2 posts tagged “thanksgiving”
Wow. This was a slight disaster, wasn't it? My dad came into the kitchen today around 11am and just started making breakfast..... and I was supposed to have the kitchen to myself ALL day today. All day. And I couldn't delegate anything specific to anyone because everything took so long for everyone else to do... I didn't have any cheffy guests over today. So the "What can we do to help?" really just got in the way :-(
My bird was 165 and 168 in 3 places when I took him out, but then he rested for about a half hour and when we cut into him, he was still a bit pink. And apparently, when I left for Lorean's family's dinner, they put my bird back in the over - for another hour and a half. WHAT THE HELL? I'm mad. That was MY bird, and no one even called to ask how long I would recommend for him being in there. NOWHERE NEAR AN HOUR AND A HALF! He was done! He was just JUICY AS HELL because he was wrapped in bacon and had 2lbs of herbed butter all over him!!!
I can't believe they did that. It's like an insult. I'm pretty mad. I won't be eating anymore of that turkey. I even voiced my concern for people not liking the slight pink near the bones at dinner and offered to cook it longer then, so it wouldn't dry out after getting COLD and then being shoved back into the oven. My poor, poor neglected Big Bird. :-(
Because my dad took 2 hours in the kitchen to make breakfast...I was severely lacking space, time, and all of my stuff was in far too close to the "finish line" for my liking. I didn't get to make the brie - the ones I made yesterday exploded...little bastards. I barely got my cranberry sauce made, but it was a HUGE hit. I didn't think anyone would eat it, and there's NONE LEFT! I'm going to have to make more in order to have some for sandwiches!!
My individual pumpkin tarts took quite a bit of time, too. THEY were insanely popular - everyone loved them. So that was pleasing.... everyone also loved the apricot-orange glazed sweet potatoes that I baked, and the stuffing that I made. It had turkey sausage (specifically cranberry turkey sausage from Whole Foods - I'm so happy they opened here!!), apples, and pears in it, and was made with sourdough bread that I made homemade croutons with. Yum yum.
I guess it wasn't a total disaster, but it definitely was not smooth and stress free like it should and could have been. I had it all planned out. I made a schedule for when things needed to be done by (sounds anal, but really, it's a smart thing to do when cooking that many dishes in that small of a kitchen with that many people here), and my dad bursting into my business (it's funny to say it that way, but MY DAMN KITCHEN SPACE, BIOOTCH!) really threw me off. :-(
Lorean and I are also a little iffy right now. We've had a rough week, on top of the fact that he's had a rough week outside of just our relationship. He's been blowing me off for a few weeks and that finally came to a peak at the most inopportune time (when he blew me off, again, but only because our friend was dumped just before the holidays - yeah, I feel bad that I finally broke down about it ON THAT day..ugh.. it'd just been happening so often lately that I just couldn't take it anymore), then my sister ruined my prep-time plans yesterday, and therefore made me late/not ready to go somewhere with Lorean and the recently dumped friend. So out of frustration for everything going on here, the stress of cooking and cleaning and doing everything here, and then our issue the prior day, I just blew up at him. For no reason at all; he showed up, told me what time it was, and I blew up at hime. It was wrong and I shouldn't have done it. Even if some girls out there that're friends would justify it by saying he shouldn't have been blowing me off - that doesn't mean I can blow up at him for nothing at all. NOTHING. :-(
SO! Take that mess and add it to the mess of today's dinner, and let me just say: Unless I have a kitchen that is over double the space of my parents' kitchen, or if I have two days ahead of time without work and without people in my way to prep things out ON MY OWN, I WILL NEVER DO THIS AGAIN! ha!!
Oh well. It was fun cooking and planning out my menu until things started going wrong. I missed the feeling of planning things out like that.
This is specifically a public entry because my good ol' buddy Jon doesn't have a Vox anymore, and therefore needs it to be public to read it.
There ya go, Mr. Boss Man. No pictures yet - I'm going to finish my sparkling wine and hit the sack. I have to be up at 4:45.
Yesterday was a lot of fun for me. I pretty much cooked all day long. I miss doing that; I used to do that every day for a job and it was really the most fun I've ever had at a job before in my life.
I started with the pumpkin pie, which I've already posted in its own entry by sending pictures from the email on my phone, but just as a recap I'll post it again. This wasn't your everyday, run-of-the-mill pumpkin pie.. I put brandy in it. The end result was a much richer, darker flavored pumpkin pie than what I was used to.
I was skeptical of it, but Lorean swore up and down that he loved it and that it was delicious. I choose to believe him. I mean, it's not that the pumpkin pie was bad, it just had a much richer flavor than any other pumpkin pie I'd ever tasted before. It was really good, but after eating so much food for dinner, I couldn't even stomach a full piece of pie.
Next in line was the turkey. I took that sucker out and let all of the purge drain out of him (what they call the liquid/blood mixture), and then finally ended up shoving two full sticks of butter+herbs down under the skin on top of the breast. Oh boy, did that help.
And in order to prevent dry meat - I hate it when people overcook the turkey and the white meat is dry and flakey - I covered it in bacon. I put the bird in for 30 minutes at 500 degrees, and then after 30 minutes I covered the breast meat & bacon in foil, and lowered the heat to 350.
All in all, the bird took about 2.5 hours to cook. He was ten degrees shy of the right temperature when I took him out at 2 hours, so I left him in for another half hour just to be safe.
While big bird was roasting away, we ended up going to WalMart and getting serving dishes. I couldn't put a friggin' foil pan on the table and serve it that way. I just couldn't. At WalMart, I bought a large, square, glass serving dish and also an oval white dish. I'm happy to have serving platters now! Especially with Christmas and New Year's right around the corner.
When we came home, I pretty much got everything else cooking. The sweet potatoes had been soaking in water/bourbon, and I dumped the whole combination into a large pot and brought them to a rolling boil. The greens waited until the last minute - red chard with sauteed pearl onions and whole chunks of garlic.
Last in line was the cranberry sauce. I have to admit, I messed it up a bit and had to add more alcohol to it to get the darn liquid to light on fire (fresh cranberries, chambord, and some brandy to light it on fire).
Setting up took longer than I wanted because we had to get it all on to our table. We used brand new dishes, a new bottle of wine, and everything turned out wonderfully. Really, it was such a hit with the both of us - the only thing he didn't like was the cranberry sauce, which is fine because he just doesn't like cranberries.
Dessert ended up being pretty impressive, too. We had sparkling cider with dessert.
