Pizza Freak: Thanksgiving!

Alright... There are some exceptions to the "Thursday is Pizza Night" rule. Thanksgiving is one of them. I miss the pizza, but Thanksgiving, for me, is a celebration of food - mainly comfort food. I love combing the Internet, magazines, and television for a better or different way to incorporate all of the traditional foods. By last Thursday, I had printed out the recipes I had picked and showed them to Pam and Jennifer for their approval. Jennifer had picked some during the week, also, and it was time for us to hammer out the specifics.

I had chosen Mushroom and Rosemary Stuffing (Real Simple), Bourbon-Cranberry Compote (Real Simple), Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Roasted Chestnuts (Country Living), and Good Eats Roast Turkey (Food Network - Alton Brown). Jeff's input was that he wanted the "moist" kind of stuffing, which was very helpful. I had considered a recipe using focaccia, but I thought that the recipe with mushrooms in it would make for a more "moist" stuffing. He also requested sausage or the icky parts of the turkey to be cooked in with the stuffing, which I vetoed. I don't really like dealing with liver and giblets, and the females in my family probably wouldn't eat the stuffing if they knew that was in there.

Jennifer had volunteered to make green bean casserole and Cranberry Blue Cheese Appetizers (Pillsbury). Pam said she would make the salad and the pies.

I had made my grocery list for the next pizzas in line before I realized (on Sunday) that the coming Thursday was THANKSGIVING already! I thought about the turkey that we had in the freezer. It was thirty pounds on the dot. That was going to take a long time to thaw. I had joked with Jeff the week before that he should take it out then, so it would be thawed by the time Thanksgiving rolled around. That would have been entirely too early, but I was thinking that Sunday was probably too late. Of course, I didn't think it was so late that it couldn't wait until Jeff got home, so he could wrestle it out of the freezer in the garage and bring it inside... I had him put it in a cooler, because it wouldn't fit in either of my refrigerators.

I made a new grocery list for the Thanksgiving meal and headed to the grocery store on Monday. I had never purchased fresh Brussels sprouts before, and I had a hard time finding them at Cub. The produce man directed me to the right place, and I was surprised. There were whole stocks with the little cabbages still attached to them. I guess I didn't realize that is how they grow.

I didn't opt to pull any off of the stocks that were standing up in the Brussels sprouts bin, I just gathered up all of the loose ones piled around the stocks. Two pounds was a lot of sprouts, and I took almost all of the loose ones Cub had.

The recipe for the Brussels sprouts called for chestnuts - 1½lbs fresh or 3½ cups "store-bought roasted chestnuts". I don't remember ever seeing THAT at the grocery store, either. I thought maybe I just hadn't noticed, and they probably only carried those during the holiday season. I looked all around the deli, thinking that is where they would be, but I didn't find any. I couldn't find any more employees to ask, either, so I grabbed a couple of bags of unroasted chestnuts I had found in the produce section. Now, I have tried roasting chestnuts before. I can't remember why or what for, but I do remember it was a huge pain in the kiester, but I read the directions on the bag, and it sounded so easy: just score each chestnut and bake until they split open like a clam, and the shell can then be easily removed. "OK," I thought, "I will try it."

I learned a thing about mushrooms while I was there. I couldn't find any mushrooms that were labeled "cremini", but there was something nagging at me in the back of my brain. Where creminis the same as baby portabellas? I thought so, but it didn't say anything about that on the package. I tried googling on my phone about it, but apparently, there is no cell signal inside the produce aisle at my Cub. I threw the baby bellas in my basket. I figured, since there was nothing there that said cremini, and it was unlikely that I was going to venture to another grocery store during Thanksgiving week, wrong mushrooms would be better than no mushrooms. Before I reached the checkout, though, I did see that I had a signal and did a quick search. Apparently, button, cremini, and portabellas are all the same mushrooms but at different stages of growth. So, I guess you could say that regular button mushrooms are really baby baby bellas. Or maybe infant baby bellas?

Button Mushrooms

Cremini Mushrooms

Portabella Mushrooms

Much to my delight, the powers-that-be at work decided to close the office at 1pm on Wednesday for the Holiday! I beat feet out of there and raced home to start on my preparations.
I love my husband, I really do, but when he is home it is harder for me to enjoy getting things done. First of all, he is a huge distraction. Secondly, when I am alone, I can crank up the radio, sing at the top of my lungs, dance with abandon, talk to myself, and cook, and I was looking forward to doing just that. Not that I don't do that when he is home, too, but I enjoy it more when I know it isn't irritating anyone or bursting their eardrums. I had my list of things I needed to accomplish, and I was ready to get to work.

