Thanksgiving post-mortem

[FistFullaRoux]

This was my first Thanksgiving to completely take over the cooking for the family, with the help of my wife. We did OK, but definite room for improvement.

Good: Homemade mac & cheese, sweet potato casserole, green bean/bacon appetizers, pecan pie

meh: Turkey, wife's Veg-all casserole, homemade cranberry sauce (I liked it, just not very popular)

oops: Completely overdone mini turducken (just he breasts). Forgot gravy, mashed potatoes, and broccoli cheese casserole. No time to brine turkey (story below)

---The turkey story. Had the 14 pounder defrosted by Monday. Put it in the brine Tuesday night, with the intention of pulling it Wed midday, since I was off work. No room in the fridge, so into a bucket and the bucket into an ice chest. Bought 60 pounds of ice to make sure, plenty of freezer space. Kept it iced down and checked it's temp often. I get a call stupid early Wed morning to go into work, so I freshened the ice and said a little prayer, and headed in to work. Ended up staying far longer than expected (of course), and the image of the turkey moldering stayed in my mind all day. I come home about 4pm and take the turkey's temp. 63 degrees. Dammit.

Run to the grocery for another turkey, wind up with a completely frozen 17 pound butterball. Run home and put the turkey in the bathtub (don't tell my in-laws) on a slow drip. Bird completely thaws by 2am. No time to brine and dry, so screw it. It's a Butterball.

All in all, not the best or worst dinner I've ever made. Everyone was happy, I think, and they want me to do it again next year. Better planning then though. Time for Friday morning quarterbacking. What worked, what didn't?

Edited November 24, 2007 by FistFullaRoux (log)

[Malawry]

I've managed the Thanksgiving meal for about 6 years now, but this year was the first year I personally made everything myself. I've been rather ill and leaning on my friends heavily, and since this year's Thanksgiving was friends-only, I wanted to knock them out with some fabulous food as my way of giving thanks.

I never, ever make dessert for Thanksgiving--I tell people to bring it if they ask what they can bring. So this year was very different in that regard. I made two pies, pecan and apple. The tapioca in the apple pie didn't dissolve completely, but I picked off most of the crunchy bits and nobody seemed to have trouble finishing their slice. I also made creme fraiche and cinnamon ice creams, but those came out fabulously well.

My friend had trouble getting the turkey fryer going, but after I went outside and stood with him and stared at it while he futzed around it worked great. We fried some snackies before the turkey: beignets, which were great, vegetarian spring rolls, which were fine, and cranberry sauce. You read that right, we were inspired by Paula Deen to try frying cranberry sauce. The result was strikingly similar to a jelly donut and not bad, but not good enough to really be worth trying again. (We followed Deen's recipe, slicing and freezing canned cran sauce and then dusting them with flour, battering and frying the disks.)

I thought my cran sauce (the real stuff, homemade, to go with the meal) needed a little more sweetener, but it was kinda nice being so tart at the same time. We fried two turkeys. I have to say an herb-brined one tastes better than one injected with a commercial Cajun-style marinade and coated in Tony Chachere's seasoning, but they're both tasty in their own way--one takes more advance planning is all.

That's my wrapup.

[Lilija]

I cooked for just my nuclear family, this year, just the four of us. It was extremely low key, and pleasant, from the get-go. Of course, my mother and stepfather had a change of plans, and instead of going to Atlantic City, wound up inviting themselves to my house about a half hour before the bird came out of the oven. This year, though, I cooked entirely for US, and not THEM, which is a big step. My sweet potatoes were very spicy, and just a little sweet. My cranberry chutney was the only cranberries on the table, rather than the usual 4 varieties. Of all the meals I've cooked and hosted, this one, from a culinary perspective was the far-ahead winner. I was experimental, we ate a TON of veggies, loads of flavor, lots of textural contrast, just everything went so well, I'm amazed. Normally I have my share of duds and outright messes.

My real bloopers came with dessert. I made pumpkin pies, apple, and for the second time in my life, pecan. Inspired by a pumpkin hot fudge sundae I had last year, I wanted to put a thin layer of chocolate on the pies, so I made a fantastic bittersweet ganache, and put a thin layer on the cooling pie. The texture was sumptious, silky, velvety...the chocolate TOTALLY overwhelmed the poor delicate pumpkin custard. It tasted like chocolate-and-mild-spices pie. My husband now insists that very soon, I need to make a real pumpkin pie without chocolate. That, and I overcooked the pecan pie, so that the custard part got grainy.

