This is the same thing every year. I am up cooking while hubby sleeps. If I am lucky I’ll lay down at about 4 am and get up again at 7 and finish everything off.
So far I have the pineapple upside down cake done, the cornbread for the dressing is done, the eggs are boiling for deviled eggs.
Tomorrow I finish the dressing, roast the turkey, make the fruit salad . go to son’s and and start the pre-cooked dinner he bought to heating up and start moving things from my house to his. I wasn’t supposed to have to cook.
I’ve been up since 04.30–after going to my language classes, I came home and started all the side dishes. Desserts are already done, the birds are brining. In five hours, I did the creamed spinach, two kinds of stuffing, the sweet potatoes (for my wife–I can’t stand the things) , zucchini and yellow squash as a vegetable. I have just finished deveining and deshelling two pounds of shrimp, to be made into scampi, and I can now have a drink and sit down.
Last year, I did it all from scratch, on real plates. Never again. Dishes are made the night before, put into foil pans, then heated through about half an hour before dinner. We use real silverware, but heavy-duty paper plates and plastic cups. I got so fed up with making scratch rolls, biscuits and pies that I said sod it, and only make the things I really enjoy doing. Appetizers? Relish tray and mixed nuts. Dessert? Someone elses’ problem. Bread? The bakery gets paid to do it. My blood pressure has gone down so much since I decided to let someone else take some of the strain.
How many devilled eggs are you making, and do you let the sweet pickles touch them?
I need to cut up the baguettes to make bread crumbs for stuffing. I also ought to brown up the sausage that’s going in the stuffing. However, I’ve been drinking beer and posting here, instead.
In consummate college style, a friend will be coming over at noon tomorrow for a wine-tasting, martini-inventing Thanksgiving cookoff. I really should get that bread toasted up, though. Damn’ I need to clean, too.
No, you are not alone. I have already cooked the cornbread dressing, giblet gravy, green bean casserole, corn souffle, deviled eggs and ham. I am currently waiting on the turkey to finish cooking, and tomorrow I just have to pop the sweet potato souffle in for a few minutes to finish up. Oh, and the rolls, I always forget the rolls. I also made an ice box fruitcake today, and the pumpkin pie is ready and waiting in the fridge.
I actually like cooking when everyone else is asleep. No one gets in your way, the countertops are all yours, and it is nice and quiet. Best of all, the family feels guilty that I stayed up all night cooking this wonderous feast, so they clean up after dinner, and I do not have to lift a finger!
I’ll give you a mess. Grind up 1 box of graham crackers, pour haphazardly into a bowl and wipe hands on jeans. Open 2 cans sweetened condensed milk and add to graham crackers. Cut up a small container of candied cherries, then make sure you push your hair back with the stickiest hand. Break pecans in half, making sure to throw some pieces under the table to find at Easter, grab a handful of raisins and add to the mix. Combine throughly with food processor, decide that it is entirely too stiff, and transfer to another container. Continue mixing by hand (that is, stick your hand in the goo and mix), then transfer to a loaf pan. Mush the whole mess down tightly. Suddenly remember that you did not grease the loaf pan, take everything back out and wrap in plastic wrap and refrigerate.
Deviled eggs, hmmm I’ll probably wind up with a dozen and a half. Of course I use sweet relish in them.
I wish I had two refridgerators when doing the holiday cooking. I run out of room too easily.
I’m about to start the giblets and extra chicken parts to boil for the gravy and for the dressing ( I put chicken in mine.) . This is my first Thanksgiving with me baking a pie of some sort, but I refuse to feel guilty about it.
It is also my first Thankgiving with Son not living at home. I see now that him moving and inviting Mom and Dad to dinner doesn’t save Mom cook detail. In a way it feels good to know that it wouldn’t be the same for him with Mom’s dressing or Mom’s fruit salad
Next year it is a resturant ! I swear it (yeah right ::sigh:: )
I’m up too. I have almost everything done, but now its too late to go to bed. I have this terrible fear of waking up 30 min before everyone gets here (got 20 or so coming this year) with the turkey still in the fridge. :eek: :eek: I ditched the deviled eggs for dillied eggs. All you do is switch the relish for choped dill pickles and the paprika for dillweed. mmmmmm
Well, my weekend is broken up sort of weird as the future-in-laws are having their dinner tomorrow, and my family is having their dinner on Saturday (so there would be much less conflict). I’ve started on several things for the Saturday dinner, and have made all the desserts for tomorrow’s dinner (which is my contribution to the dinner, anyways. I’m done for tomorrow).
So, tomorrow I get to hang out and eat and have a good time, then come back to mom’s house to start the cooking Friday afternoon–but with what I’ve got started so far, I won’t be cooking until the wee hours.
Hi JavaMaven, I haven’t seen you around for a while.
Yeah mine is a little strange this year, son got engaged on the 16th (his 22nd bday) and so future d-i-l and her parents are coming to his apartment for dinner.
Now for a progress report, my bird is in the oven, on it’s breast after being rubbed all over inside and out with my special bleand of seasonings and herbs, with a stalk of celery a stick of butter, 3/4 of an onion and a whole apple up it’s butt.
The gravy meats and liquids are cooking into bits and the flavors blending nicely I will add the vegs to it soon.
The dressing awaits being liquided and mixed until it reaches a pudding consistancy at which time it will be put into the oven.
The eggs have been boiled, cut in half , de-yoked and had a very tiny slice taken off the bottom of each half so they will stand still and slide all over the platter. They only need stuffing.
The sweet potatos alas are still in their cans awaiting their fate.
Thanksgiving dinner in our family tends to be a late afternoon affair (4pm or later), and we cook turkey breasts, rather than whole turkeys, because the turkey boobs only take a couple hours in the oven. Which means there’s plenty of time to cook side dishes and dessert in a leisurely fashion on Thanksgiving morning, whether we’re hosting, or just cooking a couple of dishes to bring along when we have Thanksgiving dinner at someone else’s house. So we aren’t in the kitchen the night before.
Early a.m. insomnia. Anytime I sleep past 5am, that’s a good night.
Your Thanksgiving dinner sounds absolutely yummy, Aye. Mind if we stop by?
You and my wife would get along. She also calls stuffing ‘dressing’. I remember one year before I got used to that, she gave me her grocery list and I went to the store. I hunted all up and down the salad-dressing aisle, but for the life of me, I couldn’t find the brand of dressing that she wanted.
Well, my place of employment, the cafe, is not open today, being in the library. But I am about to leave for there because I am going to bake the bread and the cake I will be taking to my family’s dinner. We eat late too, about 4:00 PM or so.
