Happy Thanksgiving - What's your story?
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Up at 3:15... Of course, that's not the whole story as prep has been going on for a while. Mrs. Kluurs took off yesterday to do prep as well. House organizing, prepping has gone on for a while.
We have written a quite detailed SOP for Thanksgiving. This has helped limited arguments discussions of how much soda, food, wine, etc. are needed the SOP documents what was used last year, amount left over, suggestions for improvement for the following year, etc. It is now at 3 pages of detail.
The reason for the 3:15 rise was to make sure the bird was fully prepped and ready for the roaster. In days of yore, we'd used our convection oven - but the last couple of years we've used an electric roaster as that frees up the oven for all kinds of things.
We'd had the roaster on the back porch in past years - but given outdoor the predicted outdoor temp and the hurricane level of wind predicted for today, we opted to place the roaster in the basement. Spouse doesn't like cooking bird smells in the house - but hopefully the hurricane winds oozing through the house - along with the basement location will limit the aroma from being noticeable.
We have a 19 lb bird in the roaster - slightly smaller than past years but the main bird is supplemented by 3 lb turkey breast which will go in the air fryer - to ensure turkey supremacy. In some years my spouse, in her zest for friendliness has given away ALL of the turkey to her relatives for leftovers. As a result, I've ended up cooking a turkey the day AFTER Thanksgiving.
Our dining room can comfortably sit 10 - so it was ordained that we have 13 people attending. Thus, there is the infamous "kids" table - and propitiously, there are kids.
I've conveniently positioned chairs in front of the stereo monitor speakers - hoping to protect them from destruction. Horror stories on internet abound with children and adults tearing the tweeter off the speaker, assuming it is meant to be abused - a $1,500-$2,000 mistake we hope to avoid. A substantial amount of art and art-like objects have been removed from key rooms so as to minimize insurance liabilities.
Festivities reach their apex at about 2:00 this afternoon - and hopefully, we chase the last of the attendees out the door about 6:00. We then have the rest of the night to restore some of the order to the house - and sleep the sleep of the damned.
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Wow.
I’ll start cooking about noon. Turkey, scalloped potatoes, and Caesar salad. Apple crumble pie for dessert is the only thing I bought rather than attempt to cook.
Oh and cranberry sauce with a splash of orange juice mixed in. A recipe from the NYT that I’ve been using for a decade or more.
It’s totally the Jon show in the kitchen. If I let Mayla help we might end up with a guinea pig instead of a bird. lol
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@kluurs i have been keeping an SOP for Thanksgiving since I started hosting (2016??)
I always buy a precooked whole turkey, makes things easier. That gets heated up of course.
This year we have a 9lb turkey.
I will also make green beans almondine and stuffing (myself). I haven’t yet added mashed potatoes to the list of make-it-myself items, maybe next year!
Oh and since we moved to an evil state where people put celery, pineapple and walnuts in the cranberry relish, last year I learned how to make the relish myself. I have a great recipe for cranberry orange relish (no word ingredients, just cranberries, orange, and sugar) and it is delish! Mr SK is responsible for zesting the orange and I do the rest. (Such as it is, cranberry orange relish has got to be one of the easiest thing to make!)
I did the relish yesterday. This morning I got up at 5am so I could do my PT exercises first. Mr SK is doing most of the move-around stuff. We just finished the last bit of straightening up and putting things away just now.
Then in few minutes I’m going to do some prep for the stuffing (roast the walnuts) and then I’ll start prepping for the green beans.
The turkey prep will start at 1pm and go in the oven at 1:30pm. Target eat time is 2:30pm but I still don’t know this oven so we’ll see.
Friends are coming so they’re brining some things, and my mother bought two froze pies that you bake yourself, so she’ll bring those. (She’s 81 y/o and this past June moved to our town, in an apt about 5 minutes from our house.
So that’s where we’re at.
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@kluurs, storming the Thanksgiving castle. I was exhausted by the end of your description of the prep work. And the day is young!
As I mentioned a while back, we roasted a vintage turkey a few weeks back, trying to do our part to bridge the divide between the US and Canada by having our Thanksgiving meal somewhere in between the two countries' celebrations.
Our hosting of big holiday celebrations is a thing of the past so it's just the two of us here. We are having some prime sirloin steaks, Brussels sprouts, homegrown potatoes made into potato salad and bernaise on the side to put on whatever you want. Also watching about 20 minutes of the Macy's parade, just to feel like it's the official holiday.
sharing a photo a friend just sent me:
