Our First Solo Thanksgiving

The dust has settled a bit as we're getting adjusted to our new home. I've composed at least a dozen blog posts in my mind about various things but unfortunately Google has yet to invent a wireless brain download device to get it from there to by computer. So rather than waiting for time to play catch up with the last 3 very full busy weeks, I'll just jump right in (with just a quick re-cap).

Our flight out and arrival went pretty smoothly. We walked through our empty house that Friday night and then crashed at the Best Western down the road. My parents arrived later that night and stayed for a week helping us get settled in. The kids love all the space, they now have three runways instead of one. I'm glad it's all one level without stairs to worry about!

Even though we are within reasonable driving distance to Matt's uncles south of us and my family to the north, we opted to lay low and have a small Thanksgiving since things have been so crazy lately. This is the first year we haven't had Thanksgiving at Grammum's and Pappy's. We definitely missed that. Betsy always cooks fabulous food never forgets to add the dough balls to the pumpkin pie.

As for our feast, I didn't get around to shopping for it until Wednesday. Since Matt's truck hasn't made it out here yet, we're down to one car so we all pile in and drop him off in the morning. It's only 7 minutes there driving down one of the main arteries of this little town, so not a big deal. Since we were down to the wire with food prep and also needed bread and milk, we stopped at Ray's Price Less Foods on the way to work so I could run in and grab the essentials, plus a turkey if they had one. With just 5 minutes, I dashed in and beelined to the meats and was pleased to find a case full of fresh birds. I was clueless about how to choose the best one, and since I was barely 30 minutes out of bed and thus not quite functioning I simply grabbed the first one I saw, figuring 1.29/lb was reasonable and 18 dollars sounded fine to me.

Later that morning in between visits by estimators for new floors, windows and roof, I finally had time to assess the turkey and realized I'd purchased a 14 pounder to feed our very small family of 2 1/2 diners, Henry and Evalyn together making a half a dinner serving. What was I thinking?? I guess we'll have lots of leftovers!

Next task was brining the bird. That same morning I'd also had a fun iChat ssession with Kellie (made my day!) and she suggested using an ice chest. Brilliant. Since it was a bit icky from storage even after washing it out, I kinda tried to line it with a kitchen bag. Evalyn was very excited about helping me with the turkey so I let her "measure" the salt. When I finally pulled the huge rubbery thing out of the sink and into the ice chest, her pleasant chit chat of "We're gonna cook a turkey" was silent as she watched me lower it into the water. Obviously she didn't expect THAT to be a turkey. I quickly closed the lid before she could take in too much more and have second thoughts about eating it.

Later that evening Matt and I finalized our menu (with the help of Cook's Illustrated online--love that site!) and I ran out to Raley's for the first time since moving here. (One of my brain-only composed posts is comparing my first impressions of these two grocery stores) I strolled the aisles with my kid-free cart and well-thought out shopping list, simply enjoying being a pre-Thanksgiving day shopper and loving the idea of all the yummy food we'd eat tomorrow. I had to keep pushing thoughts of our loved ones we wouldn't be spending it with out of my mind and just focus on the food.

By the time I got home, put the groceries away, helped get the kids in bed and got the kitchen cleaned (I hate cooking unless the counters are all clutter free and wiped down and the dishwasher and sink are empty. No, that doesn't happen every night in my house at this stage of life!) I was too tired to make the pie. Matt got his stuffing ready though and I took the turkey out of the brine and let it air out in the fridge per the CI "Roast Crisp-Skin Turkey" recipe.

In the morning it was crucnh time. Evalyn helped me with the pie while Matt made major progress in decluttering/unpacking the garage while watching the kids and stopping to feed Linnea as needed. I love the big production meal cooking, but it is slightly anti-climatic when it's just our small group. I did get a little impatient with Evalyn's "help" and felt like a bad mommy trying to figure out how she could measure and pour without ruining the recipe. In the end she decided the garage was more interesting and I was relieved but sad at the same time.

Our timing was tight but we miraculously got our 14 lbs turkey cooked in our 1960 era wall oven and all the sides warmed and on the table at the same time. The only mishaps being the warm potatoes rather than hot and the turkey broth rather than gravy. I was especially sad about the gravy because I'd followed the recipe for using the giblets and other parts to making the broth and had a lovely thick flavorful gravy, until I added the pan drippings that hadn't evaporated enough and so my perfect gravy was ruined with one rash pour of the cup and not listening to the little voice that said leave well enough alone even if the recipe says otherwise.

So before we got all the food put away, I did the corn starch and cold water trick to thicken what was left on the stove so our leftovers would at least have thick gravy. And they did.