Fakesgiving

by

I (98%) Nailed It

Y’all, Thanksgiving is exhausting.

I don’t know if it was the stress of having family over… Or the anxiety about cooking a perfect Thanksgiving meal all by myself… Or the physical exertion from standing on my feet in front of a hot stove all day (yes, I am THAT out of shape)…

But I am STILL tired.

Yet you, beloved Internet, deserve a full and detailed recap, bullets style. So I will persevere, for you!

Also, WARNING, there are a LOT of bullets. Seriously. There are so many I didn’t even count them.

Okay, my OCD won out. There are 20. Without even TRYING.

*Preparations began on Saturday, when I did my first round of Thanksgiving shopping. I wanted to buy the items on my list that wouldn’t spoil/grow moldy/otherwise decay before Thursday. As in NO VEGETABLES. However, when I saw some bagged celery hearts on sale, I surrendered and bought two, hoping mightily that they would not get brown and shrivelly before I had to serve them. Spoiler Alert: They turned out fine.

Shockingly, the grocery store was super busy. Everyone and their brother had a giant cart filled with canned pumpkin and bags of potatoes and turkeys. So I picked a lane and stood patiently in line for 20 minutes. Then I had a Super Awkward Encounter with the grocery store bagger when she looked directly at me and said “This lane is closed.” I think I may have almost fainted at the prospect of joining the end of another long line of 12,000 Thanksgiving shoppers. So I may have glared at her and said, “But my stuff is already on the belt!” And then avoided eye contact with her as I spitefully helped the wheelchair-bound woman behind me load all HER stuff onto the belt.

Turns out, Internet, the bagger was talking to someone behind the woman behind me. She told me this as she was bagging my groceries. AWKWARD. I promise I tried to make up for my grouchfacedness and spiteful conveyor-belt-loading by being extra nice and cheery.

*Sunday I made the stuff I felt wouldn’t go bad by Thursday. This included some spiced nuts.

Hmmm. The spiced nuts aren’t going to win any America’s Next Top Model competitions anytime soon.

Then I added some Lipton Recipe Secrets Savory Herb with Garlic soup mix to some sour cream. (By the way, I can NEVER find this soup mix at the grocery. NEVER. WTF, Internet?) Easy peasy. And super delicious. It’s equally good on veggies and chips.

*Monday, I did my second round of shopping after work. This is when I bought all the perishable stuff – veggies, cheese, bagels, lox, bread products. I’m sure the two extra days between my first round and second round made a world of difference in the freshness of my meal.

Whilst in the grocery, I may or may not have had to ask a Random Dude for advice about which lox to buy. Because seriously Internet? How is a non-lox eater supposed to determine the difference between Irish smoked salmon and Norwegian smoked salmon? Especially because the ingredients are IDENTICAL. Stop screwing with me, smoked salmon industry!

I may or may not have bought two entire bottles of Prosecco. Lesson of the day: Alcohol will not make you less of a control freak.

I also may or may not have purchased an entire small bag of real, full-fat Lays so I could “sample” my sour cream dip.

*My in-laws arrived on Tuesday. They kindly took my husband and me out to a delicious dinner. After dinner, I chopped up the bread for the stuffing.

My mom pointed out that bread comes PRE CHOPPED for stuffing! Did you guys know about that? And possibly tell me about it waaaaay back when I was doing my Fakesgiving extravaganza? That is awesome.

However… My husband really wanted cornbread in the stuffing per my earlier attempts. So, since chopping up bread takes about 5 minutes, I skipped the Easy Cheaper Option and went with the More Difficult One.

*Wednesday, I went to Whole Foods at 8:00 am to pick up my turkey breast, some gravy, and some fresh flowers. Then I had to go to ANOTHER grocery store to get Pepsi One for my mother-in-law. (She didn’t ask me to, but I know she drinks that because it doesn’t have nutrasweet or something, so I wanted to be sure to have some on hand.) (By the way, we now have 10 cans of Pepsi One. Anybody want it?)

When I got home, I cut the very minimum off the stems of the fresh flowers and shoved them haphazardly into vases. Here is what one of the vases looked like:

Then I may or may not have eaten the small bag of Lays chips and some sour cream dip for breakfast.

Then I put in a full day of work.

*After work ended, I made a quick batch of butternut squash soup and a side salad and welcomed my in-laws over for dinner. Keep in mind that this was the first time ever that my in-laws had eaten something I’d made for them. It was… nerve wracking. For all involved, I’m sure.

