I've always wanted to try my hand at hosting Thanksgiving, so I figured this would be the perfect year to have a trial run. I don't really know how to explain it, but I've had this need lately to do something well. I think that's part of the reason I have been so obsessive about my Christmas trees this year. I'm a bit lost (ya know... COVID and isolation and all that), and I don't know what my purpose is currently. So I just needed to put my whole heart into Thanksgiving and feel good about a job well done. At the same time, I needed room to fail without a large audience, so a small Thanksgiving gave me the chance to practice my food prep skills while also allowing me to screw things up without really affecting anyone.
We ended up having Scotty's mom and step-dad join us. I'm blessed to have a mother-in-law that I can fail Thanksgiving in front of. She, herself, has at least one thing go wrong each year that she hosts, and it gives us something to laugh about. Most recently, she dumped half a bottle of sage in the stuffing. It was very “herby” and quite green. I never have to worry about doing an awful job in front of my MIL. She's impressed with me no matter what!
For my hosting rehearsal, I had a few goals. First and foremost, I wanted to do the turkey and the gravy. I haven't dabbled much in roasting turkeys. I did a quick-roast turkey once (it was "meh"), and I've done turkey breast in the crock pot a few times (which was pretty good), so roasting the turkey was something I definitely wanted to do. I also wanted to make homemade stuffing (which I'd never done before) and homemade cranberry sauce, rolls, my step-mom's Jell-O, and some kind of pie (I haven't made many pies in my lifetime, save for the "chicken pot" variety).
My mother-in-law offered to do mashed potatoes, butternut squash, yams, green beans, corn, and pumpkin pie. Vegetables are her thing, and her pumpkin pie is always my favorite! Did we need all those dishes? Heck no! But my MIL goes a bit crazy when she prepares food for other people, and there's no taming her quantities.
Scotty and I also decided to smoke a turkey. Because why not? Growing up, we often had Thanksgiving with my Uncle Scott, and he always made a roasted turkey and a smoked turkey. Ain’t nothin’ wrong with extra turkey on Thanksgiving! (and I confess, my MIL's problems with quantity have rubbed off on me over the years). Scotty took the lead on the smoking, and I took the lead on the roasting.
A few weeks before Thanksgiving, I started making my recipe and shopping list. I also went ahead and made the rolls and froze them. I tested the capacity of my Bosch by tripling the recipe. It barely worked. I thought for sure I was going to have to throw out the dough because the bowl was already full, and I had 7 more cups of flour to add. Somehow, it worked out, but I was definitely pushing it! That triple batch gave me six dozen rolls. I served two dozen for dinner that night and froze four dozen. We ate a dozen with soup the next week, and that left us with three dozen for Thanksgiving and turkey sandwiches all weekend!
The dish I cared most about was the stuffing. I love stuffing, but I'm particular about it. I ended up getting a recipe from my cousin because I recalled really liking the stuffing she brought to Thanksgiving many years ago.
I mapped out a food prep plan so I could have everything ready on time. Scotty started brining the turkey to smoke on Tuesday. I chopped celery, made the Jell-O, cut up the bread for the stuffing, made the cranberry sauce, and baked the pie on Wednesday.
On Thursday morning, Scotty and I started our turkeys. Then we rearranged some furniture so we could fit everyone at tables. We got the house tidied and groomed all the kids. It ended up being a very relaxed morning. Everything went smoothly. There were no crises. We timed all the food perfectly, and it all turned out great!
Especially the stuffing!
1 comment:
Well done!
Nicky looks so handsome in that last picture!
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