Take Two (helpings)

We went to my wonderful mother in laws house for Thanksgiving this year, so I didn't get to cook the big feast. So, I decided to do a mini Thanksgiving supper here for the four of us. I'm roasting a chicken rather than a turkey, and I brined her for only a few hours in salt, sugar, pepper, and a bay leaf. She had an olive oil massage, and a nice herb scrub of salt, pepper, and poultry seasoning. She has an onion quartered and bay leaf in her tummy cavity, she's sitting on a roasting grid atop chicken stock and lemon juice.

With her in the oven is a huge tray of dressing. There was so much left over from the real Thanksgiving, that I just broke it all up, added beaten eggs, a lot more stock, and a little more salt and poultry seasoning, and put it back in the casserole dish and I'm baking it again. It was crumbly instead of cakey, and I like the cakey version a little more.

There are a few new potatoes diced up and sitting on the stove waiting for My Honey to come home from work, then I'll boil and mash them. And Boo has requested green beans. We don't like the traditional green bean casserole in our house, so we're just having steamed green beans, which we all like just fine.

And of course, I'll make gravy. DUH! Brown melted butter a little bit, add gluten free flour to make the roux, then add my home made chicken stock until I've got enough gravy. 

Hahaha! I'm so funny! 

There's never enough gravy. I was just seeing if you were paying attention. 

And yes, I consider all of this to be "real food", as I know exactly where everything came from. Made the brad for the stuffing, made my own stock, and cut up whole potatoes. I didn't grow anything being consumed tonight myself, but there is nothing artificial or unpronounceable in anything in our upcoming supper. Now, it's not Paleo, because I'm having potatoes and using rice and corn flour, so don't send hate mail, nasty tweets or ugly facebook comments regarding my use of the term "real food". 

Might be time to open the Cab Franc for My Honey and I to enjoy with supper. WHAT?!?! Oh, HELL NO, she did not just say she was going to drink red wine with poultry, did she?  U-hum ... Uuuu... Yeah, I did. It's good, and I've been telling y'all, eat what you like. It's simple. Enjoy your own taste bugs. Don't let someone else dictate what you eat or drink based on what THEY like, or what some long dead person once said this is "what you do". A perfect example is Moscatto. I don't care for it, myself, but one of my dearest friends LOVES it, so I have it here for her when she visits. It's not about anything other than what you like. She likes it, and I like her to be happy. So I buy Moscatto when she's coming over because I love her. 

I smell the stuffing, which means it's done. Gotta go check on it.

Stay hungry and play with your food. (You might like it.)

Ps, it looks GOOD!

Super Bowl of Gravy

Sports fans all have their different, yet individually unique end-of-season finale. Football has The Super Bowl, baseball has The World Series, soccer has The World Cup, and so on and so on. But for us foodies, we have Thanksgiving. We wait all year to wow our friends and family with an extravigent array of foods stemming from some form of a historical version or interpretation if what we think the settlers had after that first years harvest. Our food magazines start coming in September, tempting us with pictures of pumpkin pie, new casseroles made with wild rice, seeds, and different varieties of squash. We start to salivate, picturing something a little like that on our table. Y'all know that I hardly follow recipes, but I do love to see what others are cooking. I take ideas and turn them into things that I want to eat. I imagine the flavors, then I imagine a few of them changing. I can "see" what it will taste like if I make a little change here and a little change there. 

My mom didn't have any of her Thanksgiving recipes written down. At least not that I've found anywhere. My sister may have them, but I honestly don't know. So each year for my Thanksgiving, I just go in blind and try to recreate what my taste bugs remember from childhood. What I would love to have is her dressing recipe written down. I try every year to match what she use to do, and I have yet to get it right. It was cornbread and buscuits. Sautéed carrots, onions, and celery with homemade turkey stock. There as a lot of sage, rosemary, and thyme but I don't know the exact proportions. 

I also enjoy adding new dishes each year. Things that I see on Food Network, or read about in a magazine. I found a cranberry sauce recipe a few years ago that included pears and ginger. I loved it! I grew up with both cranberry sauce, and another cranberry dish that we called cranberry relish. We used the meat grinder to grind cranberries, oranges, and apples, then mixed them all together, added sugar, and let it sit over night. It was my job, since it didn't require cutting or the stove/oven. Mama would cut and core the apples for me, and cut the oranges so they fit into the grinder. This year, I'm thinking I'll make a mixture of the two. I usually make both, and we have way too much. I don't have a meat grinder, so into my food processor, I'll pulse the cranberries and then dump them into a bowl. I'll zest the oranges, then put the sections into the processor to get a good pulse/chop as well. Mama use to do the whole orange, but it think the pith makes it bitter, so I'll take an extra step and zest, then get the sections out separately. This will allgo into the bowl as well. Then the apples will have their turn in the processor. I'll do the pear the same way as the apple, then I'll put a piece of "ginger in syrup" into the processor as well. After everything is chopped nicely and stirred happily in their bowl, I'll add sugar to get to the perfect stage of tart and sweet. 