First and foremost on my list was to brine the turkey. The recipe was for a 14-16lb turkey and called for brining for 8-16hours. I was thinking that I needed to brine the turkey longer, because it was so large. I figured it would need extra brining time to get all the way through it. I had done a little research on cooking times for a 30lb turkey, and estimated it would take 4½ - 5 hours, so I was aiming to put my turkey in at 8am for a 2pm dinner. My brining window was getting smaller.

I had read the recipe closely enough to know I needed to get my broth (I was using turkey broth instead of vegetable broth) out of the freezer for the brine, but not closely enough to know that I should have made the brine on Tuesday, since it was boiled and cooled before adding it to the turkey. The window had just gotten even smaller. I started in on the brine, pouring all of the brine ingredients together into my regular stock pot. The amount of stock I had thawed for this recipe measured a few cups short of the gallon for which the recipe called. I made the difference up with some chicken base and water and some tomato bullion (I was thinking that might add a little vegetable flavoring it might be missing by using poultry stock).

It came to a boil quite quickly, and I immediately brought it outside to cool. I then started thinking about how I would cool it faster, since it was a balmy 55ºF outside. I could add ice, because I was eventually going to add ice water to it anyway, but then, how would I keep the turkey cold overnight? If I added more ice to keep the turkey cold overnight, then I would be diluting the brine, and I wouldn't get as much flavor.

Then, it occurred to me that this amount of brine wasn't going to be enough for a 30 pound bird, anyway. I was going to have to make more brine. I started up another batch, using all chicken base this time for the stock, since I had exhausted my stored supply of broth. I still had the cooling problem, though, and now it was double.

I poured the brine into five storage containers, thinking that the smaller containers will cool faster. Unfortunately, once they were filled, the outsides of the containers were too hot to handle, so I couldn't pick them up to throw them outside to cool. My next thought was to bring in the original batch, which had now been outside for about an hour and theoretically would be considerably cooler than the second batch. Then, I could combine the two and put the entire amount in smaller containers outside to cool. However, the first batch was just as hot as the new batch. I was either going to have to settle for a much smaller brining time, or I was going to have to add ice. However, since I was doubling everything, that meant that I was eventually going to have to add two gallons of "heavily iced water". I added 1 gallon of heavily iced water to the original batch, spreading some of the ice cubes to the small containers of brine. That did the trick. All of the broth was now cooled to my satisfaction.

I poured the brine into the cooler where the turkey was resting. I had had Jeff remove the plastic from the turkey and wash out the cooler before work that morning, so I wouldn't have to tackle the beast myself when I got home. The turkey was naked and waiting for its salty bath. I added the remainder of the ice that was in my freezer and sent a message to Jeff to bring home more ice on his way back from work. Since I didn't add all of the water it called for, I could add more ice and not worry about dilution.

With the bird nestled in the cooler, getting all salty and seasoned, I was ready to move onto roasting the chestnuts for the Brussels sprouts. I had tried "scoring" the chestnuts the night before and found it a difficult, tedious task. Jeff volunteered to do it for me while he watched television. Great! While he did that, I checked out U-Tube to see if we were doing it correctly. I found a video that showed the chef cutting a straight line right across the middle of the chestnut. We (Jeff) had been cutting them 3/4 of the way around the edge, so it would open like a clam (as per the bag's instructions). U-Tube guy boiled them briefly before placing them in the oven, and they seemed to pop right open. He did warn that some were going to be easier to peel than others, but I didn't really see him struggling all that much with any of them.

He convinced me to do it his way. I took the scored chestnuts and put them in a saucepan, putting in just enough water to cover them. Once the water boiled, I sifted them out with a strainer spoon and put them in a couple of pans to bake at 450º for 10 minutes. Afterword, I covered them with some flour sack towels and let them steam for another 10 minutes.

