Saturday, November 26, 2011

Our First Thanksgiving

Notice the missing parts? He couldn't wait another minute!
I had good intentions.  I really did!  It's the planning I didn't quite have worked out.  I mean, it's not my first time to cook Thanksgiving Dinner. (although you might question that after today)  I really hadn't even thought much about the dinner itself. I kind of had an idea of what I wanted to do.  Just a simple meal, nothing really fancy since it's just Mars and I here.  And as far as he was concerned I could have made any old meal as long as I called him to dinner.   The one thing I knew I wasn't going to do was to go to town for any of it.  If we didn't already have it here at the house already I wasn't going to make it. Since the oven in the RV is too small to hold a turkey I decided to just bake a whole chicken instead.

On Wednesday, instead of prepping things ahead of time,(yeah, what was I thinking, right?) I decided I should make cookies for the neighbors and for Bob down at the lumber yard. (more about that later)  I made a huge batch of Snickerdoodles, and helped Mars some with the skirting on the trailer. I delivered "Bob the Builder" his cookes. Then "life" just sort of happened and before you know it the day was gone.  I figured what the heck, It's just a simple meal and won't take much time at all to get it done in the morning.  So off to bed I went. And didn't wake up till almost 9:30.  I wasn't too upset though, heck I was just going to bake a chicken and some sweet potato's right?

So while I'm drinking coffee and checking out emails I got to thinking that well... it IS Thanksgiving.  Maybe I should make some dressing (that's southern for stuffing) to go with that bird. I mean what's Thanksgiving without dressing? I ran through the items in my head that I'd need... ok no problem... I think I've got everything.

So as I'm making  breakfast, I realized I only had a half a loaf of bread left and I was going to need it ALL for the stuffing. And if we were going to have chicken and dressing we were going to need something to sop up the gravy wouldn't we?  So I needed to make some bread. I needed to make some anyway... But then I got to thinking... you can't just have bread with a Thanksgiving dinner can you?  I'd need to make some rolls too.  No problem, I'd just whip up a batch of dough before I got started on everything else.
 Wait a second...Did I just say GRAVY? Where did that come from? But you know if you are going to have chicken and dressing you just have to have gravy right? I mean it IS Thanksgiving. And really, it isn't all hard and takes no time at all to whip up...

So now the menu was Chicken and Dressing with giblet gravy, baked sweet potato's ( I'm not crazy about the sweet potato casserole, thanks but no thanks) and homemade rolls.  It sound's simple enough and traditional but then I got to thinking.... Man I would sure love some deviled eggs to go with that!  Ok, easy enough, right?  But wait!!!  We need a desert of some kind don't we I mean it IS Thanksgiving and what would it be without dessert?  I have a bunch of pumpkin spice pudding I got on sale last year that I could make pretty quick and I had some whipped topping in the freezer.  I'd just need to go into the understorage on the trailer to find the pudding.

So I set out to make Thanksgiving Dinner. And apparently, looking back, I was having a "Blonde" day.

Step 1) Mix up the dough. Get hot water ready to "proof" my yeast. Grab the sugar canister.... empty! Go out to storage and fill the sugar up. Put sugar, yeast and water in the bowl and let it start working. Grab the flour cannister.  Two cups left in it, need 6. (Darn, made cookies yesterday and used it all) Go to storage and get more flour. Mix the dough and let it rise for an hour or so.

Step 2) Slice up the half a loaf of bread to let it "air dry" for a bit. Chop celery and onion and set it in the fridge for later. Take the celery ends to the rabbits because they really like them.

Step 3) Put eggs on to boil for the Deviled Eggs.  So far so good.

Step 4) Go out to the understorage to find the pudding. Unload several boxes before I realize what I need is in the BACK. Find the pudding mix and restack the boxes.  Find a can of cranberry sauce. YaY!!  What's dressing without cranberry sauce? This is when I find a can of pumpkin I forgot I had.  Hmmmm.... boy, pumpkin pie sure would be good...  Of course I've never made a pumpkin pie before but how hard could it be? And it IS Thanksgiving....

Step 5) Put cranberry sauce in the fridge. Look up recipe for Pumpkin Pie and realize that it's the same one that's on the can! Calls for evaporated milk. Which is in storage. Go out and unload a few boxes and find the milk. Hmmmm I'm going to need a pie shell.  Look up a recipe for one that sounds simple enough.

Step 6) Dough is ready to form into rolls. Make two pans and a loaf of bread and let rise till doubled.   Put the rolls in the tiny oven to bake. Set the timer (because it is becoming apparent I'm not to be trusted today) Take a break because after all... it IS Thanksgiving.

Step 7) Put the second round of bread in the tiny oven to cook.

