Thanksgiving success yay.

I’d say Thanksgiving was a success. There were a few mess-ups (I spilled fresh-peeled hard boiled eggs all over the floor, Jake spilled chopped veggies as he carried them to the turkey pan), a couple of minor annoyances (the salad dressing I made refused to pour, still does. The turkey was ready half-hour before we were ready for it to be ready), and an incident (turned the oven on while there was still a flexible cutting board on top. Board was positioned over the not-a-coil-but-in-fact-a-chimney and a circular spot completely melted. Thankfully, there was a knife on top, and the knife handle grabbed all the melty plastic so none dripped into the oven and turned ‘incident’ into ‘oh fuck!’ Now we just have an orange-handled knife with a glob of green plastic on it) but overall everything went smoothly.

I think Jake and I started baking at about 9am. We cooked the sweet potato pies (somehow lacking in filling, so they had a big frame of pastry) and then the stuffing loaf, in between running about trying to clean and rearrange stuff so it would be ready for dinner and lots of company. Once everything was cooling, we were up to date on dish-washing, and we’d cleaned the desk off (stupid desk is an inch wider than the doorways in the lounge room. I had hoped to move it into the bedroom and put a normal table in it’s place as a buffet-type thing, but we had to come up with another plan when we realised things wouldn’t fit), we were both starving for lunch so we had a break that involved leftover pizza and watching Psych. I think we also might have hard-boiled some eggs in this time, or maybe that was after the break.

Before we knew it, it was 1pm and we had to start getting the turkey ready. This is when we melted plastic, warming the oven for turkey-time.  Jake rinsed the brine off the turkey and patted it dry, I microwaved a pile of vegetables to shove in the dead bird’s cavity. We made a big al foil triangle and shaped it to the bird’s breasts (after a higher-than-normal start time to make the turkey look pretty and roasted, we cover the breasts with the al foil which protects them from being dry. That, plus brine). We loaded up the bird and threw it in the oven at 1:45, right when we had worked out would be the perfect time for a 5pm dinner.

Matt (Jake’s stepdad), followed soon by Lisa (Jake’s mum), showed up almost immediately after the turkey was ovenated. I peeled the hard-boiled eggs (there is actually a video of me doing this, for some reason.) while Matt started to document the afternoon/evening, which is why there will now be photos and links to photos. I had thought of doing a DITL-type thing for the day, but I would have had to get someone to be in my way all afternoon while trying to get dinner ready because I wouldn’t have time for photo taking…

I made devilled eggs, and left a few eggs as-is because devilled eggs are disgusting (and yet apparently I make them really good. I tried one, baby just told me they needed salt and pepper, I’m not sure if I would have liked them if they were seasoned but they were gross.), and Jake and I put some peanut butter into some celery sticks. Yay, snackatizers! I think Jake ate almost all the devilled eggs, he sat down right next to where the tray was placed in the lounge and by the time I had done the next round of dishes, there was less than half and his mum had had maybe 2.

Nick and Stacy showed up a bit before 4 (I think?) and then Kristen and Matt showed up at 4. I only remember this because we checked the turkey at 4 and holy-crap it was done! Overdone, actually. Oops. We tented it with al foil (ah, al foil, how useful you are!) and got quickly to making the side dishes. We made mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes, chopped mixed vegetables (I cheated and used a frozen bag of mixed veg. Mmm.), and… warmed up the cranberry sauce and uncovered the bean salad and put things in the lounge room on the desk-turned-into-a-buffet-table. Oh, and put the stuffing loaf back in the oven so it could warm up. Almost forgot and left it in there!

Finishing up the mashed potatoes. Surprisingly clean looking kitchen!

Jake got to carving up the turkey (I really MUST get a picture of the bird whole one year, it comes out looking SO BEAUTIFUL AND PROPERLY DONE and we are always busy and so I never remember.) while I made the gravy. Even though the bird had rested for at least half an hour by this point, it was so juicy that when Jake cut into it, so much juice went everywhere. We need a real carving board with a moat around the edges or something to catch all that juice. As it was, it ended up pouring all over the counter and dripping off all onto Jake’s feet. (Thankfully our kitchen tables slant down as they get closer to you, rather than the other way. That would be even messier, liquid would have poured into the back of the bottom cupboards!) AND YET we still ended up with delicious, moist turkey. Even the breast was mmm good.

My gravy… we had thrown veggies into the bottom of the roasting pan once we had dropped back the heat in the oven. We cut the bits too small though, so they mostly just became charcoal. Next time I must remember to do them bigger. But anyway, the bits that didn’t blaken beyond use got blended up with the liquid from the bottom of the pan after it went through a fat seperator. Then I threw in a bunch of chicken stock, mixed up some of the liquid with cornstarch, and brought it all to a boil. And bam, gravy! Although I must say, the liquid drained from the fat seperator was much tastier than the final product. Tasted too fatty to me. Jake adored it, and a lot of it got used, so I guess it was liked.

Me playing with the fat seperator, a bit of fat got into the spout which is just silly, so I was trying to coax it out. I’m amused by how much it looks like I have a big ball shoved up my shirt. For comparison, me opening my birthday gift from Kristen. I don’t think I look pregnant at all front-on.

Dinner after people had helped themselves. Top left – bowl of rolls, few leftovers from our massive appetizer plate, mixed veggies. Top right – bean salad and the salad Kristen brought/made. Main area – mashed sweet, mashed potatoes, stuffing loaf, turkey!