[pennylane]

The tapioca in the apple pie didn't dissolve completely, but I picked off most of the crunchy bits and nobody seemed to have trouble finishing their slice.

I've had that problem too! Now I never use tapioca in apple pie.

My bloopers were also in the dessert department. I made Chufi's apple pie from the Dutch Cooking thread and didn't bake it long enough, so while the top looked beautiful, the bottom "crust" was completely raw. It was still really good, though!

I was most disappointed in the pumpkin pie. I normally skimp on the butter in the crust but this time I didn't, so I was expecting it to be even better than usual. But instead the crust bubbled alarmingly in the oven and then sort of collapsed in a greasy heap in the middle of the pie pan. I managed to patch up the sides with extra dough before adding the filling, and the end result wasn't so bad, but it was really thick and had a bizarre texture kind of like a mille-feuille?!

[annecros]

Eh, the dressing was a little off this year. I used some packages of Jiffy Corn Muffin mix to fill it out, rather than baking from scratch (I know, it wasn't on whit easier than mixing up my own cornbread) and the cornbread was too sweet for my tastes, but others swore it was the best ever.

Note to self: Next year, twice as many pigs in a blanket.

Overall, everything else timed out and hit the table perfectly. Surprise big hit - Camplbell's Freaking Green Bean casserole. I didn't follow the recipe exactly - I used frozen green beans and added some butter - but it was scarfed up completely. It was actually pretty tasty. Go figure.

[Jamie Lee]

Maybe those of us with "real" bloopers are too embarrassed to post, but with all due respect, your "failures" sound pretty damn good to me!

To frame my challenges this year, I was cooking for myself, due to a number of circumstances. Add to that that I'm currently living in an efficiency studio apartment - with a kitchen that would make most NY kitchens grand in size!

No oven, two electric burners, a microwave (yuck!). Limited pots, appliances, utensils. (Mine are all in storage 2000 miles away.)

It was good I decided to go solo this year since I didn't feel well on Thursday, so I ended up cooking my meal on Friday.

A completely stovetop T-Day dinner? No easy feat! I've made trad. T-Day meals entirely on my own, and think I was well taught by mom and G-moms.... But an oven is key.

I thought about one of those roaster ovens, but decided it was a dumb expense for "just me" and really didn't need a whole turkey, even if small.

1. Turkey stock: Not bad, bought wings and legs, with aromatics, it turned out quite well. It was to be used for stove-top stuffing and gravy.

2. Turkey: Went with two tenderloins, butterflied open and sauteed (after dusting with flour) in a combo of oil and butter. My thinking was I'd use the left-over fat (enriched with the flour dusting from cutlets) as the base for gravy, since I would have no wonderful roasting fond and juices.

3. Stuffing: "Sandra Lee" style (UGH) Stove Top enriched with Jimmy Dean Sage Sausage, sauteed garlic, celery, onions, carrots and bell pepper (all chopped, of course). Only liquid was turkey stock mentioned before. Not awful, but it would have benefitted greatly from some time in a hot oven. It is a little bit mushy. May have to try frying patties for leftovers.

4. Gravy: Should have known better - In my "normal" T-Day cooking, stock is made day-of, kept warm, and then shaken with flour in a mason jar before adding to the fat/drippings. Stupid me, I added flour to the pan (post turk cutlets) and then added cold stock. Result? Lumps and a rather bland gravy. My immersion blender might have solved the problem, but it was 2000 miles away.

5. Other sides: Couldn't find rutabega, so had to forgo this uber-trad family tradition. Mashed potatoes, cooked them off on Wed., but ran out of burners and energy. Will either transform to latkes, or try to reheat and finish as mashers. Cranberry - made from scratch, with orange juice, zest, grand marnier, some sugar - but very tart in the end. It's not bad paired with the other rich items, but boy, one can only eat a tiny bit!

6. My Crowning Failure : An attempt at a no bake pumpkin dessert! This will make an appearance on the "Regrettable Meals" thread for sure. Another embarrassing "Sandra Lee" (Did I say YUCK already?) experiment. It started with a graham crust, drizzled with caramel sauce (bottled), then a mixture of canned pumpkin, vanilla instant pudding, cool whip, pecan bits and spices. (Shoot me now.) Next a layer of cool whip, drizzled artistically with more caramel sauce and pecans. Chill.

