Thanksgiving Meal Recap...Part 1

It's a wonder that any of my children ever learned how to cook, much less enjoy cooking -- the fact that they are good cooks and like to do it, is no tribute what-so-ever to me. Whenever I am in my kitchen concocting one of my culinary extravaganzas -- most especially the big holiday meals, my obsessive compulsive tendency rears its ugly head! I used to blame it on my old kitchen's dysfunctional layout -- everyone was in my way and "JUST GET OUT!!!" Some of my children's "fondest" memories are of trying to help me in the kitchen - NOT!! I've gotten better -- we have had at least 2 (maybe 3) Christmases in a row now, where I did not have a major hissy fit and drove everyone away. Last year was the first Christmas in my new kitchen, so there was at least one Christmas with a cool, calm & collected Donna in the old kitchen -- so it wasn't the kitchen after-all!  I think it is the planning and prep work that I finally figured out -- I make lists.

The first list that I make is of my menu and if I got the recipe from a cookbook or magazine or some other source, I write on my list next to the menu item where I can find the recipe.  Then I go through each menu item and list all of the ingredients and how much of each ingredient will be needed to feed the number of people that I am serving. This is a bit tricky and you have to know the recipe pretty well in order to know how to multiply it so that you have the amount of food you want -- not too much or too little.  From that list, I make my grocery list -- I usually don't have to buy everything, since I keep a variety of ingredients on hand.  It's mostly the produce and meat that I will have to shop for.

Because this blog is about cooking from scratch, I have become even more conscious about what convenience foods I really do use.  I don't buy cake mixes or brownie mixes or any kind of mix like that -- ever.  However, to save time, I bought canned organic pumpkin -- even though I have some pumpkins on hand that I could have cooked up and used for my pumpkin pies.  If making pumpkin pie was the only thing I was making, I probably would have done just that.  I also bought stuffing mix.  I am perfectly capable of cutting up bread (homemade bread that I baked myself, of course) into cubes and adding herbs.  But I was able to buy an Arrowhead Mills, organic, savory herb stuffing mix that I know contained no preservatives, MSG, or any other bad stuff that I can't pronounce.  I added celery, onion, organic butter, olive oil, eggs and organic free-range chicken broth (another convenience that I bought already made up).  This made an absolutely fabulous stuffing, by the way.

Here is the 19lb grilled stuffed turkey.

The final list that I generally make is the order that I plan to do things -- as far as prep work and final steps of cooking -- I also note those tasks that I can assign to someone else, should someone ask to help.  This really helps a lot, because when I am in the throes of my cooking frenzy, if I don't have it written down, I will have forgotten to chop something or cook & cool something in advance or will get sidetracked with requests to help and lose my train of thought.  I didn't make that list for this Thanksgiving meal and it was a huge mistake!  I will never do that again.  In my defense, I thought I had it all under control and didn't need a list this time. However, instead of eating at 1:00PM as planned, we didn't eat until 3:00 PM!!!  Fortunately, I didn't lose my cool and scream at anyone.  Instead the first guest who arrived was put to work cutting up cheese and summer sausage and arranging on a plate with crackers.  And then the next guest put together a platter with hummus and bagel chips, etc.  Good thing I had those things on hand!!  The third guest was put in charge of greeting guests at the front door and keeping them entertained in the living room.  This actually worked out pretty well -- not all of the guests knew each other and it was a chance to meet each other and socialize.  Most of them stopped into the kitchen at some point to say hi or to offer to help.  In the past, folks offering to help would send me over the edge. This is where in the past, much of my obsessive compulsive stuff would come out.  However, even though I did not have my list to help me see at a glance what I could assign, I did it have enough together to think of things for folks to do.

On Wednesday, starting with the turkey, I got the turkey brined, got my family (mostly David, although Jonathan & Jaimie helped some) to trim the 6 pounds of green beans, peel 10 pounds of potatoes, slice 1 pound of shiitake mushrooms, chop 1 cup of shallots, 8-10 stalks of celery, 3 onions, and cooked 2 cups of bulgur (for the rolls).  I steamed 2 spaghetti squash and made pie crust for 3 single crust pies.  I baked 2 pumpkin pies and 1 pecan pie (should have made 2 of those too).  I also cooked up the cranberry, pear & orange relish.

