What's your Thanksgiving timetable?

Ok truth I haven't made the flan yet. I'm a little nervous.

The beet salad sounds awesome! You will be able to swing flan, no worries. Custards & their kin are less challenging than their reputation suggests.

Today I made tzimmes (hope it tastes ok reheated), pecan pie bars, lemon bars & cut up a bunch of veg. Is it just me, or are shallots way more overwhelming in the tear-inducing department than onions are? Have to wipe my eues 2x while slicing up just one of those little things.

I also rubbed orange liqueur all over a raw goose.

The menu:

Drinking throughout the day:

Hell of bloody maries

Lunch (around 1 p.m.? I have this stuff premade too):

Butternut squash soup
Hummus & pita
Steamed asparagus

Dinner (around 7 p.m. – friend's working @ Wal-Mart & shift ends at 6:30...hopefully she'll be assertive abt getting out on time):

Goose w/orange sauce
Wild rice stuffing w/mushrooms & chestnuts
Corn on cob
Tzimmes
Brussels sprouts w/shallots
Mashed Spuds
Gravy

Dessert in bar form = lemon bars & pecan pie bars

Sounds lovely! I've never made a goose.

in terms of bevvies, i'm having beer with lunch, wine with dinner, and limoncello for dessert. at some point i may have a rosemary-lavender lemonade from the simple syrup i made a while ago

to be perfectly honest, i'm a little distracted because my dog just bit my husband and he (husband) is really mad at the dog.

sorry i mentioned dogs ;_; it was kind of a bad day

yesterday went alright though. my flan was A MESS but everything else turned out alright. had a bit of a headache though

Bump!
Planning on stuffed pork tenderloin. Brussels sprouts. Serviettenknödel.

Ah dear god this year I swear I am making things much easier on myself. I feel like last year I cooked a meal for 10, and three people ate it. Actually I hardly ate at all – I had been puking out of a combo of grief/bad beaujolais and had to take an anti-nausea pill to even eat. Also we realized none of us knew how to carve a bird at all. It was a weird day.

OTOH I feel like Thanksgiving is the day it's acceptable to go all Cookie Monster on a pile of mashed potatoes, so I have to take advantage of that. What I;m making besides mashed potatoes, I haven't figured out yet.

Not sure what is happening this year. The turkey from last year is still in the freezer, poor thing. We ended up eating one of those store-bought everything dinners at MIL's, may do the same this year.

advice on cooking a goose? for christmas, not thanksgiving, but i like to plan early...

Oh man, every advice I read was like "get as much fat off that football-shaped fowl as you can." I made a goose last year and I followed that advice to the T! If you have looked at your goose already, it's obv you can just rip handfuls of snowy fat off that shit, so do it! After that, what some said to do was to pierce your goose's skin with many pricks (like in the Biblical sense) and then to submerge the whole thing in a giant pot of boiling water. IIRC for a minute or two? Like not long enough to blanch it. More rendered fat than you anticipated will float to the top.

Another thing to do, to get crispy skin, is to leave the thing defrosted/defatted/uncovered in your fridge for 24+ hours to let its skin dry out. This worked way better with ducks I have cooked in the past, tbh – I would not describe the goose I cooked as being crispy skinned. You're on your own there! Make sure you flip the thing over at some point while it's drying out in the fridge. They just have so much surface area!

Even after doing this shit it made so much fucking fat when it cooked. Not quite waterfalls, but notable amount. I had it on a little rack above a pan w/water in it to catch all the fat. God, that thing exuded so much fat. Empty the pan out often, it is said, or your oven will catch on fire from a goose fat spatter. Yuck! I don't know how big a threat that is but that's the kind of threat I try to avoid. Some things I read said, "Don't remove the v hot floaty fat from the pan with a baster because it could melt the baster." Scary!

In all honesty, I would never cook a goose again. Like I said above, I didn't know how to carve the damn thing. They are also pretty expensive imo, for what you get, which seriously feels like 70% fat. It was maybe enough meat for 4 gluttonous people (who, unlike me, could carve its meat and make the most of it) but cost over $50. Actually, I loved cooking with the goose fat, I loved the split pea soup I made where I cooked the goose neck in it instead of ham hocks like usual – delicious. The goose itself? I think I would rather have eaten any other meat except maybe ground beef.

I would say ducks are about 6x easier to cook and so much more rewarding + tasty.

i mentioned this maybe on another thread but i think i am going to do a turkey test run on a whole chicken this weekend... will this help or will i encounter all sorts of crazy surprises when i try to do a turkey?

Turkeys are put together the same as a chicken, so carving a chicken is similar to carving a turkey (the leg and wing joints are built the same, the rib cage/wishbone is the same). Is that what you want to test? They cook a bit differently.

i meant cooking, not carving. i've never prepped and roasted an entire bird before.

i have never gotten all science on a chicken and my chicken has always turned out delicious
do it once and you'll see how easy it is

the carving can get wacky, but who cares. that also depends on your knives, i guess.