OMG! the grossest thing I have ever made! Not only does it look suspiciously like baby poo, it is tooth-ache-ingly sweet. I think I f-ed it up further by accidentally using canned pumpkin pie filling INSTEAD of canned pumpkin. Damn, I KNOW the difference. So double the sweetness, double the spices, a crappy (HA) consistency - total disaster.

I can only redeem myself by knowing that had I had my home tools, I could have done much better.

Sorry for the long post, but perhaps this makes those of us who had a less than stellar T-Day a little better!

J.

Edited November 24, 2007 by Jamie Lee (log)

[Fat Guy]

Thanksgiving at my mother's place, as is almost always the case.

We start out with individually plated mozzarella-and-out-of-season-tomato salads. Nobody is sure how this tradition arose. It's probably a nod to my mother's 1/2 Italian-American heritage. We usually have two real Italians (old friends of the family from Venice, who make their annual pilgrimage to New York each November) at Thanksgiving, and they must find the dish amusing. Not that they've ever said anything. This year we also had a Japanese exchange student over for her first American Thanksgiving, so now I'm sure she thinks the mozzarella-and-tomato thing is standard (20 years from now, in Japan, it may be). Luckily, due to the invention of the grape tomato and the excellence of Fairway's bocconcini, the dish these days is not bad at all.

Then all the other food comes at once, family style. There's the overcooked turkey, which is overcooked not due to lack of skill but, rather, to neurotic premeditation: a deep and abiding fear of undercooked meat that rejects meat with the slightest bit of residual moisture. There are always at least two and sometimes three stuffing/dressing options: "in-the-bird" and "out-of-the-bird" traditional bread stuffing (in part because there's never enough in-the-bird, and in part because there are usually a couple of hyphenated vegetarians in attendance), and sometimes cornbread-and-sausage stuffing made by our friend from Texas. He also usually brings creamed corn made with John Cope's incredible dried corn. As far as I know, the latter is not a Texan dish at all, he just like it -- and it's great.

Standard American flour-thickened gravy, mashed sweet potatoes with little marshmallows on top, peas-and-carrots, steamed winter vegetables (a mixture of Brussels sprouts, parsnips, squash, etc.), noodle kugel (this is the 3/4 Jewish influence finding a way in), creamed miniature onions (my uncle's savory contribution, based on my grandmother's recipe), cranberry dressing (made from whole cranberries), banana bread, and probably some other stuff I'm forgetting. All of it is excellent except for the turkey, however it's possible to eat well by taking only thigh meat, which holds up quite well against the extra 15-20 degrees of doneness.

The quantities are absurd, probably 3-4 times what is needed. We go home with two very heavy shopping bags full of leftovers, and that doesn't put a dent in it.

Desserts: cheesecake (by my uncle), brownies, lemon bars, ice cream, coffee.

I should add that before dinner, as hors d'oeuvres, we always have chopped liver, bread and a huge fresh fruit platter. People gorge themselves on this for about an hour before the meal, so it's not like anybody is actually hungry by the time we sit down to dinner.

The one major deviation from the routine this year was that, for the first time, the job of carving the turkey fell to me. I'll post separately about that.

[pennylane]

To frame my challenges this year, I was cooking for myself, due to a number of circumstances.  Add to that that I'm currently living in an efficiency studio apartment - with a kitchen that would make most NY kitchens grand in size!

No oven, two electric burners, a microwave (yuck!).  Limited pots, appliances, utensils.  (Mine are all in storage 2000 miles away.)

You have my sympathies, 'cause I lived in the exact same place for six years (except replace the microwave with a toaster oven - it was a hard choice and in retrospect I probably should've gone with a microwave oven, but I don't know if they were around back then and if they were I probably couldn't have afforded one anyway). And I was just like you and insisted on preparing absurdly elaborate meals with such limited resources. Sounds like yours was pretty good, though! (And that post was supposed to make people with "real" bloopers feel better? Man, only on eGullet!!)

[Cleo]

It was my first time hosting Thanksgiving and all went mostly well. We had 6 adults and 4 kids and enough food for 25 (a Jewish Thanksgiving).