Maybe I didn't leave them in the oven long enough, because they didn't look as open as the ones on the U-Tube video. It could have been that we scored them a different direction than the U-Tube guy, but I had things to do, they had already been out of the oven longer than they had been in it, and I was ready to get on with it. The first one came out beautifully! I was very encouraged. Then, the second one came out in chunks, and so did the third. I think out of the entire pile, I got three whole ones. Those that did come out okay had a fuzzy, papery substance over it. I tried the chestnut with this on it, and it was fine, but in the nooks and crannies of the nut were hard pieces of shell. I figured out that the nuts had a landscape like a brain, and the shells seemed to form in all the spaces between lobes. It was a pain, and it was no fun. I would like to try some jarred or canned chestnuts to compare to see if it is all worth it. It doesn't matter. I have already made the decision that I will NOT be roasting any chestnuts in the future.

My next task was to make the cranberry compote.

I had apple juice, but it seemed a shame to open another container of juice, when I had cranberry juice, grape juice, and an open bottle of champagne that I already wasn't drinking. The frugal person inside of me considered what would go bad the soonest. I was betting on the champagne. In fact, it had already been open for a while (almost two weeks?) and could already be on its way to vinegar. I took a swig. No fizz, but the flavor was fine. I decided that was going to be my apple juice.

I combined everything in a sauce pan, and put it on medium-high heat. My cranberries started bursting within 10 minutes, but the liquid was still very thin. I let it go for the full 25 minutes, thinking it would eventually thicken up, but it didn't seem to. Maybe I needed the apple juice for a thickener.

Jen stopped by to give me some more turkey broth for the stuffing. She saves her broth in ice cube trays, and once they are frozen, she transfers them to a large zip-top bag. Pretty smart. Maybe I should do that this time. She offered to take any tasks I wanted to give her in preparation for the big feast. I handed over the Brussels sprouts and the bacon for her to work on. I was ready to move on to the stuffing.

First, I decided to wash and cut the mushrooms. There were a lot of mushrooms! It took me almost a full 30 minutes to wash them all and quarter them.

I had taken the Italian loaf out of the freezer right when Jen came in, so it was still somewhat frozen by the time I was done with the mushrooms. I was hoping that instead of being a drawback, it would be a good thing. And, I was right for the most part. It didn't squish when I tried to cut it into cubes, like most regular white bread does, but when I got to the middle of the loaf, it required a little more muscle to get through it. By the time that the cubes were toasted, my parents showed up.

Apparently, they were going to spend the night at Jennifer's and were originally going to go to her house for dinner, but Gracie had swimming practice, so dinner was a tight schedule, and my parents weren't going to make the schedule, so they came to see me to pass the time until the Liggetts were home again.

Dad had brought three tequilas that he had purchased on their trip to Mexico a couple of weeks ago. One was mandarin flavored, one was almond flavored, and the third was a chocolate-vanilla-coffee flavored one. They were all delicious. I sipped on those while I sauteed the mushrooms. I had to do it in three batches. One flavor of tequila for each batch!

Mom left Dad here when she found out the Liggetts had decided not to go to swimming. His butt was firmly planted in front of our television, and Jeff had come home and joined him in a glass of whiskey.
I premade the mashed potatoes, too, because I figured I could just put them into a crock pot and slowly heat them back up for the main event. I figured 10 potatoes (which is how many I originally had on hand) was enough to make a sufficient amount of mash for eight people to go along with stuffing, cranberry relish, green bean casserole, corn, turkey, and pies. It did look like a pretty small amount, though, when I transferred them to my large crock pot.

Once I had sauteed the celery and onions for the stuffing and put everything away and started the dishwasher (again - third run). I went down to join them. I couldn't stand on my feet any more. It was about 9pm. Jennifer called Dad shortly thereafter and asked if he was going to be at her house with the tequilas before she had to go to bed in an hour. He commented that she wasn't really excited to see him, just the tequila. Personally, I think the tequila was a ruse for him to get there, so she could see him.

As I had mentioned before, I was planning on getting the turkey in the oven around 8am. Thursday morning, my alarm went off, and I just couldn't get out of bed. My alarm had been set for 7:30. I figured that by the time I got out of bed and prepared the turkey, it would be right around 8am. However, by the time I actually got up it was already 8 o'clock.

