No judgement! I got a kick out of the first one.
< berp >
I just finished my Slob Solo Thanksgiving feast for 2023. I aimed to have dinner at 2:00 p.m. and landed 3 minutes early.
I love my kind friends who extended invitations for me to join them for dinner, but I needed a quiet respite after a very busy period in my work. To have a stretch of time without commitments is bliss. Plus I’m picky about my Thanksgiving dishes and it was such a treat to please no one but myself this year.
I roasted a chicken (a turkey is too much), made bread dressing, giblet gravy and mashed potatoes. Steamed some asparagus with lemon and started with a small plate of appetizers: Deviled eggs, grape tomatoes, olives, celery, carrots and a bit of cheese. Dinner was accompanied by a glass of wine. There will probably be a second glass of wine before evening’s end.
Later, I will have homemade sugar free pumpkin pie. I sampled a small custard cup of the filling last night and it is delicious, so I’m looking forward to the Full Monty with homemade crust and whipped cream.
It’s too early to spoil my puppy, but he’s got a nice dinner in store for this evening, too. Plus an extra session of his favorite Zoomies game. All that’s required of me to play Zoomies is to periodically screech, “Boo, Ollie!” and he runs like a mad thing through the house. We both love Zoomies.
A splendid day, so far as I’m concerned. Happy Thanksgiving to all who celebrate it!
Well, even my little Thanksgiving dinner of Cornish hens and mashed potatoes had to be cancelled because I have a sinus infection and I am not up to cooking. Maybe tomorrow.
It wasn’t a terrible day, all things considered.
I was talking to a friend who is also having a Thanksgiving he didn’t plan on, and we agreed that the whole point of being thankful is finding what you can appreciate in what you have, even if it’s not exactly what you wanted.
In that vein, I am thankful for a husband willing to cook me frozen pizza while I convalesce on the couch.
He cleaned the bathrooms today, too. Good man.
Whelp, it’s over. It was as hectic as I had anticipated/feared, with the added fun of having some additional whiny/crying children in attendance. Don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of patience for kids but after 4 hours of listening to three kids in full meltdown mode I’m ready to bail. Thankfully my two kids drove themselves so I hitched a ride home early with them. My wife is still there playing mother hen and joining in all the gossip, and I’m blissfully sitting in my cozy, empty, and quiet house doing bupkis. I might start watching the Christmas episodes of The Office or play some Tears of the Kingdom. Whatever it is, I won’t be doing Thanksgiving-related anything.
I do wish I had brought home some leftovers as I’m sure I’ll get hungry before too much longer, but that’s ok. A small price to pay for some quiet and solitude. I have some leftover pizza in the fridge if things get dire.
I have discovered two of my bathroom sinks have backed up. Clearly some clog well below their respective P-traps. Guess I get to call a plumber tomorrow as this is well outside of my atrocious and limited DIY skills.
[Reads all my long, bitchy posts]
…
Definitely something I need to work on.
Listen, I’d go crazy with a bunch of kids, too.
Solitude can be wonderful. I’m happy to read about the nice solo Thanksgivings.
I had hoped I’d be able to find the original Miracle on 34th Street on television today, but no luck. Love that movie.
I’m having a colonoscopy next week, and am not allowed corn and green beans starting today, so we had Thanksgiving yesterday. Just my wife and I, since we’re seeing the far away kids next month. Simple one - turkey, gravy, stuffing, mashed potatoes, green beans and corn we saved from fresh corn available during the summer.
And lots of leftovers. I can eat turkey, at least.
Ended up being the Huddle House in Hahira. A stitch classier than i was expecting dinner to be
It’s nearly 9pm on Thu. In post 2 I laid out our plans. Today they went off exactly as planned. 8 hours with four 3yo girls and one 5yo girl, an adult daughter / mother pair, and me.
The kids were adorable, mostly non-meltdowny, and I’m fried.
This was not nearly as exciting as 3 years ago when I cooked the feast in an empty house while mother, daughter, and one of the foster kids spent the day in the emergency room and the other foster kids were farmed out to other licensed foster parents. The ill kid was treated and recovered without any permanent damage, and we gathered in the rest of the Horde and all reconvened at about 9pm to finally eat the meal that was originally planned for 2pm. That was a long day.
Dinner went great. Just me my wife and my dad. Had everything timed perfectly to finish and be packed in the cooler hot to keep each other warm on the drive to dad’s house.
Wife’s a vegetarian so I bought a Field Roast Celebration Roast for her and a pre-brined turkey breast from Wegmans. Also made mashed potatoes of course, boxed stuffing, and roasted an onion that I sliced in half, diced, and added to the two previous dishes.