Started off with the ever-popular pigs in a blanket (I made them) and good old spinach dip and Ruffles (my sister brougt the dip). I, my sister, BIL, husband and kids hovered around this food and devoured it. I think that my health-conscious in-laws were horrified!

I ordered a brined/marinated turkey from Stew Leonard's and all I had to do was stick it in the oven. It was huge and it took a little longer than expected to reach 170, but when it did, we took it out and let it rest for a while. It was pretty good, nothing too exciting, but to me, turkey never is. At least it wasn't dried out.

Then I made this Triple Cranberry Sauce, which, oddly enough, I thought was the best thing on the table. Tart, tangy and sweet all at the same time.

I made a stuffing from Mark Bittman (adapted from a James Beard recipe apparently). The flavor was delicious, with pine nuts and sage, but it was a little dry for my taste.

Vegetable was peas, with butter and sauteed shallots and thyme. These were good. I wanted to make brussels sprouts or something more seasonal, but I knew that the kids would all eat peas.

The only thing that I really wasn't too happy with was the mashed potatoes. I've had great success in the past with Barefoot Contessa's Parmesan Smashed Potatoes. But I decided to switch the red potatoes out and use Yukon Gold instead. I didn't realize that they could (or would) become waterlogged and the whole thing was too soupy. I mean, it tasted okay, but consistency was totally off.

Then my MIL brought a carrot ring -- almost a cake-like thing that's actually pretty good. It's one thing that she can actually make that's good.

And my sister was in charge of desserts. Some kind of cookie pie, and a pear-cranberry tart, all to be topped with 2 kinds of Ben & Jerrys.

All in all, a nice day.

[Jim Dixon]

Since I make the same things every year (basically the Thanksgiving meal I've eaten as long as I can remember, details here), it goes pretty smoothly. But I almost screwed up the gravy, which would've been a real disaster.

I baste the turkey with beer (malty hat tip top my Jersey Italian in-laws who inspired this), and I usually use one of the local winter seasonal beers such as Full Sail's Wassail or Bridgeport's Ebenezer. These are typically dark, malty, and slightly sweet.

But I've been enamored with Deschutes' beers this year, so I used their annual winter beer, Jubelale. Everything was going well....small heirloom turkey beautifully browned and resting, flour mixed with cold water into a smooth paste, long-simmered turkey stock warm on the back of the stove, gravy whisking up nicely...until one of the boys tasted the gravy and announced that it tasted "weird."

I tried a spoonful, and he was right. It needed salt, but their was something else in the background that I couldn't place. I adjusted the seasoning, added a bit more water, splashed in a little cream, and it got better, but still not quite right. I resisted all suggestions (add sugar, vinegar, etc) since I'd never tweaked the gravy with any of those, and since everything else was headed for the table, decided it had to be okay.

And it was, once ladled over mashed potatoes, stuffing, turkey, and everything else. The next day, before my first plate of leftovers, I tasted the cold gravy and realized that the strange taste was a distinctive bitterness, the residual flavor of hops. Lesson for next year: taste the beer more carefully and go with a maltier, less hoppy brew.

Jim

[carpetbagger, esq.]

Things went pretty well on the homefront here. Due to the size of the our group, i only made two things (Wayne's Cranberry Sauce and a sweet potato recipe from serious eats, and my gf made one (coconut cake from Rose Levy Berenbaum's Cake Bible).

no real bloopers, as it was fairly straight forward. if anything, i'd consider adding a splash of bourbon to the sweet potatoes.

at some point, we'll take over the bulk of the Thanksgiving cooking, and then there will be ample time to screw up!

[C. sapidus]

My brother and SIL hosted the feast, so our only contributions were a little chopping, a vegetable tray, and our annual contribution - walnut-topped bourbon sweet potatoes with orange sauce. I fiddle with the sweet potato recipe every year, and the 2007 version had two changes:

First, I diluted the frozen concentrated orange juice just enough to dissolve and reduced the amount of brown sugar. This gave the sweet potatoes a nice, strong orange flavor without too much sweetness. I should try fresh-squeezed orange juice, but I suspect that cooking would kill the freshness.

For the sauce, I used the concentrated orange juice, reduced the amount of brown sugar, and added a big slug of Cointreau. The reduced sweetness and stronger orange flavor improved the sauce greatly. Bourbon is also nice in the sauce – it just depends which flavor one wishes to echo.

