Friends, tell us something that happened today. Was there a kitchen mishap? Did you make something different because of smaller meal attendance and it turned out amazing (or horrible)? Are you drinking something tasty or already a little drunk?
Are you not in the US and you’re watching the plague rats gather with a sense of horror that many of our countryfolk are so goddamned stupid and selfish?
At the time of writing this post (around 1pm cst), I’m about to head over to my parents’ house for Thanksgiving dinner. There’s only 3 of us and I really don’t like meat but my dad is probably making a 20 lb turkey. In other years we made size-appropriate entrees but he’s trying to stick it to the “socialist liberal liars” trying to destroy family traditions with their “fake” stats about covid death rates and risks.
I’ll probably come home later and have something to update here after this post goes live.
So glad I never had to deal with that bullshit over the holidays growing up, because my mother’s side of the family is pretty functional and not insane. We avoided my father’s side of the family because they were the exact opposite.
Anyway, today we were able to do much of what we normally do in terms of food, but we tried a few different things, such as the chicken breasts instead of turkey, and some different sides. All told, everything came out just right. It’s just the two of us today so nothing particularly interesting happened–and honestly I like it that way.
I made my first ever Thanksgiving dinner solo. It was good! I made my MIL’s carrot casserole and it was not quite the same, but good. Also made my green bean casserole, crescent rolls, roasted spiced Brussels sprouts, and my first ever mashed potatoes. The potatoes were tasty, but the texture wasn’t quite as good as it could have been. Had a store bought pumpkin pie for dessert. Lildamnhero basically only ate the crescent rolls. Maybe ate two green beans. Oh well, he wasn’t my audience. I felt accomplished.
Looking forward to lots of leftovers. My favorite is pan frying leftover mashed potatoes with some parmesan… Mmm.
Good job BDH!
That’s awesome! Everything sounds good and I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Yaaaay and way to go, on cooking your first solo Thanksgiving Dinner, BDH!!
(Isn’t that an ACCOMPLISHED feeling?!?😁🤗💖)
It’s an AWESOME skill to level up in!😉😃🥳🥳💖
My sister asked me to bring too many pies. But “too many pies” is not a condition that exists within our plane of reality, so I can’t rightfully call it an incident, or, truly, even posit it as a theoretical state, since at no point can any quantity of pies be deemed excessive under any known physical laws. On a quantum level, this results in a supercondition known as “more pies for me.”
So, according to physics, no observable phenomenon occurred. This is an acceptable Thanksgiving outcome.
My work and loooong discussion on Slack about the piecaken phenomenon. Apparently one stacks a pecan pie, an apple pie, and a chocolate cake (cutting the edges off the pie crust to make them round) and then covers the entire stack in vanilla cream cheese frosting dusted with cinnamon. I think in this context it may be too much pie.
Science does not support your hypothesis.
Einstein is proud of you for these calculations. I’m proud of you, too.
I just finished watching Washington spank the Cowboys so that was fun.
I mixed a French Connection to try for the first time and have been sipping on it for about an hour but am still undecided as to whether or not I like it.
(Pauses to Google cocktail) well, that sounds like it go either way…Amaretto is tricky, at least for me, in a cocktail. We will await your final report. I am drinking some very good bourbon mixed with a little ginger ale. Cheers!
Final result: meh
I’m so tired and so full. I want to crawl into bed and sleep, but it’s a little too early for that. I did all the usual cooking and I even made a turkey breast for my dad and grandparents. I’ve never cooked one before, but they said it was good so that’s a win. I also bought some vegan eggnog and it was surprisingly good.
My emotions are a bit all over the place today so I think I’m going to spend the rest of the evening cuddled up with Cosmo watching Schitts Creek. I need some cheer and silliness in my life right now.
Nothing happened today and it was perfect.
Unlike you guys, I was working as the only thing we celebrate in Canada City for US Thanksgiving is Black Friday and unexplained absences of Cowboys fans or the odd Lions fan due to thanksgiving footbawl.
I am off tomorrow because I needed a day away from the stupid of dayshift. I am always thankful for that.
Also enjoyed being petty cause I was a petty dick to a coworker who specializes in acting as a petty dick. This coworker’s childish turning molehills into mountain games and finger pointing has cost me sleep and aggravation due to supervisors calling me and waking me up several times for minor mistakes that could have been handled with an email or note. Anyway, this week he buggered up a calculation (not a big deal, it was a matter of decimal places and normally I wouldn’t have said anything) and I caught it. Gleeful isn’t the word I would describe my tone when I explained the mistake to my supervisor, but it was close. My supervisor was glad to have this because Mr Petty Dick has been a thorn/irritant to him as well. I was not there to witness Mr Petty Dick’s petty dicking, but I was told he didn’t enjoy it and was quite upset about someone making his mistake a public spectacle.
Gee… I feel “bad”.