But my mother-in-law, bless her heart, liked the soup so much that she asked for the recipe! That’s a big compliment. And she helped me in the kitchen by tasting the soup until I’d added the proper level of salt. (My husband and I eat very little salt, so my homemade stuff often ends up being under-salted. It was helpful to have her there to taste test.)

Please keep in mind that my husband was on call. Which means he was at the hospital, where he stayed the entire night, not returning until 3:00 pm Thanksgiving Day.

*After dinner, we watched Letters from Juliet. Which had some beautiful scenery. That’s all I’m going to say about that.

Then my in-laws headed back to their hotel, to return the next day at 11:30 am.

*After they left, I did the dishes, chopped all my veggies for the following day, and put everything into storage containers. Then I labeled them things like “veggies for turkey” or “veggies for stuffing” or “garlic for mashed potatoes.” You know, in case I died or was otherwise incapacitated and my mother-in-law had to take over. Yes. Labeling the veggies was absolutely critical

I made cranberry sauce. (See: Going with the More Difficult Option) Then I made my husband’s famous pumpkin bars.

I thought about vacuuming the apartment one more time, but considering it was 2:00 am, I decided against it. To my noisy upstairs neighbors: You’re welcome.

*When I woke up Thursday morning, I hauled my laptop into bed and wrote out my detailed Day-Of Timeline. (Yes, I am a Control Fah-reak.) (In Unsurprising Revelation of the Day, I also had an extensive day-of timeline for my wedding. Which NO ONE FOLLOWED.) (GAH.) I will share it with you if you are so inclined. (My Thanksgiving timeline. Not the wedding one.) (Although you can have that too if you are a masochist.)

While you may choose to roll your eyes at my analitude, the schedule was AWESOME. It kept me totally on track. But more than that, it forced me to read all of my recipes in great detail. Which I am not very good at. (Hmm… Does this shed any light on my past experiences with Crappy Cooking?)

Then I took a shower and got ready. (Yes, that was on the schedule.)

(Man this bullet has a lot of parentheses.)

I contemplated opening some Prosecco to make mimosas… but decided that spending two hours drinking before my in-laws arrived would be detrimental to my cooking skills.

*After NOT drinking a mimosa, I made some candied pecans for the salad.

(Yes, these are different than the spiced nuts I made for appetizers.)

I washed and peeled all the potatoes and sweet potatoes and put them in big pots of water to keep until I was ready to chop and cook them.

Admittedly, I was concerned about pre-peeling the potatoes and sweet potatoes. But, as you already know, I am Super Particular About Weird Stuff. And one of the things I am Super Particular About is peeling potatoes. So I really really really wanted that out of the way.

I’d heard that you could store peeled potatoes in water. So back during one of my Fakesgiving sessions, I peeled a lone potato and put it in a water-filled Tupperware overnight, as a test. The potato was totally fine – not a spot of brown anywhere!

But then I chickened out when it came to Real Thanksgiving. Not only would I be storing the peeled potatoes in a metal pot rather than a plastic Tupperware… But I’d also be storing ALL of my potatoes. I didn’t want to chance Massive Potato Browning of all my potatoes (hello Thanksgiving DISASTER), so I waited until the day of to throw them in water.

Are you getting the sense that I tend to over think things? Just a bit?

*After I’d done all this stuff, I looked around and realized I had nothing to do. I’d planned so well, I had a Big Lull in my day.

My in-laws were set to be there at 11:30, but they were running a little late.

After standing around going crazy with all the Doing Nothing, I decided to get the Washing of the Turkey out of the way. I figured I could wash it, put it in a bowl, cover it with a towel, and then it would be all set to dump into the roaster when I needed it.

So I opened up the turkey, gagged a little bit as I tried to squeeze out the bloody juice (???!?!) into the sink, and promptly had my first panic attack of the day.

When I did my first Fakesgiving practice meal, I bought two turkey breasts at Whole Foods. But they were basically like larger, skin-on versions of the boneless, skinless chicken breasts you can buy at any grocery store. They weighed about 2.5 pounds each and all I had to do with them was pat them with a paper towel and drop them in the roaster.

But for Real Thanksgiving, I’d allowed my husband to talk me into a 7-10 pound BONE-IN turkey breast from Whole Foods.

I don’t know what I expected, but I surely did NOT expect this giant thing that actually looked like a whole turkey. It even had a CAVITY, Internet, which was one of the things I was trying to avoid. (At least it didn’t have any giblets.) (Blech.)

So I called my mom and may or may not have awakened my father because they are in a different time zone and may or may not have hyperventilated a little bit asking what I should do with this stupid thing.