Next year, perhaps I’ll try a little orange zest with the sweet potatoes.

[mrsadm]

I had a forlorn and uneaten pumpkin pie.....

I never bake so thought I'd get a pumpkin pie from Wegman's, during my big shopping trip. But they looked kind of watery and undercooked. So I thought I would make one, using canned pumpkin I was sure was in my pantry.

Got home. Ready to bake. Looked through the entire house, basement and garage in all storage nooks, and no canned pumpkin.

Made another trip to the grocery store just for that item.

Baked the pie.

At dinner on T-Day everyone was stuffed and didn't want any pie!

Oh well!

[FistFullaRoux]

I had a forlorn and uneaten pumpkin pie.....

I never bake so thought I'd get a pumpkin pie from Wegman's, during my big shopping trip.  But they looked kind of watery and undercooked.  So I thought I would make one, using canned pumpkin I was sure was in my pantry. 

Got home.  Ready to bake.  Looked through the entire house, basement and garage in all storage nooks, and no canned pumpkin.

Made another trip to the grocery store just for that item. 

Baked the pie.

At dinner on T-Day everyone was stuffed and didn't want any pie! 

Oh well!

←

Sounds like breakfast for me!!!

[Jamie Lee]

I had a forlorn and uneaten pumpkin pie.....

I never bake so thought I'd get a pumpkin pie from Wegman's, during my big shopping trip.  But they looked kind of watery and undercooked.  So I thought I would make one, using canned pumpkin I was sure was in my pantry. 

Got home.  Ready to bake.  Looked through the entire house, basement and garage in all storage nooks, and no canned pumpkin.

Made another trip to the grocery store just for that item. 

Baked the pie.

At dinner on T-Day everyone was stuffed and didn't want any pie! 

Oh well!

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Sorry but this story made me cry - from laughter!

J.

[Josefinajoisey]

How was everyone's Thanksgiving? What were your culinary highlights (and lowlights)?

I was very pleased with my turkey this year. I placed a mess of onions, carrots, garlic cloves, fresh thyme, in the bottom of the pan, and kept up a continuing stream of broth. The veggies carmelized, which helped to give the turkey a beautiful brown during basting, and lent the gravy an unbeliveable color and taste. I was pleased. (and I'm usually my own worst critic)

Did anyone eat at a restaurant that served a particularly good meal?

[pansophia]

Oh what shame fell upon my head this Thanksgiving eve.

My family had a small celebration this year. There were two babies born this year so in-laws that had previously been silent came out of the shadows to glom on to the new families. That left my parents, my grandma, and me and my husband. (We being babyless and his parents being in England, no one fought to steal us away.)

I begged for pie duty, baking being my pride and joy. No, again no this year. Grandma buys the pie as that's how she feels involved. And no I couldn't bake a pie and lie to Grandma, not even if I let Mom keep the pie money.

My task instead, so basic and simple, was mashed potatoes. I am particular about my mash, preferring a smooth puree to lumps, a fact my mother feels she must bring up each year. If I am so picky, let me make them! (Forgetting that my husband makes the best mashed, but he had to work that morning.)

I thought I would try the method in the eGullet Potato Primer, after all it had fancy words like "retrograde the starches" and I excel at fanciness. I am smart enough to know not to try new techniques the day of the occasion but a migraine got in the way of my test, and perhaps got in the way of my common sense as well.

I have some theories as to what went wrong, for my own sake most of them hinge on the fact that my mother doesn't own a digital thermometer and I had to use an ancient candy thermometer for the second cooking cycle. I will blame that thermometer to my dying day.

We ended up with bits of par-boiled potato surrounded by lovely mashed potato. Oh yes, and it was cold by the time it got to the table.

I screwed up mashed potatoes. *sighs*

But! On the bright side, my mom panicked when she realized that her turkey didn't have a pop-up timer (ignoring my plea that they were worthless anyway) so I did manage to save the turkey from destruction by finding a lost and forgotten meat thermometer. It was 176 when I pulled it from the oven. A bit high and yet Mom still fretted about it being underdone while I explained carry over.

I may have saved the turkey, but I don't think I'll ever live down those semi-mashed potatoes.

[handmc]

Another T Day.

I was given a Williams-Sonoma brine and was expected to use it. I did, I shouldn't have. The turkey came out fine but flavor - Feh. I won't make that mistake again.