Friends! Today I got to hear about how the evil governor of California has forced grocery stores to close because they aren’t essential businesses and he’s trying to prevent families from celebrating Thanksgiving together!
Also after hearing my parents complain for half an hour about pre-packaged foods and how they aren’t real food, they proceeded to make instant potatoes with dinner. The cognitive dissonance is great with them. In many ways.
Haha that’s amazing. Well, amazing in an I’m-glad-I-didn’t-have-to-be-there sort of way. I have no patience for any of that.
I mean it helps me understand non-wealthy republicans better, if nothing else.
Understand or just experience? None of the republicans I know are wealthy and I don’t understand it at all! Except for the ones that are religious, but that’s not even all of them :/
I changed my menu at the last minute and went with a southern style Thanksgiving for a change. I bought a smoked turkey, and then made homemade cornbread, smothered calabaza squash, sautéed kale with garlic, mac n’ (not)cheese, cranberry sauce, and had some Chardonnay on the side. It all turned out super yummy. Lots of dishes though. Oh and this morning I made a pumpkin chai spice pie.
Just the two of us for a change, and it has been low-key and wonderful. Great meal, and lots of wine, music, and dog-snuggles. One of the best ever.
We’re in food-stupor over here right now😉😂🤣
I’m feeling pretty damn jazzed, too, because I managed to cook around *multiple* food allergies today, and NOT kill anyone, or even make them even mildly ill!😁🤗🥳
One roommate has allergies to apples, tree nuts, shellfish, and assorted other things, and the pther roommate’s mom–who is also her PCA–is anaphylaxis-level allergic to cows’ milk products…
And y’all KNOW me, and my love of allllll things dairy!🥴
Roommie’s mom is gooooood though!
She’s a total foodie, and has had the allergy for years, so she knows ALL the good brands of dairy-free stuff.😁🤗🥳
We got Earth Balance’s “butter”-like product, and I was able to use that in her batch of mashed potatoes (along with some Penzey’s/Diamond Crystal kosher salt, and Chicken Stock, to round out the flavors).
We did some parsnips as an additional (NON-deadly!😉) veggie side, and a salad made of baby spinach, mandarins, red onion, toasted sesame, & bacon.
And we went with Cornish Game Hens, rather than turkey, because 1. I didn’t really feel like making a whole-ass turkey this year, AND 2. we all love Game Hens, but none of us had had them in a loooonnng while.
I made my “herbed butter” using the usual fresh herbs (sage, rosemary & thyme), and some dried tarragon, with the other Earth Balance–the Pressed Olive Oil spread (instead of regular butter), for under the skin of the birds.
I was REALLY happy with how today’s “herb butter” turned out. It was really close in texture to my regular dairy-butter herbed butter, and it worked just like my usual dairy version does😁
The gravy was a flour-roux/Earth Balance Butter-base (the yellow package), with the drippings from the Game Hens.
We DID have some turkey with our meal–my dressing recipe uses gizzards/giblets whichever is easiest (this year Turkey gizzards), and I also got a package of turkey tails, to cook on top of the dressing (they get a bit of the herbed butter rubbed on, then some salt, pepper, garlic powder & onion powder).
The other two sides were mashed potatoes *my* way (with half a block of Neufchatel, a large “blop” of sour cream, and half a stick of butter, then a bit of milk to make it all creamy)… and my version of green bean casserole–two cans of cut green beans, two French style (all thoroughly drained!), two cans of cream of mushroom soup, a large “blop” of sour cream, and the half-package of neufchatel, left over from the ‘taters😉, and of course, with the package of French’s fried onions added on top, once everything was all warmed-through, and the cream cheese was fully incorporated.🤗
We’ve got LOTS of leftovers, which makes everyone happy, AND we have pies and cranberry sauce for eating with the leftovers later on, too😁
Remember The Better Half’s brownies? They came out really well. He used a Ghirardelli dark double chocolate mix or something like that. By the time they came out they were only half as thick as the batter in the loaf pan would have suggested. I guess the batter naturally condenses to make the brownies super dense. They’re meant to go in an 8X8 pan but there are also directions for using a 13X9 pan (the other standard) and honestly I think I you did that you’d have something the consistency of matzoh or something.
The only thing is when you bake with silicone you don’t need to grease the pans, the end product will release easily, but he sprayed down the loaf pan down with Pam and you can faintly taste it, but that’s very minor.
I bought a rotisserie chicken breast from The Jewels (Chicagoans know), Hawaiian rolls, made instant mashed taters, and homemade cranberry sauce. Oh, and a pumpkin pie! And spent yesterday blissfully alone. I’ll probably have the food for over a week. I started to put up my tree and watched cult documentaries. Perfect.
Jewel! Oh, I miss Jewel. I grew up shopping at Dominick’s but when they went all la-di-da in the late 90’s we switched to Jewel and discovered that the Jewel deli stuff was better!