She was very calm and knowledgeable and walked me through it. Bless her heart… She even suggested multiple creative ways I could touch the turkey without touching it. (Making makeshift “gloves” with cling wrap was on the list.) Then I hung up and stabbed the breast on either side with the multi-pronged “turners” that came with my roaster and carefully washed it without a) touching it or b) dropping it.

*When I got The Call that my in-laws were on the move, I set the table and put out the lox, bagels, cream cheese, capers, onions, and lemon slices.

My in-laws got there, we ate some bagels etc. (By the way, I can’t stand lox but I do like an everything bagel slathered in cream cheese and dotted with capers and diced red onions.) Then I banished ushered them to the couch and gave them my wedding album to drool over.

Internet, I thought it would be a delightful distraction. It was… For all of 10 minutes.

However, that was enough time for me to do the dishes and set the table with my “good linen” and my beautiful china.

Then I moved on to the next step on my Day-Of Timeline, which was getting the turkey all set to go in the oven.

I tossed my “veggies for turkey” into the roaster. I melted some butter in the microwave. (Without exploding it! Whoo hoo!) Then I used my (freshly washed) multi-pronged turner thingabobs to lift the (freshly washed) turkey into the roaster. Shortly thereafter, the turkey was safely in the oven.

Once again, I had a Big Lull.

*Per my Mission to Make My Mother-in-Law Feel Useful without Driving Myself Crazy, I asked my MIL to turn my bouquet-o-flowers into some lovely centerpieces.

This is where I encountered Flaw 2 in my plan: My apartment is so small that the ONLY place where my MIL could do the flower arranging was in the kitchen.

She very kindly agreed to do the arrangements and then set up camp in the kitchen. She proceeded to make some lovely centerpieces….

While I sort of stood there and watched. (See above RE: Big Lull)

*After that, things went pretty much like clockwork. I made the mashed potatoes, then the sweet potatoes, then the stuffing.

There was only a slight Sweet Potato Mishap, due to the fact that sweet potatoes are HARD to cut, even with a giant knife. And I may have dropped two sweet potato halves on the floor. One of them I felt comfortable washing (with soap, which my mother-in-law found quite novel [read: Crazy town]) and then re-peeling. The other one, well, I just couldn’t do it. It was too small and my mother-in-law peeled it but only peeled the side that touched the floor instead of the whole thing and she didn’t wash it with soap and I knew that I wouldn’t be able to eat the sweet potatoes if it went in there.

(Side Note of Weirdness: My MIL asked me, straight out, if it would bother me to have that other fallen sweet potato in the casserole. She told me that if it would bother me, I should just throw it away. And she said it in a very calm and kind and totally understanding way. But I couldn’t admit to her that it bugged me! [Why? I do not know! Clearly I have no problem admitting it to YOU.] I let her rinse it and peel it and set it down on the counter… And then I threw it away when she wasn’t looking. And now that I told the Internet about it, she will know all about it. But I’m hoping she will forgive me because she already knows I am wackadoo.)

My husband got home. My mother-in-law helped me adjust levels of seasoning in my potatoes. Which involved many spoons for tasting because I do NOT use a tasting spoon twice until it has been through the dishwasher thank you very much. And my mother-in-law – god help her – was very patient with my weirdness even though we wasted used about 8 spoons in the whole Salting the Mashed Potatoes Escapade.

At some point, she made homemade whipped cream for her chocolate soufflé cake (which she somehow brought on the airplane!).

My father-in-law chilled the wine.

All was good in the world.

*At one point, all four of us were in the kitchen and I had to shoo the men out because it was too crowded, but I did so in a way that was cute and friendly rather than panicky. (At least, I HOPE it was cute and friendly!)

My timeline was keeping me right on track, my mother-in-law was hovering but clearly trying as hard as she could to stay out of my way.

So I asked if she thought we needed candles on the table and gave her free rein to poke through the Assorted Beautiful Candlesticks that we got for our wedding. She picked a pair of crystal beauties my husband’s grandmother got for us and I think the table looked quite fetching.

*And then I made the gravy.

Internet, making gravy is simple. You squish all the veggies from under the turkey through a sieve. You make a roux with butter and flour. You add the drippings plus some chicken stock plus some bay leaves and cook until thickened to the desired consistency. Salt and pepper to taste. Bada bing, bada boom.

Easy. Super mind-numbingly easy.

(Do you hear the foreboding music yet?)