Step 8) Make the pie dough and wonder why it's not holding together like it should. Read the recipe and see where it says chill the dough first. Put it in the fridge and start mixing up the pumpkin filling.  I can't find the ground cloves.... I have whole cloves. OK, break out the little spice grinder and try to grind them up. They don't grind up real well but at this point it is going to have to do. Take the pie dough out and it's better now.  Roll out two pie crusts because the recipe says to make one deep dish pie and I don't have a deep dish.

Step 9) Take out the bread, put the pies in the oven and cross my fingers.  Recipe says it should take aproximately an hour. Set the timer (because it's now my best friend)

Step 10) Put celery,onions and butter in pan to sautee for the dressing. Look for the poultry seasoning. There IS no poultry seasoning.  Wonder if there is any in storage. Go out to look, pull out the boxes... nothing... put the boxes back and hit the internet (again) for a homemade poultry seasoning recipe.  I actually have all the spices. I know this because I had just looked through every single one I have looking for the poultry seasoning.  Wash the spice grinder (because it has clove powder stuck in it) Mix up seasoning and add to the celery and onions, cut bread cubes and add them and the other ingredients necessary. Set aside till I'm ready to do the chicken.

Step 11) Check the pie's. They are nowhere near done. Put them back in to cook and set the timer for 30 minutes. Check the clock. Realize that Thanksgiving Dinner is really going to be Thanksgiving Supper.

Step 12) Wash the chicken and am amazed that all the "innards" are in it.  Season chicken and stuff with the dressing. Check the pies.... still not done.  Set timer for another 15 minutes.

Step 13) Make the Deviled Eggs. Nothing went wrong.... weird.

Step 14) Start the "innards" in chicken stock and spices. Check the pies. Almost done. Set timer for 5 more minutes.

Step 15) Take a break cause after all it IS Thanksgiving.

Step 16) Pies are ready!!!  Take out to cool and put chicken in.  Set timer for 1 hour. Put sweet potato's in too.

Step 17) Realize I used all the eggs for deviled eggs and have none for the gravy.  Put on some to boil and start the gravy.

Step 18) Wait for chicken to bake and eat a couple of rolls because I'm starving. Set out plates, etc for dinner. Open the can of cranberry and see its gone bad. At this point I'm no longer worried about it... Give me CHICKEN!  Toss it out in the compost pile.  Finish up the gravy. Check the clock. Almost time.... Check chicken and see that it is nowhere near done. It's going to be another hour. <sigh>

Step 19) Spend some quality time with Mars and hand him another roll. Talk about all the things we are thankful for this year, and how blessed we are to be here.

Step 20) Dinner is finally ready.  Give thanks for all we have been blessed with this past year and eat till I'm about to pop.

In looking back, I realized that all this could have been a whole lot easier with at least SOME planning on my part. But I have to say that if nothing else it was a memorable Thanksgiving Dinner. Everything worked out and that's really all that matters in the end. It was still one of the best Thanksgiving's I've ever had.
      ~~~~~~  Hey ... I'm Just Sayin' ...  ~~~~~~

20 comments:

  1. Laughing with ya, not at ya.
    You sound like me and not only am I not blonde honey, I am pretty much bald with that crazy professor look.

    At least it all turned out eventually.

    Happy Holidays to you and Mars from me and the Mrs.

    Best wishes to ya.

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  2. And here I thought I worked hard on Thanksgiving meals....you make me look like a piker.

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  3. happy thanksgiving! that was a great tale! I let daughter make most of the meal and she did great!

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  4. Sounds like a day I might have had if I had had to do the cooking.

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  5. Sounds like a feast, Sci! Just think how much more you guys enjoyed it since you worked so hard to make it happen!

    : )

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  6. You mean that WASN'T a normal Thanksgiving? Sounds like what happens around here every year. lol. Glad you had a good one friend.

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  7. Busted, Hun can't you just see the two of us in the kitchen... there would be more cuss words coming out if the kitchen than food. And you know there would have to be libations involved. Thanks for the well wishes and right back at you Buddy!

    Awwww, Steven, You could NEVER be a piker in my books. Honestly, I don't know where my head was Thursday, but it sure wasn't in the kitchen!

    HP! Happy Thanksgiving to you and your's too! Hmmm that's probably the reason my daughter wasn't here! LOL I'm glad you had a good day

    Momlady I'm glad you didn't have to cook. Anytime you can get out of doing the holiday meal is a good one!! Thanks for stopping by today.

    HB, Girl I tell you I might have worked twice as hard as I should have but I would work double that over again just to be able to do it from right here... sitting on our own place! Happy Holidays to you n YeOldFurt!11!

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  8. I'm happy that you had a memorable day! And that chicken looked really good!

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  9. With the exception of having to drag the boxes out a gazillion times [whew!] I think it pretty much sounds like a normal Thanksgiving for two and a very delicious one at that. Nice that you have all of that on hand.