The instructions for preparing the turkey for the oven were to drain it and pat it dry inside and out. This is not necessarily an easy task with a thirty pound turkey. I was planning on accomplishing this task in my oversized sink that I had just cleaned and disinfected. I lifted the beast by the plastic leg shackles, but there was so much brine in the cavity that it took a lot of my strength just to get it out of the brine. Then, I was hesitant to hoist it up into my sink, because it was still dripping. Finally, Jeff laid out a trail of paper towels for me between the cooler and the inside of the sink, so most of the drips would drop on those instead of on the floor, my socks, and my legs. I hoisted it in, and it was ready for its towel-dry. This bad-boy almost entirely filled my sink!

I had brought my regular roasting pan up from downstairs, and it was a joke. I didn't even try to put the bird in the pan, but just holding the pan up next to the turkey, I could tell that not even half of the bird would fit in the pan. I had read the recipe (mostly) that Alton Brown had provided for me, and I also watched the supplemental video, and it looked to me like Alton put it on a rack over a jelly roll pan. I decided I was going to try that. Jeff said I was crazy, because the juices would overflow the pan, but what other choice did I have? I gave it a shot. I placed a rack inside my half-sheet pan and hoisted the bird onto it. It was so heavy that it bent the rack down right to the bottom of the pan, but I let it go anyway. The elbows of the wings didn't really fit inside the perimeter of the pan, so they just sort of hung out outside it.

I have never heard of heating up the stuff you put inside the cavity of the turkey before you put it in there, but that is what Alton said to do, so I did it. I am not sure that 5 minutes in the microwave was necessary - I think 2½ minutes would be plenty - especially in my microwave, but I put it in for the full 5 minutes. The unfortunate part was: now it was too hot for me to grab the stuff and put it into the turkey. Also, was I supposed to put the water in there too? I was sure that some of the flavoring of my "aromatics" had leached into the water. Was that supposed to help flavor it, too? I did not put the water in. As a matter of fact, I drained a lot of it off, so the apples and such would cool faster, and I could stuff them up the turkey sooner.

Before I put it into the oven, I grabbed some tinfoil and measured it onto the belly of the turkey. Alton didn't mention this in the recipe, but it was in the video. After its initial searing at 500 degrees, you were supposed to put a tinfoil tent over the breast to keep it at a low temperature while waiting for the thighs and legs to get to the proper temperature, but you don't want to measure out the foil while the turkey is searing hot, so you are supposed to measure it before hand and set it aside until you are ready to use it. With that little detail taken care of, into the oven the beast went.

I was really glad I had an extra oven, in case I wanted to cook something at the same time as the turkey. It really filled up the oven.

After the initial browning, the breast wasn't browned evenly. One side was definitely darker than the other. Jeff said it was because it was sort of kitty-wampus on the tray, but I think it was an oven problem. I asked him if he thought that we should turn the bird around or just go with it. He thought we should just go with it. I scoured the recipe to see if the breast was actually supposed to be completely browned before we put the tent on it, but I didn't see any indication of that. I wasn't convinced that I should tent it yet. I put it back in for another 10 minutes, hoping that the other side of the breast would brown as well. However, when I got around to taking it out, it had been more like 15 minutes. I placed the tinfoil over the breast and set the timer for an hour to check the temperature.

I had originally pulled out my remote thermometer - it is a probe that attached to a digital unit, and that unit communicates with an additional mobile unit that you can clamp onto your belt, so you can travel about the house and know at any time what temperature your meat is at. However, I had turned it on before I put the probe in the bird, and the probe was on the counter. When it started with the temperature, it read 110º. Interesting! I moved away from the oven with it. It went down to 107º. I checked the thermostat - 66º.

Jeff walked into the kitchen at this point, and I whined to him about my thermometer not reading the correct temperature. He took it from me and wrapped his hand around the probe. The temperature reading rose to 120º. He tried turning off and then back on again. Same readings. He took unit upstairs and changed the batteries. Same readings again. I wonder how long it has been off. I usually stick the probe in the meat before I even turn the thermometer on. Maybe that is why all of our meats seem to come out of the oven far rarer than we thought they should be...... Hmmm....

Anyway, I have a fabulous instant-read thermometer that my sisters had given me for a birthday, so I could use that (and I did), but I was just hoping to not have to keep opening up the oven when I wanted to take the turkey's temperature. Oh well.