My directions said to cook the roux on high heat for five minutes. I’d done it BEFORE, following the EXACT SAME INSTRUCTIONS.

But I somehow got distracted. I think my mother-in-law was asking if there was anything she could do, and I was saying that no, I had it all under control, and I was trying to squeeze extra juice from the under-turkey-veggies while keeping an eye on the roux and my mother-in-law VERY KINDLY offered to do the dishes, which was very nice because who wouldn’t give up the dish washing part of Thanksgiving in a heartbeat? and I was looking at the counter which was crowded with Resting Turkey and Sieve with Under-Turkey Veggies and envisioning a scenario where little bits of scrubbed-off food particles were flung from the scrub brush and landing on the turkey or in the veggie mixture, and all of a sudden I turned around and the roux was smoking.

I grabbed it off the stove, in as nonchalant a way as anyone can whisk a pot full of acrid smoke off a stove, and plunged it into the sink and filled it with water.

Which, Internet, was DUMB with a capital D, because that just caused even MORE smoke to pour from the pot and completely take over the entire apartment.

Of course, the fire alarm – which hasn’t gone off EVER since we’ve lived here – started making its ear-splitting shriek of doom. And my father-in-law and husband started coughing and choking on all the smoke and we had to open all the windows and doors and allow the frigid air to come in and draw some of the smoke out.

I maintained my false aura of Intense Calm and Nonchalance and simply started a new roux in a new pot.

My MIL kindly and cheerfully recounted some tale of Entertainment Disasters Past when she burned a chicken or something. I can’t quite remember the story, but I do remember that it made me feel slightly better.

Because it is hard, Internet, to make a whole Thanksgiving dinner with only one little mistake and not feel like a Thanksgiving Failure.

*The turkey came out all golden brown and delicious smelling, and I put the dressing and the sweet potatoes in the oven. My husband carved the turkey, I set out serving dishes full of all the Thanksgiving goodness, and we all sat down to eat.

Yeah, that’s another view of the table. I didn’t include any time for picture taking in my Day-Of Timeline.

It was a big hit. My husband said the turkey was even better and more moist than it had been during Fakesgiving. My MIL praised everything, my FIL gave a very honest run down of everything – the potatoes were buttery, the turkey was delicious, the stuffing was rosemary-y, etc – and everyone had seconds. The only thing that anyone expressed real HATRED toward was the cranberry cheddar cheese I’d crumbled on the salad. And that person was my husband.

*After stuffing my face, I suddenly felt like I was going to fall asleep right there at the table. My in-laws left shortly after dinner and I went to bed and slept until 9:00 the next morning.

We spent the day with the in-laws, going to The Social Network (which I LOVED and my husband was meh about) and then doing a little shopping. My MIL praised my cooking to the proprietor of the store we went to (she’d known him for years).

Then we visited some friends of my in-laws and my MIL praised my cooking AGAIN and asked for the recipe for my turkey in front of her friend and I felt totally pleased and proud.

Also: Tired.

*After my in-laws left on Saturday, my husband had to work on his fellowship applications and I had to work on a big work project due Monday. Sunday, he went to the hospital all day and I worked on my big work project.

I am still tired.

And the good china is still sitting next to the sink. Unwashed.

DON’T JUDGE.

*Verdict? Cooking Thanksgiving dinner is not difficult but it is EXHAUSTING.

And there you have it, Internet. The big Thanksgiving dinner, for which I spent months preparing and stressing over, has come and gone.

I felt under control (for the most part). The food turned out well. I felt like I was doing justice to the proud Thanksgiving traditions my mom and my husband’s mom have always so admirably and effortlessly tackled.

Best of all, no one died or got food poisoning.

Overall, I’d say it was a success.

But man, I wish I hadn’t burned the gravy.

by

Fakesgiving, Take 3 (Could This Be the FINAL Take?!?!?!?!)

Updated: Somehow, WordPress ate all the photos… So let’s try this again so you can actually SEE the magic…

(Fakesgiving Take 1)

(Fakesgiving Take 2)

Well Internet, I’m done with my pre-Thanksgiving cooking fiasco fiesta!

Someone who shall remain nameless may have mentioned this weekend that perhaps we should have done Practice Thanksgiving a few months ago. So we wouldn’t be sick of Thanksgiving food the week before we have to gorge ourselves with it.

Someone else who shall remain nameless may have flown into a rage gotten a wee bit irritated and pointed out that in fact WE did not make Practice Thanksgiving… Nay, I made Practice Thanksgiving, and I made it when my work schedule permitted, and WE should shut up because WE loved having turkey and stuffing sandwiches for lunch every day for a week.

