Thanksgiving prep-blog

[melkor]

Now I'm thinking - if he bought the pies on Saturday (knowing how bad they already are), won't they be that much worse on Thursday?!?!?!

I think grocery store pies stay in a constant state of badness for a fairly long period of time. I can't imagine they will get much worse.

[sammy]

There will be six of us - my parents, my in-laws, and the two of us. This should be interesting.

Make sure to secure all sharp objects before they arrive.

[Toliver]

There will be six of us - my parents, my in-laws, and the two of us. This should be interesting.

Make sure to secure all sharp objects before they arrive.

And open the wine early to make sure it tastes okay.

edited: to clarify

Edited November 24, 2003 by Toliver (log)

[Carolyn Tillie]

Now I'm thinking - if he bought the pies on Saturday (knowing how bad they already are), won't they be that much worse on Thursday?!?!?!

I think grocery store pies stay in a constant state of badness for a fairly long period of time. I can't imagine they will get much worse.

I've come to the conclusion that their best use will be for starting a food fight... (although for affect, I will have to add plenty of COOL WHIP before throwing!)

[melkor]

I've come to the conclusion that their best use will be for starting a food fight... (although for affect, I will have to add plenty of COOL WHIP before throwing!)

I think your being too hard on them - take a pumpkin pie and dust it with sugar then torch it. Pumpkin pie brulee kicks ass.

[melkor]

I'm itching to start cooking. If it were warmer outside I'd be out roasting some coffee, I'll get around to it in a bit. In the meantime I threw together a meyer lemon vinaigrette for the salad. I've got to watch some of the stuff queued up on Tivo before I'm hopelessly behind.

[bloviatrix]

There will be six of us - my parents, my in-laws, and the two of us. This should be interesting.

Make sure to secure all sharp objects before they arrive.

And open the wine early to make sure it tastes okay.

edited: to clarify

Actually, I'm very fortunate. The parents like each other and get along very well. As a matter of fact, my in-laws were supposed to join us with the rest of my family before the original plans got mangled.

Nonetheless, I will still be drinking.

[melkor]

Today we've got a bunch of prep work to do and a bunch of errands to run. Somehow I'd rather be rambling about that on this prepblog than actually doing any of it. I can't come up with much in the way of excuses for my continued procrastination, so I'm going to actually go get started.

[melkor]

The turkey is sitting in the fridge, in a giant pot full of brine. I suspect we'll have lots of leftovers, we ended up with an 18 pound bird. After a quick lunch we need to roast coffee, and make the pre-ferment for the focaccia.

[SethG]

I've come to the conclusion that their best use will be for starting a food fight... (although for affect, I will have to add plenty of COOL WHIP before throwing!)

I think your being too hard on them - take a pumpkin pie and dust it with sugar then torch it. Pumpkin pie brulee kicks ass.

You have four pies, which could make for some interesting expriments. You could brine two of the pies, then heat all four and see if you can tell the difference.

Or you could deep fry them!

[melkor]

I've come to the conclusion that their best use will be for starting a food fight... (although for affect, I will have to add plenty of COOL WHIP before throwing!)

I think your being too hard on them - take a pumpkin pie and dust it with sugar then torch it. Pumpkin pie brulee kicks ass.

You have four pies, which could make for some interesting expriments. You could brine two of the pies, then heat all four and see if you can tell the difference.

Or you could deep fry them!

I agree with Seth, you should brine them.

[melkor]

Pie crusts are in the fridge. The focaccia dough is on the counter warming up after it's night in the fridge. Tart dough is in the fridge. The onion soup is as made as it can be in advance - it just needs a re-heat, a crouton, and some cheese. The kitchen is clean again and it's time to think about breakfast.

[fifi]

Melkor... You are making me feel bad. I have miles to go before I sleep.

[melkor]

You've got plenty of time - thanksgiving is still plenty far away.

I'm expecting my camera to show up today, so I'll post some pics once I get it.

[Carolyn Tillie]

I've come to the conclusion that their best use will be for starting a food fight... (although for affect, I will have to add plenty of COOL WHIP before throwing!)

I think your being too hard on them - take a pumpkin pie and dust it with sugar then torch it. Pumpkin pie brulee kicks ass.

You have four pies, which could make for some interesting expriments. You could brine two of the pies, then heat all four and see if you can tell the difference.

Or you could deep fry them!

I agree with Seth, you should brine them.

The clincher came last night - along with the pies, my sister bought a roll-filled bread basket (literally, a basket made from bread dough) from Safeway... (explaining the boycott due to the strike obviously never sunk in).

Aggggh - store-bought rolls!?!?!!?!?

Fortunately, I have enough wine to numb me through the day.

[Squeat Mungry]

You've got plenty of time - thanksgiving is still plenty far away.

Thanks for that. I'm sitting here at the office in a panic because I blew off the Farmer's Market and still haven't bought brussels sprouts. I'm praying I can wedge myself into Golden Produce after work, and that they'll still have some decent sprouts!

Looking forward to the pictures! Thanks again for the blog.

Cheers

Squeat

[Lady T]

Two pumpkin pies in the oven now, due out 3 p.m. Maine time; butter crust for mince-plus-auxiliary-fruit (and maybe more booze) up next.

Gonna be fun tomorrow...happy bird day to all, if I don't make it back to the keyboard today or tomorrow!

[melkor]

The tarte and bourbon pecan pie are both done and are cooling. Pumpkin pie is on the way into the oven. Sweet potatoes are baking in the other oven.

[bloviatrix]

The apple-pear crumble is in the oven. The apartment is starting to smell of baking cinnamon and fruits. I love this smell.

Banana sorbet mixture is chilling in fridge. I plan on churning before I leave for the theater.

[melkor]

Turns out we didn't bake enough sweet potatoes, so another batch are in the oven now. The pumpkin pie is done, and we made a batch of meyer lemon sorbet.

[RosieAgrimony]

Wasn't there an article in the NYT last year or the year before on how to cheat at Thanksgiving using all store bought stuff? And, she/he took a couple of store pumpkin pies and made something out of them? Some other kind of pumpkin desert, but, I can't recall all the details.

[mighty quinn]

figured i'd blog in-cooked until 0230 this am- the only disaster was a bottle of prosecco fell out of the fridge and expoded in the kitchen. i volunteered to make turkey for work-i've got 2 15lb turkeys brining in coolers on my back porch as i'm posting. i made cornbread dressing for twenty five folks last night- found an easy reciipe in the washington post a few weeks ago- apples and apricots and sausage- the taste test was pretty good and it paired well with genesee cream ale (tough to find in the south!) made pumpkin bread pudding this afternoon and taste tested it with some neighbors- a first try and with no recipe-turned out dellish if i must say so myself. hope everyone has a succesful turkey day. victoria

[melkor]

My camera never showed up yesterday so I'll be without pictures it seems. The last thing we made last night was a batch of creamed spinach, which got forgotten on the stove while we had dinner. This morning we'll figure out how to disguise overcooked creamed spinach as something less gross. I need to fire up the smoker in 90min or so. In the meantime breakfast for the visiting family needs to be sorted out.

[melkor]

Potatoes are in the oven. The turkey left the smoker an hour or so ago and is now in the oven. Onion soup is on the stove. Stuffing is ready to go into the oven. The table is partly set. Things are coming along nicely.

[melkor]

Strangely, things went effortlessly. The food turned out well, the wine showed well, and there was very little to cleanup. Hopefully everyone else had an excellent turkeyday.