Electric roaster ovens are certainly convenient for roasting your Thanksgiving turkey.  Not only do they cook quickly, and retain moisture, but they also free up space in your oven for whipping all your other Thanksgiving recipes.

But, did you know you can use electric roasters for more than just your Thanksgiving bird?  Roasting ovens can actually double as a large slow cooker when you’re cooking for a crowd, or as a big soup pot for making chili or chowder. Some electric roaster ovens come with a divided insert that will allow you to warm and serve 3 separate dishes buffet style.

The Nesco roaster oven above has an 18 quart capacity, which is enough room to cook a 22 pound Thanksgiving turkey.  It has a nonstick finish, and heating elements in the sides of the roaster, for even cooking.  I found the Nesco roaster at More Kitchen Appliances for $89.99.

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For the last several years, my family has bypassed our usual sweet potato recipes in favor of this sweet potato casserole with a brown sugary, strudel-like topping.  It would make a great addition to your Thanksgiving recipes!  In fact, if you’re expecting a crowd, I’d make a double batch…there are rarely any leftovers on this one.

Sweet Potato Crunch

Base:

• 3 cups cooked and mashed sweet potatoes
• 1 cup sugar
• 1 tsp. vanilla
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 1/2 cup milk

Combine all above ingredients in a large mixing bowl, blend well, and place in a square baking dish.  Set aside, and prepare topping.

Topping:

• 1/4 cup flour
• 1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
• 3 tbsp. melted butter
• 1/2 cup pecans

Combine all ingredients in a small bowl, and blend with a fork.  Mixture will be crumbly.  Sprinkle on top of sweet potato mixture.  Bake at 350 degrees F for 30 minutes, or until bubbly on the sides and topping is crisp.

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Strawberries are a delicious way to add more antioxidants and fiber to your diet.  According to the California Strawberry Commission, a serving of strawberries, just 8 berries, contains more vitamin C than an orange, and 2 grams of fiber!  What’s even better, is that a cup of strawberries contains just 50 calories.

I’ve found that the best and fastest way to get my daily intake of fruits and veggies is to make a power-packed morning smoothie. Here’s a strawberry smoothie recipe to get you started.  It also contains blueberries–another superfood!

Strawberry & Blueberry Smoothie

• 1/2 cup frozen blueberries
• 1 cup frozen strawberries
• 1 banana, peeled
• 1-1/2 cups milk
• 1 individual size container of yogurt

Combine all ingredients in a blender, or smoothie maker, and blend until mixture reaches desired consistency.  To add a little zip, replace some of the milk with orange juice.  Yogurt can be any flavor, depending on what you like.  I’ve also added a handful of uncooked quick oats to this recipe for increasing my whole grain intake.

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If you saw yesterday’s corn chowder recipe, you read that at the end of the cooking time, the recipe calls for scooping out half of the chowder, pureeing it in a blender, and then adding it back to the crockpot.  This was a bit of an inconvenience, and has prompted me to add one of these handheld blenders, sometimes called immersion blenders, to my kitchen gadgets list.

The KitchenAid immersion blender above is made by KitchenAid, and allows you to blend anything, including scorching hot corn chowder, right in the pot.  You can immerse the blender in up to 8 inches of liquid, and it comes with several dishwasher-safe attachments.  Sounds much easier than taking my blender apart, and washing the glass pitcher.  I found this immersion blender at FFEMAX.Com for $52.99.

You can use handheld blenders in many recipes, including soups, mashed potatoes, whipping up diet shakes, and quick milkshakes.

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I made this crock pot corn chowder recipe yesterday.  It’s very savory; after a day in the crock pot, you can really taste all the flavors in this stuff!  It’s sort of a hybrid recipe- I read through several corn chowder recipes, and morphed them into one.  This easily makes enough to serve 4.

Crockpot Corn Chowder

• 1 onion, chopped
• 6 slices bacon
• 20 oz. frozen whole kernel corn
• 1/2 cup carrots, finely diced
• 1 can creamed corn
• 1 chicken bouillon cube
• 1 cup of water
• 2 cups potatoes, peeled and diced
• 1 tsp.  Worcesterchire sauce
• 1 tbsp. sugar
• Pinch of garlic powder

Coarsely chop bacon, and fry in a large skillet until crisp.  Remove bacon from skillet, and set aside.  In bacon drippings, saute onion and potato for 3-4 minutes.  Discard bacon drippings.  Combine all ingredients in slow cooker.  Cook on high for 1 hour, then reduce temperature to low for 3-5 hours.

In the last hour of cooking time, scoop half of chowder into a blender, and pulse until smooth.  (Careful-very HOT!)  Place blended mixture back into crock pot, and stir.

Optional:  Just before serving, stir in a little butter, and about 1/2 cup of half and half.

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I’ve just added this great new toaster to my most wanted kitchen gadgets list.   The Back to Basics Egg ‘N Muffin Toaster will toast a muffin, and poach an egg…at the same time.  I see 3 big benefits here.  First, there’s no skillet or egg poacher to wash.  Second, I think older kids could do this themselves. Third, it’s faster than doing things separately.

The Back to Basics egg and muffin toaster makes a muffin (and egg) in 4 minutes.  There are switches to turn off the toaster or the poacher if you just want to use one feature.   The toaster will also hard boil up to 4 eggs at one time, and it shuts off automatically.  I found the egg and muffin toaster combo at In Cooking.

