multipurposegoddess

Got over to my folks' house about noon, yesterday. Traffic was not a problem, though it looked awful going the other direction. Put together the Turkey Stew with Stuffing Dumplings, which turned out delicious. The stew is turkey, sweet potatoes, chicken stock, and some herbs and spices, basically. Delicious. And the dumplings are leftover stuffing bound together with a little egg and flour, simmered in water and then simmered in the stew. So good. My mostly vegetarian parents liked it, too.

The Cranberry Pudding we put together using olive oil instead of butter and egg replacer instead of eggs and that didn't work great. It was still pretty delicious (a molasses-y batter and cranberries is not a combination I would have thought to our together, but it turned out very tasty!), but didn't hold together when it came time to unmold.

Mom roasted brussel sprouts with walnuts and garlic, and butternut squash, and made a beet and orange salad. Altogetehr not our typical Thanksgiving Day spread, but a festive one, and we were all pleasantly full to watch football and Punkin Chunkin - we flipped over during the lull between the Dallas game and the 49ers and soon found ourselves rooting for particular teams/events (the guys who measure how far the pumpkins have flown are our favorites, I think)

I left the pudding leftovers with mom and dad, and there was no pumpkin pie, and I am missing having dessert for breakfast today. I have sufficient ingredients for pumpkin pie, but I am feeling very lazy. To wit, I am out of coffee and dry cat food, so I am getting by with instant for me and dog food for the cats (I will give them surprise extra gushy food in a little while to appease them) so that I can stay by the fire in my robe and slippers rather than getting dressed and leaving the house. I really want to spend most of today curling up and reading and I think I can make that a reality. 

Got the stuffing mixed together, skillet-browned, and into the roasting pan. I'm gonna put my feet up for a bit and then butterfly the turkey* and get it into the brine overnight. So, on pace there.

Had a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner, because I am at that stage of the holiday festivities when I have tons of food but hardly any of it is actually in an edible state. If I can get the turkey roasted tomorrow, though, those days will be over.

So the plan for tomorrow is to roast the turkey and try to cover my usual Monday schedule of doing laundry and making yogurt. We'll see how it goes.

*Mission accomplished, but that was harder than I expected. I've gotten pretty good at butterflying chickens, but turkey anatomy is enough different to be challenging. I doubt I will ever do that frequently enough to really get good at it. Oh well.

What was happening with me yesterday? Oh, right:

• 10:34 Pumpkin sourdough pancakes came out pretty tasty. Goes well with this damn good cup of coffee #fb


Got three more servings of those in the freezer, yay!


• 12:32 Finished carving the turkey so as to free up the bones for stock. Still have over 2lbs of meat.


Think I have enough to make some Turkey Tetrazzini and (my favorite) Turkey Pot Pie. But not today. Enough cooking the last couple of days...

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I had a lovely day yesterday. Not much of it would fit into the traditional idea of Thanksgiving. DH and I, oh, and Walter, headed over to my parents' place around noon. They met us outside and swept us off in their Prius up to Mt. Diablo, where we picnicked at a picturesque but cold and windy spot. We all agreed that the view was worth it. Mom had braved Whole Foods on Tuesday to pick up an assortment of things to eat, including roasted vegetables, some sort of squash salad with cranberries, green beans, brussel sprouts with pecans, a tofu and rice thing for them and some deli sliced turkey for the carnivores. Mom wasn't sure that would be enough, so she made some rice and cranberry pilaf that was delicious. Once we'd all eaten enough and decided we'd had enough wind, we packed up the dishes and leftovers and headed up to the summit. We headed directly to the observation deck on the roof of the visitor's center and looked at various landmarks through Dad's spotting scope. It was pretty clear - we could see Suisun and the Golden Gate Bridge and the Sutter Buttes, and could even pick out the Transamerica Building with the scope. We followed that up with a leisure stroll around the Fire Trail (it's got another name now, but I don't recall who it's been dedicated to) and made it back to the car before sunset (when the park closes). Back at my folks' house, we had time to sit in front of the fire and have tea and "pumpkin pie bars", which were good though not really pie like, and start playing a "Thanksgiving Trivia" game that my mom had cut out of the paper. We had to take off before finishing the game so DH could get to a meeting while I lolled about at home, enjoying not painting or cleaning or anything. When he got home we were both hungry again (weird how that happens) so he heated up some Matzo Ball soup, gobbled it up, and went to bed.

Nice day.

Today we cleared out the new house in preparation for moving in, put all the switch plates and so forth back where they belong, vacuumed, mopped, set up the Mac Mini and the phone and accepted delivery on our new TV, though we didn't set it up yet.

Still to do
So close!