After an hour, I checked the temperature, and it was at 160º. That can't be right, I thought. I took the thermometer out and slid it in the breast in a different spot. That time it read 129º. OK, good. I must have just put the thermometer in the wrong spot.

After the bird went in to the oven, it was time for me to prepare more mashed potatoes. Jeff looked at the quantity I had made on Wednesday and declared that there weren't nearly enough. I wasn't sure that he was right, especially with all the sides we had planned, but I wasn't willing to take the chance. He had brought extra potatoes home Wednesday night, too (because they were buy one, get one at Cub). This time I made a 12 potato batch. Once the potatoes were done boiling, I used the ricer, adding them to the previous batch in the crock pot. I added the requisite butter and milk and stirred them together. Now, we had almost filled the crock.

Jeff had decided that our menu required the addition of a sweet potato concoction. He had purchased some Wednesday. Amazingly, he had also purchased some kumquats while he was there! He remembered that I had put a pizza recipe on hold, because kumquats weren't in season, and when he saw them at the grocery store, he bought them for me! What a guy!

Anyway, he really wanted roasted sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving, and he was really impressed with the turnips we had in the pasties a few Thursdays back, so he had decided to make a sweet potato-turnip combo for the big day. And, he was going to do it "Jeffy-style" - in large quantities and with bacon.

I didn't see what he had done to put it together, because I was trying to make my house presentable and looking like a festive Thanksgiving scene. I checked in on him a couple of times to see how he was doing and take some pictures. From what I could tell, he sauteed some onions with some thick cut bacon and tossed that combo with cubed sweet potatoes and turnips. I think he also sprinkled some Harley's over the whole thing before he put it in the oven, covered.

When he was done, he found me in the living room area, picking up tools that were scattered on the floor. Our living room level is a work in progress - actually, all of our rooms are works in progress, but the living room is our latest unfinished project. We have a split level home, and traditionally, the ground level floor is kitchen and living room and a small area for a table. We wanted a larger, open kitchen and a larger dining room, so we turned the "traditional" living room area into a dining area. The lower level (half underground, half above ground) of our house was really unused previously, and we were remodeling it into a living room. The tile is in, the ceiling is in, the couches and a chair now live there, along with the television, DVR, and DVD player. However, Jeff is still working on paneling the walls (he is doing it himself), but he ran out of the correct size of paneling. Our trim had been ordered, but the company he ordered it through lost his order, so he needs to remeasure and reorder, but now we don't have the funds to get that right now. So, everything is in limbo.

I think, seeing me pick up the tools that had been left behind was just a reminder to him that the project was on an indefinite holding pattern. By not putting them away when we had put the project on hold kept the idea alive that it would be picked up again at any moment. This, of course, was not verbalized specifically, but when he came in, and I was picking the tools up with the intent of putting them in the tool boxes in the garage, his temper flared, and mine did in return. He told me I was trying to perfume on a pig, and I told him I was just trying to make it look like we don't live in a construction zone. He told me I should be cooking something, because the family was going to be here any moment. Some growling and snarling ensued, but I finished what I was working on, he started on the other items on my list, and I went upstairs to check the turkey's temperature.

I stuck the thermometer in, and it read 163º. That can't be right! It is only 12:30. I pulled it out and jabbed it into the other side of the breast and wiggled it around, trying to make sure I got it in the thickest part of the breast. It registered 165º. Really? I jabbed it into the thigh - 183º. I checked the breast again - still 163º and climbing. Yikes! I pulled the beast out and grabbed the foil, yelling at Jeff that the bird was done! The bird was done! He came up to help me cover the turkey in foil. He didn't believe it, either, so he put the probe in with similar results. Nothing to do but cover it up and hope it stays hot enough for the sides to be done and the family to get here.

I sent out a panic text to Jennifer. It's done! Come over and let's get the sides done! She said that none of them were dressed, but they would do that and head over. Jeff and I decided we should probably shower and get ourselves cleaned up before they get here. As we were deciding who was going to get which shower, dad showed up to watch the game. We told him to make himself comfortable, and we went off to shower.

When I emerged from the bathroom near the living room, I found Dad propped up in the big chair in front of football, sipping on some whiskey.

