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| we went for a quick midnight run &then got started on the "whole thing" with various, festive movies playing in the background while waiting for the parade to start &taking a study break b/t oven timers ^..^ i can make the basic thanksgiving fixings in my sleep but we've never not ever done a whole turkey for the past few years or so we've done a couple of those breast birds? the turkey with no legs or wings and they've been very straight-forward but i gotta tell ya roasting the whole damn thing is a whole fucking thing goddamn |
A Mix of Canned &Homemade Goods
Canned/Packaged*
green beans, cream of mushroom soup, stuffing, sweet potatoes, marshmallows, gravy, cranberry, crispy onion topping
Homemade
turkey (although, we did not raise&slaughter the thing *shrug*), rolls, mashed tates
If you want recipes for the basics, just follow the instructions on the packaging, lol. If you don't know how to make mashed potatoes, they're exactly how they sound. Rolls are not going to be easily done for the first time on thanksgiving, one imagines, but they are quite simple if you bake bread(s) often, and the turkey was really simple: full fridge-thaw, full drying, one pre-roasting basting (butter w/a hit of a handful of dry herbs) and two mid-roast basting (just butter), three&ahalf hours at temperatures between 425 degrees Fahrenheit (for first two hours) and 375 degrees F (for last ninety minutes). The poppie-outtie thingie popped out right at 3.5 hours, and then, minutes later, the oven started to sizzle cause all of the juices were overflowing. It was a smoky mess for a minute. And then all those other basics are really just a matter of opening cans and mixing stuff together and putting it in the oven while the turkey rests. Rest the turkey. This we know now for a fact. Neither of us have ever had such a moist turkey, but the thing sat out for about one hour before we laid a finger on it, and when we started slicing it up, it was still steaming, and it was so juicy and so delicious. All told, from beginning (start time approximately 2am when the bodybuddy/lifemate removed the turkey from the fridge to begin its drying process) to end (when i snapped that final pic) the meal required seven hours to complete.
If there's one thing that the bodybuddy/lifemate&i have been doing since the dawn of our relationship, it's cooking together in the kitchen. We had such a great time spending the whole day in the kitchen together like we used to back in our Twigim days *laugh-cry*
We each also got a free pie and ice cream from our jobs, so we ate the bodybuddy/lifemate's pie earlier in the month, and he ate his ice cream, duh, and now we're working on my pie with my ice cream, but I won't really eat much of the ice cream, so it will be eaten mostly by the bodybuddy/lifemate although it shouldn't be *eyeroll*
I was going to do a whole price breakdown thingy for the "whole thing," but I had to job yesterday (friday) and put up about 3,000 tags for the ad-change, all by myself, so I was pretty tired when I put this thing together yesterday (i am writing this portion of this thing, now, today). I am willing, however, to do a whole price breakdown thingy. If you want a cost breakdown, please use the contact form in the sidebar, &I will create that post, if requested. Even though I do find the idea of running the numbers for the meal cost of this particular meal informative and perhaps important to document (especially given the cost of life these days), I also find the idea a bit ... gauche, for other reasons.
*we cook a lot, so we already have most of the tools needed to cook most things, and we are always stocked with things like salt, pepper, butter (obviously, we needed to buy more specifically for this meal), flour, onions, garlic, a plethora of spices, baking soda/power, yeast, etc., &i only mention this because this fact makes cooking most things incredibly cheap for us. we always have the general/seasoning staples for most things that we eat; all we have to do is purchase specific ingredients for specific meals, but we do not need to start from scratch every time we cook a meal. if one does not cook, frequently, i imagine that dinners of this sort are very expensive to produce, &so, i guess i'm simply suggesting that one ought to consider cooking regularly enough so that cooking is always cheaper than eating out, etc., but whatever, do you, this is your life, after all. &we all have different goals, etc.