Cooking frenzy today (keeping in mind that I already made the cranberry sauce and the potato leek soup a couple of days ago) for Thanksgiving tomorrow with my daughter - we looked at recipes, and then winged it (my favorite way to cook):
- Green bean casserole with cream of celery soup (my kids hate mushrooms), heavy whipping cream, velveeta on top. Cooked it today, after it cooled, added the french fried onions for reheating in the afternoon.
- Brussels sprouts sauteed in bacon grease, along with the slivered bacon; and dried cranberries rehydrated with port.
- Butternut squash (bought cubed), Christmas squash (baked ourselves) browned in bacon fat, then boiled in chicken broth, fresh sage from the garden, salt, pepper and 3 Honeycrisp apple, and pureed when it was done. However, the soup didn't taste that good at first, so my daughter and I started doctoring it with milk, apple cider vinegar, more chicken broth, more salt and pepper, and ground nutmeg - success!
- A boatload of yams are roasted - not sure what if anything I'm going to do with them besides butter and eat them - but they're cooked and ready to go.
- I have one weird PURPLE yam, that I'm trying to figure out what to do with - maybe mash and mix with some sour cream as a purple garnish for the deep brownish-orange squash soup?
- Whiskey glazed orange and purple carrots (very pretty as well as delish).
- Two kinds of fancy pants mushrooms (Maitakes AKA "hen of the woods” and Enokitakes) and red onions sauteed with butter, garlic olive oil and blood orange olive oil, port and a little truffle salt. People who want mushrooms on things (like me!) can add the shrooms themselves.
- Challahs: we made another turkey (it's baking right now), a round braided loaf with poppy seeds and a long regular braided loaf.
We also cleaned and cut up all the celery and onions for making the stuffing tomorrow, which is going to be of three types, with and without nuts, and a version made for the vegetarian who is coming (with vegetable broth rather than chicken). The main stuffing - Mrs. Cubbison's cornbread base, lots of celery, onion, yellow raisins, black olives (big ones, cut lengthwise, so stuff can get stuck in the "boat") and walnuts, with butter, chicken broth and LOTS of extra sage - will be cooked in the 26 lb turkey. There is also the Honeybaked ham (we couldn't stand it and broke into the ham for sammies for dinner).
There will also be a bok choy dish with seseme, ginger and orange juice, sauteed in a garlic olive oil (we decided that would not be as good tomorrow if it was cooked today). I have frozen peas and pearl onions, but I think I'm not going to cook them unless there is demand for them. The potato leek soup may be served with a clump of crab meat in the bowl, and chives on top.
This is WAY more food than we need for 12 people, but then again, I don't plan on cooking for the entire next week. I've
We WERE going to go camping from Saturday to Wednesday in Monterey for Charles' birthday, but it is going to be raining every day - (sad for us, good for the state!) - so we're going to hold off for a bit. With the holidays coming and birthdays, we probably won't have another chance until January. I'm very bummed - we got the bike carrier on the Jeep and we were going to ride on the beach for the first time. But driving 70 miles to sit in an RV in the rain for four days and watch TV doesn't sound that good either. Oh well, I've got quite a bit of work to do anyway.
