A Thanksgiving First

This Thursday is a first for me. When I went to college in Utah, I never had the money to be flying home to Washington state for Thanksgivings. In 2001 and 2002, I spent Thanksgiving with roommates or friends. From 2003-2005, I’m pretty sure I spent Thanksgiving with my in-laws or relatives of my in-laws (Hot tip: if you are ever in the middle of a divorce, DO NOTspend Thanksgiving with the in-laws. It is nothing but awkward for everyone). By 2006 I had moved home to Washington state and could simply spend Thanksgiving with my immediate family, and last year our household flew out to Iowa to spend Thanksgiving with my husband’s parents.
This year though? Well, we’re much too poor to fly to Washington and see my father, and no one invited us to spend Thanksgiving with their family, so I guess it’s time for us to be real adults and have Thanksgiving on our own.
That means I have to cook. Which is bad for everyone.
My husband is actually a better cook than I am because he did one of those “LDS mission” things where he had to live frugally on a budget for two years and not eat at Jack-in-the-Box all the time like I’ve been able to do my entire life. But he’s still far from a master chef.
I have numerous “Cooking For Stupid People” books on my book shelf, such as Easy Cooking with 5 Ingredients by Barbara C. Jones. I have one on my shelf called Skinny Bitch in the Kitch which my husband bought for me on a whim because he figured that if it had the word “bitch” in its title, it was right up my alley. Turns out it was a vegan cookbook though, so I haven’t gotten much use from it.
Anyways, I am putting together Thanksgiving dinner all by my lonesome this year. My husband’s job is to handle the turkey. Since we have a small kitchen with only one oven, I figure I’ll get all of the deserts and baking side dishes done on Wednesday and free up the kitchen for cooking on Thursday. Here’s what I’m making tomorrow:
Spiced apple bread
Apple pie
Brownies
Lime Jell-O
Here’s what we’re making on Thursday:
An 8-lb turkey with stuffing
Turkey gravy
Mashed potatoes
Cheesy green beans
Yams
Cranberry sauce
Almost everything that can come out of a can or box is coming out of a can or box, so don’t even ask. Except for the pie, which isn’t made from scratch but isn’t one of those Marie Calendar numbers that you just throw in the oven, either. I’m making it from a pie crust mix and canned fruit filling, so I guess that’s halfway to homemade.
Am I missing anything important?
Anyways, have a happy Thanksgiving!

Comments

A Thanksgiving First — 22 Comments

  2. Through an unfortunate chain of events, I won’t be with my family this year either. Actually, it may turn out that I won’t be with anyone at all. Oh well.
    TRD
  3. Wait a second… why are you Red instead of Yellow now?
    I am sorry you’re stuck on Thanksgiving by yourself. There’s no one from your ward who wanted to have you over? :(
    We’d have you over if we could.
  5. RD,
    It’s nice that you’re able to evolve online.
    Jack,
    Good luck on your first Thxgiving. BTW, there’s no shame in taking a pie out of the box and into the oven. That’s what I’m doing. I can make homemade pumpkin and cheesecake, but the home where I’m going doesn’t like pumpkin and is lactose intolerant. Razzleberry it is then.
  6. I think your menu looks good, Jack!
    And I would like to voice my support for Costco pies. Holy crap those are good.
    TRD, I’m confused. But I shall take the bait and check out your new website.
  7. The Red Dart formerly known as The Yellow Dart — you can’t be all alone for Thanksgiving?!? That ain’t right! You don’t live in Northern Idaho, do you? You’d be welcome to come have Thanksgiving with us. :)
  9. Let’s see. We’ve had Thanksgiving on our own for the past… well, this will be the 4th year! It’s too close to Christmas to justify two trips to family. So we just stay home, the two of us… Oh, and a secret: we don’t have turkey! We have ham instead. :) So much easier. Ham, homemade mashed potatoes, stuffing (from a box!), rolls (bought!), veggies (bought!) and yes, I make a pumpkin pie for Adam (can’t stand it myself). So girl, no biggie! You can do it!
  10. I actually think it would be fun to take on cooking thanksgiving dinner. It’s unlikely to happen, as I’m surrounded by much better cooks.
    My understanding is that brining the turkey is a good thing to do. That’s pretty much the extent of my advice…
  11. If there is a Costco nearby you have to buy one of their pumpkin pies….DELICIOUS!!!
    I think if I were in your position I would go out to eat on Thanksgiving. No fuss, no mess! (Ok, maybe a “little” bit of fuss and mess with your daughter along :) ) But since you’ve already made plans to cook, your menu sounds great. Happy Thanksgiving.
  16. For the most part, yes. The apple pie was looking really deformed as I was putting it into the oven, but it looked much better after baking and tasted fine. The turkey took a little longer than we were expecting. Other than that, no major complications.
    I took a blurry pic with my notebook Web cam (the batteries in my normal camera had died):
    Our daughter mastered the phrase “apple pie” over the course of the event, so that was pretty cool.
  17. My wife said a salad might have gone nice with it.
    One of her favorites is a spinach leaf salad with chopped up bacon, crushed walnuts, chopped olives, sliced boiled eggs, and mandarin oranges. Good stuff, and not too hard to make. Pretty self-explanatory from the description.
    Glad the first attempt went well.
  18. I discovered that none of us likes yams. (“Why did you make them?” my husband asked. “I had no idea you didn’t like them, and I thought making yams was what you do on Thanksgiving.”) So I’ll be dropping yams from the menu next year. Maybe I’ll try your wife’s salad idea instead.
    Did your wife do most of your Thanksgiving cooking, or did you chip in?
  20. I ate food and drew the conversation away from politics as often as possible. My job when politics comes up in family discussions is to change the subject to cheese. “I really like Appenzeller cheese. It has the consistency of Emmentaler with the nutty pungency of Gruyere, and comprises the perfect combination of all that is good about Swiss cheeses. I’m sorry, did you say something about Sarah Palin? I didn’t hear you!”
    Yams are a gorgeous food. The two best preparations are simply baked the same way you’d bake a Russet potato, and the recipe my sister-in-law uses, which blends them in a kind of quiche-like preparation, with mounds of sugar, brown sugar, and marshmallows. Very very very very good, unlike reheating canned yams, which are not good compared to those two.
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