#ThrowBackThursday - Thanksgiving 2012 Blog

Cleaning off my desktop on my computer. Apparently this blog has been sitting there for a year and a half. Let's see what young Charlotte has to say about her first rodeo...

So we had thanksgiving, and then right after I went away for 2 weeks to train for my NEW JOB! Which meant that I took zero time to write about anything. So 1 month later, I am FINALLY getting around to blogging about Thanksgiving dinner. My overall review of myself on Thanksgiving was that I tried way too hard. Next year, Trader Joes boxed stuffing, definitely, may do something interesting with the turkey, but other than that, I'm hoping to stick to the absolute basics. (Although, I will never give up on my own home made gravy. NEVEEERRRRR!!!)

Appetizers (Completely unneccessary, btw.)

Spinach Artichoke Dip

-spinach

-2 cans artichoke hearts

-1/2 C mayonnaise

-1/2 C sour cream

-1 C jack cheese

-1 C pepperjack cheese

ok Directions: mix all of these ingredients and bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Review: This was seriously like the grossest thing I ever ate. I was so mad because Tina spent a TON of time on the artichoke hearts. It was super spicy, and NOT SPINACHY. I may work off of this recipe in the future, but it just did not have enough jack cheese and had way too much artichoke. It was GROSS.

Meatballs

-ground beef (Whatever size, like 1 lb is usually good)

-bread crumbs (1/3 C)

-Parmesan Cheese (1/3 C)

-1 egg

-spices

Directions: mix everything together, add some garlic powder or minced garlic, salt, pepper, basil, marjoram, if you don't add all these random little things, they just taste like big dried out balls of ground beef. And Meatballs can simply be so much more than that!!! Roll into a little smaller than a golf ball and bake on a tin foil lined baking sheet for 15 ish minutes. Since it's beef, you can really cook it as much or as little as you like (At least that's what hear). Once you're comfortable combining these ingredients and knowing that it will come out to be at least a 7 out of 10 meal, then you also know how to make meatloaf. Just do the same thing but with twice the amount of meat (any two kinds, works best, you're choice) and throw it in the crock pot and add a can of seasoned tomato sauce. 8 hours. Bam. Meatloaf. Reveiw: For thanksgiving, these were actually really good before actual dinner since we usually eat around 3 and it's such a weird time. The once change I would make is to make these a day or two before and just heat them up on the actual day because there is so much going on in the kitchen.

Main Course

Bacon covered/stuffed turkey aka Larry the Bird

-carrots

-celery

-rosemary

-bacon

-a turkey

Directions: Take out the innards of the turkey, if yours is like ours was, the neck and the rest will be in two separate bags/sections, so make sure you get both out. David named out turkey Larry. So take your Larry, and put him belly down (There is lots of recent discussion about putting the bird top down, I have no idea. We did it the old school way. Sue us. I'll probably do it breast down next year just to see what happens but I mean, how exciting is it really going to be. Its a dead bird.) . Stuff Larry with some cut up carrot, celery, and rosemary. Because of this recipe, we also put some bacon in him for good luck. Then we took the rest of our bacon (probably one and a half packs total) and wove it across the top of Larry. We started to just lay it across, but David knows how to do a lattice, and we thought that would look all Woman's Day and fancy so we went with that. If we had had the right backdrop, it would totes have been magazine worthy. We also put a cheese cloth over the whole thing to tuck him in for the warmest nap he ever had. We put him in one of those tin, crummy potluck dishes from the grocery store that you take buffet food to church in. It was great because we didn't have to clean it after. It was not so great because we had to make sure that it didn't crumple when we were putting Larry in and taking him out of the oven. We also had to buy a baster (thank god I remembered when we were at the grocery store) and we basted him every 30 minutes. It was great because both the turkey and bacon drippings covered the bottom of the pan. I don't remember how long we cooked it. Like 3 or 4 hours or something like that.

Sides

Cranberry Apple Sausage Stuffing

-4C cubed bread

-4 turkey sausages

-1/2 Chopped onion

-3 stalks of chopped celery

-1 ½ tbsp sage

-3 small stalks of de-leaved rosemary (the leaf part)

-1/4 tsp thyme

-1 small golden delicious apple

-½ C dried cranberries

-1 tbsp minced parsley

-Turkey liver finely chopped

-2 C turkey stock

-¼ C melted butter

Directions: I won't bother with the directions because I didn't actually read them, which I think is why it was such a mega fail. So whatever. If you already know how to make stuffing, this is a delicious mix of ingredients.

Trader Joes Corn Bread stuffing

-boxed stuffing

Directions: I'm actually in the air over Ohio on my way to my parents house right now for Christmas and when I get there, I am going to BEG my family to get this stuffing for Christmas dinner (which is the exact same thing as Thanksgiving dinner at my parents house ever since my dad won the turkey> ham debacle back in 2010.) David and I tried a sample of this stuffing at Trader Joe's, bless their samples, and we were h-o-o-k-e-d.

