Bye-Bye Turkey, Hello Mimosas!
I had high hopes for a Saturday Thanksgiving-wrap-up post full of photos of the beautiful turkey I had planned to make with my sister–which would have been, as you may recall, my very first effort.
As it turns out, however, I’d underestimated a couple of things.
One was just how dog-gone long it takes a turkey to defrost. My sister bought it early Wednesday morning; by that point all the fresh and smaller frozen turkeys were gone, so we wound up with a 17 1/2 pounder. I arrived at my sister’s Wednesday evening and the stubborn bird was still solid as a rock, though she’d made some side dishes ahead of time. By Thursday morning it was clear that our only hope was thawing using the cold-water method, which would probably still take us 8 hours followed by an additional 5-6 hours of cooking. And we had plans to visit friends of my sisters’ for brunch and mimosas.
I admit it: when faced with a choice between babysitting a thawing turkey all day (plus waiting until at least 8 PM to eat) or enjoying mimosas and adult conversation, the second option won out. So my sister and I picked up a spiral sliced ham for later, and went to the brunch without guilt. I mean, who knew that the average turkey takes 48 hours or more to defrost? (I mean it. Who knew? And if you knew, who told you?)
We wound up having dinner around 4:00, though we started working on pulling it together at 1:30. And that’s the other thing I underestimated: just how chaotic it would be trying to pull together a meal for a total of 14 people in a small house crowded with kids. Even with the sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole and potatoes made ahead of time, just warming everything up and pulling it together was stressful enough to make us keep the mimosas flowing.
As it turned out, despite all my grand intentions, I didn’t contribute one blessed dish to the Thanksgiving feast. After my big plans, talk about a humbling experience! But dinner was very tasty and we laughed, talked, and had a great time throughout the day. To me, that’s more important than the specifics of what we ate, though I will say the smashed red-skin potatoes and ham really did help make the day even better.
I noticed an interesting thing happening this month. The topic of food really drew out some readers–mostly, those who are passionate and knowledgeable about cooking. But the rest of us seemed to hang back a little. Why? There’s a lot to food, even outside of cooking. Shopping, budgeting and feeding our kids is universal and we all have insights to share. Yet it’s easy to feel unqualified to talk about food if you don’t have a perfectly wholesome cooked-from-scratch diet.
As some reader comments have shown, food is a loaded issue with plenty of potential for guilt. I know that I, as an often-insecure, fairly novice cook, felt strange sometimes this month trying to give advice or share my thoughts on the topic: after all, while I’ve come up with a meal-planning method that works for my family, when it comes to cooking I’ve got more questions than answers. And while I think it’s great to expand your cooking repertoire and try new things, I find it ironic that I spent so much time this month researching new recipes that I didn’t make a single loaf of my beloved banana bread, even though baking makes me really happy and baking banana bread makes me really, really happy.
Like anything else, when it comes to feeding our families (and ourselves) we have to strike that happy balance between what we “should” do (or just THINK we should do) and what keeps us sane and smiling, instead of flipping out at our kids because they don’t want to touch the exotic dish we spent hours sweating over or falling on the sofa after dinner too exhausted and stressed out to help with homework. For some of us, experimenting with lots of new recipes is a welcome creative challenge. For others, it’s just more stress than it’s worth right now (and maybe, if we’re honest with ourselves, it always will be.)
I think what I’m learning about myself is that at this stage of my life, I’m emphasizing eating well and enjoying my family life over cooking. What that means for me is that while the occasional culinary adventure might be fun, most of the time I just want to get a reasonably wholesome dinner on the table that most of my family will eat so we can enjoy it together–and then go about the rest of my business.
I hope as you look back over our Food month, you’ll feel inspired (and not intimidated) by the interviews with Monica Bhide and Dana Talusani. After all, as with any other pursuit, there are those home cooks who are artists and enthusiasts, and I always welcome the chance to learn from them. On the other hand, some of us simply want to get the job done as well as possible with minimal stress, and that’s OK too. If there’s any message you’ve taken away this month, I hope it’s this: There are a lot of ways to feed your family thoughtfully and with love. As for myself, that means I’m going to focus on learning a handful of dishes so well I could do them in my sleep, and branching out as time, energy and interest allow. Because that’s the food philosophy that makes me a happy mom.
Well, I didn’t learn it this month but I do believe that how we feel about how we eat is probably more important than what we actually eat.
Not that I’ve perfected the art of feeling good about it all. 😉
First off, love your turkey story. Those are the stories that memories are made of 🙂 And really love that you let it go and went with a ham (yum).
