For many people, turkey day is tomorrow. If you’re planning on making something, how goes your prep?
I’ve got a cornbread casserole in the oven, which has gone smoothly enough so far. However I do have to run to the grocery store to pick up all-purpose flour. Turns out we had less in stock than I expected, and we typically make a lot of cookies each year. Hopefully I’ll be able to get in and out no worse for wear.
We did it Wednesday, not Thursday. Also cooked extra of the sides because we started cooking Monday and wanted to eat them fresh. So like, I’m technically starting day four of the feast even though the official meal was a few hours ago.
Tried making a bordelaise sauce for the gravy, smoked a Tritip, had sweet potatoes, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, a tasty salad, green beans trotted eat my grandfather cooked them, and mac and cheese (always appropriate for smoked meat). Then my wife got out the pies she made. Everyone cooked at least three dishes and we have days of leftovers even though we only cooked about half as much as usual. Pre-covid we had eleven at our table, now we’ve got three.
Only weak part of the meal was the bordelaise. It was my first time making it and it didn’t thicken properly when it reduced, but I wanted to follow the recipe so I’d know where it needed to improve. Just need to add some buerre manie next time.
I made brioche loaf for stuffing and rolls for dinner. Both use Chain Baker’s no kneed brioche recipe.
Nice. Can’t beat some nice homemade bread. These look like they came out very well. The rolls are glistening
It’s just us and we’re not big on turkey leftovers but we do like it with the stuffing, so I got some deli-sliced turkey and put it in the bottom of a casserole dish, cutting it across the grain just enough to be bite sized. Then I mixed up my stuffing (keto bread bits, herbs and spices, chopped onion, celery and apple) and packed it on top. Poured a mixture of chicken broth, melted butter, and melted duck fat over the whole thing. Tomorrow we shall see if it works.
I’ve also made low carb pecan and pumpkin pies and raw cranberry-orange relish, and prepped yams with marshmallows for my spouse who’s allowed them.
Dinner today was a Big Green Salad.
Damn, that does sound tasty. I’m not the biggest turkey fan, either, but that setup sounds like it could work very nicely. The cranberry-orange relish also sounds good; I’ve seen a lot of cranberry sauce recipes recommend orange ingredients (juice, zest, peels), so I guess it makes sense that a relish made of both is a good combination. Hope it all turns out good.
I haven’t had to make low-carb sweets in a few years. Do you use something like Erythritol? I think that’s what I used to usually use. Or occasionally Stevia, which I think was like a mixture of Erythritol and Allulose.
I used Xylitol for the cranberries because the other ingredients are an entire navel orange (yes the skin too, navel because seedless) and a bag of fresh cranberries. It’s weird-good, and cold, so you can get away with the “cold” feel of xylitol. For the pies I used a mixture of Swerve (an erythritol blend) and Allulose.
Haha, I’m stressed like last year, I’m further behind on prep than I want to be but I’m not too far behind, might even be better than last year.
Turkey is spatchcocked and seasoned, made the green bean salad, cranberry sauce, and chicken stock. Bacon cooked for the beer cheese and bacon soup. I’d like to have made the gravy already and be more certain o no the veggies I’ll toast tomorrow, but now typing this out I think I’m in a decent spot
Sounds delicious. The juiciest turkey I ever had had been spatchcocked. I haven’t done it myself, but I wanna try one of these days.
Hope the rest of the prep goes smoothly!
Honestly I think it’s easier, takes up a fair bit of space in the fridge, but you don’t have to worry about liquids and leaking like with a wet brine. The prep isn’t too bad. Just give it enough time to thaw and then you cut out the spine, flatten it and season. I think optimally it has 4 days to sit then but that’s a lot of time taking that much space and I didn’t buy the turkey early enough for that >.> <.< Work’s just been busy, I’ve had a recaulking project at home that did turn out well but took triple the time i thought it would, and then with a kid and toddler, just haven’t been quite on top of it
I heard that. Sounds like a rough week, but glad it seems to have worked out. I was sick last week and it made the lead-up to this week stressful cause I wasn’t sure if I would recover in time. But I’ve been fine the last two days and have had to make up for lost time in getting everything ready. So far so good, though.
lol,"veggies I’ll toast tomorrow”, but the Negronis were too good
We’re having Turkey-Day with family, so we’re just bringing some sides and pies.
Pecan pie is in the oven, chocolate pie is cooling on the counter.
Stuffing (cornbread and rolls) is in the fridge, bathing in aromatics, spices, and herbs (will get final seasoning and broth tomorrow before baking).
Sweet potato casserole is mixed and in the fridge (ready for topping before going in the oven). Broccoli rice casserole is also in the fridge, all mixed and ready to go in the oven.
Tomorrow we’ll make squash casserole, and a corn casserole.
And so it begins… home made cranberry sauce:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1 12 ounce bag fresh cranberries, washedBring the sugar, water, salt, and orange zest to a boil over high heat.
Add the cranberries and return to a boil, then drop the heat to medium.
Simmer for 5 minutes, until 2/3rds or so of the berries have popped. Remove from heat and stir in the Grand Marnier.
Cool to room temp and refrigerate.
Glad I did a double batch because once it all cooked down it just about filled the bowl I had in mind.
Funny you should ask, we aren’t having anyone over so- we just made our ham dinner tonight because it’s so much for two we’ll be having ham until we oink :D
Happy today thanksgiving
Happy tomorrow thanksgiving
Happy thanksgiving till the ham runs out to all.
I actually really enjoy a thanksgiving (or christmas) ham, but my spouse isn’t crazy about it so we rarely if ever go that route. Maybe I’ll talk her into it next year. 😋
My family has turkey on Thanksgiving and ham on Christmas so you get the best of both worlds with u (I actually don’t like ham but I still enjoy Christmas dinner for the side dishes).
Frozen turkeys by me are $0.49/lb, so I now have 3 of them in my freezer.
In one store, I saw them as low as $0.39 (with membership card). Was tempted, but have zero freezer space left that can fit one.
In another store, there was organic, artisanal something, something, at $4.99 a pound. A single turkey was priced at $89!
Nice. Hard to beat that.
Good, so far I’ve made the mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread, roasted root vegetables, prepped the yams for tomorrow.
I still need to dry brine the turkey overnight, make the stuffing, corn, salad, gravy.
That’s all I can remember at the moment.
Edit: The Birds
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Today I prepped and dry brined the turkey. We have done Kenji’s butterfly cut recipe for a few years now and it always works out well. I also got the gravy made ahead of time so tomorrow it’s simply a matter of reheating and checking the seasoning levels.
Also got a pumpkin pie baked and some bread out getting stale for dressing.
