Project 365: November 22, 2007
This is a picture I forgot to post yesterday. Oops. Kekoa precariously balanced atop the laundry. (Been too busy to fold it.) It's a tough and dangerous life, that of a house dog...
Pumpkin bar thingies. codobo's mom was totally responsible for these, except for my picking out the recipe. Very easy, very yummy. The recipe called for optional nuts, and she had the brilliant idea of making one 8x8 pan with and one without, since we had to split them up into 2 pans since I was out of larger ones.
codobo and P were in charge of straightening up and setting the table. codobo was very proud of how he laid out the silverware:
I think it's the first time ever we've not used a table cloth on the table.
Yay, turkey! I still don't know what happened to my v-rack... Still looks very nice, anyway. Don't mind the black threads, I was too cheap to buy kitchen twine. ;-)
The carving of said turkey. This was before kranki was corralled into supervising. Thank goodness he watches a lot of Food Network, otherwise we'd've all had no clue how to do it. :-)
I should give a big shout out to loopylape's brother T, our Official Food Photographer. He did a much better job than I ever could've. In large part because he did not have the tendency to forget until it was way the heck too late.
You must admire how artfully the guys laid out the turkey after carving it.
Fruit punch.
Homemade and canned cranberry sauces.
P and kranki deciding to take another look at the turkey carcass:
Never fear, Kekoa was still around.
Carving the ham.
And now the part I care about, the sides. On the left make-ahead mashed potatoes, on the right turnip mashed potatoes.
Made from scratch gravy. Mm-mm good. (Along with more artistically-arranged silverware.)
Stuffing not having been stuffed in the bird!
Meats.
Cornbread. In loopylape's dish. The dish situation was a little sketchy, I ran into this problem where I couldn't for the life of me find my 3rd large baking dish. And I knew I had one, too. So I finally called loopylape and asked them to bring one for the corn bread. (I remembered in bed the next morning that I'd used it for pumpkin ice cream thingie.)
Green bean casserole.
Corn and rolls.
Tha spread.
Which we promptly had to rearrange, realizing that people might want to eat at the table. (I have no recollection of moving the plates, yet obviously I did...)
Um, leftover peeled, cut potatoes. From, um, when I *cough* accidentally doubled the recipe, then doubled it again *cough*.
loopylape trying to figure out how to best rearrange things.
And then doing it!
See, there was enough room for all the women to sit at the table, while the men watched TV.
Dessert! Pumpkin ice cream thingie, which didn't quite work out as hoped.
Peanut butter thingie, which did.
And all together.
Here's T doing yeoman work at cutting the ice cream.
Here's codobo giving me some sort of grief.
And finally, the lonely apple pie. The lower oven decided to start cleaning itself, and then I couldn't turn on the top oven. So there it sat... I'm happy to report, though, that it turned out most delightful after it had unfrozen itself.
Recipes!
The Cook's Illustrated recipes require you to have a subscription to view them. You can sign up for a free 14-day subscription if you want (or a full-out one, who am I to tell you what to do or not to do ;-) ). You read the description for the recipes without the subscription.
- Mashed potatoes with turnips (need subscription to view)
- Make-ahead mashed potatoes (need subscription to view)
- Roast stuffed crisped-skin turkey (need subscription to view)
- Green bean casserole (need subscription to view)
- Stuffing (need subscription to view)
- Gravy (need subscription to view)
- Basics of brining
- Peanut butter thingie
- Cranberry sauce
- Pumpkin dessert
- The dinner rolls were simply TJ's pizza crust, each 1-lb batch made 8 rolls. 400 degrees for 20 minutes, supposedly, but I think they took a lot longer than that. Idea stolen from Cook's Illustrated - shocking, I know.
- Cornbread was 2 boxes of Jiffy mix, 2 eggs, and 1 can of creamed corn. Bake as directed on box. (At least, I think it's 2 eggs. Check the box.)
And I think that's all? I also used the Cook's Illustrated holiday planning guide - very useful! Let me know if you have any questions, though.
I'd like to thank all that helped out, especially codobo's mom. She saved me so many hours in chopping, it's not even funny. P also helped out with the prep work, as well as cleaning up and getting stuff straightened away. And made the Bahamaritas. :-) codobo cleaned and set the table and carved. loopylape and kranki swooped in and helped with the last-minute prep, not to mention made the ham and brought over good company. :-) T was a most excellent food photographer, moms_mumblings kept us all entertained and helped with the Tupperwaring of the leftovers. passarinha and eduoardinho helped with the cleaning, spoiling of the dog, and brought over lemons. And passarinha's mom did a ridiculous amount of dish washing and drying, for which I am immensely grateful. And brought us a lovely olive dish, also!
All in all, a wonderful Thanksgiving!