I know that for me and my little family, a cooked meal that we all eat around the table together is a priority, and something we can generally fit in our schedule. I did learn more about menu planning, which is something I’ve been working towards. I enjoyed the interviews as well, I’m always interested in new recipes. You did inspire me to pull out some of my cookbooks, and I have done two new recipes in the last two weeks. One was a hit that will make it into the regular menu!
This year on Thanksgiving (which is actually in October in Canada, but it seems timely all the same) I ended up with canned cranberry sauce and pre-made stuffing. Both of which I would normally look down my nose at. But I couldn’t find fresh cranberries at the grocery store, and I wast throwing together a last-minute feast for my in-laws. Most of the meal was local and organic and all that good stuff, but the pre-made stuffing was from Butterball and upon closer inspection the cranberries contained HFCS.
But you know what? We ate the meal. It was good. I was less harried trying to pull it together. So I think that I learned not to stress so much. If the point of Thanksgiving is being thankful and enjoying time with family, then maybe a tin of cranberry sauce isn’t the worst thing in the world.
For a 17 lb. bird, you would’ve had to begin thawing in the refrigerator by Mon. It is best to have it thaw a little to early than later. This comes from experience. They used to list thawing times on the package but I didn’t see it on there this year.
Kids usually prefer the canned cranberry sauce and so do some adults. As an adult I now prefer homemade and it is likely much more healthy to have it that way but I still like the canned. Just need that cranberry taste from somewhere to make Thanksgiving turkey taste authentically Thanksgiving.
Yes, family and friends you eat with are more important than the food but the kids and menfolk might disagree.
I learned about the thawing a frozen turkey rule two years ago. We ate our Thanksgiving dinner at almost 8pm that night after doing the “thaw in the sink” then “cook it a little longer cause it’s still frozen a bit” method. We didn’t mind either because we still had a wonderful time waiting and visiting with family.
I love that you had to abandon your icy bird. It’s stories like that–the funny misfires–that become family legend. Mimosas sound like the perfect antidote.
I told Meag (when I realized our Thanksgiving would become a blog post!) that I was expecting BIG things for our dinner! The cost of this wonderful dinner? The possibility that my picture might get taken-that my hands (in the process of lovingly creating some culinary masterpiece) and raggedy nails might turn up in a picture for the world to see.
As it turned out, we had nothing much worth taking a picture of….except a chaotic, wonderful, pet-filled, kid-congested, and a less-than-perfect dinner. And the truth is, it was a great, great, Thanksgiving!
Proving that family, laughter, (and a few mimosas) beat out the perfect dinner any day!
Thanksgiving is overrated! Besides wrangling the dang turkey, it’s a ton of cooking and planning and timing. We had people over, and by the time everyone was seated, the food was cold and the meal was over in exactly 20 minutes. Where is the justice here? I need a mimosa too. (I love your story — and its happy ending.)
I think your philosophy of eating well without the hassle of complicated meals is spot on, and is something I definitely do… but I have to admit, as much as I appreciate the no-brainer meals I can get on the table quickly and know everyone will happily eat, and even though these meals are both healthy and yummy, I get bored with the same old same old all the time. So I was VERY happy to find a cookbook of easy recipes that are delicious – meaning that I can easily whip up something new and different for the adults and not mind having to do an (equally quick) separate meal for the kids (if an adapted meal isn’t possible, e.g., give them the basics of the meal (like the pasta and meat) without the new sauce). This is not something I do very often – for one thing, I am against having to cook separate meals on a routine basis – but it does help when I feel completely uninspired by our standard meals. Just the chance to occasionally eat something different – and for that to be very easy – definitely makes me happier!
If anyone is interested, the book is “No time to cook” by Donna Hayes. (I am in no way connected to her or the book, but honestly, every recipe we have tried has been a winner.)
I knew about the turkey thawing. 😉 It was something my mother told me the first time I planned to roast one.
I find it a bit funny that even though we had only one guest and were cooking only two items that I still got a little stressed that afternoon. For me it was the fact that my husband and I were cooking our dishes at the same time and our toddler woke up from her nap early. She wanted to be held, but didn’t want to be in the ergo. I also had trouble with my egg roll wraps tearing. Of course it all came together in the end and we had a pleasant evening.
I’ve really enjoyed all the food posts this month. They have given me a gentle shove out of the rut I had been in. Today, I have a roast with veggies in the crockpot, and it is only the second time I have cooked one. I’m so looking forward to dinner. 🙂
Just remembered something caught on NPR. They had a guest who had done research to figure out better ways to make the tradition Thanksgiving foods. Some of the suggestions were to roast turkey pieces instead of a whole bird and bake the stuffing with turkey wings to get the flavor, but not the mushyness. We often roast turkey legs for dinner, but with hot spices. Next year I may try a “traditional” dinner with some of these variations.