When I asked my M-I-L to make her sweet potatos that somehow turned into her telling my B-I-L that I thought his sweet potato cassarole sucked. The famous Yazmen Bleath recipe, no I am not kidding, and yes it does suck.

So passive agressive dishes behind us, dinner otherwise went per usual the same drill over and over again.

Some find that comforting, I find it tedious. I use to try to mix up the apps and soup but after a while I gave up on that.

My bold strokes this year, some decent cheese and salumi from Dean and Deluca and I made Pecan pie because I cannot eat another piece of pumpkin can again. I tried but was not permitted to work in a pasta course, sigh.

I puchased a wild boar leg and a fresh pork belly for dinner the next day, just to keep things new, but no Leftovers it was and my treats will clearly be for a differnt crowd.

I found a couple of decent new wines and a bottle of single barrel 126 proof Booker's Bourbon - the day was not a total loss.

I get the whole tradition thing, but come on already. My mom used to switch up the pies or the stuffing or the veg courses just to keep it interesting. It is a shame she and my pop are dead, it was always a good meal but the little changes every year were a nice surprise that made us look forward not only to the traditional but also that little surprise that kept things interesting. 15 years of the same drill, yawn.

[Rebecca263]

15 pound turkey, 3 people(1 person on chemotherapy, other 2 people-18 year old girls with a penchant for discounted high fashion and countless young men)

Plus, after an emergency hospital visit, we made and served:

cranberry relish

hashu (meat and rice stuffing, this one with apple & maple turkey sausage)

freshly mashed sweet potatoes with pineapple and a (vegan) marshmallow topping

roasted root vegetables

roasted rosemary kissed potatoes

roasted zucchini

mushroom and onion saute

steamed string beans

corn bread

roasted garlic gravy

and for dessert

vanilla loaf cake with a dark Scharffenberger swirl and crumb topping

chocolate pots

apple crumble

I ate: a bite of turkey and a bite of mushroom, a bite of hashu and a bite of string bean, and 2 bites of the broiled marshmallows.O:-)

Just as were about to sit down to this feast, our friends' runaway daughter called our home, after a 3 week absence. She is NOT home, but she is safe and well fed(thanks, Berkley California!) and her family and friends can finally breathe a tiny bit easier.

So, in conclusion, I spent half the day in the hospital, I got to cook a LOT,

no one ate much(so there are tons of leftovers!), and the meal congealed and had to be reheated completely because of the emotional telephone calls.

Oh, and my sister, who lives ten minutes from me, didn't show for dinner OR dessert, because I was napping when she called the house, and she didn't want to 'inconvenience' us.

And, of course, my #1boy ate his turkey in a federal prison.

Guess what? None of this mattered. Really. This was a great Thanksgiving!

I'm glad to be alive. And, let's face it, the house smelled GOOD.

[Dave the Cook]

I thought I'd skated through without major mishap, despite having missed the scalloped oysters (not a matter of leaving something in the kitchen; I just forgot about them once I'd brought them to the table). As I cleaned up tonight's dinner -- creamed turkey on split, toasted leftover rolls -- I must have been thinking about posting a question regarding the use of my now-superfluous six cups of roasted turkey stock, because I caught the lip of the bowl on a refrigerator shelf, and spilled a quart of it on said shelf, under the vegetable drawers and on the floor.

They say that pride goeth before a fall. I say that stock goeth before the pride, in mass quantities.

[HKDave]

Did a small dinner for 2 American friends who didn't realize that the real T'giving is a month earlier... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thanksgiving_(Canada) My main objective was to keep it simple enough that I didn't have to spend much time in the kitchen when the guest were here, and it worked out pretty well.

Only problem: limited turkey selection in HK. I ended up with the smallest one I could find, which was a 15lb monster. I have a small countertop oven. It was going to be a very tight fit. I ended up butchering the bird; the legs and bigger wing joints were confited a day ahead in a mix of goose fat and canola and re-heated in the oven on the day, and the breast was lightly salted, injected with a marinade (why brine when you can inject?) and roasted on mirepoix on the day, pulled at 155f and tented. The bones and wing tips went to the stock pot. Served the meat sliced and plattered. Worked very well, although I'll use a less-salty injectable marinade recipe next time.