Jeff and I met back up in the kitchen, and we started pulling stuff out of the fridge to prepare for the meal. While my head was in the fridge, I heard some car doors and a strange, high-pitched noise. I asked Jeff what that noise was. He wasn't sure, but went into the dining room to look out the window. He said, "the kids are here." I went to the door, and Jonah was walking toward me with a pie resting on both forearms. When we got closer to each other, I saw that the ceramic pie dish was in pieces with the pie still mostly in tact, and Jonah was cradling the whole thing to keep it together. I tried to take it from him and ended up cutting my finger. Jonah told me he had it under control, he just needed me to tell him where to put it. There was a clean surface in the kitchen toward which I directed him.

Pam came in behind Jonah, and I asked her what we should do - did she think the pie was salvageable? She thought it was, but we needed to separate the pie from the shards of the dish. I gave her a plate to put over the top of the pie. I am not sure how she slid her hand under the remnants of the pie plate without cutting herself, but she did, and then flipped the pie upside down onto the dinner plate I had given her. It was skillful, really, and it appeared that the pieces of ceramic from the pie pan did not contaminate the pie itself.

     Soon, my two-butt kitchen was filled with several butts. We needed more counter space and more walking room. Also, it appeared that with all of the side dishes we had planned, we could use some more oven space. Since the turkey was just sitting half in and half out of the oven, where I had left it, I decided he could find another place to hang out, and we could use the oven he in which he had been.
     This was easier said than done. As I mentioned earlier, I had used Alton's idea of cooking the bird on a sheet pan. Well, the drippings from the turkey had filled the sheet pan to the edge. We had to carefully slide the pan forward on the rack to get it closer to the new sheet pan Jeff wanted to put it on. Unfortunately, some of the precious juices sloshed over the front of the pan and onto the oven door.
     We had assigned Jeff the task of actually lifting and moving the turkey, but he was surrounded by females giving him advice on how to approach it and trying to get in there and help him. Despite this, he did a pretty decent job, and there was no growling or hissing involved.  Unfortunately, the turkey had fused itself to the rack I had placed inside the pan, and I had to reach in and pull it off quickly, because it was pulling the pan forward as Jeff was lifting the bird. This caused more spillage.

Pam had put her pear beet salad together lickety-split and with the barest amount of counter space.

She had also brought a rhubarb apple pie (and a caramel apple pie, and a pumpkin pie).

Jennifer had made Cranberry Blue Cheese Tarts for an appetizer. It was a recipe she had found on the Pillsbury website. She had precooked the crust and assembled them at home and baked them in my oven when she got there. She dolloped the tops with the cranberry compote I had made the night before. Brilliant!

INGREDIENTS

1 Pillsbury® refrigerated pie crust (from a box)

1 container (8 oz) chive and onion cream cheese spread

1 egg

Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1/2 cup crumbled blue cheese (2 oz)

1/3 cup whole berry cranberry sauce

1/4 cup coarsely chopped walnuts, if desired

DIRECTIONS

1 Heat oven to 425°F. Spray 16 mini muffin cups with cooking spray. Unroll pie crust onto work surface. Using 2 1/2-inch round cutter, cut 16 rounds from crust. Place 1 crust round in each muffin cup, pressing down gently to form cup. 2 In medium bowl, beat cream cheese spread, salt, pepper and egg with electric mixer on medium speed until smooth. Divide mixture evenly among muffin cups, about 1 teaspoon each. Top each evenly with blue cheese. 3 Bake 11 to 13 minutes or until edges are light golden brown. Cool 5 minutes; remove cups from pan. Garnish each mini cheesecake with 1/2 teaspoon cranberry sauce and 1 walnut piece.

These mini cheesecakes can be served warm or cold. Store leftovers covered in the refrigerator. If you wish to serve them warm, they can be reheated in the microwave for about 30 seconds at a time until warm.

They were fabulous! The filling and crust were really rich and eggy, and the cranberry was a tangy foil for that. I could have eaten a whole plate of those! We nibbled on these while we created the rest of the menu.

I put Pam on the Brussels sprouts.

Jennifer had cooked the bacon and halved the sprouts before they came over. Unfortunately, I had neglected to give her the recipe, nor had I given her any instruction to save the bacon grease to cook the sprouts. I am not sure what type of oil Pam decided to use - I am guessing olive - to brown the sprouts.

