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Turkey Day
Nov. 26th, 2020 10:19 pmThis whole week was centered around Turkey Day.
I've never made Thanksgiving. I've helped my parents out in the kitchen, I've served it to others at soup kitchens, I've enjoyed it when it was made for me and I've had to do nothing. But I've never done it all myself.
Welp. This is the year for that.
Work is becoming slightly less stressful because we're starting to get our payroll systems back. We spent this whole week busting ass to get peoples' punches in for the next round of paychecks. I feel so bad that this happened right on the holidays. A lot of people do NOT need to be dealing with this BS right now, self included. I have a lot of sympathy for my employer too--nobody expected something like this to happen--but it still amazes me that it's been three weeks and we're not back up and running yet. I think things will be ok, it's just more time is needed.
There's a Publix near my workplace that opens at 7am. I get to work around 7:15 each morning, so this week I've been going to Publix every day. The store is almost empty that early in the morning, so I've been able to get everything I need to make Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. The first day I got all the nonperishables, the next, the turkey...after that, the ingredients for the sides...then in the last few days, the frozen foods and the produce. On the drive home I go past the Publix parking lot and I can see how busy it's been, and I'm grateful that I was able to get in there during the slowest part of the day without having to fight anybody for potatoes or whatever.
Then began the prep. The first thing I made was the apple turnovers wrapped in phyllo dough.
I sliced some apples and soaked them overnight in bourbon and brown sugar, then cooked them on the stove with spices and a scoop of my homemade caramel. When they were nice and gooey I spooned them onto the oiled phyllo and rolled them up, then stuck them in the freezer. This will be our "apple pie".
The next prep was making herb butter for the turkey, cocktail sauce for the shrimp, and brine for the turkey.
The herb butter was easy, just rosemary, thyme, and sage mixed with butter.
The cocktail sauce was equally easy, ketchup and horseradish and w-sauce and a little hot sauce too.
The brine took a little time to make but I hope it will make the turkey moist and flavorful. It was water, salt, orange and lemon peels, crushed garlic, sage, and peppercorns.
On Wednesday I put our turkey pieces in the brine. I ended up getting one boneless breast, one bone-in split breast, and two thighs. The boneless breast and one thigh will go in the crock pot with the stuffing, while the bone-in breast will go in the air fryer with the herb butter and a citrus glaze. I'm withholding one thigh because I'm concerned about space. All of the meat went into the brine and soaked for about 12 hours.
After that I had to take a little trip to the dentist because one of my teeth decided to break. This happened randomly several days ago; I wasn't surprised, just bummed. The tooth had been cracked years ago when I tried to use my teeth to do something stupid, and it finally decided to break. It was a really small chip, but big enough to show and sharp enough to keep painfully scraping my lip. You can see it in this x-ray, the little U-shaped black spot on the right front tooth.
It was a very easy fix for the dentist, who only charged me fifteen bucks and a small lecture about biting non-food items :p
After that was done I hurried home to really get into Thanksgiving prep.
I made my very first pumpkin pie using Paula Deen's recipe. I don't usually reference Ms. Deen because a lot of her stuff is pretty unhealthy, but Jameson specifically mentioned this recipe so I wanted to try it for him. It's got cream cheese and I'll bet it tastes awesome. It looks good anyway.
When that was done I made some homemade whipped cream, then boiled sweet potatoes and mashed them up with some sugar and spices for sweet potato casserole. I also made the crumb topping for that in advance. I assembled the green bean casserole (easy, four ingredients) and prepped the "wet" ingredients for the stuffing, celery and onion and apple, tossing them in lemon juice to help the apple out a little. Then I took some shrimp out to thaw for shrimp cocktails...oops I accidentally got JUMBO shrimp! They're freaking huge lol. Well...not the worst mistake you can make :)
Jameson ordered us some sushi for dinner and we watched TV together, then he went off to teach an online class while I took the turkey out of the brine and cleaned up. We both did our laundry, and we both crashed, him on the couch to play video games and me on the floor to type this up and watch some anime. I really should have done some steno, what with the situation at work and the holiday prep I've been slacking pretty badly on my practicing. But I was just tired. Hopefully fate won't judge me too harshly.
On Thursday I woke up at the usual time, a little tense from having stress dreams. In my dream I wasn't able to clock in at work, and I was wearing an apron but I couldn't tie it right, and I kept trying to put my old Music & Arts employee login in this time clock instead of my CapTel employee number, but the time clock was from my kennel job and I couldn't remember THAT employee number...
...and then I dreamed my garden was covered in mold and that woke me right up, gasping and in a panic. LOL!!
