It’s quickly coming upon us… the feast of the year!  Once again, we’d like to share some favorite Thanksgiving recipes that could bring some new flavors to your dinner table.

Three Meats Sancocho

(INGREDIENTS)
1 cup chopped onions
1 red bell pepper, finely chopped
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 teaspoon ground cumin
1/4 teaspoon ground achiote
3 ears fresh corn, cut into 3 pieces
12 cups of water or more if necessary
8 pieces of chicken
1 pound of pork meat or pork ribs
1 pound of beef cut into pieces
2 green plantains, peeled and cut crosswise into 2 inch pieces
4 medium white potatoes, peeled and cut in half
1 pound frozen or fresh yuca cut into big pieces
1/4 cup chopped fresh cilantro
1/4 teaspoon ground pepper
1 teaspoon salt

(DIRECTIONS)
1. Place the onions, pepper, garlic and cumin in the blender with 1/4 cup of water.
2. In a large pot, place the beef, pork, chicken, corn, onion mixture, salt and green plantain. Add the water and bring to a boil, then cover and reduce heat to medium and cook for about 45 minutes.
3. Add the potatoes and yuca. Continue cooking for 30 more minutes or until the vegetables are fork tender. Stir in the cilantro.
4. Taste and adjust the seasoning. Serve in large soup bowls, dividing the meat and chicken and vegetables evenly.

Sausage Stuffing

(INGREDIENTS)
1 lb breakfast saugage (cooked & drained)
3 celery stalks
1 large onion
1 bag bread crumbs
1 large can chicken stock
Poultry seasoning
pepper to taste

(DIRECTIONS)
1. In a pan, fry onions and celery until soft.
2. In large bowl combine celery, onions, and seasonings into bread crumbs.
3. Slowly add broth until bread crumbs are moist.
4. Refrigerate over night if using to stuff turkey or place in casserole dish and bake at 375 for about 35 mins or until hot all the way through.

Cream Cheese Corn

(INGREDIENTS)
20 ounces frozen corn
3 tablespoons butter
8 ounces cream cheese, cut in chunks
¹⁄₄ teaspoon salt
¹⁄₈ teaspoon pepper
parsley

(DIRECTIONS)
1. In medium saucepan, warm corn slightly covered in water to about room temperature.
2. DO NOT OVER COOK.
3. Drain corn, place back in pan.
4. Add butter and cream cheese.
5. Cook, stirring over medium heat only until melted, add salt and pepper.
6. Pour into serving bowl and sprinkle slight amount of parsley for color.

Cinnamon Apple Cranberry Sauce

(INGREDIENTS)
2 cups cranberry juice
1 6 oz bag of cranberries (or craisins)
1 cinnamon stick, broken in half
¼ cup sugar
2 Gala apples, peeled, cored & diced
2 teaspoons corn starch

(DIRECTIONS)
1. In a medium saucepan over medium heat, add cranberry juice, cranberries, cinnamon & sugar.
2. Bring to a boil and let cook for 5 mins.
3. Add the apples and cook, stirring occasionally, until the cranberries have softened and apples are tender, about 5 mins.
4. Remove 8 ounces of the liquid to a small bowl and whisk in the cornstarch.
5. Slowly add the cornstarch-juice mixture to the cranberry mixture, stirring constantly. Cook for an additional 5 mins.
6. Remove from heat and pour into a serving bowl.
7. Refrigerate until thickened, about 30 mins.
8. Remove the cinnamon sticks and serve.

Texas Trash Pie

(INGREDIENTS)
1 cup graham crackers, crushed
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup caramel bits
1 cup shredded coconut
1 cup pretzels
1 (14 oz) can sweetened condensed milk
1 (9-inch) pie shell

(DIRECTIONS)
1. Preheat oven to 350 F.
2. In large bowl, combine graham crackers, chocolate chips, caramel bits, shredded coconut, crushed pretzels, and condensed milk.
3. Stir well.
4. Pour filling into a pre-made 9-inch pie crust and bake for 40 mins, or until pie filling is firm and crust is brown.