The prep is similar - clean, truss, dry, season, roast. Trussing for a turkey might include cutting off the wing tips, depends on how tight the wings hold to the body - if they don't I leave the tips on and fold them under the back of the bird. Otherwise, the tips go in to make stock for the gravy. You might brine a turkey where a chicken generally doesn't need it - chickens have more fat under the skin in proportion to the amount of meat than a turkey does. Some loosen the breast skin on a turkey and pack butter under it, to try to increase the fat and keep the meat from drying out. With a chicken, I just clean, truss, dry, season (usually thyme and cayenne) and roast. With a turkey, I clean, brine, truss, dry. When I roast, I start it breast down, then flip it breast up about 2/3rds of the way through the cooking time. Use a meat thermometer and check temps in both the thigh and breast on a turkey (breast meat cooks faster) - internal meat temp will climb at least 10 deg after taking it out of the oven. Let it rest for at least 15 min before carving.

Here's an interesting take on turkey: confit.

http://www.salon.com/food/eyewitness_cook/index.html?story=/food/francis_lam/2010/11/17/turkey_leg_confit

We're having a smaller group than usual for Thanksgiving this year so if I'm not barbecuing the bird, I might try this.

Roasted a chicken today for chicken salad sandwiches for lunches tomorrow and Thanksgiving lunch (because you do need to eat lunch on Thanksgiving, that is unless you're eating at 2). Chicken carcass thrown into a pot with water, salt, pepper and leeks for a broth. The broth gets used for gravy and stuffing.

I removed the legs and wings off of the turkey this afternoon and am now curing with salt, pepper, herbes de provence and a tiny amount of ground cloves (I hope this works -- the herbs and spice smelled good together). Will confit these in olive oil tomorrow.

I then dry brined the remaining parts of the turkey carcass with salt, pepper and sage. I've only ever wet brined a turkey before so I'm interested to see how this turns out. Anyone tried dry brining before? How did it work for you?

It's a timetable thread right?

oh lord i am already behind. i'm doing thanksgiving tomorrow. was gonna make my chocolate mousse (i don't do pumpkin pie!) tonight, but we got back from hiking around 7:45 and i have not had the energy. so... big day tomorrow!

Some of my family members will probably take charge of my grandma's kitchen for part of Thanksgiving. My grandma will keep walking into the kitchen (despite people trying to shoo her out) making sure nothing wrong happens and I'll probably hear he say "Ai-Yi-Yi" a couple times throughout the day. Then we'll eat Thanksgiving dinner around 5 pm

i'm working all day, then coming home to make a vegan (oh lol) thanksgiving dinner and share it over skype with our family in chicago, since we can't be there with them all.

Pumpkin pie finally in the oven! Tomorrow, all I have to do is bake the zucchini casserole (pre-made Tuesday), and prep some mashed potatoes (gonna try Julia Child's version, wooo, potato ricer and everything)...then cart them all over to my in-law's house.

Been using the Cook's Illustrated recipe for pumpkin pie every year for about 3 years now, and every year as I'm pouring hot pumpkin filling into a running food processor I think, "I really need to find another recipe." Love America's Test Kitchen but godammit they know how to make their recipes OTT.

Confited the legs and wings in olive oil yesterday. It is now cooled and in the refrigerator. My son has started getting into 'Good Eats' and saw the pumpkin pie episode with pie made with fresh pumpkin. He and my wife baked a pumpkin yesterday evening, cooled it and turned it into puree. The neat thing about the Good Eats recipe is that there is extra filling. When I saw that, the first thing that came to my mind is pumpkin ice cream!

VegemiteGrrl -- Too late for this year, but I know in the Alton Brown recipe and in the latest CI recipe they don't use a food processor, but the more traditional form of making a custard -- making the filling on the cooktop, tempering the eggs with the filling and returning to cook until thickened. They get around the food processor by straining the filling.

All that's left now is roasting the turkey breast (my wife will not knowingly eat confited anything) and yams, making the cranberry relish and my part of the T'day labor is done!

gonna light the smoker in 30 minutes, doing two birds; been brining them since Monday night (not just brine, but Jim Beam + fruit also). The chaos is underway.

It felt weird not to cook anything on T'day (I am doing the restaurant thing this year), so I made chocolate chip pecan cookies.

Hope there is something PUMPKIN at the restaurant! Turkey I am OK without, but I do really love stuffing and PUMPKIN confections.