I'll also be making a batch of gluten free stuffing/dressing, by making gf cornbread and other breads as it's base. I don't think there is such a thing as too much dressing, and to be honest, the dressing and gravy are all I'm after on Thanksgiving. Yeah, the turkey is supposedly the "star", but on my plate, I put the things that assist in getting gravy into my mouth with the least amount of embarrassment. I honestly have anxiety about going to other families homes for Thanksgiving because I know there won't be enough gravy. I could sneak some into a flask, and smuggle it in. And by flask, I mean a 5-gallon Gatorade dispenser. 

Play with your recipes and your food. You might just like it.

Thanksgiving 2008

This is an email I wrote to my Aunt in 2008, when she asked how my first big family Thanksgiving went...  I was cooking everything, but we were having the feast at my Mother In Laws house because it was larger than our town house. I also had a very specific plan in place with prep times, and cooking plans, what could be made ahead and stored, etc. I was still on maternity leave from having our firstborn. I want to share this so that as you're dealing with YOUR family this holiday season, you can see that we all have ... moments... I still have "The Plan" written down somewhere too, so that may have to make an appearance later this week too.

Here's the email:

How was my Thanksgiving? It was great...all things considered...

Because God didn't think I had enough to deal with ... this was the run-down of my holiday.  She, God, decided to throw in a few snags just to keep me on my toes.

 

1) First period after giving birth.  I've been bleeding like Niagara Falls since last Sunday, complete with cramps. 

2) Washing my hands every 15 minutes (at least) made them raw and extremely painful.  Every time I needed to tend to Conner meant washing off the food stuff I was prepping.  Then when I went back to food, it was another hand wash.  Every time I touched the turkey it was another hand-wash.  Every time I went to the bathroom, it was another hand wash.  Every diaper change was another hand wash.

3) On Wednesday, I managed to get the last of everything prepped for Thanksgiving, Conner bathed and dressed in a nice outfit for him to meet his Grandpa for the first time, me bathed, hair and makeup done, and in clothes that didn't make me look 200 pounds, so we could make a mad dash over to Sandra's as soon as Patrick came home so we could all mingle and visit with the out-of town McClellands that were to arrive any minute.  Note: Sandra had been up since 3:30 cleaning the house, getting things set up over there, and the soup and dessert made for supper for Wednesday.

4) Patrick calls and has GREAT NEWS!  He's coming home at 3:00 instead of 5:00!  (Hallelujah!  We'll take a bunch of things over early to ease the early morning stress of getting everything over to Sandra's Thursday morning)

5) Patrick gets home, walks Stella, and Beverly calls to say that they are still 3 hours away, and are going straight to the hotel and will not be coming by Sandra's Wednesday after-all. 

6) I call Sandra, who is just that second coming through the door from getting her hair cut, and I proceed to tell her and Patrick, who has just come in OUR front door from walking Stella, that his father and the out-of-towners aren't going to be coming over tonight after all, and they will see us all in the morning.

7) Patrick and I load up the car with as many finished dishes as I had at that point, and the raw materials to make the final Thanksgiving dishes at Sandra's.  We gather Conner and his baby things and go over to eat the soup and dessert that Sandra had made for the group of 7 that she thought she was cooking for all day Wednesday.

8) Oh ... earlier in the day I found out that Caroline and Daddy were planning on going to the ER to have her leg looked at. 

 

So we move to the Thursday events...

9) Thursday morning, we wake up early, get showers, get the bird drained of the brine, get the last few things in the car, get Conner up, dressed in his Thanksgiving outfit that Sandra bought him, pile in the car and head over to Sandra's to have out big family Thanksgiving.

10) And my face breaks out like I'm a 14 year old.

11) Sandra has the oven pre-heated to 425.  She's sure that the oven doesn't heat to the right temp, so to be on the safe side, we opt to go higher in temp and watch the bird to be sure things are OK.

12) I prep the bird with all the herbs and onions, wine, and butter, cover it with foil and put it in the oven at 9:04am!  I'm only 4 minutes off "The Plan"!  The parade is on, Conner is up, the bird is in, and things are moving along excellently!

13) Sandra decides that we really need to set the timer on the oven.  But she rarely uses the oven, so has forgotten how to do this.  I tell her over and over that it's OK to NOT turn on the timer, but she keeps poking buttons until she gets the timer on. Yay!

14) Until I go over at 10:00 to baste for the first time, and realize that the oven was turned OFF during the whole timer fiasco and I've got a cold bird in a cold oven.

15) Patrick starts to prep the fryer and notices we don't have half the oil we need, so he heads off to the store to get more.  While at the store, there is a MAD DASH of all the other husbands in the county who have also realized they don't have enough oil, and luckily there is a HUGE man standing in front of the last 10 bottles of peanut oil who is a cop and a friend of Patricks.  He grabs 5 oils and throws the remaining 5 to Patrick. 

