1mo ago

[Discussion] How's everyone's holiday preparation going?

For many people, turkey day is tomorrow. If you're planning on making something, how goes your prep?

I've got a cornbread casserole in the oven, which has gone smoothly enough so far. However I do have to run to the grocery store to pick up all-purpose flour. Turns out we had less in stock than I expected, and we typically make a lot of cookies each year. Hopefully I'll be able to get in and out no worse for wear.

Edit: Sorry to everyone I didn't reply to. Seems there was some kind of federation issue with lemmy.world and I didn't see most of the comments until today.

39 comments

Funny you should ask, we aren’t having anyone over so- we just made our ham dinner tonight because it’s so much for two we’ll be having ham until we oink :D
Happy today thanksgiving
Happy tomorrow thanksgiving
Happy thanksgiving till the ham runs out to all.
- I actually really enjoy a thanksgiving (or christmas) ham, but my spouse isn’t crazy about it so we rarely if ever go that route. Maybe I’ll talk her into it next year. 😋
  
  My family has turkey on Thanksgiving and ham on Christmas so you get the best of both worlds with u (I actually don't like ham but I still enjoy Christmas dinner for the side dishes).
  
  Maybe find out why she dislikes it before making plans. I hate Thanksgiving because one decade I'd be in the hospital like clockwork on Black Friday thanks to different family members poisoning me.
- Y'all in two weeks:
- Nice! I do love a good ham. Sorry for the delay, I think there was a federation issue and this comment didn't appear to me until today

And so it begins... home made cranberry sauce:
1 cup sugar
3/4 cup water
1/4 teaspoon table salt
1 tablespoon orange zest
2 tablespoons Grand Marnier
1 12 ounce bag fresh cranberries, washed
Bring the sugar, water, salt, and orange zest to a boil over high heat.
Add the cranberries and return to a boil, then drop the heat to medium.
Simmer for 5 minutes, until 2/3rds or so of the berries have popped. Remove from heat and stir in the Grand Marnier.
Cool to room temp and refrigerate.

Glad I did a double batch because once it all cooked down it just about filled the bowl I had in mind.
- Mine is: 0.75c cranberry juice 0.75c grade a dark (or grade b if you can get it) maple syrup 1 T citrus (I've done all of orange/lemon juice/zest and they all work) 12oz fresh cranberries
  Put everything in a pot, bring it to a roiling boil on medium high heat then reduce to medium low and simmer for about ten minutes, stirring frequently. When it has nappe consistency, remove from heat, pour in glass container to cool, then refrigerate. The dish is best after 1 day in the fridge.
  You may mash the berries if you wish, but I recommend not doing so until it's almost done cooking.
- Fresh cranberry sauce is my favorite, this looks bangin
- Banana bread is done, scalloped potatoes in the oven now.
  
  Scalloped potatoes:
  
  3 loaves of bread, white, medium wheat, dark wheat.
  
  (both with cranberries and currants)
  
  Plain dark wheat by request. 😅
  Sweet potatoes have 20 min. left.
  Sweet potatoes:

Good, so far I've made the mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, cornbread, roasted root vegetables, prepped the yams for tomorrow.
I still need to dry brine the turkey overnight, make the stuffing, corn, salad, gravy.
That's all I can remember at the moment.
Edit: The Birds

Edit 2: Almost done.

Edit 3: Order up!

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Frozen turkeys by me are $0.49/lb, so I now have 3 of them in my freezer.
- That's a great price. If I ate turkey I'd be all over it. Toss one on the smoker, eat it for a month, toss the next on the smoker, it'd be pretty great.
- In one store, I saw them as low as $0.39 (with membership card). Was tempted, but have zero freezer space left that can fit one.
  In another store, there was organic, artisanal something, something, at $4.99 a pound. A single turkey was priced at $89!
- Nice. Hard to beat that.

Today I prepped and dry brined the turkey. We have done Kenji’s butterfly cut recipe for a few years now and it always works out well. I also got the gravy made ahead of time so tomorrow it’s simply a matter of reheating and checking the seasoning levels.
Also got a pumpkin pie baked and some bread out getting stale for dressing.
- Sounds like a winner to me! Hope it turned out as good as it sounds. (Sorry for the delayed reply, I think there was a federation issue and this comment didn’t appear to me until today)

We're having Turkey-Day with family, so we're just bringing some sides and pies.
Pecan pie is in the oven, chocolate pie is cooling on the counter.
Stuffing (cornbread and rolls) is in the fridge, bathing in aromatics, spices, and herbs (will get final seasoning and broth tomorrow before baking).
Sweet potato casserole is mixed and in the fridge (ready for topping before going in the oven). Broccoli rice casserole is also in the fridge, all mixed and ready to go in the oven.
Tomorrow we'll make squash casserole, and a corn casserole.