Also, did I not mention this to you guys? It is rather important: My husband will be on call, overnight, on Wednesday. So it is unlikely that he will be in the apartment AT ALL on Thanksgiving Day, at least until after noon.

So, no help from him. (Although if he gets done with work early, I am putting him on Parent Entertainment Duty.)

In other news: I am sick of Thanksgiving food.

I don’t actually like Thanksgiving food all that much. Which is weird, because when I think of childhood Thanksgivings, the thought of my mom’s turkey and mashed potatoes makes me drool. But when I make it? Not so much.

Anyway.

On Monday night, I made sweet potatoes with marshmallows, my mom’s goat-cheese-and-garlic mashed potatoes, and “traditional” stuffing. (See here for the background on the whole stuffing debacle.)

There was only one near catastrophe!!!!!!1!!!!

But since then, things have steadily gone downhill. See the below photo for pictorial evidence.

I think this is the universe trying to tell me that I need to clean my kitchen floor more often.

Mental Note: If there’s enough dish soap in the bottom of a dish to make you go, “Eh… It’s just soap, it’ll wash out.” You need to wash it out BEFORE you stick it in the dishwasher. Otherwise the dishwasher will belch soap all over your floor while you are at the grocery store buying frozen pizza, wine, and Rolos.

What? I told you Internet, it’s been A WEEK.

Also, can you see how tiny my kitchen is in the photo above? It is a one-person kitchen.

ONE PERSON, Internet.

Anyway, back to the Fakesgiving.

Guess what? Mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and traditional dressing are EASY!

Woot woot!

I got my mom’s recipe for her garlic and goat cheese mashed potatoes. You are going to love this. (My comments in parentheses.)

Mom’s Garlic & Goat Cheese Mashed Potatoes

Step 1: Get two potatoes per person. (I used Yukon gold because America’s Test Kitchen told me too.)

Step 2: Peel them. (I wash my potatoes with soap and warm water before I peel them. Anyone else that weird? Anyone?)

Step 3: Boil some water. (Eat some of the magical lemon pudding cake my husband made in a fit of domesticity on Sunday night.)

Step 4: Quarter the potatoes. (Realize you should have waited to peel them because they are turning a mysterious reddish color.)

Step 5: Grab a big ol’ head of garlic. Peel all the cloves. (Mmmmmmm garlic.) (Yes, a whole head.)

Step 6: Put the garlic and potatoes in the water and boil until an inserted fork slides out with no resistance. (I think this took about 20 minutes?)

Step 7: Drain the potatoes. (Note: It is easier to pour a giant pot of boiling water into a standing colander than to try, with one hand, to maneuver the pot of boiling water into a small strainer held in the other hand.)

Step 8: Return the potatoes and the garlic to the pot. Add 4 ounces of goat cheese and ½ cup of milk to the pot. Squish everything together with a potato masher. (Sneak in a few tablespoons of butter for good measure.)

Step 9: Salt and pepper to taste. (Make sure to do multiple taste tests to “get the flavors and consistency right.”)

Step 10: Transfer the mashed potatoes to a baking dish.

Easy peasy. And delicious.

The sweet potatoes were just as simple!

I adapted my recipe from America’s Test Kitchen.

Mrs. Doctor’s Totally Untested Marshmallow-Topped Sweet Potatoes

Step 1: Peel some sweet potatoes. (Again with the washing before peeling.)

Step 2: Cut the sweet potatoes in quarters lengthwise, then cut them into ¼ inch pieces. (Try your hardest not to throw one of the sweet potatoes on the floor.)

Step 3: Put 4 tablespoons of butter in a saucepan. Melt the butter on low. (Or medium, until you actually read the recipe and see it says, very clearly, LOW.)

Step 4: Add  two tablespoons of whole milk, 1 teaspoon of sugar, and ½ teaspoon of salt to the butter. (Also add in a teaspoon of cinnamon and a generous shake of nutmeg. Just for kicks.)

Step 5: Cook on low (or medium, whatevs) for 35 minutes, or until a fork inserted into the sweet potatoes comes out with no resistance.

Step 6: Squish everything together with a potato masher. (Or a fork, if the potato masher is in the dishwasher and you don’t feel like handwashing it.)

Step 7: Scrape the squished sweet potatoes into a baking dish.

Step 8: Put a bunch of marshmallows on top.

Step 9: Put the marshmallow-topped sweet potatoes into a 400-degree oven. (NOT a 525-degree oven, dear god no.)

