Happy Thanksgiving - What's your story?

[kluurs]

Up at 3:15... Of course, that's not the whole story as prep has been going on for a while. Mrs. Kluurs took off yesterday to do prep as well. House organizing, prepping has gone on for a while.

We have written a quite detailed SOP for Thanksgiving. This has helped limited arguments discussions of how much soda, food, wine, etc. are needed the SOP documents what was used last year, amount left over, suggestions for improvement for the following year, etc. It is now at 3 pages of detail.

The reason for the 3:15 rise was to make sure the bird was fully prepped and ready for the roaster. In days of yore, we'd used our convection oven - but the last couple of years we've used an electric roaster as that frees up the oven for all kinds of things.

We'd had the roaster on the back porch in past years - but given outdoor the predicted outdoor temp and the hurricane level of wind predicted for today, we opted to place the roaster in the basement. Spouse doesn't like cooking bird smells in the house - but hopefully the hurricane winds oozing through the house - along with the basement location will limit the aroma from being noticeable.

We have a 19 lb bird in the roaster - slightly smaller than past years but the main bird is supplemented by 3 lb turkey breast which will go in the air fryer - to ensure turkey supremacy. In some years my spouse, in her zest for friendliness has given away ALL of the turkey to her relatives for leftovers. As a result, I've ended up cooking a turkey the day AFTER Thanksgiving.

Our dining room can comfortably sit 10 - so it was ordained that we have 13 people attending. Thus, there is the infamous "kids" table - and propitiously, there are kids.

I've conveniently positioned chairs in front of the stereo monitor speakers - hoping to protect them from destruction. Horror stories on internet abound with children and adults tearing the tweeter off the speaker, assuming it is meant to be abused - a $1,500-$2,000 mistake we hope to avoid. A substantial amount of art and art-like objects have been removed from key rooms so as to minimize insurance liabilities.

Festivities reach their apex at about 2:00 this afternoon - and hopefully, we chase the last of the attendees out the door about 6:00. We then have the rest of the night to restore some of the order to the house - and sleep the sleep of the damned.

[Mik]

The smell of the bird is the best thing about cooking those leftover dinosaurs.

Our dinner is tomorrow night at my brother's in Kent. So we have no idea what we will have tonight.

[Horace]

I'm smoking some ribs. I've unilaterally decided to end the tradition of turkey, if I am host.

[Mik]

It is my least favorite food to cook. I will occasionally smoke a deconstructed one, but that's it.

[89th]

Thanks for sharing @kluurs !

I took the family to Cocoa Beach. We spent a few days here at last November after a short Disney trip, and the kids loved it so we decided to go again this year for a full week, great timing as it snowed at home a day after we left Minnesota.

The kids are ages 7, 5, and 2 so it’s a great time for them at the beach and testing how far into the water they’ll go. Renting a metal detector tomorrow haha, and we did some ocean fishing yesterday. Tonight we bought a prepackaged Thanksgiving meal from a local grocery store, happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

[blondie]

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you.
Great pics @89th

[Mik]

We're having Marry Me Chicken. Janet went to the store to get sundried tomatoes for which I am truly thankful.

[LuFins Dad]

For whatever reason, Karla and I stayed up late last night.. I mean late enough that we were going to bed when @kluurs was getting up. We still got up at 7:30 to get the turkey out of the brine and dried for a couple of hours. We used a Dutch oven for the bird this year, and I am pleased. The high sides help heat it evenly.

[LuFins Dad]

I imagine I will be asleep by 8, lol, but Lucas is supposed to wake me up when he gets home for a glass and a cigar…

[Horace]

Successful dishes tonight. The vegetables were a hit and the ribs were good. Veggies were Brussels sprouts fresh cut off the stalk with Italian balsamic from our recent trip. And salt and pepper and olive oil. Baked for a while until slightly browned on top.

[Mik]

Love getting them on the stalk.

[jon-nyc]

@Horace Nice.

People don't realize the vast difference between quality balsamic vinegar and average grocery store stuff.

[jon-nyc]

By the way my Turkey turned out really good this year and was not much of a pain at all. I got a Shady Brook Farms pre-brined turkey (which I didn't really until I was opening the package to brine it). I went ahead and added some salt to the outside of the bird anyway and let it sit about 6 hours in the fridge (I meant to do it the night before but forgot).

Threw in some aromatics, tied it up and cooked it. No basting either. Color was perfect, texture was, well, roasted turkey. I didn't make gravy because last year I found myself the only one using it, everyone else prefers my cranberry sauce. So I just made the cranberry sauce (10m) and not worrying about gravy makes the turkey cooking easier. I made some potatoes au gratin and a caesar salad. Kt was only 3 of us so I didn't make a truckload of sides.

Other than salting the bird, I didn't lift a finger until noon and we ate at 5:30. Not bad really.

[Mik]

Yeah, the 300 sides thing escapes me. It just makes Thanksgiving more caloric and tedious. Make a couple or three good things. Most of my dinners are a protein and some sort of vegetable, period.

Teh Marry Me Chicken turned out really good, Janet praised it which is far rarer than it should be. Neither one of us could finish more than half a chicken breast.

Tried some frozen broccoli. Won't make that mistake again. Ugh.

[jon-nyc]

I think all of my dinners are a protein and a vegetable.

Occasionally rice as well (not as ‘the vegetable’). Potatoes or pasta maybe half a dozen times a year each. Probably less.

[Mik]

We will sometimes have a starch. I refuse to give up pasta, just don't make a lot of cream sauce or butter sauces. I nuked up some jasmine rice last night to soak up the sauce. Down 51 lbs this morning.

[jon-nyc]

Cool.

[LuFins Dad]

[jon-nyc]

Yeah I thought of that too.