Entry tags:
A mostly normal Thanksgiving
Many of my friends and acquaintances have been struggling with doing a much smaller Thanksgiving gathering than usual. But for most of the past ten years, our Thanksgiving dinner has been just ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
shalmestere and me, so we didn't have any particular struggle. There were only a few slightly unusual twists.
We had a CSA farm-share this year. This sounded to me both politically correct and fun: we'd be supporting local businesses, and getting whatever fruits and vegetables were at the peak of their season, rather than getting the same things every month of the year, and this would force us to try some new things. But I'm an INTP.shalmestere is an INTJ, and likes to know (and choose) exactly what she's getting; the idea of buying groceries without knowing in advance exactly what they'll be or what we'll do with them disturbs her and suggests a lack of moral integrity. For example, she isn't fond of winter squash or sweet potatoes, both of which we've gotten in recent weeks, and we got about twenty apples of undisclosed variety that she wouldn't have bought of her own accord (they're clearly not Delicious, Fuji, or Gala, which we wouldn't have bought, nor are they Honeycrisp, Mutsu, Granny Smith, or Gold Rush, which we might have). But since we had these things in the house, she gamely found a recipe for a baked squash-apple casserole that she was willing to try for Thanksgiving. I baked 2-1/2 "honeynut" squashes (basically single-serving-sized butternuts, with orange flesh; another 1-1/2 squashes had been sitting around too long and were discarded), scooped out the flesh, peeled and cut up about five small apples, fried the apples in butter and cinnamon, mashed all this stuff together into a casserole dish, baked it, and topped with spiced-and-sugared pecans (which we would ordinarily buy at TJ's, but we haven't braved the line for TJ's since March so we made them ourselves), and we both liked it quite a bit. I may have to eat all the sweet potatoes myself.
Some years agoshalmestere had come across a recipe for "schadenfreude pie" -- dark, bitter, and sweet -- and had planned to make some in celebration of Trump losing re-election. But since "Trump losing re-election" hasn't happened at any one particular time, but has instead been drawn out over the course of several weeks, we hadn't found the right opportunity. So we made it two days before Thanksgiving. It's vaguely like a pecan or Derby pie, with corn syrup and eggs playing a major role, plus dark molasses, dark chocolate, cinnamon, and Kahlua. We had a bit more filling than would fit in our pie crust, so I poured the extra into two single-serving custard cups and baked them alongside the pie to try immediately. The custard cups overcooked a bit, so all this sugar produced a sticky-crunchy toffee effect, and our expectations were suitably lowered for the pie. We had 1/16 slices of the pie after Thanksgiving dinner, and were gratified that it wasn't so overcooked, but still, the predominant flavor was molasses, with scarcely a hint of all that dark chocolate. It's OK, not great, not clearly worth all those carbs. We might try it again with less molasses and more chocolate, or we might just go back to the chocolate-pecan pie recipe we made last year, which went over well.
I used the bits of it left onshalmestere's plate to bait some mousetraps, hoping that once the mice have stolen a few pieces of it they'd be sufficiently buzzed and jittery to make a false move on the next mousetrap. It seems to have worked: the body count this morning is three (3), with several more traps cleanly de-baited.
As usual, we pre-ordered a turkey from a stand at the farmer's market. The first time we did this it was a heritage breed (Bourbon Red, I think) and the flavor was OMG wonderful where-have-you-been-all-my-life. In subsequent years we haven't managed to find a Bourbon Red, just a turkey raised relatively-humanely by a relatively-small, relatively-local farmer, with mostly-organic feed, and the flavor has been quite good. This year we didn't even order a turkey until a week before Thanksgiving, and ended up with the usual supplier. But when I went to the Greenmarket last weekend to pick it up, the lady behind the counter said "They came in big this year." "Oh, dear; it's just the two of us, but leftovers are good..." "I'll give you a relatively small one of our large birds. Let's see... this one is 21.6 pounds...." So fitting it in the fridge for four days before roasting was a challenge, and it took somewhat longer to cook than usual, and fitting it back in the fridge after roasting was a challenge, and fitting the carcass into a stockpot will eventually be a challenge. We also tried "dry-brining" -- rubbing it under the skin with a mix of coarse salt and spices, a day or more before cooking -- and that seems to have worked well, although it made the gravy-from-pan-drippings a bit on the salty side. Anyway, the breast meat came out perfectly cooked, not dry, and flavorful; haven't tried any of the dark meat yet.
