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Cooking Friends » General Discussion » Holidays and Celebrations » Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun!

Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun!

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bethk

bethk
Admin

I have already purchased my frozen turkey for the holiday. I found small frozen Butterball turkeys at the store last week and picked up an 11 pound bird. Fresh turkeys are difficult to find around here and most are HUGE, so a small frozen bird that I'll thaw in the refrigerator starting on the Sunday before Thanksgiving is just fine with me.

I was able to convince our friend (and contractor and Dane's boss) Patrick to come for the meal. He tried to beg off as this is the first big holiday since his wife passed away. He tried to insist he wouldn't be very good company but he has to go on with living so I did push a bit telling him how disappointed we'd be if he didn't come. And since he accepted I won't be looking for any more to invite ~ keeping it a very small, intimate dinner should be easier to transition him.

Now I just have to decide what I want to cook.

I know there will be the roast turkey (going with a traditional oven roast), mashed potatoes, gravy & dressing (no, not in the bird for me....one time of poultry food poisoning was enough for me).

The vegetable sides will probably be green beans with creamed onions, corn of some sort (maybe corn casserole or the Southern creamed corn I make often) and I'm thinking of doing the Brussels sprouts with bacon, shallots & grapes.....but might change that to sheet pan roasted carrots & parsnips.

For a salad I think I'll go with the red cabbage apple slaw with dried cherries and pecans with the rice wine vinegar dressing. That's one that most everyone enjoys and the color is so pretty.

I'll also make some of my mom's favorite cranberry sauce with orange segments ~ looks like jewels in a bowl of shimmery red. Oh, and there will be the can of jellied cranberry that Dane will take one serving from. He likes it, it's not expensive and if I forget to put it on the table (do you believe that's EVER happened at my table?) then the two cranberry sauces will get used for some sort of pork dish later.

Dessert will be pumpkin pie (my favorite) and I'm thinking of making the apple cake ~ but that could be changed to apple pie. I'm not sure yet.

NormM

NormM

I've also got a small frozen turkey and some cranberry sauce made.

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http://r2j1cp@gmail.com

JanaAZ



I’ve already bought my turkey too. They kept warning that smaller ones would be gone so I made some freezer room

I’ll be making a simple thanksgiving dinner….turkey and gravy, dressing, Brussels sprouts and cranberries. Last year Steve OD’d on pumpkin pie so I’ll make pumpkin mousse this year. Nothing special

My granddaughter is here visiting this week and we decided to do a mini thanksgiving. She wanted to make a few recipes I made her mom when she was a kid so we decided to make them and I’d write up recipes for her so she’d have them in the future  I couldn’t find a nice turkey breast so we’re cheating….and will make a chicken instead.

Thanksgivings are still going to be small this year and I’m fine with that.

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bethk

bethk
Admin

JanaAZ wrote:

My granddaughter is here visiting this week and we decided to do a mini thanksgiving. She wanted to make a few recipes I made her mom when she was a kid so we decided to make them and I’d write up recipes for her so she’d have them in the future  I couldn’t find a nice turkey breast so we’re cheating….and will make a chicken instead.



How wonderful your granddaughter is able to be with you for a week! It's always such fun to mess around in the kitchen with a grandchild. My granddaughter loves to ask if we can make one recipe or another ~ one time it was molten chocolate cakes (they turned out pretty tasty!) and more than once we made those apple roses as seen on Pinterest a few years ago ~ I'll never forget when she proclaimed just one mini apple rose as "The Most Beautiful" ~ and another time she wanted to try stuffed clams ~ so much fun!.

My youngest grandson just texted me a picture of his 'favorite breakfast' as I've made for him since he was 3: One 'dippy' egg, one hard egg and toast (with the crusts cut off) cut and stacked like Lincoln Logs. He's 18 now and still loves to share that memory with me. Priceless!

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Imelda HL

Imelda HL

I'm in charge of cooking our Thanksgiving meal, D's sister bought the turkey, she'll bring it here on Wednesday night, I'm going to roast it like the way my MiL did, it's easy and no hassle at all, all I need to do is soak a cheese cloth with canola oil and cover the bird, roast it, repeat soaking the cloth twice during the roasting, the only difference is this year I'm going to stuff the bird with onion and orange ( usually she made the stuffing inside the bird ). My Mil is on low sodium diet, so we have to add salt on our meat separately which is no big deal, because we always eat our meat with my chili sauce. This year we decided not to cook too much. My sis in-law is going to cook green bean casserole. The rest I'm planning are: sweet potato rolls, mashed potato and gravy ( D requests.. a lot of gravy ), cranberry sauce ( from can), dressing ( with apple, onion and instead of celery I'll add bell pepper  and bacon bits ), yam/sweet potato casserole and maybe some roasted Brussel sprout. And I'm going to bake a Pecan pie with maple syrup.

Wish me luck

here is my turkey from last year
Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 79126610

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bethk

bethk
Admin

OK, so today is Sunday ~ 4 days to go before my 11 pound turkey needs to go into the oven.  I pulled it out of the freezer yesterday to make room for my containers of bean soup.  This morning I remembered to take a 9 X 13 pan out to the garage refrigerator to put the turkey in.....there's ALWAYS at least a small hole in the plastic surrounding the bird that lets the juices run out and I do NOT want that mess in my refrigerator!

Hopefully it will be completely defrosted by Wednesday morning so I can take the 'innards' out to simmer for broth for making gravy.  And I want to do a 'dry brine' of just s&p, maybe a bit of chopped fresh thyme, under the skin.  Then it will sit, uncovered, to let the skin air dry on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator so it gets nice and crispy when it bakes.

