Notes on the tday dinner:)
So, I had planned all these fabulous dishes and in the end punted on a few.
Squash did not get made at all. That wasn't mine anyway.
DH made fococcia (which was pretty tasty, actually), cinnamon rolls, the turkey, and the traditional cranberry orange spiral cookies. Yum.
So, I was going to make parsnips, but we ended up with six adults (which I discovered was going to be the count this morning) and the amount of parsnips I had looked so puny, I punted.
I was supposed to make a sweet potato casserole and it was waaay involved and I didn't have time to deal with it, so I made whipped sweet potatoes and just sprinkled some pecans and butter on top. They were yummy. I put butter and milk and a little lime juice and a pinch of cinnamon in the potatoes. Those got devoured (not that there was a lot of it to begin with though).
I made stuffing. I totally winged it and I thought it was pretty tasty. I made bread the other day (note to self: next year don't use a bread that uses honey in it) and then sliced it up and left it out to stale. Today I cut up an onion, two carrots, two celery stalks and fried those then added some sage (about 1 tsp I think, plus a little more). Then I added the bread, although I should have put the butter in next. I fried the bread a little bit, then added some water (since there wasn't any stock handy) to moisten it and put the lid on the pot and stuck it in the oven to warm up/keep warm until the other stuff was ready.
I made gravy. I am always panicking at the last moment. I forgot to add any liquid so it didn't thicken properly, but it was sure tasty. I took all the pan drippings, added only the liver, cooked it a little bit, used my immersion blender on it, cooked it a little more, added too little arrowroot and a little too much salt and served it. I thought it tasted really good even if it did look a little gross:)
My friend made the cranberry sauce as I was madly making these other things:) We used the Joy of Cooking recipe but used half the sugar. I think we could use even less than half, but I don't know if it would be "syrupy" enough, if you know what I mean. 1/2 the sugar was definitely nice though. It has orange zest too.
One friend brought these really tasty green beans that the two toddlers devoured and kept asking for more of. The other friend/family brought ganache for dessert and a green salad plus these squash tarts from WF which I didn't like. I only tasted the tart b/c DD2 seemed interested in trying some. I guess that was another reason I punted on the squash; I knew the squash tarts were coming.
There were no mashed potatoes. Next year I think I will try to do mashed potatoes because then I can have my one serving and send the rest home with my friend who was disappointed that there weren't any.
Last night I thought there was only going to be my friend and her friend and the friend's daughter. This morning I had email from a friend asking if she and her family could come (three adults plus one toddler). Then I talked with my other friend and she said her friend wasn't coming. I thought it all worked out beautifully. And there was one vegetarian. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving at my house if there wasn't a vegetarian.
We forgot to go around and say what we were thankful for, but I think most of are thankful for the same sorts of things: family, friends, the embarrassment of riches we enjoy, health.
Tomorrow will be a nice day to just hang out and be low key. I am hoping I can get to the pool with DD1. She's been begging for time with just me lately. Poor kid. Here's hoping that tomorrow is restful. I'm exhausted!:)
(Note that I am hungry because we ate dinner from 3-5:30 or so and I served dinner on small plates. I barely ate a lunch or dinner. I think I basically skipped a meal and I didn't even come close to stuffing myself at dinner. Feels pretty good:))
One more note: dh packed the turkey breast with ice an hour before cooking and then cooked for a total of 2 hrs 15 minutes (14 lb bird) and the meat was not at all overcooked. Go dh! The only "problem" is that we forgot about salting it beforehand. Hopefully we can remember to do that next year.
Squash did not get made at all. That wasn't mine anyway.
DH made fococcia (which was pretty tasty, actually), cinnamon rolls, the turkey, and the traditional cranberry orange spiral cookies. Yum.
So, I was going to make parsnips, but we ended up with six adults (which I discovered was going to be the count this morning) and the amount of parsnips I had looked so puny, I punted.
I was supposed to make a sweet potato casserole and it was waaay involved and I didn't have time to deal with it, so I made whipped sweet potatoes and just sprinkled some pecans and butter on top. They were yummy. I put butter and milk and a little lime juice and a pinch of cinnamon in the potatoes. Those got devoured (not that there was a lot of it to begin with though).
I made stuffing. I totally winged it and I thought it was pretty tasty. I made bread the other day (note to self: next year don't use a bread that uses honey in it) and then sliced it up and left it out to stale. Today I cut up an onion, two carrots, two celery stalks and fried those then added some sage (about 1 tsp I think, plus a little more). Then I added the bread, although I should have put the butter in next. I fried the bread a little bit, then added some water (since there wasn't any stock handy) to moisten it and put the lid on the pot and stuck it in the oven to warm up/keep warm until the other stuff was ready.
I made gravy. I am always panicking at the last moment. I forgot to add any liquid so it didn't thicken properly, but it was sure tasty. I took all the pan drippings, added only the liver, cooked it a little bit, used my immersion blender on it, cooked it a little more, added too little arrowroot and a little too much salt and served it. I thought it tasted really good even if it did look a little gross:)
My friend made the cranberry sauce as I was madly making these other things:) We used the Joy of Cooking recipe but used half the sugar. I think we could use even less than half, but I don't know if it would be "syrupy" enough, if you know what I mean. 1/2 the sugar was definitely nice though. It has orange zest too.
One friend brought these really tasty green beans that the two toddlers devoured and kept asking for more of. The other friend/family brought ganache for dessert and a green salad plus these squash tarts from WF which I didn't like. I only tasted the tart b/c DD2 seemed interested in trying some. I guess that was another reason I punted on the squash; I knew the squash tarts were coming.
There were no mashed potatoes. Next year I think I will try to do mashed potatoes because then I can have my one serving and send the rest home with my friend who was disappointed that there weren't any.
Last night I thought there was only going to be my friend and her friend and the friend's daughter. This morning I had email from a friend asking if she and her family could come (three adults plus one toddler). Then I talked with my other friend and she said her friend wasn't coming. I thought it all worked out beautifully. And there was one vegetarian. It wouldn't be Thanksgiving at my house if there wasn't a vegetarian.
We forgot to go around and say what we were thankful for, but I think most of are thankful for the same sorts of things: family, friends, the embarrassment of riches we enjoy, health.
Tomorrow will be a nice day to just hang out and be low key. I am hoping I can get to the pool with DD1. She's been begging for time with just me lately. Poor kid. Here's hoping that tomorrow is restful. I'm exhausted!:)
(Note that I am hungry because we ate dinner from 3-5:30 or so and I served dinner on small plates. I barely ate a lunch or dinner. I think I basically skipped a meal and I didn't even come close to stuffing myself at dinner. Feels pretty good:))
One more note: dh packed the turkey breast with ice an hour before cooking and then cooked for a total of 2 hrs 15 minutes (14 lb bird) and the meat was not at all overcooked. Go dh! The only "problem" is that we forgot about salting it beforehand. Hopefully we can remember to do that next year.