What are You Cooking the Week of November 18, 2018?

[BakerAunt]

It's the week of Thanksgiving. Have you started thawing your turkey yet?

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• This topic was modified 6 years ago by BakerAunt.

[chocomouse]

We're just the two of us for dinner, so I have a turkey breast in the freezer and will move it to the refrigerator on Tuesday. Tomorrow I'll be grocery shopping in between snow storms, for all the other dinner necessities. For dinner tonight, my husband had clam chowder and I had mushroom soup - still cleaning out the freezer! And I made garlic knots this morning to go with the meal.

[Mike Nolan]

I've got the turkey tenders and the turkey necks in the fridge to thaw out, I'll make stock tomorrow with the necks. The tenders will only take about an hour to roast on Thursday. I have to rework my standard timeline for Thursday, I can start a couple hours later than usual because I don't have to allow 3-4 hours for the turkey. So I may be able to watch most of the Bears-Lions game.

For dessert we're having Texas Chocolate Sheet Cake and an apple pie, I'll probably make those on Wednesday anyway. We have had contractors working in the house the last week doing some drywall repairs from the roof leaks we had several years ago, they're nearly done. But I'm waiting for the dust to settle before I do much in the kitchen.

[RiversideLen]

No need to thaw, I have an 11 pound fresh Butterball.

I was thinking about spatchcocking it but I saw an ATK video and decided I'm going to try it their way. Of course, ATK does it different every year, this is this years rendition. It involves preheating the roasting pan on a baking stone at 500 degrees, put a little oil in the pan and then put the bird in it with the breast portion covered with foil. Then you drop the temp to 425 and roast it for 45 minutes, remove the foil and drop the temp to 325 to finish it (about 90 minutes for a 12 pound bird). Of course, there's a few other steps to do in prepping the bird. The idea here is to jump start the dark meat so everything gets done together.

If anyone is interested, you can find it on youtube, or if you like, I can post a link.

[Mike Nolan]

It seems to me that the dark meat around the legs and thighs always gets done first, it's the meat on the inside of the breast (which are HUGE compared to a wild bird) that takes the longest to get fully cooked.

[BakerAunt]

At my husband's family reunion in October, we did an early Thanksgiving dinner, and one of his cousins spatchcocked the turkey. Lots of butter seems to have been involved, as well as cheesecloth. It did make a succulent and delicious turkey. (I tried not to think of the saturated fat in it or the mashed potatoes.)

Hm--so they want to make smaller turkeys, even as they are growing larger chickens--with the white striping issue we discussed on this site affecting the chicken breast meat. I seem to recall that smaller turkeys used to be easily available. Perhaps too much Norman Rockwell and Charles Dickens (yes, I know it was a goose) in marketing has led the American public astray.

We are invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the home of friends, and given that we are readying the house for renovation, that is a blessing. Our turkey--12 pounds--will stay in the freezer for Christmas. I'm going to bring Stella Parks' Yeasted Pumpkin Bread made as rolls, so I'll be baking not cooking this year.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by BakerAunt.

[Mike Nolan]

We had tuna salad on tomatoes that I had picked from our garden before the first frost six weeks ago and left in the garage to ripen. They're kind of cold, so we threw them in the microwave for 30-40 seconds to take the chill off, and they were probably better than any tomatoes we could have bought at the store this week.

[chocomouse]

I looked for a small (10-12 lb) turkey at the store today, and there were none. Lots of 26-28 pounders, which were hard to find back in the days when we had 30 or so dinner guests.

Dinner tonight was ham steak on the grill, Creamy Cheesy Mashed Potatoes ( a new recipe, which was good, just too much fat, probably won't make it again), garlicky green beans, and cole slaw. Enough leftovers for another meal. So, now we have leftovers for Tuesday and Wednesday dinners, and after Thursdays turkey dinner, we go into turkey sandwich mode 'til we run out of turkey!

[BakerAunt]

Chocomouse--We bought our turkey a week ago because we were afraid there would be no small ones left. I've never roasted such giant turkeys.

For dinner on Monday night, I roasted four chicken legs on a rack, so that the grease would run off. I roasted them at 400 for 30 minutes, then moved the pan to one side of the oven and added another pan with cut up sweet potato chunks rubbed with olive oil and drizzled with maple syrup. I reduced the heat to 375F and roasted for another 30 minutes. The potatoes were not glazed, but they were tender and delicious—unlike last time when I over-roasted them. These are Beauregard sweet potatoes from the farmers’ market, and they have more moisture and cook up so tender. They are vastly superior to what I usually find in the grocery store. We had microwaved peas on the side

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by BakerAunt.

[Joan Simpson]

We had ham my husband said" I'm tired of ham now" I said well I am too!With that we had macaroni and cheese with green butter beans.I'm cutting the rest of the ham up for seasoning beans etc.and will still get a few nice slices off for the freezer as well.
It will be just the two of us Thanksgiving so I'll be preparing a small meal also.

• This reply was modified 6 years ago by Joan Simpson.

[Joan Simpson]

We had a hamburger tonight,I've been busy preparing for Thanksgiving,I Made corn bread and chopped onions,celery,cooked turnips,boiled a big fat chicken ,picked that off and made my dressing up.It's in the fridge just waiting to bake off Thursday.

[Mike Nolan]

We had tomato sandwiches using the tomatoes I picked 6 weeks ago while still green and stored in the garage.

I"m getting ready to make my turkey stock for Thursday, and I'll probably mix up my pie crust tonight, too.

[Joan Simpson]

We had taco salad and I had mine rolled for a burrito.

[BakerAunt]

I roasted two pumpkins, which turned out not to be pie pumpkins. (See details in the "Is there Pumpkin in Your Pumpkin Pie? thread). After throwing it out, I roasted another pumpkin that is a pie pumpkin, and this one I made into puree.

[RiversideLen]

I made a pizza tonight.

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