Tuesday Before Thanksgiving

It is Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and I’m feeling a bit under the weather. Outside is rainy and cold. We have a fire going. It’s Sookie. The old dog loves the fire, so she will go and lay in front of the fire place and whine sadly at us when the fire doesn’t magically happen. It’s the saddest whimper. I can’t handle it.

The plan was to work out, but I think I am just going to drink my tea and go straight to the shower once I muster enough willpower. I need to overcome this crud kind of fast, because I have a load of cooking tomorrow.

As is tradition, Thanksgiving menu.

Turkey.

From Popeyes. Hear me out. We’ve been buying smoked turkeys, but nobody eats them and then I have post-Thanksgiving mountain of turkey meat that I have to do something with. This year we’re trying the Cajun-spiced turkey from Popeyes. Here is a review of it. It was sold out online, so we went into Popeys expecting to have it be shipped to us.

Me: Do you still have turkeys?

Sales person: Yep.

Me: Will it get here in time for Thanksgiving?

Sales person: Hey, can someone bring me one of them turkeys from the back?

We walked out with a turkey. It was frozen solid, and I’ve been thawing it in the fridge since Monday. Let’s see what happens.

Meat other than turkey.

As mentioned above, everyone wants to have the turkey on the table, but mostly they don’t want to eat it. You would think something like prime rib would be a good option, but no, because Kid 2’s boyfriend and one of Kid 1’s friends who is coming for Thanksgiving do not eat rare beef, and the rest of us do not eat well done beef. I made beer stew for Christmas last year, and it went over really well, but Thanksgiving isn’t a stew kind of holiday for our family.

Solution: two giant tomahawk steaks. One will be cooked rare and the other well done. I’m going to low-bake them in the oven and then broil them on each side to get a good sear. Or I might do that in reverse order, which would likely be easier. I have a new meat thermometer, which is the stuff dreams made of, so I can cook it to the exact temperature I want. Or rather to 5 degrees under, and then I tent them for 10 minutes.

I’m not planning on doing anything crazy except salt the steaks prior to cooking and maybe do a basic rub. Possibly with garlic. The meat is so thick, marinading it is kind of pointless. Maybe I will do an overnight rub tomorrow.

The other option would be to pan-sear, baste with butter containing garlic and herbs, and stick it in the oven. I have to tell you, I’m not a fan of butter on steaks. You’ve got to draw the cholesterol line somewhere. There is this guy on Tik Tok and whatever the Instagram equivalent is called who buries steaks in butter. I mean you have to excavate it. When the kids were little, we occasionally got these kits where you would dig in the sand and find plastic dino bones. It’s like that, but sand is butter. And then, then, he plasters the steak in rosemary and tries to sear it. You’ve got a crust of burned rosemary on the steak. I can’t even.

I’m not sure yet which route it will be. Depends on how busy the ovens are.

Side dishes

Mostly to be precooked or assembled on Wednesday

• Green bean casserole
• Sweet potato casserole
• Mac and cheese
• Mashed potatoes
• Sweet potato pie
• Zucchini bread
• Stuffing
• Cranberry sauce
• Bread rolls
• Apple pie
• Pumpkin pie
• Pecan pie (Bought)
• Gravy
• Corn

Okay, that last one is just sad to even include, since all I do is heat the corn up, add a bit of salt and pepper and maybe a teaspoon of butter and serve. Gordon loves corn. Pecan pie is in the same boat. I made one before and I couldn’t tell the difference between mine and store bought.

The plan is to come together as a family on Wednesday and conquer. This seems like a lot, but we have people coming and we’ve have learned to make smaller portions. Instead of a giant casserole dish of sweet potato, smaller size dish. The exception being Kid 1’s green bean casserole. Smaller dish ain’t going to cut it.

Some stuff is super simple, like the stuffing. I used to get very elaborate with the stuffing, but I’ve hit on a simple formula everyone loves. Stove top stuffing, bone broth, a little bit of butter, a bit of spice, and done. Fancy stuffing wasn’t always eaten. This stuffing always is, and it takes approximately 10 minutes to make on Thursday. Sometimes, when I am feeling fancy, I throw a handful of almonds in it for a bit of soft crunch.

Some stuff is more complicated. Kid 1 has some sort of arcane recipe for mashed potatoes. She makes it only on celebratory occasions. Her mac and cheese is also a 5-cheese 2-pasta affair, which we can prelayer on Wednesday. My cranberry sauce requires both cider and orange juice. Honestly, it’s probably more of a jam than sauce…

I might do the dough for the rolls on Wednesday too, so I will only have to let it rise on Thursday.

Well I better get to somewhere, because this final fight isn’t going to write itself. Onward, upward… ::sneeze:: Or maybe just more tea.