Post Thanksgiving Thoughts

This is an unusual post for me. I thought about posting a Thanksgiving Leftover Remake recipe, but decided I've got a few of those in my index and I've been sharing links with bloggers doing Leftover Round Ups. You can see those round ups on the Rockin' Recipe Round Ups Pinterest Board.

I thought about posting a Christmas themed recipe, to help me mentally switch over to the next Big Thing. Normally I don't cotton to decorating until after my birthday, but we've had a recent mild spell and I support all my neighbors who chose to decorate outside while it was nice.  I did see a few Christmas trees in living room windows during my dog walks earlier this week though--that's a bit too much. I'd rather celebrate my spouse's birthday and my Big 5 0 before I switch over to Christmas.

As this series of photos by my spouse shows, I did a heck of a lot of cooking yesterday. I need a break from cooking! I'd say I have a turkey coma, but in fact my ancient meat thermometer broke in the drumstick, and after a small serving of breast meat w/ the main meal, I pitched the rest of the bird because I'm just not confident that whatever red fluid was in the tube is safe. I'll miss the leftovers and making stock, but there will be more turkeys in my life. We've still got plenty of sides.

Looking through these photos I think it's clear I'm doting on Robert Barker.  It's important to teach dogs about spices! He spent most of the day underfoot, on Kitchen Patrol.  Vincent joined him occasionally, but Simon mostly stayed out of it. He knew he'd be fed in the end.

I created a couple of new recipes that will be up for next Thanksgiving, including my first stuffing recipe.  This was fun to make and apparently fun for the spouse to photograph--tasted delicious too. I love cornbread stuffing and stuffing with apples and onions and to combine the two was really fun. There's no gluten in my cornbread, so it's gluten free as well.

Our menu was a roast turkey (simple as pie pizza), gravy, MA's Make Ahead Irish Mashed Potato Casserole, Alanna's World's Best Green Bean Casserole--with a couple of tweaks as I didn't want extra friend fried onions left over, Cornbread Turkey Sausage & Apple Stuffing, Creamed Spinach, Cranberry, Pineapple & Pecan Salad, and a Caramel Pumpkin Butter Cheesecake. I also have a sweet potato dish I made on Tuesday to add to my leftover mix tape plate. As I feel like cooking, I'll make a corn casserole to change up the leftovers even more.

By the numbers we had 11 pounds of turkey, 5 pounds of potatoes, 1 pound of green beans, 1 gallon of spinach, ½ pound of mushrooms, an onion, an apple, and a thing of celery.  I dipped into my stash of Roasted Garlic in the freezer, and emptied the freezer of turkey stock while I was at it. The biggest category I used, though, was dairy products.  I used 3 boxes of cream cheese, close to 3 sticks of butter, and several cups of cream over the past 2 days. Thanks again Kim for the cream! I've made a serious dent in the final Community Supported Agriculture box for the Fall season, and we've got food to feed us for days.

As for kitchen failures, I dropped a nutmeg into the creamed spinach and broke the aforementioned thermometer. I am absolutely shocked that Robert Barker didn't take down any of the meal, but it sure wasn't for lack of vigilance and effort on his part.

Things that worked well--I did a lot of 'clean as you go' today. I did this partly because I had to clean up to have room for the next item on my mental agenda, and partly because I cooked 3 side dishes using my only 2 saucepans. Either way, I'm sure glad I did--the kids did the dishes and all that was left was the gravy & the roaster when the meal was done.

Since Thanksgiving heralds in the big shopping season, I'll close with a few of my favorite things. These are all Amazon affiliate links to items I use that make my life in the kitchen just a little bit nicer. I think I need to add Meat Thermometer to my Christmas list!



This post is shared on Clever Chicks Blog Hop, Tasty Tuesdays