We had two Thanksgivings-es this year: the first on the actual day, at Al & Emma’s, and the second here at home, on Black Friday, which is when we’ve been doing our Thanksgiving for a quite a while now.
For Al & Emma’s I made an apple slab pie that took over the world – it was me and the pie in the kitchen late Wednesday night, and the pie won. I wanted to make a topping that was little cinnamon rolls of pie crust laid over the top.
The problem was that I was trying to put together a Martha Stewart recipe – always unreliable – and my own memory of making a version of this pie in a regular 9-inch pie dish. Martha was using a smaller pan – 10 x 15 (jellyroll) vs. the 13 x 18 (half sheet) that I had, so I tried to scale up. And I ended up with so much crust, I couldn’t roll it thin enough on my pastry cloth, and had to cut the edges off and keep rolling. Then I used those irregular edges for the cinnamon rolls, instead of starting from a more regular rectangle as Martha suggests and cutting “63 slices”.
I also made spicy sweet potatoes, my regular recipe, but with buttered & brown sugared cornflakes on top, instead of the more usual pecans, because there were two nut allergies in the group. I figured if buttered cornflakes is good enough for real WI cheesey potatoes, then they’d do OK on sweet potatoes, too. They were delicious, actually. I think I’ll make them this way next year. There was some left so I served them again on Friday – when they were well-liked again.
And a double-wide, large batch of no-nuts chex mix. We’re already (Saturday) down to the one 6 quart bucket (with some out) that’s in the freezer till the cookie party.
For Black Friday Thanksgiving, the menu was:
- squash hummus & chex mix for apps;
- Turkey and two kinds of stuffing – chestnut and one with Italian sausage and peppers. This year I cured the always-too-much-stuffing problem by slightly burning the pans of Italian sausage stuffing and the chestnut stuffing that wasn’t in the bird;
- Vegetable gratin with cauliflower and Romanesco cauliflower and Brussels sprouts, and smoked Gouda, with crumbs and smoked paprika on top – because the sprout count in my Thanksgiving CSA box was only 3/4 lb;
- Citrus glazed sweet potatoes – juice from the too-early-in-the-season-to-be-really-good clementines I bought at Costco;
- cranberry sauce that seems a bit runny;
- Mashed potatoes & gravy
- corn with roasted bell & poblano peppers;
- Pumpkin mousse pie with a graham cracker crust and the apple slab pie and turkey-shaped spice thins for dessert.
Since my oven is still being difficult about holding a temp, I did the bird upstairs. Some of UN-intended consequences of that were I boiled over the cranberry sauce while I was upstairs, and I think having some stuff stuff up and some down is also how I singed the extra stuffing.
But at least the oven made it through its self clean cycle – I’m giving it a break today.
Today – Saturday – the plan was that (after scrubbing the turkey roasting pan, and unloading the dishwasher, and throwing the tablecloths and napkins into the washer) I’d make my cookie list and then go shopping for cookie ingredients, and then bake one of the long-keeping cookie kinds tonight, after a dinner of turkey sandwiches and microwaved vegetable sides. And after doing some work in the afternoon.
Most of this was accomplished. I did the cookie shopping – I went to Costco and Woodman’s and had the worst bagger at Woodman’s – kid had no idea how to load a grocery bag or a cart. I bagged some things to try to show him how and reorganized the cart, so that nothing would get put on top of the eggs, and everything would fit. When he was done checking the checker actually bagged most of my stuff, the kid kind of standing behind him with a carton of cottage cheese in his hand looking for an opening to stick it into the bag the checker was filling. Maybe it was his first day. I can hear the checker asking to never have to work with that kid again on a busy Saturday.
After I got home and put everything away, I was not very motivated. I decided I’d take a day off, like the oven. I wanted to just sit around and read this silly romance ** I borrowed from the library as an e-book.
I started the turkey broth boiling – it will go until 10:00 PM tonight – then, for sort of working, I cleaned out email, and then indulged in avoidance cooking. I blanched almonds for a cookie I’ll make on Monday night, and then tried to make leek confit – but I burned it. Or caramelized it anyways. I guess I’ll buy more leeks next Saturday and try again.
So now I think it’s time to take a shower and just collapse on the couch. There’s always tomorrow.
** And actually, it’s not silly – in the context of a romance with some very well-written sex scenes, the book touches on a lot of important issues: African diaspora; how the foster system sucks (I mean, the main character is an African princess who has wound up in the foster system in the US); women of color in STEM. So rather than silly, it’s actually a very palatable wrapping of really important ideas.