Confessional Sunday (Slightly Late Edition)

I don't know how to make the Linky work but mine is here:
http://sfomomfridge.blogspot.com/2008/11/thanksgiv...

My father-in-law had some outpatient surgery on Tuesday and could not travel for Thanksgiving. So we took the dinner to them!

I cooked the turkey, stuffing, bread, apple pie and turnips here. Everything was packed in coolers to take to my in-laws' house. I had the potatoes all peeled and in a tupperware full of ice water. Then there were cans of gravy, cranberry sauce and corn, and a bag of frozen green beans. A pretty basic meal. When we got there I put the foil pans of cooked food in the oven on warm (with some chicken broth added to the turkey and stuffing to keep them moist.) I cooked all the other food as usual. The only thing that didn't work well was the turnips. I don't know if it was the foil pan or the extra steaming/baking time, but they didn't come out well. However, I'm the only one who really eats them so no one else missed it.

All in all it was not too terrible to bring the dinner with us.

Things went really well here! It was our 3rd year of leading our church in doing a free community dinner for Thanksgiving. Five of us roasted turkeys (25 lbs each!) a day ahead. One woman did the dressing. A local diner donated the coleslaw. We had freshly mashed potatoes, corn and cranberry sauce (I made it fresh) and gravy and rolls (purchased), plus oodles of donated homemade apple and pumpkin pies.
YUM!
We served about 55 people in our little town, and had a great time together. We also delivered meals to some elderly shut-ins, and set aside leftovers for a church dinner in January.
My kids (the youngest are 19 and 22) have adjusted to doing our family dinner this way ............ in the past we've been alone or with grandparents, but the grandparents are elderly now and can't travel, so a new way of celebrating was a good choice for us.
Bonus? I bought myself a new apron -- with turkeys and really pretty ties. Love it!

Well, no decent oysters (there's some disease out there?), so the oyster dressing adventure had to wait. ;o)

All went well as far as the cooking was concerned (which went like clockwork)...but the turkey was a turkey. The only smaller bird (11 lbs.) I could find was frozen, so I couldn't tell that there was almost no meat on it - and that it had been frozen for WAY too long...it was dried out and definitely had a freezer odor. Fresh herbs covered that enough that my husband didn't notice it, but I sure did. Ugh. The carcass and what little meat was left went straight from the serving plate to the stock pot...for dog food. I'm not even going to use the stock from that bird for human consumption. My grocery store manager is going to hear about that...my guess is someone foisted off old stock on him.

On the plus side, my plan for a wheat-free pie crust worked perfectly and resulted in two perfect pumpkin pies. The crust: organic oat granola (came pre-sweetened with fruit juice) and almond bits ground to a fine crumb in the food processor with enough butter to make a graham cracker like crust. Came out almost like shortbread.

Posted here http://twwistedrambles.blogspot.com/

Our Thanksgiving was wonderful. The weather was mild and roads dry (Wisconsin). Family and friends all shared a great day. My cranberry sauce was a hit. We bought an organic, free range turkey from a local farmer. Brined it and it was perfect with flavor through and through, super moist. Only hitch- forgot to add my herb blend (sage, majoram, thyme) to the stuffing. It was still very good, just didn't have that "flavor profile" I was planning on.

It was a great day. And everyone was extra happy because we'd planned enough for "left overs".

Our Thanksgiving went very well this year. For the first time my turkey actually came out nice and moist and the gravy was incredible, and even though my oven isn't working 100% I actually didn't burn anything! Also everybody got along well, the only slight downer was that my son wasn't able to join us, he is stationed in Japan but apart from that it was a very good day.

It went pretty well. I forgot to make the mashed potatoes but I am glad that I did not as apparently my potatoes had gone bad on me. My husband also sliced the tip of his finger off but it was not too deep so no stitches, at least he found the sliced off skin before it got mixed in with our stuffing.

Fab here, too! Turkey was moist, dressing was a success, we had some friends new and old join us at the table, and there were ample (but not TOO ample) leftovers.

Oh, and we baked four batches of cookies the day after. Can't go wrong there.