Through the Seasons

I finished Asher’s stocking.  I’ll take it to a friend on Thursday for her to sew it together with the backing and such.  I’m so relieved to have this done!

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The table – Jonathan’s handiwork.

Mashed potatoes.

Sweet potato casserole (the second time around).

Sauteed green beans (with bacon and almonds).

Corn pudding (I did this one twice too).

Chicken gravy.

The serving table.

Dessert table.

The group.  Asher wasn’t in this photo because his chair wouldn’t fit up to the table so he was off to the side.    I didn’t realize how sad I’d be about this.  But he’ll be in the Christmas decoration photos which will come soon. 

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Well today was eventful.  I made a pumpkin pie and an apple pie.  That went relatively well I think.  Then I made a corn pudding which also went fine.  Within these dishes though I was trying to make whipped cream.  I started with cream and then I beat it and beat it and beat it (according to a recipe I found online).  It never did set.  It was an all day event but it just didn’t work out.  But that was the smallest of my issues today.

I stuck the corn pudding into the fridge this morning.  This afternoon I took it out to wrap it in plastic and it was PINK.  Why was it pink you ask?  Raw chicken juice.  Yum.  So out that went.  Jonathan left and went to the only 2 stores still open and no corn.  Sigh.  He’ll go out to a third store tomorrow morning and we’ll try again if they have any.

So this evening I made stuffing.  This was by far my most labor intensive dish.  When the first step is to bake the bread you know it’s going to be a long process!  Anyway.  I got it done and put it in the oven and then about half an hour later I went to light the stove to start dinner.  Eeks!  The gas had run out which meant the oven had gone cold without me realizing it.  So how long did the dressing cook??  I have no idea.  Jonathan switched the tanks out and it just got done.

Here are some shots of a few finished products:

Is that pretty or what?  My first ever apple pie. 

Not the prettiest pumpkin pie in the world but it smells good.

And the stuffing/dressing finally all done.  It’s about to go in the fridge and I’m about to go to bed.  It’s been a full day!

Tomorrow I have a full schedule of cooking in the morning and the guests (10 of them) arrive at 12:30 for a long lunch.  When they leave we will veg in front of the computer with our full bellies to watch a football game.  That’s Thanksgiving!  Haha.

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Here are the cats.  We named one Cocoa because he’s sweet and the other Noche which is “night” in Spanish.  They took right to the high life and here’s what they do all day:

And here’s a series of Noche being awakened during his nap.

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Today I toasted almonds and cooked the bacon both to be used for the green beans.  I also made up a pot of chicken broth to use for gravy.  Here are the pics from yesterday’s cooking:

Next up:  cat pics.

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On Friday I had my househelp make extra loaves of bread that I will use for the stuffing.  I left it sitting out to get it to stale some and today I cubed it and stuck it in the freezer.

I put the giblets into the fridge to thaw then started working on the gingerbread cookies (shaped like turkeys).  I made the dough for those on Saturday and cooked them today.  Once again my househelp was using the oven all day so I couldn’t do them until this evening but they weren’t as much work as I thought they’d be so they turned out fine.  I am now debating whether to freeze them or not.  Will they stay good for 4 days?  I’ll decide tomorrow.  My freezer is getting quite full!

I do have pics of my cookies but don’t know where the cord is that goes from the camera to the computer so they are trapped with no way to be presented online.  When I get that sorted I’ll post those and pictures of our new kittens too.  There’s a little teaser for ya…

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I have defined success in this week’s venture as me getting through Thanksgiving with a cheerful, positive attitude even if every dish fails and I end up serving macaroni and cheese out of a box.  Due to this, my cooking failures yesterday didn’t discourage me at all.  I am keeping on keeping on and learning as I go (as many of these things are my first try).

My goal yesterday was to cook the sweet potato casserole (minus the topping) and the yeast rolls.

First, the yeast rolls.  Two things happened.  I didn’t count on the fact that our househelp would be cooking bread at the same time I’d be cooking my stuff so the yeast rolls rose and rose and rose until the first set were entirely too big.  I cooked them anyway.  I expected them to brown on top.  They didn’t.  So I overcooked the bottom a bit and Jonathan said they were fine.  The second batch were slightly better.  They didn’t rise or cook as long which helped.  In the future I will make sure to check the bottom and ignore the top completely.