In that mood I made myself some coffee and put the turkey in the crock pot with some chicken broth. I covered the turkey with my homemade stuffing mix and set the crock pot to Low. The hope is that it'll be ready somewhere between 2-4 pm.
Then I assembled our grazing snacks. A plate of fresh cut fruit, a plate of mini banana muffins, and a tray of big ol' cocktail shrimp.
It looks pretty bougee but let's be real, I bought all of this from Publix premade. Thanks Publix!
I could have just gotten one of those little shrimp trays, but have y'all ever looked at the salt content on those? The lowest I could find was 28% daily value. NO THANKS. The pre-cooked/peeled frozen shrimp are only 13% and they cost the same or less.
Anyway, then of course I had to go make sure my plants weren't moldy. They're fine. The watermelon radishes are starting to show, and I was surprised to see that one of the lettuce is actually looking good (the others are weirdly growing along the ground for some reason, never seen lettuce do that)
The lemons are looking very close to being done, but I'm nervous to pick them too early so asked the internet for advice. I was told to "lift and squeeze" a lemon while twisting it, and if it came off the stem easily it was done, and if it didn't come off it's not ready yet. I lifted and twisted. It didn't come off. So I guess there's my answer!
That settled, I got to eating some snacks and video chatting with my siblings. Everyone seems to be doing great, at least for today! Some of us are cooking, some are not, either way we're gonna have some fun for the holiday.
I did a little bit of steno, then the timer went off for the halfway point on the crock pot.
I'm really glad I set it for halfway and not the whole 6 hours, because that turkey was DONE and needed to be PULLED.
Now I was in a pickle timing-wise. I had hoped that the crock pot part of the meal would take six hours, and I had planned around that. here it had taken half the time. Well shit. I hurriedly got to work assembling the casseroles and prepping for the air fryer turkey breast.
You guys, I did so much prep the night before, but this still felt really stressful.
As soon as I had put the casseroles in the turkey needed to be basted, but then the gravy had started to boil so I turned that down but oh sh*t, those potatoes take 20 minutes to cook I need to start them, and on and on. If I hadn't done the prep I did I would have been in the weeds for sure. As it was I barely got everthing to turn out ok. The turkey was a little too salty for my taste, I'll remember to pull it from the brine earlier next time (it was still perfectly edible, Jameson has a sodium imbalance and he was able to eat it). I have no idea how the mashed potatoes turned out all right, I didn't set a timer for them or measure the milk and butter for them at all. I got the sweet potato casserole out of the oven in the nick of time before the marshmallows started to burn.
Today's meal was a combination of good luck and using the cooking skills I've learned over the course of this year.
Most Thanksgiving standards are pretty simple recipes with few ingredients and basic cooking techniques, but it is still difficult to coordinate such a large amount of food all at once. I've got to say, I was really, really pleased with how everything turned out. Not one thing got burned, overseasoned, or came out inedible. Although I wish some elements had turned out better, everything tasted great. Not to brag, it's just my first time doing anything like this and I'm surprised and pleased that it worked. It actually worked.
I was especially impressed with the air fryer turkey breast. I thought it might turn out dry but it was actually very good. It was a little drier than the crock pot version, but still very moist and had crispy skin and a really nice flavor.
We stuffed ourselves and had a moment of lying there like beached whales on the couch, feeling very satisfied indeed. I had a nice glass of white wine too. I don't eat like this any other time of the year, so gotta enjoy the feeling of being really, truly full!
After that I had the hellish task of cleaning up the kitchen while Jameson did laundry and played some games.
We took about an hour to digest and chat with family, then it was time for dessert.
I'm trying to be well-behaved here, so had half of a slice of pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. It was awesome!
I also heated up two of the apple turnovers (described earlier in this post) and served them with vanilla ice cream.
Definitely over-ate today :p but it's so worth it y'all! What a nice feeling to be full of good homemade food <3
After cleanup I did one last video chat with my parents and siblings.
Got some great news, but I can't share it yet ;)
If I were to list all the things I'm thankful for, it would seem like bragging. Well, maybe it's time to brag a little.
Despite this awful year, I have very, very little to complain about.
My family is healthy. We all have jobs. My boyfriend is here with me, we support each other. I have wonderful plants in the back yard. I can buy fresh ingredients to make delicious food. I can get my tooth repaired when I need to. I have the opportunity to go back to school right now. My body has not sabotaged me (yet, knock on wood). I have a safe place to live. I can afford to shop for Christmas presents this year.
I could go on and on.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you're just as fortunate as me, and more.