I'll probably put some onion & celery, maybe on of my lemon tree Meyer lemons inside the bird when it's time to roast on Thursday morning.  But there WON'T be any stuffing inside the bird.  I much prefer 'dressing', which is the same thing but done in a casserole dish instead.

I may cook my fresh cranberries today ~ they always taste better if they have a chance to sit and have the flavors of the sugar, cinnamon stick and orange zest meld together.

(On edit:) My cranberries are cooked ~ I swear, I think I love the SMELL of them cooking more than eating them at dinner! I zested a navel orange with the zester that makes little strips of the skin (less pith that way and pretty in with the cranberries). Then I peeled all the skin off and cut the segments from the orange. The segments got cut into small pieces that will get folded into the sauce on Thursday morning. The juice from the whole thing (after cutting) got squeezed onto my cranberries, the sugar & 1 cinnamon stick added before they got simmered for only about 15 minutes to break down and turn into beautiful red sauce. When the orange bits get stirred in when it's all cold it looks like jewels!

bethk

bethk
Admin

Thanksgiving count-down!

I got as much prep done today as I could. I made my mashed potatoes and they're in a casserole dish in the refrigerator. I add the butter stewed onions, cream cheese & sour cream and run it all through a food mill. The protein of the cream cheese & sour cream allows them to be reheated without tasting like 'leftover' potatoes. The Brussels sprouts are cleaned & cut in half ~ ready to be cooked in bacon fat with onion & red grapes (Barbara's recipe from long ago that is SO tasty). The green beans are cleaned and ready to be blanched before the creamed onions are made to pour over and cook in the oven after the turkey comes out, along side the dressing. The dressing is prepped with the cooked onions & celery, along with the addition of the meat pulled from the turkey neck. Tomorrow I'll heat the stock and add that and an egg before baking it. Then it's just the carrots & parsnips that will be peeled & cut to be tossed with some olive oil and s&p to roast at the last minute in a 475° oven spread out on a big sheet pan.

And someone please remind me to heat the dinner rolls! Along with remembering to put Dane's jellied cranberry sauce in a dish and put on the table.

In the morning I'll make my pumpkin pie and an apple pie ~ I decided IF there is to be pie I want FRESH PIE!

Oh, and the red cabbage apple slaw will get made tomorrow, too. It's a 'last-minute' dish that tastes best without sitting too long.

I'm glad I took my turkey out to thaw in the refrigerator on Saturday. Even though it's only 11 pounds it still had chunks of ice inside this morning when I wanted to retrieve the neck and innards to simmer for stock ~ the neck meat for the dressing and the heart & gizzard for the gravy (for Dane). The liver will get sauteed at the last minute to be added to the gravy.

The turkey got s&p pushed under the skin on the breast & legs and is sitting, uncovered, in the garage refrigerator so (hopefully) the skin will be nice and crispy when it roasts.

We're going to eat between 3:00 - 4:00 so it doesn't have to go into the oven until probably noon or so. I've got plenty of time to bake my pies and prep the rest of the meal.

Dane worked with Patrick today and he told Patrick it would just be the three of us. That made Patrick smile. He's just not ready for a large gathering for a holiday ~ still getting used to his wife being gone. And that's why I didn't invite anyone else. It'll be difficult enough for him so I wanted to help ease him into finding he can survive the holidays.

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Imelda HL

Imelda HL

Not a lot to do here, as we don't plan to cook much, I had my Sweet potato dinner rolls baked, mashed potato is also made, Pecan pie was done. I toasted my bread for dressing ( I should have cooked the onion, apple and bell pepper, but I forgot ), I also forgot to halve my Brussels sprouts ( I'm going to roast it with sweet potatoes and bacon bits ), but no biggie, as tomorrow I wont have much to do,  only need to put turkey in the oven ( now is thawing in a big stock  pot on the sink, my SiL just brought it here this evening, 13 and 1/2 lbs ), cook the dressing and roast Brussel sprout/sweet potatoes, my SiL is going to bring green bean casserole, and we'll have canned cranberry ( we usually made it, but mostly got tossed away after a while, we don't really like eating it ), it's only for the 4 of us. My MiL and SiL don't have big appetite, so it will be a lot leftover. Last night I went to buy an electric knife, hopefully this year I'll be able to nicely carve my bird

Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 00cba910
Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 26030910

bethk

bethk
Admin

Your rolls look beautiful ~ like an edible flower! I envy your talent and patience to make yeast doughs. I'm so impatient that the best I can do is 'quick bread' ~ LOL

bethk

bethk
Admin

Here are random pictures from our Thanksgiving, 2021




Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 11_25_15


Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 11_25_16


Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 11_25_17


Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 11_25_18


Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 11_25_19



Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 11_25_20

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Imelda HL

Imelda HL

My turkey turned out perfect

Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 698b8f10

The electric knife did the magic
Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 1c1a2d10

yes, that was my wine, a tiny little glass, 2 glasses  could make me red and hot

Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! Ccd40c10

green bean casserole, my favorite
Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 1d8dd410

Apple/bell pepper/onion/bacon dressing, surprisingly so good
Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! 9e5f2d10

Sweet potato/brussel's sprouts + bacon bits
Thanksgiving, 2021 ~ Planning is the start of the fun! F5482f10

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bethk

bethk
Admin

Imelda, you out did yourself yet again! I can only imagine how much the family appreciated your efforts.

((did you have rice for yourself?))

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Imelda HL

Imelda HL

bethk wrote:Imelda, you out did yourself yet again!  I can only imagine how much the family appreciated your efforts.

((did you have rice for yourself?))

Thank you Beth.. yes, we enjoyed the meal, though the next day after some turkey soup, "somebody" said: no turkey please Shocked  Now I have to store my leftover turkey breast in the freezer to be eaten later, maybe next year  Very Happy

And yes, you know me too well, I had some rice for late supper Smile

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