thanksgiving

[viscousmemories]

I'm home alone for Thanksgiving as per usual for the unloved, but I plan to make a semi-traditional dinner. I bought a pre-cooked roasted turkey breast from HEB*, some Pepperidge Farm stuffing mix and canned cranberry sauce. I'll make the mashed potatoes from scratch and a typical green bean casserole with frozen green beans and canned soup.

*First factory farmed meat I've bought in a long time, not counting eating at restaurants. I'm not proud of it but it was cold and rainy when I shopped a couple days ago so I didn't feel like driving to the co-op where I usually buy groceries.

[Demimonde]

Today, for the first time in my female life, I am cooking nothing for Thanksgiving.
My only job is to deliver Contra to his family and to mine. I get to be a guest and eat and watch football without any thought to the meal.

It feels rather weird.

[Kyuss Apollo]

I volunteered to do the Thanksgiving dinner this year when Mrs. KA said she wasn't interested after cooking largely by herself last year (in my defense, I was working under a closing deadline to submit a CAP application to IMLS, and though it ended up getting extended after the due date because of Hurricane Sandy, I was jamming on that last year at this time). Anyway, this year I made baked sweet potatoes, regular mashed potatoes, carrots, green beans, roasted potatoes, baked mushrooms, stuffing w/carrots, celery, apple and almonds, a pumpkin pie, a key lime pie, and an apple pie. I let Inara vote the other day on whether we should have a "small turkey" or a "big chicken," and she elected the "big chicken." So big chicken it was. Once I was deep into the cooking Mrs. KA did help out with making the gravy and with basting the chicken until it was done (it took almost three hours -- after all, it was a big chicken). When we were almost finished eating, she said that I "had done a good job," which is high praise indeed.

We just finished cleaning and packing up the leftovers and now its time for some pie and ice cream!



Update: Key Lime Pie: 9/10 (lime part was awesome, and the graham cracker crust was tasty but it was not coming off the pie plate like it should, so lacking in presentation not a 10/10); Pumpkin Pie: 10/10 from all who had some; but the Apple Pie 2/10 -- tasted like too much nutmeg, though i had followed the recipe which only called for 1/2 tsp... next time no nutmeg in the apple pie. It looked good though, and the good dutch-style top was by good by itself, so a couple points for that.

[Dingfod]

I, suffering from insomnia, got up really early and prepared about half the Thanksgiving dinner before I put the 13.6 pound turkey in the oven at 07:30. All my wife and daughters had to do was warm everything up and toast the marshmallows on the sweet potato casserole and they couldn't even get that right. Most of what we ate was cold by the time we got around to eating. Part of that was because notsosure's boyfriend was late.

[lisarea]

It was just me and Matlock and the dogs, so we didn't do too much stuff. Turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes (Matlock made those), gravy, Brussels sprouts with shallots, yams, and cranberry relish.

I did decide to put some andouille sausage in the bread stuffing, which was good, but it was sausage heavy. I don't like the bagged stuffing mix, because it's always preseasoned, and I don't like how most bread has corn syrup in it and is really sweet, so before I make stuffing, I start accumulating loaves of the good day-old bread from the bakery and leaving them around to get stale, but I forgot one of the loaves. So it was really more not enough bread than too much sausage.

Also, the gravy was a little separated and too salty, so I put it back in a pot and fixed it after dinner, so the leftover gravy is good.

Now we have to do our Black Friday shopping where we go to the Asian market to get fresh baguettes for turkey sandwiches. We like to get there early to beat on the doors until they open, and then run in knocking people over and fighting and stuff.

I might make some pies today or tomorrow because I didn't bother yesterday, or I might just start making cranberry relish cakes.

Sometimes, I like post-Thanksgiving reboots more than the original.

[viscousmemories]

Where was TLM?

I ended up skipping the green beans only because I forgot about them until everything else was ready and by then all I wanted to do was eat. I've got tons of leftovers though so I might still make green beans after all.

[lisarea]

TLM works this weird Postapocalypse shift at his store every Thanksgiving and Christmas. Those are the two days the store closes for a while, and there are only a couple of managers there who have the security codes necessary to work alone in the store while it's locked up, and they always either pick him or he volunteers. I don't know.

So he eats later, but he isn't around for the main event.

[livius drusus]

My mom made carrot cake with cream cheese frosting this year instead of pies and it was so awesome. I think it's the best one she's ever made.