All is well

The turkey came out about an hour later than i expected. I was nervous the whole time, but the appetizers and soup held everyone over (plus, for many, I was their second stop), and they kids were enthusiastic with charades and Scrabble. I'm glad I kept the old Scrabble board.

My turkey was beautiful... juicy, tender, flavorful. The only hiccup was I forgot the green beans in the fridge.

Other notes:
- While the pinwheels tasted good, they were gross to make, and looked like little mutant things. There is clearly a technique that was left out of the instructions that was vital to their creation.
- I got so nervous with the turkey, that I overcooked the stuffing a tiny bit. Not too bad, but I shouldn't do that.
- Tiny burns (on my body) seem to be inevitable. Take the time to ice them.
- Guests won't bring wine unless you ask them. That last-minute jumbo-jug is worth it, but you should make them pitch in. Lazies.
- All Thanksgivings have someone who drinks too much and does something embarrassing (OK, in my family, they didn't need to drink too much to do the embarrassing thing); bonus if one of your guests brings the embarrassing person as a date, so you know you never have to see them again and can make fun of them indiscriminately.

All in all, an awesome first dinner. I missed having a formal "grace"... I miss taking a moment to think of the people not at the table, since there were so many not at the table for me this year.

Two of my students came. One said she never liked stuffing or cranberry sauce until now. The other said his earlier dinner was "unspiced" compared to mine; that his was more meant for old people, while mine was more flavorful. Worst part about getting old and still having to eat.

Oh, and pumpkin rice pudding is the bomb.

a work in progress.

1. Brinning (all night)

2. Washing

3. Cooking

4. Ready to eat!

mostly...

Chester the Poinsettia.

woke up later than i should to go photograph, but it happened. yay!
didn't get the coffee.
have sweet potatoes
cooking rice pudding (about a half hour behind schedule... so that means the turkey will be a little behind too)
i did make the tables!

Dining room table

Supplemental table in the sunroom. Notice I moved the record player in! If only I had some Xmas albums.
The irony is, those are the most common albums in thrift shops, but I haven't bought any.

This is the beverage and appetizer bar. There will be soup and pinwheels here!

Scott's helping!

So that's about it. I have the rice pudding and the roast veggies cooking now. I'm charging the batteries for the Wii, in case the kids want to do that. I will also put out Yahtzee and some cards.

I feel like I'm forgetting something big. Other than the turkey. :/

I've been collecting vintage deer... they are very festive.

This morning's shoot was quick, but neat. More on that when I get the picture scanned.

Small successes

I know the biggest disappointment for the Thanksgiving cook is for the dishes to not be warm when they are served. This is something I am conscious of, having a small kitchen and oven, and many warm dishes to serve. Not to mention not killing the guests with the turkey. It's a lot to think about.

What got accomplished:

• Stuffing is all ready to go, just needs to cook. I'm hoping it can kind of cook on the short shelf above the turkey.
• Mashed potatoes are all done. Just reheat tomorrow. I held back some of the cream, to use tomorrow to wake them back up. The recipe is specifically for Bleu Cheese Mashed Potatoes, but since there are kids coming, I'm going to hold the cheese back. It will be in a bowl with a spoon for guests to add as they please.
• Roasted veggies are ready to go, just need to cook, save for the main ingredient which SOMEONE never brought me today. I may or may not start biting my nails.
• Turkey still in salt water. In the fridge, so as not to kill people.

Unexpected:

• Despite pre-cleaning the kitchen, I have to clean it again. I already told you about the E. coli juice spill. The food keeps making a run for it and hitting the floor. So I mopped again. I expect I will wash the counters in the morning before starting again. The dishwasher is running (did I mention I have a fork shortage? And glassware, apparently).
• Already filled up one trash bag. And drank one bottle of wine. I hope they guests bring more!

In the morning:

• Drink coffee.
• Seek the sweet potatoes at all cost!
• Turn on ice maker
• Retrieve tripod from office and go photograph runners.
• Make tables.
• Drink wine.
• Bring chairs in from shed. Clean as needed.
• Don't forget to shower. Maybe some nice clothes and make-up?

