Thanksgiving 2013

For the better part of the week we ate whatever we could find around the house while we prepared for Thanksgiving.  I'm telling you, it's an ordeal.  I'd been planning the menu for weeks even though you wouldn't think so since we had a pretty traditional meal.   The biggest part was debating on what not to have as there were only going to be six of us. In the end, I decided that I didn't care if we had a ton of left overs because it was Thanksgiving and you can't skimp on a holiday meal. We had a turkey and ham with all the fixings.

My planning started with my normal 15-minute breakdown.  By now, I pretty much have this down to a science.  I start by working backwards based on the time that we wanted to have dinner. I also pre-made my pies and cranberry sauce so that they wouldn't take up precious oven and stove top space.  I know that some people turn their noses up to prebaking pies, but it's efficient and my guests were none the wiser after I put them back in the warm oven during dinner. And shoot, cranberry sauce?  My family likes it out of a can so having homemade sauce is a change.

Nick helped me do most of the vegetable prep on Wednesday because I was being lazy and was tired from cleaning the house.  I was mostly being lazy and Nick likes to chop things. The day of Thanksgiving I woke up early to walk the Walnut Creek Turkey Trot with a couple of friends.  What a mistake.  I was still on the mend from hurting myself at the Urbanathlon and thought that I could tough out a 5k walk.  We had walked to the starting line, which meant that we had to walk back too. In total, we walked five miles which had my food swollen and my right knee and hip aching while I was doing my last minute shopping.  The show must go on.  Nick had told me not to do the walk, but I didn't listen and went anyway so I took a short nap and then started in on our Thanksgiving feast.  It turned out well despite my ailments. Of course, wine helped to relax the muscles.

Nick had brought home some salami from Salumi in Seattle.  We saved some
of it so that we could share it with our family.  I also got truffle mousse (right)
and truffle pate (left) to go along with the cured meats.  It was basically a heart
attack on a plate. 

Pickled garlic stuffed green olives, pickled garlic, and Kalamata olives.

These heirloom tomatoes were really pretty, but slightly mushy in texture.
I'm not sure if that's how heirlooms are supposed to be because the actual
tomato was pretty firm to the touch.

Sage butter turkey. 

Nick said that parts of the turkey were dry, but the sections I had were really
moist.

I picked out the smallest ham that I could find at Costco and it was still huge.
I don't know why, but ham is one of my favorite parts of Thanksgiving.  I had
woken up Friday morning singing, ham ham ham ham ham, which spurred an
awesome ham and cheese omelet from Nick.  (I was decorating our tree.) He
knows the way to my heart.

Mr. Fong asked for some candied yams.  The weren't originally on the menu,
but he asked and received. 

Nick loves stuffing from a box.  I'm not a stuffing fan myself, but this wasn't
half bad.

Nick always makes green bean casserole from scratch.

Heirloom tomatoes and burratta. 

Gobs and gobs of cranberry-pomegranate sauce.

My brother has this method of stuffing potatoes into his
rolls for extra fast consumption of carbs.