I picked up some frozen crawfish and pickled herring. Then I got myself a cup of gumbo and an order of fried clams for lunch. Very yummy.
The plan was then to come home, work out and get on with the day.
But these decided to interrupt....
Yep... I fell DOWN the stairs. Badly. I've become somewhat of an expert at falling up stairs, I do that frequently enough where I have perfected my technique, but down is another store. I laid there for a moment. Got up and was shaking, but nothing seemed too out of order. Headed upstairs and sat for a few minutes just to make sure I was OK, and decided to just put off the workout for the day.
Only Thanksgiving prep I did was put all my pumpkin puree in it's final serving dish, and mixed up the pumpkin filling for my Chocolate-Pumpkin Tart. Nothing exciting.
I think I actually pulled the muscles in the top of my right foot, and it still hurt this morning. Fun.
But, today is the Big Show, time to get on with all the other things I wanted to get done. First, the turkey breast that would be going into the crockpot. I usually don't pay much attention to all the people who say "put it in a bowl, just in case it leaks on you". It's never happened to me!
Well, now it has, I guess. Le sigh.
After I had that cleaned up, I threw the turkey breast and some turkey tails I got at the produce mart in the crockpot (hey, they were cheap, and I'm looking forward to lots of bones for stock).
Next up was the crumble for my sweet potatoes. Usually, I just do the crumble on top of the sweet potatoes, but for some reason my mother in law requested the sweet potatoes without the crumble. I know the hubby's uncle is currently going thru chemo and not handling it well, but I know he's not allergic to nuts, I don't know if she was just thinking more "plain" type food or what. And one of the husband's cousins is allergic to nuts. He's a teenager now and all into trying new foods, so I figured I'd keep the nuts on the side for a few things in case he now wants to try them (he used to love the excuse that he couldn't have so-and-so because it had nuts in it).
I actually do the sweet potatoes different than the recipe... throw the stick of butter into a big pot, add 3 tablespoons sugar, 1/2 cup OJ and peeled and diced (1 inch cubes) of sweet potato and bring it to a simmer, then cover, reduce the heat and cook until the cubes are soft, which usually only takes 30 minutes for me although my origianl reference says 45. Then uncover and boil away until the liquid is syrupy. The potato cubes mash up a little bit while you're stirring, leaving you a nice contrast of mashed and whole sweet potato. And sorry, no pictures of that, since my phone ran out of juice and had to recharge.
So, I wanted to try the crumble on its own, kinda as a seperate thing you could sprinkle on top of your sweet potatoes if you wanted. Started it off as any other crumble... flour, brown sugar and butter....
Smoosh it all together. You can do this in a food processor, but I just went old-school with my hand pastry blender. Wooo... look.... crumbly and pretty...
Added a half cup of chopped pecans, and then spread it on a baking sheet. And it worked!!
Wooooo....
I was happy. I was on top of the world. I was about to be violently shoved back into my place by the evil, evil, Martha Stewart.
Stoopid Chocolate-Pumpkin Tart.
Cookies (and this was an adventure on it's own... since these "chocolate wafer cookies" are now kept by the ice cream supplies most places, not by the cookies) and sugar in the food processor.
Action shot!
Mmm... chocolate.... after I added the melted butter...
You then press the crumbs into the bottom of a tart shell. Which I did. And bake it. Which I did. Then melt 4 oz. of chocolate chips, which I did. Then spread on the baked shell. Which went horribly.....
The stuff just did NOT hold together in any crust-like manner. It was horrible. It happens with Martha recipes a lot... they sound so easy to do when you read them, and they obviously leave out some big technical details that you really need to know. Being a technical writer - someone who revels in the little details that make all the difference between success and total FAIL - I find it kinda evil to let bad recipe like that upon the world. Martha Stewart 1, Hausfrau 0. Actually, she might have way more than 1. I don't always have a lot of luck trying to pretend to be Martha.
After that, I decided to do something easy... topping for the Pumpkin and Percorino Gratin. Two slices of bread and 1/4 cup of pecorino cheese. Easy enough.
That'll go on the pumpkin tomorrow, and I'll throw it all in the oven.
After that, it was on to the stuffing. Since my dad passed in 2004, I've been trying to figure out what the magic was to his stuffing. I still haven't figured it out, but I get a little closer ever year. This year, I planned on actually adding the celery to it. But while I was at the produce mart, I saw this, right next to the celery....
Cardone, or Cardoon. I figured I could use it kinda like celery. I should have checked before today, because although you can, apparently it's more bitter and best if you give it a long pre-soak.
Sigh. Ok... no celery, no cardone either. Moving on....
I did find one great thing... a microwave bag of wild rice....
My dad's stuffing recipe used wild rice, and it's always stressful for me to have to make it. I was overjoyed to find this lovely packet. Sure enough, two minutes in the nuke box and it was perfect. Added to my simmering mushrooms and onions....
Add that to dried out bread cubes and some cooked & crumbled sausage. Add some sage, salt and pepper, and moisten with stock. I used chicken stock.
And a blurry picture of the stuffing, just out of the oven.....
Not too bad. Closer than any previous attempt, at least.
I then started a new Chocolate-Pumpkin tart. I tried more butter in the crust and it was better, but I probably should have melted my chocolate more. Then I quickly threw in the filling and got it in the oven.
At this point, there are no pictures because the hubby called at about 2:30 and said they were letting them out of work at 3pm. And he had to pick up a pie from Baker's Square at 4pm.
What he obviously meant to say was "we get off at 3, but I'm going to the comic book store and a couple other places and I'm not going to be home at my usual time". So, by 5pm I was mildly freaking and checking local traffic reports for reports of horrible, firey car crashes (there weren't any in any area I figured the hubby would be). And my hubby's phone is chronically NOT charged or just off. And it drives me CRAZY at times like this. At 5:30pm, he finally came home.
He went to nap, I moved on to my browned butter and toasted almonds.
Butter, just foaming...
Getting there.....
We have brown....
And mixed with the lemon juice (and a little soy sauce and balsamic)
And the slivered almonds, toasted in the oven....
I have to remember to ask my mother in law tomorrow... my husband has said since we first started dating a zillion years back that their family tradition for the night before Thanksgiving was to have McDs. I'm fine with that. And yes, he had to go into work today but I spent the entire bleepin' day in the kitchen on my feet. I need confirmation from the Supreme Mother In Law that it is the job of the person who did NOT spend the day prepping to go pick up the food. Seriously.
After dinner, I did a quick food processor pie dough for my pecan pie, mixed up the pecan pie filling, removed the turkey breast from the crockpot, cleaned the kitchen and ran the dishwasher for the FOURTH time today, and the kitchen is now closed. It's time for this Hausfrau to relax with a couple of bottles of Blue Moon's Harvest Moon Pumpkin Ale and RELAX.
1 comment:
Are you OK after your fall?
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