiving weekend. Both, of course, have retailers offer massive discounts and deals to consumers and signal the start of the holiday shopping season ^_^

This year, I decided that we'll celebrate Thanksgiving. We have so much to be thankful for and I wanna glorify the Lord's uber-goodness with my cooking =) But no, we won't be having a turkey, (it's too big for the 3 of us!) just roasted chicken and some stuffing plus other dishes to go with it. For this Thanksgiving post, I'm sharing recipes from RecipeSecrets.net and a video on how to properly carve a turkey (or chicken in our case). Now, let's get on with the cooking!!

Southwestern Cornbread Stuffing

Ingredients
4 chorizo sausages
2 cups yellow corn meal
2 tsp baking powder
1 tps baking soda
2 cups buttermilk
4 lrg eggs
1/4 cup melted unsalted butter
2 cups canned cream style corn
2 cups grated Monterey Jack cheese
2 cans (4 oz. size) diced peeled green chilies
2 sml onions, grated
1/2 cup minced fresh coriander

Procedure
1. Heat the oven to 350 F. Cook chorizos in small heavy skillet until brown on all sides, then cut into 1/4 inch slices.
2. Mix corn meal, salt, baking powder and baking soda in medium bowl. Stir chorizo chunks and remaining ingredients together in a large mixing bowl until thoroughly blended. Add the corn meal mixture and mix well. Divide batter between two well-seasoned 10" cast-iron skillets (or bake in 2 batches).
3. Bake the cornbread until brown on top and a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, about 40 minutes. Let cool completely on wire rack then crumble coarsely for stuffing.

Blueberry Cheesecake Pie (not really a traditional Thanksgiving dessert but hubby adores this so much!)

Crust
1 2/3 cups graham cracker crumbs
3 tablespoons sugar
1/2 tablespoon cinnamon
4 tablespoons butter

1. Mix the crumbs, sugar, cinnamon, and butter in a nine inch pie pan or spring form pan. Mix until the crumbs have absorbed the butter and the mixture is uniform.
2. Press the crumbs across the bottom of the pan and up the sides.
3. Bake for ten minutes at 350 degrees.
Note: This is a crumb crust that will tend to burn during baking. To reduce the chances of burning, use a ceramic pan or a bright silver pan. A ceramic pan will tend to insulate the crust and a silver pan reflects heat.

Filling
2 8-ounce packets of cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 teaspoon almond extract
1 21-ounce can of blueberry pie filling

1. In a bowl, beat the cream cheese until soft. Add the sugar and beat until smooth.
2. Add the eggs one at a time and the extract. Continue beating until smooth.
3. Pour into the pie shell and bake at 325 deg until the center of pie no longer jiggles.
4. Cool on a wire rack. Spoon the prepared pie filling over the cheese filling.