    I was teasing Pooldad earlier this week - as we had the same thing going on [except for the boxes] I went to write out a list of all the things we need to make Tday dinner and was pleasantly surprised that I could make the whole dinner [including oyster dressing - we had those frozen!] without shopping. I even had all the stuff for two pies. It got funnier because when he went to work his bosses gave him $150 in grocery store gift cards as a holiday bonus to "help out with Thanksgiving" - awesome - except we didn't need anything. So now we will stock up for Christmas and replenish the basics. That grocery money will go a long way. :)

    And I never knew that people consider "dressing" a southern term. I am southern, always have been, and we refer to it both ways - if you put it in the bird it is called "stuffing" and if you make it outside the bird it is called "dressing". I will have to ask my friends [southern/not southern] what they call it. :)

    Glad you had such a nice first Thanksgiving.

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  10. Phew...taking a break...after all it's just past thanksgiving. :) All that hard work, you made me tired! Happy Thanksgiving to you both. :)

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  11. Sci - oh gurl - we really ARE sisters from another mother. after the gawd-awful escapade that we went through yesterday (when we celebrated Thanksgiving) - i hoped to just put up a post about the attic or the atv or something because i simply COULD NOT post about our horrible Thanksgiving Dinner. then i read your post and you are the inspiration behind my latest post entitled "a SciFiChick kinda' Thanksgiving Dinner".

    go read it. you'll laugh at me, and with me, the same way i laughed at you, and with you on this post.

    (jambaloney is reading your post now and guffawing and snorting - he loved adding the devilled eggs at the last minute!)

    must be something about first Thanksgiving Dinners on your own land or something!

    thanks for sharing buddy - i loved this post and it made me feel less like a walking idiot!

    your friend,
    kymber

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  12. hahahahaha!!

    as kymber said - you two MUST be related !!

    and yes, i spit out my coffee when i read that you decided out of the blue to make deviled eggs!!

    thansk for the laughs AND the inspiration!!!!

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  13. I'm sorry. I couldn't help it. I wasn't laughing WITH you; I was laughing AT you! Blame kymber, she sent me over.(It DID all make for a good story, though.)

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  14. (((Sci)))
    I'm glad it all turned out perfect in the end.

    Love and Hugs to you both!
    ~Fel~

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  15. That was hilarious! Kymber sent me over here. I have some of that pumpkin pie spice pudding, too. "...it IS Thanksgiving...lol.

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  16. Now, stew would of been so much easier. Man you wore me out just readin this post.
    Glad that it all worked out. You might ask my better half about boiling eggs, for devil egg's.

    Plus, have you tried to do any baking on a BBQ grill? It works pretty good. And free's up the stove some.

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  17. Yart, one good thing about the day WAS the chicken, it was yummy.

    Skipppy, thanks for letting me know the difference between stuffing and dressing, I never knew that. I honestly never heard anyone call it stuffing until I was grown and away from home. (guess I didn't get out much then either!)

    Tango, trust me, it's definitely breaktime!

    Kymber My Sister (f.a.n.m.) If we don't have an adventure a day somethings wrong! And if we don't have spectacular adventures on holidays then what would all that work be good for!!
    Love ya Girl!

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  18. Kymber that was supposed to read (F.A.M.) but I guess you already knew that LOL

    Jamber I have a question for ya... Wouldn't that make you my bro-in-law by some sort of morphed proxy sort of thing??? LOL I bet your scared now... hehehee

    Mr Smythe thanks for coming by, I hope you'll come again> Oh and just to let ya know- its ok if you're laughing at me. I'm used to it! People laugh at me all the time! I just have to laugh with them cause you know you just can't make up some of this stuff!

    Awww Fel my friend, I can always count on you to see the best in things. A mighty fine trait to possess.
    Sending love to you and Catman and B's.

    Flyer, lol@ the stew. As for the eggs, I'm almost afraid to ask.... If it produces the same energy as your stew does I'd be afraid to get to close if I do. LOL

    P.P. Knowing your passion for parsimony I'll bet you got a good deal on it too! Thanks for stopping by. Stop by anytime!

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  19. I wanted to do BBQ turkey and I planned it so I was not responsible for the meal on Thanksgiving. So demon Murphy and I did battle today for Turkey on the BBQ grill.
    3 and 1/2 hours prepping and cooking and it looks good. Small bird at 11.5 pounds I'm not making gravy but the drippings pan is full of yummy goodness and the dark ale and mesquite added just a hint of sweetness. If you want you can copy from my blog for your next turkey dinner. It was about 45 degrees outside with just a little breeze blowing and the BBQ had no problems maintaining 325-350 degrees.

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  20. ASR BBQ turkey sounds wonderful. And Murphy must be working overtime this Thanksgiving! I'll head right over and check out your recipe! Happy Turkey Day!

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