And if not, don't give up. Better days lie ahead.
I've never made Thanksgiving. I've helped my parents out in the kitchen, I've served it to others at soup kitchens, I've enjoyed it when it was made for me and I've had to do nothing. But I've never done it all myself.
Welp. This is the year for that.
Work is becoming slightly less stressful because we're starting to get our payroll systems back. We spent this whole week busting ass to get peoples' punches in for the next round of paychecks. I feel so bad that this happened right on the holidays. A lot of people do NOT need to be dealing with this BS right now, self included. I have a lot of sympathy for my employer too--nobody expected something like this to happen--but it still amazes me that it's been three weeks and we're not back up and running yet. I think things will be ok, it's just more time is needed.
There's a Publix near my workplace that opens at 7am. I get to work around 7:15 each morning, so this week I've been going to Publix every day. The store is almost empty that early in the morning, so I've been able to get everything I need to make Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. The first day I got all the nonperishables, the next, the turkey...after that, the ingredients for the sides...then in the last few days, the frozen foods and the produce. On the drive home I go past the Publix parking lot and I can see how busy it's been, and I'm grateful that I was able to get in there during the slowest part of the day without having to fight anybody for potatoes or whatever.
Then began the prep. The first thing I made was the apple turnovers wrapped in phyllo dough.
I sliced some apples and soaked them overnight in bourbon and brown sugar, then cooked them on the stove with spices and a scoop of my homemade caramel. When they were nice and gooey I spooned them onto the oiled phyllo and rolled them up, then stuck them in the freezer. This will be our "apple pie".
The next prep was making herb butter for the turkey, cocktail sauce for the shrimp, and brine for the turkey.
The herb butter was easy, just rosemary, thyme, and sage mixed with butter.
The cocktail sauce was equally easy, ketchup and horseradish and w-sauce and a little hot sauce too.
The brine took a little time to make but I hope it will make the turkey moist and flavorful. It was water, salt, orange and lemon peels, crushed garlic, sage, and peppercorns.
On Wednesday I put our turkey pieces in the brine. I ended up getting one boneless breast, one bone-in split breast, and two thighs. The boneless breast and one thigh will go in the crock pot with the stuffing, while the bone-in breast will go in the air fryer with the herb butter and a citrus glaze. I'm withholding one thigh because I'm concerned about space. All of the meat went into the brine and soaked for about 12 hours.
After that I had to take a little trip to the dentist because one of my teeth decided to break. This happened randomly several days ago; I wasn't surprised, just bummed. The tooth had been cracked years ago when I tried to use my teeth to do something stupid, and it finally decided to break. It was a really small chip, but big enough to show and sharp enough to keep painfully scraping my lip. You can see it in this x-ray, the little U-shaped black spot on the right front tooth.
It was a very easy fix for the dentist, who only charged me fifteen bucks and a small lecture about biting non-food items :p
After that was done I hurried home to really get into Thanksgiving prep.
I made my very first pumpkin pie using Paula Deen's recipe. I don't usually reference Ms. Deen because a lot of her stuff is pretty unhealthy, but Jameson specifically mentioned this recipe so I wanted to try it for him. It's got cream cheese and I'll bet it tastes awesome. It looks good anyway.
When that was done I made some homemade whipped cream, then boiled sweet potatoes and mashed them up with some sugar and spices for sweet potato casserole. I also made the crumb topping for that in advance. I assembled the green bean casserole (easy, four ingredients) and prepped the "wet" ingredients for the stuffing, celery and onion and apple, tossing them in lemon juice to help the apple out a little. Then I took some shrimp out to thaw for shrimp cocktails...oops I accidentally got JUMBO shrimp! They're freaking huge lol. Well...not the worst mistake you can make :)
Jameson ordered us some sushi for dinner and we watched TV together, then he went off to teach an online class while I took the turkey out of the brine and cleaned up. We both did our laundry, and we both crashed, him on the couch to play video games and me on the floor to type this up and watch some anime. I really should have done some steno, what with the situation at work and the holiday prep I've been slacking pretty badly on my practicing. But I was just tired. Hopefully fate won't judge me too harshly.
On Thursday I woke up at the usual time, a little tense from having stress dreams. In my dream I wasn't able to clock in at work, and I was wearing an apron but I couldn't tie it right, and I kept trying to put my old Music & Arts employee login in this time clock instead of my CapTel employee number, but the time clock was from my kennel job and I couldn't remember THAT employee number...
...and then I dreamed my garden was covered in mold and that woke me right up, gasping and in a panic. LOL!!