I made brioche loaf for stuffing and rolls for dinner. Both use Chain Baker's no kneed brioche recipe.
- Nice. Can't beat some nice homemade bread. These look like they came out very well. The rolls are glistening

My husband's family never wants anyone to bring anything. Many are vegan/gf and I don't know what to bring ever.
I hate it, I want to bring something. I've always wanted to host, but I don't think it's going to happen any time soon.
- Sorry to hear that. One option might be to ask them for one of their own vegan/gf recipes that they've made before, and make it for them so they don't have to. That's what we do sometimes in my family if we want to save someone some trouble
  
  I was just thinking on it actually, She mentioned she does most of the prep the night before. Next year I'm going to offer to go over and help with that I think. She does do such a lovely job, it's a lot of veggies, and this way I can still help. I was able to load dishes today and helped a few things. As long as I'm helping in some way yeah?

Great. Did all my Christmas shopping, all that's left is to go on leave on the 20th and then drive to meet the rest of the family.
- Nice. Always comforting to have that particular chore over and done with.

It's just us and we're not big on turkey leftovers but we do like it with the stuffing, so I got some deli-sliced turkey and put it in the bottom of a casserole dish, cutting it across the grain just enough to be bite sized. Then I mixed up my stuffing (keto bread bits, herbs and spices, chopped onion, celery and apple) and packed it on top. Poured a mixture of chicken broth, melted butter, and melted duck fat over the whole thing. Tomorrow we shall see if it works.
I've also made low carb pecan and pumpkin pies and raw cranberry-orange relish, and prepped yams with marshmallows for my spouse who's allowed them.
Dinner today was a Big Green Salad.
- Damn, that does sound tasty. I'm not the biggest turkey fan, either, but that setup sounds like it could work very nicely. The cranberry-orange relish also sounds good; I've seen a lot of cranberry sauce recipes recommend orange ingredients (juice, zest, peels), so I guess it makes sense that a relish made of both is a good combination. Hope it all turns out good.
  I haven't had to make low-carb sweets in a few years. Do you use something like Erythritol? I think that's what I used to usually use. Or occasionally Stevia, which I think was like a mixture of Erythritol and Allulose.
  
  I used Xylitol for the cranberries because the other ingredients are an entire navel orange (yes the skin too, navel because seedless) and a bag of fresh cranberries. It's weird-good, and cold, so you can get away with the "cold" feel of xylitol. For the pies I used a mixture of Swerve (an erythritol blend) and Allulose.

Haha, I’m stressed like last year, I’m further behind on prep than I want to be but I’m not too far behind, might even be better than last year.
Turkey is spatchcocked and seasoned, made the green bean salad, cranberry sauce, and chicken stock. Bacon cooked for the beer cheese and bacon soup. I’d like to have made the gravy already and be more certain o no the veggies I’ll toast tomorrow, but now typing this out I think I’m in a decent spot
- Sounds delicious. The juiciest turkey I ever had had been spatchcocked. I haven't done it myself, but I wanna try one of these days.
  Hope the rest of the prep goes smoothly!
  
  Honestly I think it’s easier, takes up a fair bit of space in the fridge, but you don’t have to worry about liquids and leaking like with a wet brine. The prep isn’t too bad. Just give it enough time to thaw and then you cut out the spine, flatten it and season. I think optimally it has 4 days to sit then but that’s a lot of time taking that much space and I didn’t buy the turkey early enough for that >.> <.< Work’s just been busy, I’ve had a recaulking project at home that did turn out well but took triple the time i thought it would, and then with a kid and toddler, just haven’t been quite on top of it
  
  I don't even eat turkey and I want to try spatchcocking one. It looks fun.

Not bad. Doing a potluck Thanksgiving. I got dessert covered. Two cheesecakes (one Basque). I decided to try making the “Pompion Pie” recipe from Tasting History and we’ll see how that goes over. And some apple cider donuts, some with a pumpkin cream cheese frosting.
Figure that’ll sugar everyone up good.

We did it Wednesday, not Thursday. Also cooked extra of the sides because we started cooking Monday and wanted to eat them fresh. So like, I'm technically starting day four of the feast even though the official meal was a few hours ago.
Tried making a bordelaise sauce for the gravy, smoked a Tritip, had sweet potatoes, stuffing, homemade cranberry sauce, a tasty salad, green beans trotted eat my grandfather cooked them, and mac and cheese (always appropriate for smoked meat). Then my wife got out the pies she made. Everyone cooked at least three dishes and we have days of leftovers even though we only cooked about half as much as usual. Pre-covid we had eleven at our table, now we've got three.
Only weak part of the meal was the bordelaise. It was my first time making it and it didn't thicken properly when it reduced, but I wanted to follow the recipe so I'd know where it needed to improve. Just need to add some buerre manie next time.

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