Fried some green beans in butter with garlic and almonds.
Roasted the veggie loaf and sous vided the turkey. Bought jarred turkey gravy and the veggie loaf came with mushroom gravy mix. Hawaiian rolls.
Got to dad’s and just had to nuke the mashed potatoes which I had prepared Wednesday, and slice the turkey and veggie roast. Everything else was prime eatin’ temperature so we could just dig in.
First time making Thanksgiving for dad since mom passed. I think I did her proud.
I have a H/E front loading washing machine. This means I have a place to keep such a thing as well as enough clothing to make one needed. It means that I live somewhere with electricity and clean water. It also means that we have the extra money to buy a more expensive washing machine that fits our needs than just buying a second hand one like we did in our salad days.
I’d guess that there are over a billion people who would give almost anything to live my life.
We all tend to take the small things for granted, but those are the things we should appreciate the most.
OTOH, while I was grateful to have dinner with BFF and her family…I’m super grateful we don’t have sugared up littles running around at dinner every day.
Good luck with the plumbing issues. Those are the worse…but at least you live somewhere with running water!
Sure sounds like you did. And that Dad appreciated it. Ya done good!
That was another Thanksgiving dinner where someone mentioned my lack of gravy appreciation. My gf’s family love gravy and pour it over everything. I don’t like fat’s taste/texture. No gravy for me, thanks.
Interesting observation regarding turkeys. My gf’s family loves having lots of thanksgiving leftovers, so we actually had two birds. My gf bought a heritage breed bird from the turkey farm that was slaughtered and prepped for us yesterday morning. It was crazy expensive. My nephew-in-law made a generic cheap turkey (butterball brand).
The cheap turkey meat tasted vaguely weird. Kind of like a chicken-turkey hybrid. The expensive turkey was out of this world delicious, with perfect taste and texture. The difference between the birds was like night and day.
Fun dinner with lots of new folks. We got there right at six per usual and no one else showed up for 45 minutes, so we got some nice time with our friends alone. Bailed before desert because it was late and the weather was deteriorating. Ground blizzard on I-90, 35 mph, my wife white-knuckled it home.
We rarely drink, so our bottle of GM will likely last until long after I’m dead. 
We schlepped stuff to the niece’s place and were met by the usual maelstrom of barking, running, whirling doxies. Their usual six were augmented by two belonging to their kids, and about every 15 minutes during the day they would all lose their tiny little minds. If someone came out of the bathroom it was like they had never seen him before.
Her husband is a serious cook and the meal was great, but I sure do get tired more easily than I used to. The drive out and back was uncongested, so that was a plus. We get to repeat the whole thing (minus dogs) on Sunday at my youngest’s home.
When they came here for Thanksgiving, my sister’s family has always been wild about the flavor and texture of the turkey that I serve.
I get a turkey that’s been at least primarily pasture raised; often from a neighboring farm. They buy whatever’s cheapest on sale at the grocery store. One year they came across what they thought was a particularly good deal, bought several, and brought me one for the freezer. I could barely eat the poor thing; it tasted like cardboard.
The ones I’ve gotten most of the recent years aren’t heirlooms; they’re the same standard breed as those cardboard ones. A lot of the difference is in the feed and the exercise. But I wish my neighbors would raise some heirlooms – I’ve occasionally had one of those, and they’re even better (especially if you prefer dark meat, as they have more reasonable proportions.)
Years ago, I had a friend who said that he’d considered going to a large animal rights protest carrying a sign saying “Humanely raised animals taste better!” but decided against it because he was afraid of getting clobbered by both sides. It’s true, though.
About two hours on zoom with my family yesterday. Thanksgiving in-person dinner here with friends coming up. Breadmaking is in process and next I need to get pies and a large chicken in the oven.
I roasted a wild turkey one year. My cousin, the hunter, gave it to me. The flavor was stronger than a store bought bird and tasted great. The main difference in cooking it was that it was leaner. Had to keep basting it, not that I mind.
I’ve never had wild turkey but I’d like to try a pasture raised or heritage turkey one of these days. This year we got a Foster Farms bird from Costco. It was noticeably better than the Butterballs I’ve used in the past but not stellar. This place looks promising, I’ll call and make some inquiries regarding a Christmas bird.
So true. Especially for turkey and chicken.
My mom always wanted to start Thanksgiving at 2, but thankfully, my brother goes to his wife’s family in the afternoon, so our Thanksgiving meal was scheduled for 6. He was late, did we didn’t actually begin until around 7. Still, preparing a turkey to be done at 6 makes for a fairly leisurely day. So we had a pleasant day cooking followed by family and friends joining us at the table.