(This is what happens if you ignore that last instruction:)

(Yes, those are broiled marshmallows. NOT charcoal briquettes.)

Step 10: Watch the sweet potatoes VERY CAREFULLY until the marshmallows are puffy and golden-brown. (Do NOT sit on the couch and watch How I Met Your Mother until smoke comes pouring out of the oven. See: Above photo.)

Step 11: Remove the dish from the oven. (OR, remove the dish from the oven, getting burned, melty marshmallows all over your pot holder, and then scrape burned marshmallows off the top into the sink, and then add new marshmallows to the top and repeat steps 8 through 11.)

And the “traditional” dressing? SO EASY TOO!

I got the dressing recipe from The Pioneer Woman. But it’s very, very simple.

The Pioneer Woman’s “Traditional” Thanksgiving Stuffing

(Note: I was a little loosey goosey with this recipe. See PW’s site for the correct measurements of everything.)

Step 1: Get some cornbread and some crusty French bread. Cut all the bread into bite-sized chunks and set on a cookie sheet to dry overnight.

Step 2: Dice a whole white onion and two (ish) cups of celery.

Step 3: Melt a whole stick of butter (I just used half a stick, but I used half the bread, too.) in a big pan on the stove.

Step 4: Toss the veggies into the melted butter. Cook until translucent.

Step 5: Cut up some fresh rosemary and thyme.

Step 6: Add 4 cups of chicken stock to the pan. Let it come to a boil.

Step 7: Add the herbs plus ½ teaspoon of dried basil to the pan.

Step 8: Stir to combine. (Become confused. Is that really all there is to it? Allow the chicken stock mixture to reduce by half whilst doing dishes.)

Step 9: Put the bread chunks into a bowl (or your oven-proof serving dish of choice) and mix them around.

Step 10: Add the chicken stock mixture until the bread has the appropriate consistency.

Step 11: Bake at 350 degrees for 20 to 25 minutes or until golden brown on top.

So. Freaking. Easy.

And yet, not super photogenic.

I mean, the other stuffing was awesome. (Except for the soggy bread part of it, I mean.) But it was INVOLVED. Lots of chopping and ingredients and yada yada. This was so simple!

And my husband loved it! He deemed it perfectly traditional.

He also enjoyed the sweet potatoes and mashed potatoes.

And then I took a sample of the mashed potatoes and the stuffing to my book club. The ladies all took minuscule portions to taste, and deemed it good.

And then told me that, guess what? You can BUY STUFFING PRE MADE!!!

Yes, thank you. Good plan.

(Clearly they don’t realize I am a big fan of Doing Things the Hard Way.)

Now that I have made all the separate elements of Thanksgiving dinner, I feel good. I feel confident. I know the Potential Fire Causing Elements, so I will keep a close eye on them.

But I am a little… anxious about how to put it all together. I have been making shopping lists… And I’m trying to create a schedule, so I know what I can chop/prepare ahead of time… And I’m trying to lay out all the cleaning things I need to do in advance.

So now all that’s left is for me to figure out appetizers (although I’m thinking VERY EASY stuff, like spiced nuts and veggies with dip and some cheese and crackers). I’m going to make butternut squash soup for dinner the night before Thanksgiving, possibly with a small salad.

Speaking of which… I’d like to have a salad for Thanksgiving Day as well. My mom gave me a recipe for a simple Waldorf salad, and I found a delicious-sounding salad recipe that I can pretty much prepare in advance. So I will have to run those by my husband to see what he thinks his parents would prefer.

For dessert, I’ll be making my husband’s amazing pumpkin bars.

I think I’ll also see if my mother-in-law wants to pick something up – something chocolate. (She likes having a chocolate dessert.)

I would like to have a Signature Thanksgiving Drink. Something with ingredients and measurements, so I can ask my mother-in-law to make it. Therefore, it should also be something involving gin. (We may have our differences, but gin unites us!)

Anybody have any ideas?

Now, all I need is for work to cooperate. Which is unlikely, seeing as this is The Busiest Time of the Year. Which is good but anxiety-producing at the same time.

Wow. This post really detoured into the Excruciatingly Boring there didn’t it? (Don’t answer that.)

Let me distract you with some lemon pudding cake!

It doesn’t look like much, but it is seriously amazing. But the story of the pudding cake shall have to wait until another day.

Okay, that’s a lie. There’s not really a story. I’m just sick of typing out recipes. Perhaps as sick of it as you are of reading them.

Is anyone still here? Bueller?