16) He gets home ... and it's not enough oil, so he goes out AGAIN, to another store, to buy more oil.  This time, he made note of how much he was short so he was sure to buy what was needed.

17) During this time ... Daddy showes up without Caroline, who is in the hospital.  As Patrick is leaving for the second trip out to get more oil, he says Hi to Daddy who came in while he was out the first time.

18) Howard and group were supposed to be at the house at 9:00am.  It's getting closer and closer to 11:00 and no Howard and family, and no word from them.  Sandra and Patrick are getting antsy, understandably. 

19) While trying to figure out how much oil we need for the fried bird, Patrick uses the hose attachment on the sink faucet to fill the fryer with water.  This attachment is never used, because it's broken, so when we used it, we broke it past the point of quick repair.  When the kitchen sink is turned on, water now shoots across the kitchen out of the hand held hose.  We notice this right as Patrick pokes his head back in the back door (where he's heating the oil for the fryer) to tell us that his dad and family have just pulled up to the front door. 

20) I ask Daddy to come fix the sink while Sandra and I do our hostessing duties of welcoming the family. 

21) I told Patrick not to bother heating the oil now because the roaster is an hour behind schedule.

 

 Let's back up and re-set the picture...

 

My husband has stationed himself outside with a 6 gallon pot of scalding oil over an open flame, so HE can't go anywhere until the flame is turned off and he feels safe leaving the hot oil.

My mother-in-law is soaking wet and ass-end-up under the kitchen sink trying to get things cleared away from the plumbing under the sink so Daddy can get to the parts under the sink.

I've got a bird in the oven that should be an hour into cooking, but it's just now becoming luke warm.

I'm using the rug in the kitchen to clean up the water that's been shot across the kitchen, while holding Conner and trying to smile and be welcoming as I present Howard with his Grandson for the first time.

At this point ... we can resume the count...

 

22) We can't find the duct tape to fix the sink.  Sandra shows Daddy the tool selection in the garage, then gets on the computer to see what stores are open on Thanksgiving.  Target is, so her and Daddy jump in the car to go get supplies to fix the sink.

23) ... Um ... Yeah.  So ... this is when I start to drink!  Howard and Beverly I've met and like a lot.  Cristy (Howard's only sister) I have emailed, but this was our first meeting, and her daughter, Alicia,  who sustained lifelong developmental setbacks as a young girl due to complications to cancer, whom I have never met.  So here I am.  In the house alone with the extended family, using the water from the bathroom sink to fill the pot with the potatoes and the pan with the greenbeans because I can't use the kitchen sink.

24) Daddy and Sandra come home after having to go to a second location because as they pulled up in front of Target, the lights all go off, and everyone exits the building.  The closed at 11:00am.  BUT ... they come back with fiber tape, Daddy fixes the sink, and everything resumes.  I now move onto the red wine because I've finished the white that I was using to cook the bird.

25) I figure it's time to start on other cooking, so I start the annual search for the pots and pans, whisks, spoons, etc for cooking.  None of these things Sandra has because she doesn't cook any longer.  So ... I end up making half portions of what I thought I needed to make because I'm limited to a few sauce pans etc. 

 

At this point ... everything ends up falling into place even better than my plan had dictated.  I checked on the bird at 11:00 and it was already getting nice and hot inside, so at the 11:30 check, I took the foil off and told Patrick to fire back up the oil and get to frying!  We cooked the rest of the goodies, and ...

 

drum roll please...

 

ALL MY TIMING CAME OUT EXACTLY RIGHT!!!!

 

And I swear to you ... you could DRINK my gravy.  It was so damn good, make you wanna slap your Mama!

 

We all sat down for supper at 1:15pm, gave a quick blessing, Daddy gave a toast, and we all chowed down.  Sandra's friend Jo-Ann had come in around 12:30, and she held Conner for a little while so I could eat, and things turned out GREAT!  Daddy wanted to leave around 3:00 to get home before dark and to see Caroline, and he had a piece of pie at about 3:05 and was out the door by 3:15.  

 

Howard and group were soon to follow.  Cristy and Beverly had come down with colds and were feeling bad, so by 4:00 they were out of the house too. 

 

Patrick and I packed up our essentials, our son and his essentials, and told Sandra we'd be back in the morning for all the rest of the crap.  Patrick needed to come back to help get her Christmas stuff out of the storage over the garage, so we planned on bringing the truck so that he could take the ladder to her place to help.

 

We were home by 6:30.  He walked Stella, I poured another glass of wine and when he came back from walking Stella, I asked if I could have the next 12 hours off.  He agreed, and I walked upstairs at 7:30 and burst into tears in the bedroom.  But I was too tired to really cry, so it was just a quick burst, then a simi laugh, then I tried to read a few pages of Harry Potter, but I was asleep by 7:45.