New Recipes: November

November was a fun month around these parts.  I went to a wedding, a baby shower, a Friendsgiving potluck, hosted my brother for a long weekend and of course, celebrated a traditional Thanksgiving this past Thursday. The slew of fun events were almost enough to distract me from the very cold weather in the middle of the month, but as you will see from the dinner recipes below warming foods were very much on my mind.

Recipe 1: Pork and Poblano Stew

I made this the first weekend of November, and in spite of eating it for a whole week, I am not recalling much about it at the moment.  I don't think the chili peppers at my local Giant were properly labeled, so this would probably be spicier (and tastier) with the right pepper.

Recipe 2: Italian Chicken Sausage and Artichoke Soup

This soup is just from last weekend, and I finished the last serving yesterday so it's much fresher in my mind.  This soup was good and really easy to make.  The Italian sausage provides a lot of flavor, and the generous amount of chard (or in my case, collards since I didn't see any chard at the store) makes it full of vitamins.  The artichokes were a nice addition too, and something I wouldn't normally add to soup.  Best served with some parmesan cheese and warm crusty bread.

Recipe 3: Pan-Seared Brussel Sprouts with Bacon

(No photos of this one, sorry!) This recipe was one of my two contributions to my Friendsgiving feast with fellow UVA MUEP alumni.  It was pretty quick to make and not surprisingly, pretty tasty with the butter and bacon.  I made this in the morning for dinner later that night but I think it would be even better served immediately.

My other dish was dessert (but doesn't qualify as a "new" recipe): Apple Crumble a la Naoko-sensei. I had known about this potluck for weeks, yet didn't choose recipes or buy ingredients until the morning of and thus appreciated the simplicity and awesome deliciousness of this recipe.  Apples, lemon juice and some sugar simmer on the stove while flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder and a stick of butter are mixed until crumbly for the topping.  Filling + topping are combined in a baking dish and the results are hard to resist. This nearly perfect dish was made even better by some local salted caramel ice cream brought by another Friendsgiving attendee.

Recipe 4: Salted Caramel Pumpkin Cheesecake

As if Thanksgiving dinner isn't rich enough on its own, for the past three years I have felt the need to add an over-the-top pumpkin cheesecake to the dessert buffet at my aunt and uncle's house.  The first two years I made a pumpkin ginger cheesecake, but when I stumbled on the recipe above going through old holiday magazines before moving in August, I felt like it was time to switch it up.

This is one of the most beautiful cheesecakes I have ever made; I should have taken more pictures as it really did turn out very similar to the one in the recipe photo. Aesthetics aside, this cheesecake also received rave reviews for taste and decadence. I shared the leftovers and finished off my portion for breakfast this morning. It will be a bit hard to go back to multi-grain toast tomorrow morning, but it's all for the best: Christmas and the seemingly unlimited holiday treats will be here shortly!

I'm not sure how many new recipes I will have to review at the end of December.  There are a half dozen or so that I only make around the holidays and I would really hate to miss out on them by breaking with tradition.  Perhaps I will just have to share some of those instead!

Thank you for following along with my sporadic posts here on 2BB!