Anyway, I am READY for Thanksgiving. Ready for it to be OVER.

(You: Seriously. Then maybe you will talk about something else.)

(Me: Unlikely.)

(You: Doh!)

Have a fabulous Friday and a lovely weekend, Internet. If you need me, I’ll be cleaning my apartment. Perhaps I can encourage my dishwasher to vacuum the living room. It did such a nice job on the kitchen floor, after all…

by

Fakesgiving, Take 2 (Sadly, This Is Not the Last Take)

(Take 1 found here.)

(Take 3 found here.)

Do you want the Bad News, the Good News, or the Really Good News first?

Let’s start with the Good News:

I neither burned down my apartment nor poisoned my husband!

The Bad News:

I have to find a new stuffing recipe. (More on that in a minute.)

And finally, the Really Good News:

Gravy is AWESOME.

I may have mentioned it a time or two thousand before, but I had never eaten gravy until a few weeks ago in an IKEA cafeteria.

That’s right.

I had never eaten gravy before. Not even during the graviest of gravy days, Thanksgiving.

Now, I know your first impulse is to blame my parents.

How could they allow such a thing to happen? Someone call child services!

In fact, they had nothing to do with the lack of gravy in my life.

My mother, bless her heart, made gravy each and every Thanksgiving. And each and every Thanksgiving, I ignored it.

Now, I can’t 100% remember what my mom used to make the gravy… But I suspect it may have included giblets. Even if it did not, in fact, have anything to do with giblets, I may have thought it did. Perhaps this is why I eschewed gravy for so long.

Also, gravy looks a little like mucus.

YES I WENT THERE.

Anyway, I made gravy last night. Per the instructions from America’s Test Kitchen. And it was AH-MAY-ZING.

Also, super easy.

But, you know, mucus-like.

The other things I made for Fakesgiving were cranberry sauce, stuffing, and turkey.

Now, several people seemed quite miffed that I made the cranberry sauce from scratch rather than simply use the jarred stuff.

I understand their miffed-ness. After all, it can’t get much easier than opening a can.

But as much as I like to take the easy route, I like to take the difficult route.

For one thing, I like to appear “fancy” and “gourmet” and “like I know what I’m doing.”

For another, I like to know what’s in the thing that I’m eating. And there’s really no better way to know exactly what you’re putting in your mouth than to make it yourself.

This is the same principle behind the elaborate stuffing recipe I made.

I have never eaten stuffing, either. Well, maybe one or two bites. And that’s precisely because it looks like a big goopy mess of unidentifiable stuff. (This is just the nature of stuffing – I am not criticizing stuffing.)

If there’s anything I can’t stomach, it’s unidentifiable goop.

So when I saw the Pioneer Woman’s recipe, and noticed that it had all sorts of deliciousness – like Italian sausage and roasted mushrooms and apples – in it… well, I thought that I might be able to get past the goopyness in order to enjoy all of those things.

Turns out I was wrong.

All of the ingredients, separately, tasted amazing. (And, by the way, I figured out that this recipe is extra awesome because you can prepare all the separate parts – mushrooms, apple/onion mixture, sausage, bread crumbs – in advance and simply combine them right before you pop them in the oven.) (Of course, I did not discover this pleasant aspect of the recipe until after I’d made the stuffing the first time.)

But, once combined, the stuffing predictably turned into mush. So I tried one piece of the soggy bread and then proceeded to pick out the mushrooms and sausage from my helping and eat only those.

Stuffing is NOT very photogenic.

But that’s not the Big Problem with the stuffing.

My sweet husband assured me 10,000 times that he liked the stuffing… Good flavors, yada yada.

But it’s not traditional stuffing, apparently. It doesn’t have the same consistency (the bread chunks are too big) or flavors of the stuffing he’s always eaten. So he’s afraid that it will be too different for Thanksgiving.

Part of me wants to have some sort of stand-out signature dish… And I think this stuffing could be it.

But… I am a huge traditionalist. Especially when it comes to food. And even MORE especially when it comes to holiday food.

So I completely understand that having “special” stuffing might throw off the whole meal. I mean, if you wait all year to eat something… and you have a specific something in mind, something you eat every year that always tastes the same… Well, having a “special” version, no matter how tasty, might ruin the whole day.

As long as we’re talking about my husband killing my Thanksgiving dreams, let’s mention that he did not like the cranberry sauce.

I AM JUST JOKING. My feelings weren’t even a little bit hurt. I wanted his honest opinion on the food, seeing as a) he actually LIKES things like stuffing and gravy and b) it is his family that I’ll be feeding on Thanksgiving Day.