So, all I had to do on Thursday was prep and stuff the turkey, make rolls, cook the potatoes and mash them, make gravy, make the green beans w/mushrooms & bacon (this was a new recipe), assemble my fruit salad, make the spaghetti squash tossed with egg plant persillade (garlic & parsley) and finally whip the cream to put on the pies -- not necessarily in that order.

To prep the turkey, I thoroughly rinsed the brine off the turkeys and dried them off.  Then I took some minced, fresh thyme, 1 stick of softened butter and some olive oil and mixed them together.  I used half of this mixture for each turkey. I work my hands under the turkey skin and this is where I spread the thyme/butter mixture.  I do this on both the front and back of the turkey and as far as I can get the skin worked loose -- around the wings and thighs too.  Then I start scooping stuffing in the neck cavity until it is full -- I stretch the skin over the stuffing and use metal lacers to sew up the stuffing inside.  Then I work the other end and stuff as much stuffing as I can into the abdominal cavity.  Again I lace up the end to hold the stuffing inside the bird.  The turkey juices working it's way into the stuffing as the turkey cooks, produces the most amazing stuffing.  This is a Yankee thing that I have held onto.  There are many Southern foods that I love -- like grits, collard greens, boiled peanuts, hush puppies, Fluffy biscuits, skillet cornbread, sweet tea, etc -- that I have claimed and learned to cook  But I can also tell you that ;no Southern dressing that I have ever tasted begins to measure up to Yankee stuffing!!!

Here is the 23lb grilled stuffed turkey.  We used 2 Weber kettle grills to cook these birds.

Part 2 will cover the other dishes and recipes -- Bon Apetit!

Thanksgiving Menu

My menu will be:

Turkey with Stuffing

Mashed Potatoes & Gravy

Green Beans w/ Shitake Mushrooms & Bacon

Spaghetti Squash Tossed w/Eggplant Persillade

Pineapple & Mandarin Oranges Fruit Salad

Cranberry, Pear and Orange Relish

Health Rolls (made with Bulgur Wheat & Rolled Oats)

For dessert we will have Pumpkin & Pecan Pies w/Homemade Whipped Cream.

 Here is the fresh produce that will go into our meal!

The credits for my menu go to "Southern Living" - Dec 2009 issue (Green Beans); "Julia Child & More Company" (Spaghetti Squash & Eggplant); "Martha Stewart Living" - Nov 1999 issue (Health Rolls) and everything else is either a family recipe or a concoction that I put together myself!

It All Starts With the Turkey

The first thing that I have to do to get my Thanksgiving dinner ready is to start with the Turkey.  For the last several years, we have been cooking our turkeys on our Weber kettle grill.  It adds such a nice smokey flavor!  At Thanksgiving time we always cook 2 big turkeys, since we love to have plenty of leftovers and also because we usually have such a large crowd for dinner.  Throughout the years, depending on what was going on in our lives, we have had vegetarian Thanksgivings and no turkey or a combination of vegetarian & carnivorous.  The year we experimented with tofurkey was a HUGE mistake, but fortunately that was also a combo year.  That was the year that I learned to avoid vegetarian "meat". 

Many, many years ago we started the tradition of inviting what we fondly call "The Orphans" over for Thanksgiving dinner.  Actually, an even earlier tradition was for our entire family to go over to the local soup kitchen and help with Thanksgiving dinner there and then sit down and eat with everyone.  Then it morphed into David & the kids going over and delivering dinners to the home-bound, while I stayed home and cooked up our meal -- that's when it sort of morphed into inviting the orphans.  The orphans are those who we work with at Habitat and have families that live elsewhere.  It's either too far or too expensive to travel home for such a short time, so we invited them to spend Thanksgiving with our family.  I have a very fond & funny memory of that first time with orphans & a vegetarian Thanksgiving -- will tell that story later.  Anyway, this year ALL of our kids, spouses & grandchild will be here -- that's 10 including David & me and then about 10 or more others will be joining us.  Sometimes, when our kids were in college, they invited friends who weren't going to be traveling to their families.  And now this year, there will also be friends now graduated from college who still want to come and also a friend from one of their jobs, plus, the Habitat crowd who have no where to go for Thanksgiving fellowship.


