Sunday, November 25, 2007

The Big Thanksgiving Post (long, picture heavy)

It's been a while since my last post. I caught a nasty stomach bug, but fortunately, it cleared up just in time for Thanksgiving. So, without further ado, I give you the Big Thanksgiving Post, which also conveniently covers knitty blog stalking assignments 8-10. Yay for multitasking!

Let's get started at the beginning, the morning of November 22nd. First, I put on my cooking frump. You can't spend an entire day cooking in regular clothes, and as you can tell, I'm ready for the cook-a-thon, sweat pants, bat shirt and all.

It's important not to get hungry while cooking. To make sure we weren't going to eat our Thanksgiving dinner piece by piece throughout the day, I decided to whip up some buttermilk pancakes for breakfast. Here they are, slightly too big, slightly misshapen, but very yummy. I usually put blueberries in mine. This time, however, defrosting them was too much work, and I skipped them.


In the Meantime, Merlin helped me pick out recipes from my cookbook and magazine collection. He likes food. A lot.


I got the necessary tools out of the Weird Implements Drawer. We don't have a junk drawer, but we do have this drawer full of Weird Implements. Just in case you're wondering, anything that's not a knife, spoon or a fork qualifies as a Weird Implement. Except the potato peeler. Don't ask me why.


We don't eat canned cranberry sauce. I thought I hated cranberries, but it turns out I just couldn't stand the canned variety. Every year, I make spiced cranberry sauce from scratch. I wish I had a good enough camera to take a picture of the subtle color variations in even one single berry. The intensity and depth of color is incredible, and I wish it were possible to make yarn look that way. And I also wonder if cranberries can be used to dye yarn. Hmmm...


While I am stirring the cranberry sauce and then passing it through a sieve (not necessary, but we prefer smooth sauce to the other variety), Mr. Batty checks our herb situation. We make a turkey with thyme butter and our stuffing has rosemary and basil in it. It's very yummy and we make it every year, even though it appears to be cursed.


A few times, I burned the pine nuts instead of toasting them. It's incredible how quickly they go from completely white to blackened. You have to watch them like a hawk and take them off the heat immediately when they're golden. This year, I almost burned the bread but didn't, and the pine nuts came out lovely. I put them in a bowl, then put the bowl on top of the refrigerator because we needed the counter space. And then I opened the refrigerator... not realizing that the bowl was balanced between the refrigerator itself and the refrigerator door. It came down with a crash, spilling pine nuts everywhere.
Yeah.


At least the bowl didn't break, and we managed to salvage enough to make our stuffing. Pine nuts are expensive. Keeping the cats out of them was a bit of a challenge, but we managed.

In the end, all the hard work paid off. Here is the entire feast: organic turkey with thyme butter, gingersnap gravy, country bread stuffing with parmesan, pine nuts and raisins, mashed potatoes, green beans, and apple pie.


Wait... something is missing. We almost forgot to serve the cranberry sauce!


There. And just in case you're wondering... Those are now Thanksgiving bat placemats. Bats are an all season item, as far as I'm concerned. Bat is my favorite color.

We stuffed ourselves silly. Even the kittens were tired after a whole day of cooking. They only got their usual kibbles, but here is Miss Morgana, taking a little nap on the couch. The post-feast fullness is contagious.

18 comments:

Michelle said...

The kittens have gotten so big!

I totally agree with you about canned cranberries (yuck!).

cpurl17 said...

I was the same way about cranberries until I made "real" ones!!

Your feast looks delicious! And those kittehs are so sweet.

Teresa said...

LOL..actually I made homemade cranberry sauce too. I told my mother how I dispised canned cranberry sauce.."...oh..." she said.."well..that's what you're getting on saturday." So I cooked up a big batch of cranberry sauce only to find out my aunts brought cranberry sauce and cranberry relish. :D My mikey had a big day too. Filled with laying on the back of the couch and sleeping until dinner was served. Then he was spry and very hungry.

Alma said...

Oh, that's a very cool shirt!
And the kitties are getting so big, but are still awfully cute and very beautiful.

Bat as a favourite colour! (snort)

sharon said...

Wow - that looks delicious!! Next year can I come over? I'll take you shopping?

IrishGirlieKnits said...

That looks like a fabulous dinner! I agree with you on the cranberries completely!!

And I love that in the middle of the pine nut fiasco, you took a picture for us :) I'm glad there were enough for the meal though!

Glad you had a great Thanksgiving Batty!!

Bonnie said...

Can't believe how big the kittens are! And what a tasty looking Thanksgiving dinner. Love the bat tablemats. I agree with you about cranberries--there's no comparison between homemade and canned.

I will confess that when I make blueberry pancakes, I add the blueberries to the batter directly from the freezer, without defrosting. It works fine--the berries get soft/hot while the pancakes are cooking. Try it!

Lauren said...

Thanksgiving dinner looks yummy!

I didn't realize the kittens had gotten bigger until I read everyones comments. They are still cute as hell.

weezalana said...

Totally with ya on the cranberry sauce! I made it from scratch for the first time and realized a ha! It was the gelatinous canned version that tasted like goo! The real thing is so much better.

Looks like you had a great Thanksgiving - as did the kitties! ;)

Bezzie said...

Great pics! I love the placemats!

And hey, I've got a "weird implement" drawer too!

The Kelly Green Rogue said...

looks like a great day! I only like my moms special cranberry salad, that store bought stuff is icky in my book!

Anonymous said...

Mmm, your meal looks so delicious. Especially the home-made cranberry sauce, which I thought of just a little bit too late this year. At the dinner party I went to, practically everything was from a box!

Elspeth said...

Bat is a great color!

Anonymous said...

Love the "weird implements drawer"! It looks just like mine! And I am with you on the canned sauce. yuck. We do a cranberry and orange relish and cut way back on the sugar. It's REALLY tart! But it wouldn't be Thanksgiving without it!

Stephanie said...

I made cranberry sauce last year but I didn't like it because of the skins- little did I think to push it through a strainer to remove them- thanks for the tip! I will try it again.

Anonymous said...

Now, if there ever was a perfect Thanksgiving feast, then it must have been yours - yummy! And I absolutely adore your cooking outfit, it rocks big time! Thanks for sharing all these great pics with us!

Anonymous said...

http://www.craftster.org/forum/index.php?topic=210253.0

I have found your blog via Bina's, and ran upon the batty wrist warmers and thought of you.

Penny Karma, aka the F-Bomb Mom said...

I'm totally coming over to your T-Day Feast next year.