With Thanks Left Over

 

Thanksgiving Feast is Prepared
Come to the Table

Once again our Thanksgiving Feast was a small affair, but that did not stop
us from giving hearty thanks for all of our blessings. I retrieved Grant from
the University of Missouri the previous Saturday, arriving home Sunday
saying it was good to be home. We did a bit of checking in the highways
and byways, alleys and avenues for a few souls to share our table, but
everyone we thought of already had plans. That is all well and fine - let
the preparations begin! 

Six days ahead of time, it was a list-making, double-checking, wham-bam,
T-day food-array, shop-o-rama extravaganza. The back story to this
year's grocery list (even the simple things in life can be laced with
complications you know): Do we stuff the bird? or just make it on the
range? What to do with cranberries? The basic, or is this the year for
Mama Stanberg's National Public Radio horseradish cranberry relish?
(Any votes for the cranberry gel that comes out of the can with concentric
rings imprinted on the red gelatinous cylinder?) Do we need fresh yeast or
can we risk flat rolls? And as always the most problematic Turkey Day
question of them all: If one makes tomato aspic for Thanksgiving and nobody
eats it, is it still a holiday tradition?

This was the menu:

• Turkey (10 lbs) for 3
• Green beans                                                                                                                           (Note: not green bean casserole, we observed everybody else in the store had the makings for said casserole with had the frozen green beans and a can of cream of mushroom soup)
• Cranberries (But what style?)
• Mashed Potatoes with Gravy
• Diced Sweet Potatoes with Ginger
• Suneson Family Cornmeal yeast Rolls
• Two Wines, Beaujolais & Riesling
• Dessert of Home made Pecan Pie and Pumpkin Pie

Now to fill in the back story. For the stuffing, we actually over did it, so
lots went into the roasted turkey and plenty was cooked on the stove top.
Once Grant got up, we asked about his preference for how the cranberry;
given the choices before him he allowed as to how he "was not eating any
more baloney at this circus" - which means he would plan on declining
anything but a small helping of cranberry relish, so we could make it what
ever way we desired. Done. This year it was to be Mama Stanberg's recipe.
My duties this year were that of turkey baster and bread chef. My yeast
rolls weren't giving me much of rise, looking about as flat as a 14th Century
cartographer's globe; but once rolled and ready to bake, they came out fine.
Another reason to give thanks.

Even for left over turkey enchiladas? Yes.

 

I told the cook that she looked like a Puritan at the Thanksgiving Table -
But I can't show you the picture of her after I told her that  ;-)



Strider stretched out after consuming large helpings of turkey skin and giblets