Anyway, starting with the turkey...Last year, we discovered brining -- makes a very moist & flavorful turkey!  So, now this has been added to our turkey cooking tradition.  We only cook turkey at holiday time -- 2 on Thanksgiving and one on Christmas Eve -- then again, if we have any holiday parties hosted at our house.  I always get BIG turkeys -- like 19 to 20+ pounds.  I am using 2 different brining recipes this year -- one is a pre-mixed kit that I found last night at the store.  It's all natural (no msg, preservatives, etc) and it uses some ingredients that I sort of wanted to experiment with -- like cranberries, apples, orange peel and juniper berries (never used these ever before!).  It also contains sea salt, peppercorns, garlic, brown sugar, sage, rosemary & thyme.  Another brining recipe I will use is one that uses apple juice and orange juice with Kosher salt, cloves, nutmeg and brown sugar.  I'll write these recipes up later.  You need to start a day in advance, since the turkeys need to soak in the brine for at least 10 hours.  We plan to eat at 1 pm tomorrow, so, I will need to get up early to drain the brine and stuff the turkeys and then David will have the grills ready to cook them.


Here is an Alton Brown video about brining.  Don't tell David, but I really enjoy Alton Brown -- I used to not like Alton's show, "Good Eats", because he spent so much time explaining the science behind his techniques and ingredients etc.  I thought he was goofy and it sort of insulted my instinctual and spiritual approach to cooking -- however, lately, not only do I think he is funny in a nerdy sort of way, but he really does explain scientifically what my soul & instincts have been telling me.  David would get way carried away with "I told you so" -- so please don't tell him.  I know he doesn't read my blog, so if he finds out, it will be one of you who tells him!!! (I will hunt you down and find you!)  Here is the video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uiSfKDiUavo&feature=player_embedded 


The brine recipe that I am using is called "Apple Spice Brine".  I don't generally follow recipes verbatim, so this is sort of what I did.  This was for the 23 pound turkey. 1 gallon apple juice (I also used up some pomegranate cider with apple, which was about 1 quart), 2 quarts orange juice, 3 cups Kosher salt, 3/4 cup brown sugar, 20 or so whole cloves, & almost 2 tablespoons of ground nutmeg.  I put all of these in a big pot and simmered until the salt & sugar were dissolved.  Then I added some cold ice water to cool it down.  I put the turkey in a huge brining bag (which I put in a large cooler) and poured the brine solution over it.  I then added some more ice water until the turkey was basically covered.  I think it was about another gallon+ of water.  I sealed  up the bag and then poured a bunch of ice on and around it to keep the turkey cold.  There is no room in any of my fridges for this.

The 19 lb. turkey I used the pre-mixed brine solids.  I added another cup of Kosher salt and some more dried rosemary and thyme and dissolved the salt & sugar in a gallon or so of simmering water, cooled it and did the same thing as above with the large brining bag in another cooler.  I added enough iced water to completely cover the turkey and then sealed up the bag and dumped ice all around the turkey and closed up the cooler.


I bought the brining bags over the internet about a month ago.  I also bought some smaller bags to brine a roast or chicken or whatever.  I thought that I might even try doing another corned beef in a brining bag.  You don't have to use these bags, but I like using them -- it keeps things neater and more contained.  I wash them out and re-use them over and over, until they start getting holes in them, so I get my money's worth. Then I either recycle them or my daughter uses them to make (crochet) grocery bags.


I will let these turkeys brine until tomorrow morning when I will rinse them off real good and stuff them and then we will cook on the grills.

More Kitchen Pics - cont.

 Here's a pic taken in daylight

 

This is a little better pic of my double ovens

This is taken from the family room looking into the kitchen.  There used to be a wall sort of where the eating bar is located.  The wood on the bar is old heart pine, that my contractor took from from a porch he was working on in my neighborhood.  He felt it should stay in the neighborhood -- otherwise it was going to get thrown away.

Sort of another angle.

Looking into the family room.  The oak cabinet that you see were some that we had built and this was actually a corner in my old kitchen that we left intact.  I now use that cabinet to hold a wine rack, wine glasses & pitchers and other serving dishes (in the lower cabinet).

Now moving over a bit.  In the corner where the lamp is standing is where my old oven used to be.  Now it's a corner for a comfy couch where you can sit and watch tv or knit or just listen to music.  Jonah likes to play with his "guys" and toys there.

Another angle.

