use real butter

Recipe: caramel cake with caramelized butter frosting

“…and try not to chew caramel.”

That is what the dental assistant told me after she cemented my temporary crown onto my molar. I smiled while my eyes darted about the room nervously – how did she know that caramel was front and center in this month’s Daring Baker’s challenge?

daring bakers: we knead to bake!

After all of the cooking and baking for this holiday, here we are slapped into sugar coma with the latest Daring Baker cake: Caramel Cake with Caramelized Butter Frosting by Shuna Fish Lydon, as published on Bay Area Bites. A huge thanks to our wonderful hosts this month: Dolores of Chronicles in Culinary Curiosity, ably assisted by Alex of Blondie and Brownie, Jenny of Foray into Food, and the always amazing Natalie of Gluten-a-Go-Go for the alternative bakers. I also want to thank our lovable Daring Baker founders: Lis and Ivonne, who continue to inspire and keep us in line!

adding water to the caramelized sugar

**Jump for more butter**

Recipe: roasted butternut squash soup simplified

I know a lot of people are traveling today. I hope everyone got to or gets to their destination safely and without incident. We are staying put – the way we like it. Keeps things low key and stress free. I went to the dentist this morning to get fitted for a crown and realized that after an hour, I could feel my gums again. So I think that may be why I suffered such immense pain yesterday because my dentist was jamming the posts down my root canals about 2 hours after she numbed my mouth. *Great* I love it when that happens! Today was a walk in the park by comparison.

While most folks are preparing their turkeys, we have been contemplating the leftovers (there are a lot) as well as eating them. Those potatoes au gratin really do get better with time.

turkey reuben, anyone?

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Recipe: crustless pumpkin pie

Manisha had asked what I do with leftover turkey. I personally prefer the leftover turkey to the centerpiece turkey. This afternoon I had a turkey reuben sandwich (it’s just a reuben with turkey instead of corned beef) and Jeremy had an open-face hot turkey sandwich bathed in gravy. I’m debating what to do with the carcass – green chile stew?

I’m glad I got all of the cooking out of the way because today I went to have my root canal finished up at the dentist’s and OMFG!!!!! It hurt like a beyotch. I’m talking about the worst pain I have experienced in my life (and I have a fairly high threshold for pain). I’ve had a root canal before and I didn’t feel a thing, but today… They warned that if it hurt during the root canal, I would experience a lot of pain afterward when the numbing wore off. But my tooth doesn’t hurt at all now. They suggested chewing on soft foods.

freshly ground spices and brown sugar

**Jump for more butter**