Home Made Regular Stuffing

-fresh baked bread 3 1/4 C

-celary 4 stalks celery

-mushrooms ½ C

-onions1 small onion

-chicken broth ½ C chicken

Directions: Standard, whatever that means, read them from online somewhere but if you're just going to have plain stuffing then in my opinion, you may as well just get it from a box at the grocery store.

Green Bean Casserole Dish

-cream (like maybe a quart, enough to cover the amount of green beans that you are making)

-butter (Paula Dean says as much butter as you want, but you're making a rue with it and the cream, so just guess)

-mushrooms ¾ C

-Green Beans

-breadcrumbs

Directions: Combine cream , butter and minced mushrooms in a small sauce pan and let simmer on low for 10-15 minutes (pay attention to it! It will burn faster than you can say “I was busy with the turkey because it's more important” because if you don't burn this, you will find that it will be just as important, I swear. Butter the casserole dish and put green beans in it. I would chop them up to make serving easier. Cover the beans in the mushroom cream sauce (Guess what, I tricked you into making cream of mushroom so that you didn't have to use that canned concentrate stuff. Now don't you feel super healthy?). Cover everything in bread crumbs to keep it from drying out on the oven. Bake at a happy 350 degrees for 35 minutes. Instead of breadcrumbs, I might also add a little water to the bottom and cover with tin foil so that the beans can steam. But what do I know. Review: The mushroom sauce was in my opinion, amazing.

Mashed Jersey Sweet Potatoes

-2 large Jersey white sweet potatoes

-butter

-flour

-nuts

-brown sugar

Mashed Potatoes

-potatoes

-butter

-cream

-salt

Directions: I hardly think that mashed potatoes need directions seeing as someone once named this dish very wisely, but there seem to be a million and one opinions on how to make this the “best mashed potatoes ever.” So obviously I need to give my own input. Cut potatoes into small cubes if you're paying attention and have a good knife, and large pieces if you're busy with other things or have a crappy knife. Potatoes can over cook easily and my dad thinks that it makes them watery and that they lose their rich-ness. Cut into size accordingly. Once they are cooked, grab the mixer, this allows them to get extra air for fluffiness, but it also causes them to cool down very quickly so this should be the very last thing you do before you sit down to eat (unless you bake them after, then you're on your own). Add butter (like at least 3 to 4 tablespoons if not more), and add a little salt and pepper. Also add whole milk or cream, whatever is closest (save a little cream from the mushroom sauce maybe?). EAT.

Home Made Gravy

-drippings from turkey and bacon

-pepper

-big ol' scoop of minced garlic

-1/2 C white wine

-flour to thicken

-innards

-carrots, celery

-rosemary

-1/2 C turkey stock

Home made gravy directions: So for the homemade gravy that I made, I talked with my dad, stole parts of his recipe, and we both decided that our gravy was way too intense. But I don't know how to water down liquid fat, so just read this recipe maybe and take something away from it and make your own. Boil innards with carrots, celery, and rosemary with water as the day goes on. After you take out the turkey, add the drippings to a new pan, and strain the juice from the innards and veggies into the drippings pan. Season with minced garlic, pepper and other spices (DO NOT ADD SALT AT THIS POINT). Add ½ C turkey stock and white wine. Let the mixture boil out for a while. This is mostly it. I added flour to thicken but I think if you just let it cool a little, then it will thicken up seeing as ours was a solid block of turkey jello the next morning when we took it out of the refrigerator.

Crescent Rolls

For dessert we had oreo ice cream and pumpkin pie (super duper tasty, Tina made it!) The apples that I was going to make pie out of are still sitting in our refrigerator so that's awesome. Good thing we eat healthy around our house.

Tips:

1. Plan out the dishes you will use to bake with for each recipe so that you have enough. David had to run out half way through the day and spent like $10 on a baking dish because that was what was available on Thanksgiving, the rest we got for a DOLLAR at the Dollar Tree.
2. pay attention to the baking temps for each dish. If some dishes need to be hotter, but the turkey is already in, I put them towards the top of our oven because it's hotter up there.
3. DON'T micro manage like I did. Sorry guys! John and Tina played video games all day and chopped stuff for me. In my defense, we have the second tiniest kitchen known to man, but still. I did this poorly.
4. Make breakfast. And coffee. Lots and lots of coffee.
5. Once you are done with coffee, switch to wine.

NEW CHALLENGE!: Since David and I have gotten into the same habits of food choices so I thought to mix it up, we would take on the 30 Dates around the World challenge that I made up. So we are going to take food and maybe movies from 40 different countries and have theme nights for the next 12 months!! We kicked it off with America on Thanksgiving, but then I was gone, and now David is gone, so we are basically starting in January. If you have any suggestions for us for recipes or movies to watch, send 'em over!