The garden window was part of the old kitchen.  My sink used to sit under it and I could look out and see in the backyard.  Now it's just a nice window!

This is looking in from the glass doors leading into the house from the back porch.  The door that you see off to the right leads to the stairway hallway and then into the foyer and to the front door.  The door to the left leads into our dining room

The New Kitchen -- Scratching in some Functionality

Here's my 6 burner Jenn-Air gas cook-top.  I keep my castiron griddle and panini press on the center burners.

My kitchen renovation project began in August of 2008 and finished in late October.  To be completely honest, it actually began about 5 years earlier when I began doing some research on just what I wanted in my dream kitchen -- At one point, my friend Meda drew up the plans and then I truly began looking at cabinet styles & finishes, counter-top materials, appliances, etc, etc.  My friend Paul Fenner agreed to be my contractor and he drew up a budget plan and refined the drawings that Meda put together.  I chose some simple, sort of shaker-style cherrywood cabinets, soapstone counter-tops, with a farm sink and bamboo flooring.  My appliances are stainless steel professional style.  Here are some pictures:  They are kind of dark -- I will try to take some additional pictures when it is daylight -- these turned out dark, even though I used a flash and my kitchen is not a dark kitchen at all.

Here's my Jenn-Air double oven -- electric.  Both ovens convert to convection ovens.  They also have a proofing capability, which I use as either a warming oven or for letting bread dough or rolls rise.  I can also use them as a dehydrator, but haven't ventured there yet.  You can also see my micro wave oven and toaster/oven.

Here's my professional style freezer & refrigerator.

A very dark view of my custom made soapstone farm sink.  I wanted the large farm style sink for washing large pots and roasting pans.  I love to entertain and have cooked for 50 or so people and fed them in a sit down dinner at my house.  I also have a special faucet for filtered water.

Finally, here is my butler's pantry.  This is where I do most of my bread baking and dealing with dough.  You can see my Kitchen-Aid Professional mixer and my ancient bread machine (R2D2)

I know that some cooks are not gadget cooks.  I'm not either, but I do know that having the right gadget for the job, makes all of the difference in the world, when one is a busy person, but still attempting to cook everything from scratch.  I generally steer away from 1 use appliances too -- the exception would be my waffle iron.  It is practically an antique.  Some very dear friends gave it to us when they found it when they were living in a house that was formerly used as a convent -- that was in 1984 or so.  The waffle iron was old then, but it's even older now, but in perfect shape.  I have really steered away from the newer Belgium waffle irons.

I only use my bread machine to mix up dough -- I rarely bake bread in it anymore.  When my kids were much younger, I would set it up on a timer, so that when they got home from school, there would be fresh bread baked for them as an after-school snack.  Of course it was healthy whole wheat bread, but who can resist something healthy, when it smells as good as fresh baked bread!!!  I read that for the best quality bread, it is best kneaded in a bread machine, but shaped and baked in a regular oven.  The crust is just a bit too tough when baked in a bread machine.  The next best quality is when mixed in a mixer with a dough hook and the last is kneading it by hand.  Kneading it by hand is by far the most therapeutic, but for a busy lifestyle, kneading and rising in a bread machine is the most convenient.  Then you just have to shape it and let it rise 1 more time, before baking.  I put it in one of my warming ovens to rise and preheat the other oven while the rolls or bread are rising.  When they are done rising, I just bake in my preheated oven.

My other small appliances consist of a hand mixer, an electric knife, a coffeemaker (that also grinds the beans just before brewing -- which I also put on a timer for fresh brewed coffee when I get home from the gym in the morning), a blender, a food processor (that I bought at a garage sale for $5), a Cuisinart ice-cream maker (another 1 use appliance, I guess - sigh!), a Breville juicer, that was a gift from my kids, a microwave oven, a toaster/toaster oven & a large crockpot.  As far as gadgets, I have too many to list, but they were all thoughtfully picked & purchased over the years.  I still have the excellant L.L.Bean knife set that we got as a wedding present -- 34 1/2 years ago!

Anyway -- this is my start.  I will now concentrate on Thanksgiving and the meal that I will cook.  It looks like there may be 20 of us this year -- David & I and all 5 of my children, 2 spouses & a grandchild and all of our "Americus orphans" (people who we know at Habitat who have no where to go or whose families live too far away).  We are all family at Thanksgiving!!!

Come & join us!