The other dishes on the table were more traditional:shalmestere's ancestral sausage stuffing, a mulled-wine cranberry sauce, a green-bean casserole with cream-of-whatever soup from a can and crunchy onion things from another can, and cranberry-curd pie, which is on its third year in our house and is now therefore Tradition. And they all turned out well, and we have leftovers of all of them, and life is good.
shalmestere and me, so we didn't have any particular struggle. There were only a few slightly unusual twists.We had a CSA farm-share this year. This sounded to me both politically correct and fun: we'd be supporting local businesses, and getting whatever fruits and vegetables were at the peak of their season, rather than getting the same things every month of the year, and this would force us to try some new things. But I'm an INTP.
shalmestere is an INTJ, and likes to know (and choose) exactly what she's getting; the idea of buying groceries without knowing in advance exactly what they'll be or what we'll do with them disturbs her and suggests a lack of moral integrity. For example, she isn't fond of winter squash or sweet potatoes, both of which we've gotten in recent weeks, and we got about twenty apples of undisclosed variety that she wouldn't have bought of her own accord (they're clearly not Delicious, Fuji, or Gala, which we wouldn't have bought, nor are they Honeycrisp, Mutsu, Granny Smith, or Gold Rush, which we might have). But since we had these things in the house, she gamely found a recipe for a baked squash-apple casserole that she was willing to try for Thanksgiving. I baked 2-1/2 "honeynut" squashes (basically single-serving-sized butternuts, with orange flesh; another 1-1/2 squashes had been sitting around too long and were discarded), scooped out the flesh, peeled and cut up about five small apples, fried the apples in butter and cinnamon, mashed all this stuff together into a casserole dish, baked it, and topped with spiced-and-sugared pecans (which we would ordinarily buy at TJ's, but we haven't braved the line for TJ's since March so we made them ourselves), and we both liked it quite a bit. I may have to eat all the sweet potatoes myself.Some years ago
shalmestere had come across a recipe for "schadenfreude pie" -- dark, bitter, and sweet -- and had planned to make some in celebration of Trump losing re-election. But since "Trump losing re-election" hasn't happened at any one particular time, but has instead been drawn out over the course of several weeks, we hadn't found the right opportunity. So we made it two days before Thanksgiving. It's vaguely like a pecan or Derby pie, with corn syrup and eggs playing a major role, plus dark molasses, dark chocolate, cinnamon, and Kahlua. We had a bit more filling than would fit in our pie crust, so I poured the extra into two single-serving custard cups and baked them alongside the pie to try immediately. The custard cups overcooked a bit, so all this sugar produced a sticky-crunchy toffee effect, and our expectations were suitably lowered for the pie. We had 1/16 slices of the pie after Thanksgiving dinner, and were gratified that it wasn't so overcooked, but still, the predominant flavor was molasses, with scarcely a hint of all that dark chocolate. It's OK, not great, not clearly worth all those carbs. We might try it again with less molasses and more chocolate, or we might just go back to the chocolate-pecan pie recipe we made last year, which went over well.I used the bits of it left on
shalmestere's plate to bait some mousetraps, hoping that once the mice have stolen a few pieces of it they'd be sufficiently buzzed and jittery to make a false move on the next mousetrap. It seems to have worked: the body count this morning is three (3), with several more traps cleanly de-baited.As usual, we pre-ordered a turkey from a stand at the farmer's market. The first time we did this it was a heritage breed (Bourbon Red, I think) and the flavor was OMG wonderful where-have-you-been-all-my-life. In subsequent years we haven't managed to find a Bourbon Red, just a turkey raised relatively-humanely by a relatively-small, relatively-local farmer, with mostly-organic feed, and the flavor has been quite good. This year we didn't even order a turkey until a week before Thanksgiving, and ended up with the usual supplier. But when I went to the Greenmarket last weekend to pick it up, the lady behind the counter said "They came in big this year." "Oh, dear; it's just the two of us, but leftovers are good..." "I'll give you a relatively small one of our large birds. Let's see... this one is 21.6 pounds...." So fitting it in the fridge for four days before roasting was a challenge, and it took somewhat longer to cook than usual, and fitting it back in the fridge after roasting was a challenge, and fitting the carcass into a stockpot will eventually be a challenge. We also tried "dry-brining" -- rubbing it under the skin with a mix of coarse salt and spices, a day or more before cooking -- and that seems to have worked well, although it made the gravy-from-pan-drippings a bit on the salty side. Anyway, the breast meat came out perfectly cooked, not dry, and flavorful; haven't tried any of the dark meat yet.
The other dishes on the table were more traditional:
shalmestere's ancestral sausage stuffing, a mulled-wine cranberry sauce, a green-bean casserole with cream-of-whatever soup from a can and crunchy onion things from another can, and cranberry-curd pie, which is on its third year in our house and is now therefore Tradition. And they all turned out well, and we have leftovers of all of them, and life is good.
Trump losing re-election
That Schadenfreude Pie sounds like Scalzi's recipe -- dark chess pie with chocolate.
Re: Trump losing re-election
Although I baited some mousetraps with it, and got several in one night, so the mice seem to like it.
Re: Trump losing re-election
Scalzi's Schadenfreude Pie recipe comes from this post. I think Scalzi's family was working on the shoofly pie model. You could swap in golden syrup for the molasses and use darker chocolate to get a less molasses-y flavor.
I've been holding this recipe in mind for years, waiting for a sufficiently large jolt of schadenfreude to come along. If Lord Dampnut loses big at the Supreme Court, I think I'd be ready for this pie.
Re: Trump losing re-election