In the afternoon:

• Shove turkey in oven around 1:30PM
• Start pumpkin rice pudding, 3PM (um, what the heck am I cooking this in?)
• Drink wine.
• Roll out pastry and cheese and spinach for appetizers, 4ish (fridge till ready)
• Figure out where to shove roasted veggies, 4PM (or cook in the morning and leave on the heat?)
• Shove stuffing in oven around 4:30PM (stir rice pudding)
• Figure out how to heat up mashed potatoes 5PM
• Heat soup in saucepan, 5PM
• Cook pinwheel appetizers, 5PM
• Light candles
• Drink wine
• Put cranberry sauce in pretty bowl, 5:15PM
• Take pinwheels out of oven
• Steam green beans, 5:15PM
• Fill water pitcher.
• Put salt, pepper, bowl of bleu cheese on table
• Don't forget to make gravy, even though I'm not that into it, 5:30ish
• Drink wine and be charming. 
• Don't forget to photograph the table of food and people eating, for the Prison Project! (Yes, someone chose Thanksgiving... once a year opp! I missed the Halloween opp for the other woman...)

Gift ideas for me:

• more casserole dishes, preferably pretty ones
• bowls that are infinitely deep so food won't try to escape
• forks

Slow live blogging

OK, OK. I've already been caught slacking. I had some paper-work things to do that I wanted to get done before the weekend... and I am aware I am supposed to do most of the cooking tomorrow, and have the terrifying battle with trying to serve 100 things all at once (and hot!) when I only have one stove...

Is it procrastinating, or is it acknowledging I can't do it today?

What I DID do:
Cut up the onions, celery and herbs for the stuffing.
Toasted the cornbread cubes for the stuffing.
Cooked and chopped bacon for stuffing.
Turkey is still brining.


About to do:
Go scrub potatoes and carrots
Dice potatoes, carrots, red onions, brown onions for the roast veggies and mashed taters.
Read directions for rice pudding to see if I can make it now.

I didn't rake.


And I have to take a picture of runners at the Turkey Race tomorrow. It's the only race I have been able to find. It's in the morning, so I think if I get down there, set up, shoot the winners, then jet, I should only lose an hour. I have to take a pic of my actual dinner too... two more prison pics tomorrow!

Turkey cooking so far:

A reminder on the menu:

Cheese and spinach pastry swirls
Squash soup
Green beans
Cranberry sauce
Wine gravy
Bleu cheese mashed potatoes
Roasted vegetables with garbanzo beans and sweet potatoes
Cornbread stuffing with sundried tomatoes
Herbed free-range turkey
Creamy pumpkin rice pudding

So far:
- Made cornbread (from scratch!) for stuffing
- Made bacon for stuffing
- Brining turkey
- Sending harassing email to friend who promised to give me sweet potatoes (you know who you are! :) )

Live Blogging Thanksgiving

There is probably a more efficient way to do this, but I am planning on updating the blog in-progress of my first Thanksgiving Day cooking attempt.

I haven't charged the SLR in a while, and I've misplaced my Point-n-Shoot, so this is with the
web-cam.... but doesn't it look homey in my living room? Notice I put up festive deer in the upper left!

Early observations:

The fact it's Wednesday gives me undo confidence that I have lots of time to prepare. I casually looked at the brining bag directions (I plan to brine the bird) and see I should brine two hours for each pound of bird. OK, that's math, so let's see.... my bird is about 15.5 pounds, so that's 31 hours... and I'm supposed to cook the bird 4 hours (unstuffed), which comes to 35 hours (assuming 3500 ft above sea level doesn't affect cooking time too much)... so, if I want the bird to come out of the oven tomorrow at 5:30 to start it's half hour resting period, I need to start brining.... four hours ago!

Luckily, the brining is something I can cut short. I'm not supposed to cut the cooking time short. I know that much. ;) 26 hours is plenty of time to sit in salt and sugar water (YUM).

Another observation:

I believe it is all hostess's goal to not kill their guests. Maybe this goes without saying. But the process that goes into one not killing one's guests is a behind-the-scenes often undervalued set of rituals.

To pull my bird from it's tightly formed plastic casing, I dawned disposable gloves that I might be more self-conscious about the placement of my hands. I did pre-clean the whole kitchen, remember, so in theory, the kitchen cannot kill anyone right now.

I set out the measuring cup to start dumping my water into the bringing bag (enough to cover the bird, but you have to count how many cups go it, to know how much salt to add [more math... 1 cup of salt to 4 cups of water, up to half the salt can be substituted with sugar]; I counted 38 cups). Then, you are supposed to take out some of the water to heat to dissolve the salt and sugar. I removed 8 cups to put in my saucepan (the bird in the bag is resting in the roasting pan, my only pan big enough to hold them), and as I turn, the bag tips about 2 cups of raw-bird water all over the counter and the measuring cups sitting there.

So much for not killing the guests.

Just kidding. I soaked it all up and cleaned again. By the time I was done, my salt was dissolved and ready to cool to be added back to the bag.