In case it hasn't been apparent so far, my husband has some specific ideas about items that should be on the Thanksgiving table. He was really upset one year, because we had home-made cranberry sauce. He wanted the canned variety. So, the next year, we added the canned variety to our table. Then, he was upset, because someone had chopped it all up to make it appear more home-made. He wanted perfect slices where you can still see the ridges of the can.

Jeff is now in charge of the gravy. He is so particular about it, that we assigned this task to him some time ago, and now he is the traditional gravy maker. He is quite good at it, too,.

At this point, it was time to carve the turkey. My sisters and Mom said I should call Dad away from the game and have him do it, but I have carved a turkey or two in my time and could certainly do it. I had the feeling that Dad just did it when asked to, because he was asked to. Not that he was particularly interested in doing it, but they convinced me that he would like to be helpful, so I called him into duty.

By this time, we had commissioned an extra table from the garage to put all the food on,so we could clear up counter space to.... make more food! At this point, we had to send Pele (the kitty) to the basement for a while. He thought we had set the table up in front of his window, so he could get a better view of the outside and have some snacks while he was at it.
Dad started carving into the turkey on the spare table, and I was surprised that there was still a large amount of steam coming off the meat. It had been sitting around outside the oven for almost two hours at this point. Each slice looked moist and juicy and hot.

The rest of us worked on getting the rest of the items to the table. My stuffing, Jen's broccoli casserole (she had decided, much to Jeff's chagrin, that she would make broccoli instead of green beans), the sweet potatoes, olives that Jeff put together, corn, the cranberry relish, the rolls Mom brought, and the mashed potatoes.

     I always think it is ironic - we spend all this time preparing: planning the menu, shopping, pre-cooking, cooking, setting the mood, and we spend about half an hour eating it all. It was wonderful getting the whole family together in one place at one time. I am glad that we have the ability and room to do that.
    We started with Pammy's beet and pear salad with blue cheese. It was very good - lightly dressed with a citrusy vinaigrette. Jennifer and I, not being fans of beets enjoyed it, but we agreed that it could use less beets than what it called for (Jennifer took it a step further and said that it would be better without the beets). I liked the sharp cheese contrasted against the citrusy dressing and the pears. I felt that the beets added a little sweetness and texture to the plate, but I think I would prefer the beets in smaller pieces.
    The turkey itself was very moist. I would definitely redo that recipe. Even the white meat was succulent, and you could taste the aromatics throughout the meat. I could taste rosemary and sage in each bite (more so the rosemary), and there was a hint of something warm and earthy in the background that I could only imagine must be the cinnamon. The skin was like bacon - I couldn't get enough of it!
     We decided that there was just too much food, and the table was just too large for us to be passing the food around. Instead we just passed our plates around (or walked them down to the item we wanted), and whoever was nearest the dish we were looking for served it up on the plate.
     I really liked the stuffing. Jennifer was disappointed in it. She thought it should be more flavorful, and I have to say I think it would improve with garlic and more browning. The scoop I got was toward the top of the dish, where most of the browning occurred. I got that initial crunch and then the warm, moist mushroom and bouillon sensation. I didn't think that the rosemary was as much in the foreground as it should have been, considering the title of the recipe.
     I thought that the cranberry relish wasn't sweet enough. It did thicken up over night. I had suspected that the apple juice was necessary for thickening, but that apparently wasn't the case. I think it may have been necessary for some sweetness to offset the tart, almost bitter, cranberries. The bourbon flavor didn't come through at all. The little dollop of sauce on the appetizers Jen made were great, but it was combined with the yummy cream cheesy filling of the tart.
     I was disappointed in the Brussels sprouts. I haven't ever really been a fan of them in the past, but I thought that by cooking them with bacon and other stuff I just might like them this time. Maybe since we didn't fry them in the bacon grease, it made a difference, but they were bitter - not at all the caramely toasty warm flavor I was expecting.
     The potatoes were fluffy and lump-free, and Jeff's gravy was silky and lump free. On first bite, I thought that the gravy needed salt, but I don't think that was actually the case. I took a second bite, and it was perfect. I think perhaps it was the potatoes that were deficient in that area.

     The Swansons, our lifetime neighbors, were able to stop by after dinner for coffee and pie. I was sceptical that we would have enough pie to share between the apple, the rhubarb apple, the pumpkin, the chocolate bourbon pecan, and Jennifer's cranberry cheesecake pie. I mean that was only 5 desserts for 10 people!