Here’s what I’m talking about:

The first batch is on the left.  The second is on the right.

The first batch.

Second batch.

Then we come to the sweet potato casserole.  The sweet potatoes here are very starchy and dry.  I microwaved them before blending them with egg, butter, and spices.  They were DRY.  But I persevered and stuck them in the oven.  Jonathan and I were leaving and the casserole was almost done so I kept waiting and waiting until the last minute to turn the oven off.  I was saying out loud, “Turn the oven off.  Turn the oven off.  Turn the oven off.”  Then Jonathan asked me to take something to the car.  When I got out there he asked if I had locked the door and I said no.  I thought, “Well I wasn’t planning to walk out of the house for good but I suppose I’m ready.”  But.  Without turning that oven off!!!  So it cooked another 2 hours.  Ruined.  But the house was standing so I wasn’t too upset about it.

Here it is:

On today’s agenda was another sweet potato casserole, 2 pie crusts (including both top and bottom), and the dough for gingerbread cookies.  And I actually accomplished it!

What did I learn with these?

This time I cubed and peeled the sweet potatoes then boiled them.  MUCH BETTER.  SO!  My “disaster” turned out to be a blessing because this casserole turned out moist, smooth, and fluffy.

I made 2 pie crusts in 2 batches and the second was better than the first.  I’m not totally sure why but I think the first wasn’t quite wet enough.  Hopefully both taste fine though.

The gingerbread dough seems fine and is chilling in the refrigerator until I make the cookies on Monday.

You’ll see these when they are the finished products on Thursday.

It has been a busy but fun day.  Tonight is dinner out with friends so I don’t have to cook dinner!  Hooray!  Tomorrow is resting and watching a race – a much needed day off!

To be continued next week…

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As I made my grocery list today and wrote out the recipes for Thanksgiving I realized just why the meal is so horribly fattening!  I made myself this note:

Make sure not to run out of the following:

Milk

Eggs

Sugar

Flour

Butter

Yikes!  And another thing that I found interesting was that we take things that could be good for you – green beans, corn, potatoes – and we add cream, butter, bacon, and sugar.  No wonder we walk around in a stupor from Thanksgiving to the end of the year!  And no wonder we’re content with black-eyed peas, greens, and resolutions on New Year’s Day!

Maybe this is a good time to take up a form of exercise… 

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Okay, this is exciting.  For the first time ever I will make a full Thanksgiving meal… for guests… in Africa… by myself.  So I had to have a plan.  And now I do have a plan!  I thought it would be fun to take you through my activities from now until Thanksgiving to see what all this may entail, what challenges I meet, what successes I have, what failures I experience, and how I handle it all.

So stage 1 was creating a menu, looking up the recipes, figuring out what could be cooked before Thanksgiving Day, then putting it all out on my calendar.  A few challenges I’ve already met are how to make condensed milk for the pumpkin pie and making whipped cream.  This is one major from scratch meal!  I found what I needed to know online and now I’m ready to go.

Tomorrow is Monday, our normal shopping day, so we’ll go ahead and buy what we can.

Did you notice I changed to “we” there?  That’s because Jonathan usually does the shopping while he’s out for the day.  So when I say “we” here I mean Jonathan.  Delegation is good, right? Another thing he’s taking care of is finding us a turkey and getting it – um – ready to be cooked.

So the menu is this:

Turkey (or chicken if that doesn’t work out) – roasted

Gravy

Stuffing (home-made – hope I can find celery!)

Sweet Potato Casserole (it was hard last week to find sweet potatoes; let’s hope that problem has been solved)

Sauteed Green Beans with Bacon and slivered almonds

Mashed Potatoes

Corn Pudding

Yeast Rolls

Gingerbread Cookies shaped like turkeys (thanks to a turkey cookie cutter I got from Jonathan’s mom)

Pumpkin Pie with homemade whipped cream

Apple Pie

So that’s what I’m shooting for.  And it’s a lunch so I have to have it ready at 12:30.  If I’ve set my sights too high I’ll figure it out and flex when needed.  I don’t start any food prep until Friday so now I’m free to focus on getting Christmas cards and gifts mailed, hosting a playdate on Wednesday, meeting with the director one morning about member care, and hosting the group’s Bible study on Thursday.  It’ll be a busy couple weeks coming up but I’m excited about it!

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