Husband noted that he has never liked cranberry sauce and never eats it anyway. Plus, I liked the cranberry sauce. It was easy to make and I will make it again so there.

Now, onto the turkey.

Internet, I opened up the turkey breast packets with great trepidation. In fact, the ENTIRE TIME I was dealing with the turkey, my face looked like this.

(You are in awe of my Paint Shop Skillz.)

I was terrified that I would have to touch the turkey. And then probably barf on the turkey.

See how scary it looks?

BLECH. Why does the skin have to have a TEXTURE?

BUT! I managed not to touch it at all! I used a paper-towel-and-fork combination to dry off both breasts and move them onto the roasting rack.

SUCCESS!

(This reinforces my desire to cook only breasts at my Thanksgiving dinner. Because no way would a fork and a paper towel be sufficient to deal with a whole bird.)

I was very suspicious of making the turkey. I’ve read all sorts of wonderful-sounding recipes that involve brining or rubs. But then I asked my mom what she does, she said something like “salt and pepper, put some carrots and celery and onions and garlic in the turkey cavity and you’re good to go.”

(She actually told me step-by-step how to make her Thanksgiving dinner, which I LOVE, and I immediately forgot everything. Which is why I turned to Pioneer Woman, who has not only detailed recipes, but photos of each step.)

(But you can bet I am going to call my mom again and ask her to recite – slowly – her recipe for goat-cheese-and-garlic mashed potatoes. Because those are my favorite part of any Thanksgiving.)

(I may need to buy a tape recorder so I don’t forget anything.)

Anyway. Back to the turkey.

The America’s Test Kitchen recipe was not only for turkey pieces, it was also wildly similar to my shard of a memory of my mom’s recipe. Wow, that sentence had too many prepositions. Blech.

The recipe was easy and didn’t involve brining bags or spice mixtures or putting things under the skin of the turkey. So I thought, what the hell! Let’s skip the fancy stuff and stick with old-fashioned tried-and-true!

So I poured my pre-cut onions, carrots, celery, and garlic (pre-cut by me, mind you) into the bottom of our roasting pan.

Covered them with a cup of low-sodium chicken stock. Paper-towel-and-forked the turkey onto the roasting rack. And prepared to slather the turkey with melted butter, salt, and pepper.

First of all, I don’t know how to melt butter.

I just put the butter in a dish and put it in the microwave and hit 30 seconds and hope for the best.

The first 30 seconds didn’t seem to faze the butter. The second 30 seconds caused it to explode all over the microwave.

I did managed to baste the turkey with the exploded butter (I mean, the stuff remaining in the dish. GAH. I just had a ghastly vision of swiping the inside of the microwave with my basting brush and using that to baste the turkey. GROSS.) but I also managed to get my hands all buttery.

Then I managed to transfer the butter to both the salt grinder and the pepper grinder.

Note: It is nearly impossible to grind salt or pepper when the grinders are slippery with butter.

Here is the turkey, nicely buttered.

I think the turkey was still a little cold, so the butter congealed a little. No, let’s say solidified. That sounds less throw-uppy.

Then I shoved the roasting pan into the oven.

Internet, it took 2 hours and 40 minutes of roasting – at 275 – to get the two 2.5-pound turkey breasts up to 160 degrees. On top of that, the turkey required TWO 30-minute “resting” periods… Plus 15 minutes of broiling to crisp up the skin.

That is a lot of waiting.

Fortunately, I was cooking the separate parts of the stuffing during this time. But even that only took an hour.

But when the turkey was done, it was awesome! I did not photograph the AFTER, although I did take a poorly-lit photo of my husband’s plate.

It tasted – and looked – a lot better than the photo would have you believe.

It was moist. It was cooked through. The crust was crispy and golden. Wait. Do turkeys have crusts, or is that just pies?

It tasted SUPER with the gravy.

My husband liked the meal enough that he delightedly made himself a turkey and stuffing and gravy sandwich to take with him to work today.

(Ew.)

(I do not like Thanksgiving leftovers, and I ESPECIALLY do not like cold food.)

Let’s do a quick recap, since this post is so long:

* Gravy is awesome.

* Stuffing is gross.

* Turkey takes a long time to cook.

Overall, this Fakesgiving was a success. I feel MUCH more confident about feeding my in-laws.

Although, knowing me, the actual Opening Night will be a monstrous failure.

Stay tuned for the next installment, when I make mashed potatoes and/or sweet potato casserole and/or “traditional” stuffing.