Cinnamon Pull-Apart Coffee Cake

(INGREDIENTS)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cans (16.3 oz each) Pillsbury Grands! Homestyle refrigerated buttermilk biscuits
1 cup packed brown sugar
3/4 cup butter or margarine, melted

(DIRECTIONS)
1. Heat oven to 350°F.
2. Lightly grease 12 cup fluted tube pan with shortening or cooking spray.
3. In large food-storage plastic bag, mix granulated sugar and cinnamon.
4. Separate dough into 16 biscuits; cut each into quarters. Shake in bag to coat. Arrange in pan.
5. In small bowl, mix brown sugar and butter; pour over biscuit pieces.
6. Bake 28 to 32 mins or until golden brown and no longer doughy in center. Cool in pan 10 mins.
7. Turn upside down onto serving plate; pull apart to serve. Serve warm.

Following our child safety theme for this month, let’s talk about cyber safety for a minute.  As adults, we know the consequences of handing out personal information, but there’s a little more to consider when you allow your little ones screen time.  It only takes a few clicks to be in places they shouldn’t be or share things that could put them at risk.

Here are 5 things to consider if you allow your children to have access to the computer:

1. Have the computer in a community area of the house so that they are held accountable and you can monitor what is popping up on the screen. Even the most innocent child could find themselves accidentally on a site they shouldn’t be.
2. Set rules and consequences and make sure your children know exactly what is expected in terms of acceptable uses for the computer. Decide ahead of time if and when you will allow Skype or email to be used so that your children know exactly what you’re comfortable with them doing.
3. Keep a bookmark folder just for them so there’s no confusion what those acceptable uses are.
4. Explain why you don’t give out personal information and explain that sharing information, including filling out forms with your address and phone number, is NOT acceptable without permission. When playing online games, give them a pseudo name to use instead of their real name to reinforce that no personal information is given out.
5. Talk about cyberbullying. It’s not just on the playground anymore, and knowing what it is and how to respond to it could help your children stop it before it becomes an issue down the road. Be a “safe person” that your children can come to if they witness or experience any form of cyberbullying.

That said, if you’ve made it through these 5 steps and still allow your children screen time, here are some great sites below that encourage learning for various ages!  The world wide web can be an amazing source of knowledge and great tool for skill building.  In addition to November being National Child Safety month, November 8th is National Parents as Teachers day, so I encourage you to take a moment tonight after dinner and teach your children something new today!

Babies/Preschool

BabyTV

Agnitus

Preschool/Kindergarten

Sesame Street

PBS Kids

ABC Mouse

Kindergarten/1st grade

FunBrain

Starfall

Gradeschool+

Kids Discover

Time for Kids

Cool Math

If you’ve ever uttered the words “Hey Cortana…”, you’re well aware of the other innovative features that Microsoft’s Kinect accessory brings to the world of television and gaming, such as voice command features, automatic recognition, and Skype and Twitch capabilities due to it’s high-quality camera technology. Despite all of these, Microsoft has finally announced the end of Kinect this morning, after several years of trying to perfect and mainstream its use.

When they launched Kinect in 2010 it was considered new and revolutionary technology for the camera to be able to sense depth and interact with its users, even winning them a spot in the Guinness World Records after becoming the fastest-selling consumer device in 2011. The Kinect could recognize bodies in the room and pick out the voice of it’s user over other background noises, making Skype features and gaming communications over  Twitch more reliable and clearer. After tweaking the technology for a couple years, they chose to marry the device with the Xbox One to make it more mainstream. While the device itself wasn’t as popular in the market as they had hoped, the sensor technology has been adopted by other companies to be used in various devices, such as Apples iPhone X, where they shrunk the sensor down and used the same algorithm to enhance it’s Face ID system.

While the death of the Kinect device itself seemed ultimate, the technology behind it is still considered innovative and is being sought out to continue the development of other devices that can use the technology in various forms to bring other new and creative ways for electronics to interact with their surroundings through a natural user interface.