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Seems like company comes around pretty often this time of year.  It’s always nice to have ingredients for cheese ball recipes or other easy appetizers around for whipping up something in a pinch.  Here’s an easy cheese ball recipe that I’ve made several times.  The ingredients keep for awhile, so you can buy them ahead, and make it when you need it.

Chipped Beef Cheese Ball

• 2 blocks of cream cheese, softened
• 2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce
• 2 pkg. dried beef, finely chopped.
• 1 bunch of green onions, finely chopped
• Dash of garlic salt

Set aside 1/3 of beef and onions.  Combine cream cheese, remainder of beef, Worcestershire, remainder of onions, and garlic salt in food processor.  Pulse until blended.  Form into a ball, and roll in reserved beef and onions.  Serve on a platter with crackers and cheese knives.  If you don’t have a food processor, you can mix this by hand in a large mixing bowl.

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Sometimes little used spices sit in our spice racks for years–even decades.  After all, how many times a year do you really need poultry seasoning or pumpkin pie spice?  But, did you know that ground spices can lose their flavor after a few years?  Here’s how to know when to throw out your kitchen spices, and start over:

Basic Guidelines: How long do spices last? According to OChef, ground spices maintain their freshness for 2 to 3 years, and whole spices such as cinnamon sticks maintain their freshness for 4 years, and probably even longer.

The Nose Knows: Open up the container and give it a little shake.  Does it have the same robust smell you remember?  Is there any smell?  If not, pitch it.

Cool Tool: McCormick offers a How Old Are Your Spices online tool for determining the age of your McCormick spices.  Enter the code on the bottom of the container, and they’ll tell you exactly when the spice was packaged. Just FYI- if your McCormick spices are in metal tins, they are at least 15 years old!  Time for a shopping trip!

The spice rack above will hold 16 different spices.  It’s made of sugar maple, has a rotating base, and the bottles are included.  If found it at Kitchen Universe.

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No Thanksgiving dinner is complete without a heaping helping of piping hot and buttery mashed potatoes.  There are several ways to make delicious mashed potatoes.  Here are a few variations on “mashed potato recipes”.

Old-Fashioned Mashed Potatoes: Mashed potatoes made with a hand potato masher, like the one above, will give you that irregular, a little bit lumpy, texture in your mashed potatoes.  For those who want mashed potatoes like Grandma used to make, this is probably the way to go.  Peel potatoes, boil, and drain before mashing.  Add milk, butter and salt to taste.

Peel-On Mashed Potatoes: In recent years, peel-on mashed potatoes seem to have made a comeback.  Scrub potatoes, remove bad spots, and then boil.  Mash coarsely with a hand potato masher, add milk, butter and salt to taste, and serve.

Riced Mashed Potatoes: Riced mashed potatoes are made with a potato ricer, which gives them a grainy texture, and pellet shape, just like grains of rice.  Some potato ricers include different attachments for smaller or larger rice grains.

Whipped Mashed Potatoes: Use this technique for fluffy, perfectly smooth mashed potatoes.  Peel potatoes, boil, drain, and whip with a hand mixer until smooth and fluffy.  Add milk, salt, and butter to taste.

Which Kind of Potatoes? Idaho russet potatoes are the usual standby for any type of mashed potatoes, but for peel-on mashed potatoes, try baby red potatoes.  They have a thinner skin and smoother texture than regular Idaho potatoes.  For a real treat, try Yukon gold potatoes for any recipe.  They have a natural buttery color and taste, and are very smooth.     Don’t forget, you can also mash sweet potatoes! They’re great with a little butter, cinnamon and brown sugar.

The potato masher above is made of stainless steel, and measures 10.5 inches long.  It is available at Sur la table for 14.95.

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With a few weeks remaining until Thanksgiving dinner, you still have time to get in a practice run of your favorite Thanksgiving recipes.  Pumpkin pie is always a favorite, and it isn’t hard to make.  Here is a classic pumpkin pie recipe.

Classic Pumpkin Pie

• 2 eggs, slightly beaten
• 1 can solid pack pumpkin, 16 ounces
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 teaspoon ground clove
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ginger
• 1 can (12 ounces) evaporated milk
• 1 unbaked, deep dish pie crust (9 inches), or 2 shallow crusts

Blend all ingredients with a hand mixer.  Mixture will be thin.  If using a homemade pie crust, place crust in a deep dish pie pan.  Pour pumpkin mixture into crust.  Bake at 425 degrees F for 15 minutes.  Then reduce heat to 350 degrees F, and bake for an additional 45 minutes.  Pie is done when a knife inserted in the center comes out clean.   Shallow crust pies will require only 20-30 minutes of baking after reducing temperature to 350.

Pumpkin Pie Tips:

Pretty Pies: Pumpkin pie “batter” is very runny, and when it gets spilled on the edges of your crust it turns very dark.  For prettier pies, pour the “batter” into a pitcher or large measuring cup, and fill pie plates after placing them on a cookie sheet in your oven.

Substitute Pumpkin Pie Spice:  You can use pumpkin pie spice instead of the individual spices listed above.  1 teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice equates to 1/2 teaspoon of cinnamon, 1/8 teaspoon of clove, and 1/4 teaspoon of ginger, so the recipe above would require 2 teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice.

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