This weekend, we whipped the house into shape (though 2 particularly undesirable tasks on the list, vaccuuming and cleaning the bathrooms, have not yet been accomplished) and did our first shopping round (we figured 2 into the plan because you never remember everything the first time around). Last night we picked up a few remaining necessities.
Tomorrow, my KitchenAid mixer will be pushed to its limit, and the spare bowl that B bought me will be very useful. The dessert menu includes whoopie pies, biscotti, and raspberry-cream sandwiches. I'm drooling just thinking of them.
We're also going to peel, cut, and chop as much as we can for the main course, which includes:
- Turkey (of course).
- Gravy. Lots and lots of gravy.
- Mashed potatoes.
- Fruity stuffing and regular (i.e. the kind that comes from a box) stuffing.
- Butternut squash risotto.
- Squash.
- Whipped eggnog sweet potatoes.
- Corn.
- Peas.
- Roasted vegetables (potatoes, carrots, parsnips, and onions).
- Italian-style green beans.
We've had such good luck with brining other meats that we're going to brine our turkey. And we found a yummy sounding recipe for turkey and wild rice soup, so we bought a second brining bag for storing the turkey...well, "carcass" doesn't sound like an appetizing ingredient in a soup recipe, but that's what it is, and it's an important ingredient in the soup. So was the teeny box of $6 wild rice. This soup better be good.
Since this is the biggest meal we've ever cooked, we created a little project plan in Excel so we know the cooking times and temperatures of everything and the bowls to serve our dishes in. I am slightly concerned that we only 4 burners but have 7 items that must be cooked on the stove. However, I am confident that we will achieve the same Thanksgiving miracle that millions of Americans achieve every year and will get our food--while it's still hot--to the table. That table that has, by the way, been set since Saturday.
