Saturday was the BIG day for our
family. That day when we gather to share
our love for each other, laugh together, eat way too much, indulge in sweet
treats we wouldn’t touch the rest of the year and last, but never least, watch
football and knit. Saturday was our
Thanksgiving. After a week of cooking
and preparation, and with a great deal of help from sweet daughter-in-law and
daughter, it went off swimmingly. I took
on the task of preparing 90% of the food (turkey, duck, stuffing, duck and
turkey gravy, sweet potato casserole, fresh cranberry sauce, yeast dinner rolls,
buttermilk and caramel pumpkin pies), which was complemented by daughter’s
mashed potatoes and DIL’s Asian chicken and green bean casserole. YUM!!
I didn’t know if I was up to the task
because most of the time I cook for two and not a lot at that. Cooking for eight was once a way of life for
me, but I knew the formidable task of cooking a full Thanksgiving meal for 10 was
something for which I would have to do prior planning as well as preliminary
training. On a calendar I planned a
cooking event for every day during the week before the dinner and broke down
the required dishes into one or two a day, the last being the turkey and duck
on Friday.
I learned three lessons this week: 1. That
I could carve the turkey and duck and store them tightly wrapped overnight. An hour before eating I reheated them after dousing
with a little of the meat juices and broth to keep them
moist. It worked!! 2. That
the rolls that have been baked on Wednesday and that look a little dry can be
made warm and fresh with a little splash of water and a zap of the microwave,
and 3. If you make cranberry sauce on
Monday and DH eats it as jelly on toast and sauce on meat and other things, you
will have to make cranberry sauce again on Friday.
Life is good!
Football knitting