Served with bread salad (Zuni Cafe recipe) instead of stuffing, brussel sprouts (blanched and shocked ahead of time, Bouchon recipe with addition of Neiman Ranch bacon lardons; what isn't improved by adding bacon?), maple glazed carrots and apple/cranberry chutney.

Dessert was some good store-bought vanilla ice cream with berries and warm homemade cookies. I made the dough ahead of time and fired the cookies at the last minute so people could smell the love baking while they were digesting the bird.

Leftovers: I still had 2/3 of that big bird, and a bucket of stock... some of the stock ended in a roast pumpkin soup and the rest will be turned in a turkey/orzo/veg soup. Most of the leftover breast is in tonight's spinach, turkey and mushroom lasagne and the rest will find its way into sandwiches. The remaining confit will be good for a few more days.

[pax]

I murdered the custard for my Cranberry Cognac Trifle and had to make do with Bird's.

I used the wrong setting on the food mill and my cranberry relish became cranberry sauce.

I wanted to find a use for the runny custard so I made up a pie tart and blind baked it and then put a layer of custard on top. I got that just set in the oven and poured a chocolate pecan layer in and then baked THAT.

Sadly, I had not allowed enough time in the par-baking of the custard layer, and that layer, and the swirlies I made on top of the chocolate pecan layer with yet MORE runny custard, both dissappeared into the chocolate peacan layer.

My family shocked me by gobbling the whole mess and have given it a name so it can be requested again...Runny Custard Chocolate Cake with Nuts ala Mom.

I have no idea if I could make it again.

PS: The runny custard made a FABULOUS french toast soaker.

[Rebecca263]

My family shocked me by gobbling the whole mess and have given it a name so it can be requested again...Runny Custard Chocolate Cake with Nuts ala Mom.

I have no idea if I could make it again.

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This is the truth for at least 20%of the recipes that leave my kitchen-- up that to 75% on the baked desserts! My daughter is STILL waiting for me to serve 'chocolate dipped, glazed apricot dolloped almond and cinnamon tea cookies'

again- it's been almost 7 years since I, um, 'devised' them, for a fundraiser.

[Toasted]

I almost blew up my sister's house at least three times. See, with a gas stove you need to click on the light button before turning it to the heat you need. If you don't, gas will just flow, without the flames, and it turns into a very dangerous kitchen. I have an electric stove at home and habits are habits. I'm just happy they didn't kick me out after the third time. I think I've got the hang of it now. Oh, and I almost burnt my sister's onion dish by mistakingly turning it up to high when I meant to turn it to low. It's amazing how a different stove can turn out to be so challenging!

[BekkiM]

Where to begin?

I made two turkeys this year (in part b/c the number of guests doubled after I bought the first, small, turkey and in part b/c I thought it would be fun to try two different brining recipes). The heritage turkey (which, at 10 lbs, set me back over $50) was done based on this year's Saveur magazine's cider-brined recipe. I won't be trying that again (although, on a side note, the stock with Calvados was to die for--until I forgot to put in the refrigerator due to an over-abundance of wine at dinner and had to pour it down the drain the next morning). For one thing, I don't think the cider-garlic flavor from the brine really penetrated at all and for another, the addition of 4 cups of wine to the roasting pan meant that the bird steamed and didn't develop any fond--so there was NO gravy! Toss that recipe in the trash.

The second turkey was maple-brined (I'm not sure where I found the recipe) and, while it tasted good, there wasn't enough fat on the free-range bird to create decent drippings. I ended up with very pale gravy--not what I was looking for.

I totally forgot to cook the carrots, I made up the cranberry sauce recipe at the last minute (consequently forgetting to add enough sugar--see the wine comment above), and my pecan pie didn't set in the center. Guests brought sour-cream apple pie (the apples were raw) and pumpkin pie (made with an uncarved, left-over pumpkin from Halloween--bleh), so dessert was a bit of a wash.

To top it all off, after dinner we wrapped the two turkey carcasses in clean garbage bags and shut them in a cooler on the back deck (temps were below freezing, so it seemed safe enough), but the dog managed to open the cooler latch and steal an entire turkey for himself, so there went my dreams of turkey stock.

On the other hand, both of my stuffing recipes (a "classic" from Saveur and a cornbread one from lord knows where) were both hits and the mashed potatoes tasted good. And the company was divine...