. . . although not so much pumpkin pie, oddly. But pumpkin bread, muffins, mousse, custard, ice cream, cake, puree. . . big fan.

my meal came out pretty awesome. i think the stuffing was my favorite (kale, butternut squash, turkey sausage, focaccia, leeks). probably should have put the turkey in the oven later (i wasn't actually as behind as i thought!) because it was not quite warm enough by the time we ate. but, it came out even better than my practice chicken, so yay :)

my menu:
turkey
gravy (need to work on this)
stuffing (linked, bc everyone should try this at some point)
blanched green beans w/ citrus vinaigrette, dried cherries, and toasted pecans (served at room temp)
mashed golden potatoes
cranberry-orange sauce (bought from tj's)
chocolate mousse w/ bourbon-scented whipped cream, tangerine zest, and blackberries on top

gonna make a stock w/ the carcass probably tomorrow. today all i will do is eat leftovers and watch movies, i think?

in terms of timing, i think i started the mousse around 12:30 and cooked til about 4, then showered/got ready, and finished gravy and green beans after people got here.

All of my father's living siblings are in town for the holiday (there are five of them left out of the original dozen), so I made my super-crowd-pleasing carrot cake yesterday -- http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Tropical-Carrot-Cake-with-Coconut-Cream-Cheese-Frosting-107949

tehresa, those green beans sound really good

thanks! i started doing them that way a few years ago after i finally decided i was done w/ the mushroom soup/fried onion topping green bean casserole (a staple of childhood thanksgivings, but not as appealing to my adult palate). sometimes i've tossed in a little red onion, too. but i forgot this year.

that cake sounds nommmm.

It is totally nommmm -- it's almost not a carrot cake anymore, with coconut, crystallized ginger, macadamias, pineapple, etc -- it's got a lot of competing texture/flavor storylines happening at once, but it's ridiculously good

Apple tart is made
Pomegranates are juiced and juice is reducing for sauce
Serviettenknödel is ready for the hot water
Going to butterfly the pork tenderloin, and the red cabbage stuffing was made yesterday, so it will go in the oven as soon as it is stuffed

I don't know what serviettenknödel, but I'm pretty sure I would very much like to eat it!

All came out great!

quincie, here is the recipe I used:
http://www.germanfoodguide.com/recipes.cfm?recipe_number=172

Next time, though, I'm going to use my regular turkey stuffing recipe, and wrap it in foil, the cheesecloth was a bit of a mess.

tofurkey roast in the oven
mashed potatoes done
water boiling for minted peas
found mint sauce
cauli and brocc in dijon/tarrogon/lemon sauce in oven
lamb chops ready to fry

combo nz/vegan thanksgiving

Whoa a STUFFING LOG? Amazing!

xpost

About to head out for late night Chinese food. Have pumpkin and chocolate cakes awaiting our return.

waiting for bf to get home so we can share the last serving of chocolate mousse from last night...

Ok, all done cooking and eating for today.

Breakfast:
*quasi chilaquiles with potatoes instead of tortillas and extra vegetables
*fancy coffee i got for free at whole foods

Lunch:
*warm pear and spiced walnut salad (arugula/baby romaine) dressed with walnut oil and orange champagne vinegar
*toasted french bread with herbed goat cheese
*la chouffe spiced belgian golden ale

Dessert:
banana with chocolate sauce and dulce de leche/cajeta/caramel

Dinner:
* potato soup
* giant sea scallops
* beef tenderloin (fancy pasture raised, grass-fed beef!) with red wine/herb reduction
* brussels sprouts with garlic-white wine-butter sauce (had some lemon but forgot to put it on there)
* butter rolls (an annual tradition)
* herb butter

Dessert:
pumpkin pie with maple whipped cream

I've never felt obligated to eat turkey on Thanksgiving, so I always experiment. One year it was an ill-advised stuffed pork tenderloin. I've made turkey, but usually it's a time to do something classic, but different than what I normally make/eat.

giant sea scallops <3 <3 <3

whatcha doin this year, ilxors?

embarking on a new pumpkin pie - either plain old Libby's recipe off the back of the can, or possibly a Bobby Flay joint that has a graham cracker crust and a fluffier filling (still baked). leaning towards flay bcz it seems like a nice change and is still v simple/not fancy.

same old Zucchini Sausage casserole, every year by request of inlaws. I don't really like it much myself but they love it.

And a small sweet potato/apple gratin for my mother in law.

Apparently we're having steak for thanksgivign this year, lol. I don't really mind, as long as we get something good to eat.

This year I am going to Tulum and eating tacos.

Last year we went to the Bahamas and ate steaks cooked on a beach fire.

If I never did a "traditional" T'day again, I'd be OK with that.

I'm going to be completely diagonally across the country from my kitchen (hello Miami area!) at my son's house - chips and wine is my plan.

I do love my parent's stuffing. That I miss a little, but I can make it in a roasted chicken any ole time.

Mr Veg brined a turkey one year and then smoked it...goddamn that was good. I want that again.

so thanksgiving is friendsgiving and my peoples were too slow to get a "nice" turkey. it is from trader joe's and it is pre-brined. any idea how to deal w/ this, not that my orig brining idea is redundant?

you can sort-of-unbrine with distilled water. Mr Veg has done it, abt 5 gallons distilled water overnight will pull a fair bit of salt out.

-have started to incubate the turkey egg, hoping for good results

<3