December 1st, 2008 - The holiday in review
I was still under the weather Thursday, so we cooked the turkey Saturday instead. Eric picked up some sliced turkey for sandwiches Thursday morning. And a special bread for me, which I am still enjoying. We cooked the turkey Saturday. At 20#, it required both of us for much of the work (mainly, Eric for lifting it). But thankfully, it was still small enough that I was able to lift it, as it finished nearly an hour before I expected it to, while Eric was gone to the gym!
We had just a little bit of it for lunch, along with my cranberry jelly. I’m not sure I mentioned it–Eric is a huge fan of jellied cranberries. I have never been able to eat the stuff, finding it absolutely horrid as a kid and not touching it since. But we always get fresh cranberries every winter (since the majority of cranberries grown in the US come from about 100-200 miles east of here). So I decided to try making my own jelled cranberries for him this winter. Unfortunately, some of the seeds remained after pressing it through the food mill, so he didn’t like the mouth feel. He did like the taste, however, so I will be making it again, this time employing the jelly bag. And, even better, Maggie and I like it. She adores it; I think it’s a bit sweet for a meal. I think it would be lovely on toast! And since I was having apple cider with the meal, it overpowered the sweetness of that and made the cider disappointing. But it was yummy with the turkey. Now I understand Eric’s great love of turkey + jellied cranberries sandwiches!
In the afternoon, we dissected the turkey and pressure cooked the carcass, fat, drippings, and skin for stock. We chopped up the bits and pieces and Eric saved slices for sandwiches. We were smart this year: The slices were bagged up in 2-sandwich allotments, instead of piled in a few boxes. (I know, quite a bit of wasted plastic bags, however. But they wouldn’t have worked in any of the plastic boxes we have. And take up a whole lot less room than a dozen boxes would.)
On Sunday, I pressure canned the broth–which is stock + the chopped up bits of meat. My first time time pressure canning went smoothly, except that I over-pressured it. Had trouble keeping it at exactly 11, and when I thought I was fine, I left the room, only to have to jump up. But that’s better than under-pressure. I bought the pressure canner specifically for soup, so I’m thrilled. It’s not quite soup yet–they don’t recommend including the veggies. Nor did I salt it. But it will still be pretty easy to heat up the broth plus some frozen veggies quickly. I’m so looking forward to deciding to have soup and opening a jar, instead of defrosting a box from the freezer. In fact, I plan to do so with one of the jars tomorrow for dinner. Have to try it right away to see how it came out, after all.
Oh! I almost forgot the best part of Thanksgiving: We made kugelis! That’s an old family recipe, on the Lithuanian side. Eric helped–he grated the potatoes and onions and squeezed the water out of the taters. It’s just as good as I remembered, especially reheated the second day. (I should have brought it for lunch today.) We baked it in two 1.5qt dishes, in the toaster oven. I put one in the freezer. In the future, we’ll just do a half recipe. Mom though the full recipe was about 8 servings. I was overfull with 1/12 and later tried 1/24th–and that was plenty! (With some sour cream, of course.) Maggie’s not too into it–probably because it’s a new food. But then again, she might be just like Moms: I couldn’t stand it as a kid. Didn’t like sour cream either. Then something changed as a teen and I fell in love with both!
We didn’t actually make it for Thanksgiving, as I learned from Mom, because we always had stuffing. But I prefer it to stuffing (and to mashed potatoes) so I believe we have a winner for a family favorite for holidays. This is delightful to me, as we haven’t had many family traditions and we’re still working on what we’ll do. I’m not into the big family meals, but Eric would like to do it. I realized this year that if we figure out the traditional foods we’d like to have, I’d be more interested. I was thrilled with the turkey/homemade jellied cranberry/kugelis meal, for instance. (Plus pumpkin pie from the store. Next year, I’ll make my own. If I’m not sick again.) And I have to get the cardamom bread recipe from Mom for a special breakfast.
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