Showing posts with label Thanksgiving 2021. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Thanksgiving 2021. Show all posts

Thanksgiving 2021

 

I wanted to get this post up yesterday, but exhaustion was the name of the game come 7:00 PM, and on top of that, I still wanted to follow my own personal traditions, and put my tree and stockings up. By the time 9:00 PM hit, I was 100% out of energy.

Well, the bad news from all of this is that somehow my phone decided to loose the majority of the photos that I took yesterday while cooking. Not sure how it happened, but it appears to be the case.

Fortunately, while I lost my prep photos, the end results still managed to be on the phone.

Turkey with Herb and Sausage Stuffing

Fresh Baked Rolls

All Day Simmered Gravy

Whipped Mashed Potatoes

Delicious Canned Cranberry Sauce

Roasted Root Vegetables (Sweet Potatoes, Turnips, Beets and Rutabaga)

White Zinfandel Wine

And the whole shebang all served up!

And, like I said, I decorated my tiny tree, and hung the stockings.

The food was awesome, if I do say so myself, and putting up the Christmas stuff was fun, but now the hard part sets in. Now I have to wait thirty days for Christmas!

But, it will come. In the interim, I hope all of you had a happy Thanksgiving!

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Thanksgiving Starters And Final Prep


Thanksgiving morning was back to the kitchen time to do some final prepping for the day, and of course the cooking in general.

The morning started with me getting my slow cooked gravy going.


Because my turkey is only a breast, it doesn't have the typical "additions" that accompany a full bird. By that, I mean the giblets, which aid in the perfect gravy starter. To resolve this matter, I picked up a small pack of chicken drumsticks, and will use those. Bottom line, it takes some form of bird "meat", and a lot of water to simmer over the course of eight hours. I just keep letting it reduce down, and topping it back off to simmer some more.


Then it was time to prep my root vegetables, which will then go back in the fridge to sit in the oil mixture I made several days ago.


Next up, I needed my stuffing for the bird.


This was a combination of herb bread, sausage, chicken bone broth, onions, celery, carrots, and butter. But it also had to cool in order to stuff the bird with it.


To get us through the morning and early afternoon, we had some fresh baked sausage rolls and butternut squash soup.


It did the trick for sure.


As noon approached, the turkey was given a royal introduction to the stuffing, and disappeared into the oven, where it will sit for three and a half hours.

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Thanksgiving 2021 Desserts


Busy, busy day around here. It all started bright and early at 7:00 AM when I started rolling out dough for my mini cupcake sized pies.


 My goal was to make four different desserts.

The first, caramel apple walnut pie...


The second, traditional pumpkin pie...


An upsized pumpkin pie in the form of pumpkin cheesecake...


And lastly, some vanilla cheesecakes.


All of these was topped off with my homemade whipped cream.


The end results turned out great, and since I made about six dozen (or more) in total, I had plenty to share with half a dozen people to in turn share with their families.





In between baking, I also prepped up the sausage rolls as part of our early light lunch / brunch to have before Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow. This will be served with butternut squash soup. Light, yet satisfying until the big feast!


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Thanksgiving 2021 Prep

 

Things are in high gear around my house in anticipation of Thanksgiving 2021.

My turkey breast jumped into its brine bath on Friday, November 19th, and I've been rotating it every twenty-four hours since. It will come out of this on Monday around 5:00 PM, and from there get wrapped in plastic wrap to dry in the fridge until Thursday.

The brine should keep it nice and moist while baking, as well as add some lovely flavor of poultry seasoning, which is included in the chicken stock liquid it's sitting in.

I followed this up with infusing some olive oil with thyme, salt and pepper, which I'll let sit for six days leading up to the holiday. This is what my root vegetables will be tossed in come Thanksgiving morning, and roasted later in the day.


Wednesday, November 24th will be an even bigger day, and I've actually taken off for this one. But more on that when the day arrives.

Until then, Thanksgiving preparations are well in the works, and I'm growing more and more excited as each day ticks away.

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