In that mood I made myself some coffee and put the turkey in the crock pot with some chicken broth. I covered the turkey with my homemade stuffing mix and set the crock pot to Low. The hope is that it'll be ready somewhere between 2-4 pm.
Then I assembled our grazing snacks. A plate of fresh cut fruit, a plate of mini banana muffins, and a tray of big ol' cocktail shrimp.
It looks pretty bougee but let's be real, I bought all of this from Publix premade. Thanks Publix!
I could have just gotten one of those little shrimp trays, but have y'all ever looked at the salt content on those? The lowest I could find was 28% daily value. NO THANKS. The pre-cooked/peeled frozen shrimp are only 13% and they cost the same or less.
Anyway, then of course I had to go make sure my plants weren't moldy. They're fine. The watermelon radishes are starting to show, and I was surprised to see that one of the lettuce is actually looking good (the others are weirdly growing along the ground for some reason, never seen lettuce do that)
The lemons are looking very close to being done, but I'm nervous to pick them too early so asked the internet for advice. I was told to "lift and squeeze" a lemon while twisting it, and if it came off the stem easily it was done, and if it didn't come off it's not ready yet. I lifted and twisted. It didn't come off. So I guess there's my answer!
That settled, I got to eating some snacks and video chatting with my siblings. Everyone seems to be doing great, at least for today! Some of us are cooking, some are not, either way we're gonna have some fun for the holiday.
I did a little bit of steno, then the timer went off for the halfway point on the crock pot.
I'm really glad I set it for halfway and not the whole 6 hours, because that turkey was DONE and needed to be PULLED.
Now I was in a pickle timing-wise. I had hoped that the crock pot part of the meal would take six hours, and I had planned around that. here it had taken half the time. Well shit. I hurriedly got to work assembling the casseroles and prepping for the air fryer turkey breast.
You guys, I did so much prep the night before, but this still felt really stressful.
As soon as I had put the casseroles in the turkey needed to be basted, but then the gravy had started to boil so I turned that down but oh sh*t, those potatoes take 20 minutes to cook I need to start them, and on and on. If I hadn't done the prep I did I would have been in the weeds for sure. As it was I barely got everthing to turn out ok. The turkey was a little too salty for my taste, I'll remember to pull it from the brine earlier next time (it was still perfectly edible, Jameson has a sodium imbalance and he was able to eat it). I have no idea how the mashed potatoes turned out all right, I didn't set a timer for them or measure the milk and butter for them at all. I got the sweet potato casserole out of the oven in the nick of time before the marshmallows started to burn.
Today's meal was a combination of good luck and using the cooking skills I've learned over the course of this year.
Most Thanksgiving standards are pretty simple recipes with few ingredients and basic cooking techniques, but it is still difficult to coordinate such a large amount of food all at once. I've got to say, I was really, really pleased with how everything turned out. Not one thing got burned, overseasoned, or came out inedible. Although I wish some elements had turned out better, everything tasted great. Not to brag, it's just my first time doing anything like this and I'm surprised and pleased that it worked. It actually worked.
I was especially impressed with the air fryer turkey breast. I thought it might turn out dry but it was actually very good. It was a little drier than the crock pot version, but still very moist and had crispy skin and a really nice flavor.
We stuffed ourselves and had a moment of lying there like beached whales on the couch, feeling very satisfied indeed. I had a nice glass of white wine too. I don't eat like this any other time of the year, so gotta enjoy the feeling of being really, truly full!
After that I had the hellish task of cleaning up the kitchen while Jameson did laundry and played some games.
We took about an hour to digest and chat with family, then it was time for dessert.
I'm trying to be well-behaved here, so had half of a slice of pumpkin pie with homemade whipped cream. It was awesome!
I also heated up two of the apple turnovers (described earlier in this post) and served them with vanilla ice cream.
Definitely over-ate today :p but it's so worth it y'all! What a nice feeling to be full of good homemade food <3
After cleanup I did one last video chat with my parents and siblings.
Got some great news, but I can't share it yet ;)
If I were to list all the things I'm thankful for, it would seem like bragging. Well, maybe it's time to brag a little.
Despite this awful year, I have very, very little to complain about.
My family is healthy. We all have jobs. My boyfriend is here with me, we support each other. I have wonderful plants in the back yard. I can buy fresh ingredients to make delicious food. I can get my tooth repaired when I need to. I have the opportunity to go back to school right now. My body has not sabotaged me (yet, knock on wood). I have a safe place to live. I can afford to shop for Christmas presents this year.
I could go on and on.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I hope you're just as fortunate as me, and more.
And if not, don't give up. Better days lie ahead.
