Fun with Ebay
Wednesday, November 02, 2005
Feeling bored? Got an hour and $10 burning a hole in your pocket? Ebay is the place for you. I’ve only purchased a few items, but they’ve got such great deals, I tell ya (said in best Brooklyn accent). I JUST won a holiday table runner. David and I are hosting Thanksgiving for his family this year, and we bought a new table to hold all 6 ½ of us. I have my grocery list, recipes on what I will be making for dinner, a time table of when I need to cook what (due to the small galley kitchen and ½ stove) and am now working on the place settings. With the table runner I bought burnt orange napkins from Crate and Barrel. We have pumpkin gourds that I will cut out and put tealights in for the table, and if we are crafty enough, we might go grab up some of our pretty leaves falling from our trees out front and place those artfully on the table as well (ala Martha Stewart). Now all I need are place cards. I haven’t seen anything I like yet. Any ideas? I'm also looking for a stuffing recipe, and my long lost whipped sweet potato recipe. Bring on the ideas.
By AllBeehive Wednesday, November 02, 2005
10 Comments:
Forget Martha, you need to channel Brini Maxwell from the Style network.
How about instead of place cards, do little wine glass charms with names spelled out in beads?
I'd send you my stuffing recipe, but it's pretty heavy on meat. When I did it the year we were at Joy's, I cut the meat out, but the remainder was too sweet with just apples and cranberries.
My one word of advice, don't be like my mom, who always put crescent rolls in after the turkey came out, then forgot about them until the smoke alarm started going off. Enjoy.
Thanks for the fun advice. I'm going to look her up tonight. Also, I eat turkey! I'm going to brine it and use a butter herb under the skin from a Wolfgang Puck recipe.
I have both the stuffing, and the sweet potato recipies you're after. call me.
My mom always burned the rolls too! but she used a toaster oven, buzzer going off strategically in the middle of saying grace, every year, without fail.
My advice??: Forget brining (too complicated for your first turkey) slap the bird on the grill, put Dave in charge of basting, and free up the oven for sidedishes. Get/borrow/ebay a toaster oven if necessary.
Ha. I will not be grilling my turkey, this year. That's like so 2002 isn't it? Brining is IN, according to Michelle. I am a fan of being in. Anyway, I'm such a project manager that I've already got everything so planned, that I won't have any problem with any of my dishes. They will all be piping hot on the table, with the help of my planning and the microwave. I knew Dave moved that in for some reason. I'll have to dust it off. I'm also making homeade rolls the night before. Will just have to remember to get them on the table.
thanksgiving is all about TRADITION, there is no being 'in', is there?? :)
One more tip: make sure all your baking dishes fit in the oven at the same time. I ran into this issue last yr in front of my motherinlaw... had every piece of pyrex we own in the oven at the SAME time arranged like a jigsaw puzzle, all at 350 for 30-45 min to make everything piping hot....and it worked! 11 courses, one oven, all hot... couldn't believe it, was such a miricle I wrote it down.
Yep, there's no being "in" but my brine recipe is good! :)
Okay, okay, so it's really wolfgang puck's recipe! But, seriously, I like brining because you make the brine, plop the turkey in there for 8 hours and that's it. Plus, you know way ahead before it has to go in the oven if it's defrosted or not! last year, stupid turkey was not all defrosted yet and I really liked knowing that at 6 am rather than noon when I would be trying to get it in the oven :)
Side dish: One thing I found that I think I'm going to have this year is roasted delicata squash. I never had them before (they're long and yellow-orange striped) and they are so good! Nutty and tasty. Just halve them, slather with some olive oil, sprinkle with salt and roast in a 400 degree oven for about 20 minutes while the turkey rests. Everyone gets a half.
This also looks really good: http://www.marthastewart.com/page.jhtml?type=content&id=recipe1837 I think I am going to try it this year!
Yep, I had a schedule, notes, charts and graphs last year too!
Okay, I think I covered all of my Tahnksgiving points :)
Oh, hey, here we all go:
http://www.cooksillustrated.com/turkeyhelp/default.asp
I saw that recipe for cranberry in my Martha email newletter thingy. I will probably make the standard boil water, 1 C sugar, and cranberries. I need to be a bit more traditional with TG this year.
I learned the hard way a couple of years ago when I had a potluck TG with 5 people over. We didn't even have a turkey (cyn remember?) I decided to make Pumpkin cake with brown butter icing instead of Pumpkin Pie and told everyone my plans. (I also made apple and pecan pie). Well crap, Holly came over and was distraught that we had no Pumkin Pie and she needed it to fulfill her "traditional" TG so I threw one together last minute. It actually came out really tasty as I used whipping cream instead of evap. skimmed milk! and was the first pie to go. Crazy!
okay, all this talk about good food is making me hungry! I can't take it!! i'm crashin all ya'll thanksgiving like a psycho stuffed bird! warning: dirty aunt christy is a lot closer than michelle. :)
oh, another tip: try a fresh bird. my mom's been cookin TG for 33 yrs, and only last yr tried a fresh one from Whole Foods...let's just say she's converted and EVERONE except the vegetarians thought it was out-of-this-world-good.
I already ordered the organic bird from Wild Oats! They do not have hormone injections and are fed a purely vegetarian diet. Hopefully it will still be tasty and not dry and hard!
Post a Comment
<< Home