Everything was ready and served at 5pm, which was the time I had said dinner would be ready. GO ME! I wonder if we would have gotten it all ready for 5 if the turkey had taken until 4:30 like we were expecting. I think we probably would have managed, it would have been more concentrated rushing about but we would have expected it to start happening at that point so we may have been more prepared. Who knows. I’m just impressed we were done when I hoped to be done. The turkey was a little cold but that could have been because the bit I ate was part of the first bit cut up.

No one said anything about any of the food, so I have to assume it was enjoyed. Or everyone was being too polite and it sucked ass. I think it was pretty delicious though, I actually ate a lot for me (bottom left of photo is me and my plate) for thanksgiving. I completely cleaned my plate, a feat only Jake and I managed (I think).

For dessert, I had mascerated some (I think 6?) apples that we had peeled and sliced. They had been sitting in the fridge, sliced, with sugar, for I think 2 days. Perfect amount of time. Earlier in the day I had put all the slices in a strainer so the juices could drip off. I mixed a pile of brown sugar into the sugary-apple juice, and then threw an even bigger pile of rolled oats on top (we buy 10lb boxes of oats at Costco, we love oats so much). Put the apples in a pyrex dish, covered in the mix, and put in a 300-350 (I FORGET!) oven for 20 minutes. (I’m mostly writing the details because it came out more perfect than normal!) There was a sweet potato pie in the oven with it for the last 10 minutes, could have gone 15-20 because it didn’t warm up enough. I turned the oven off after 20 minutes, got the pie out, sliced it and transfered to a glass pie dish (it was a store-bought crust *shame* and I pierced through the foil pie pan it had cooked in while slicing). Stacy had made what I think she called a "tangy citrus slice", which was pretty much a shortbread-type base with a very lemony custard on top. SO GOOD. I need to ask for that recipe. The 3 desserts together were a beautiful assortment of tasty. The crumble on top of the apples, possibly because I left it in the oven after 20 minutes, just turned the oven off, for once didn’t taste slightly like raw oats. It just tasted like fully cooked deliciousness. (There is only one photo of the desserts, ignore Kristen’s odd face in the back.) We had dessert at 7pm.

Young-Matt, Kristen, Stacy, Nick being odd, Me, Jake. (I’m not sure why I appear to be in the foreground so much)

Everyone started to leave at 8. Food had all been eaten, the football game was over, it was a good time for people to leave. Lisa tried to get me to do the dishes so she could help, but that’s always easier for me if I can go at my own pace the next day (seeing as it is SO MANY DISHES to wash), so after I stole Matt’s photos (he took all the ones I’ve posted today. So useful having someone in the family that loves documenting days like this) the last people left and Jake and I could relax. With more watching of Psych, after we showered of course (my hands are on my belly in the photo above not just because of the baby, but because I was covered in greasy spots from the gravy splattering everywhere when I blended up the veggie chunks in it).

This morning I had to get up an hour and a half earlier than I normally would on a weekday, because I had a dentist appointment. I had to leave before Jake left for work, even! This was to be my first appointment at this place, and I had no idea where I was going, so I trusted my GPS to get me to the address that my insurance company had provided (I was given a list of dentists nearby that took my insurance. Name, address, phone number.) which I had no reason to doubt. Although I should have. The address associated with the phone number I had called to make the appointment? Not actually associated at all. The name and the address were right, but that was not what I needed.

So I drove off into the middle of nowhere, in incredibly thick fog, on roads I have never driven before (even though I was only going into the next town, it was not straight-down-main-street and therefore was a different way to what I know). Past a sign that said CATTLE XING which amused me, and then past a herd of cows just hanging out by the fence next to the road, one of which had a mohawk which was HILARIOUSLY AMUSING. The GPS says I arrived at my destination, there is a sign saying HEY, A DENTIST LIVES/WORKS HERE! so I drive up the long driveway. You’d think there would be a sign on/near the actual house, but there wasn’t. I ring the doorbell. I knock. No one answers. The driveway appears to keep going, maybe to the house next door? Do they share a driveway? How confusing. So I get back in the car to check it out. Nope, driveway just loops me back to the road. I think about pulling over to call the dentist office and find out why, when I have an 8:30 appointment, there is no one there at 8:20, but there is no side of the road between there and home. Well, there is, but it was all marshy and there is no way I’d pull over on that. My car would sink and I’d be stuck! So I drove home, crying heavily the whole way. I was already stressed about new dentist/new roads/new place I had never been/going off alone… so the whole confusing climax of the adventure was too much. I kept berating myself over how much of an idiot I was, why didn’t I stay and knock on the door more, why didn’t I go back, park in their driveway and call?

After being home for about 15 minutes, I had calmed enough to make a phone call. So I called the number I had called to make the appointment. Turns out they are in a completely different town, the woman on the phone sounded like she thought I was a complete and utter idiot. After I had explained enough that she understood what happened, I made a new appointment for the 20th. And then she almost hung up on me before giving me the address of the place I need to go!! Ugh.

Now I’m rather pissed off at both my insurance for providing me such false information (that resulted in a 45 minute ‘joy’ ride in fog so thick I could barely see), and the annoying receptionist at the dentist’s office who didn’t want to give me the address, mumbled it out and acted as though she couldn’t hear me when I tried to clarify…

What a way to start the day/week.

Good news? I’ve got all the cups/cutlery/plates washed from yesterday. Still need to do all the cooking and serving vessels, but that has to wait until there is somewhere to put them once clean.