oops, i forgot i had these. some extra thanksgiving photos. you should all be able to figure out which picture is what dish by now.

tea
oatmeal with milk and brown sugar
leftover teriyaki and rice
cranberry juice
hummus and bread
chocolate chip cookies
eggnog. as in every year, i am unclear as to whether or not i actually like eggnog.


...and i realized we didn't even try to get the wishbone out of the thanksgiving turkey. i'm reasonably sure that it would have still been intact.

And In Conclusion...

So, next time (next year? let's hope not), I would focus on the turkey, and not worry about things like the green bean casserole, or marshmallows on the candied yams until the turkey was totally, definitely, for sure and for reals out of the oven. I would also figure out how to do something like carving a turkey. I would make more gravy by any means possible. I would buy a second or third box of wild rice, and accept that when they say 2 servings per box, they mean it. I would totally spatchcock that turkey again, but give it more time than Mark Bittman claims. Astute readers will also notice that although peas were on the initial menu, I decided to forgo them. It probably didn't matter either way, but if I had had a little more time at the end, I think something else green would have been welcome.

All of the above is worth all of the below, especially if you can get someone else to wash the dishes.

Turkey

The turkey, is, obviously, the centerpiece and centerpoint of the meal. I've cooked a turkey once before for a large group of people my 4th year at college, and I had help from two of my friends. It came out fine, considering all the circumstances, like I wasn't sure if I was going to make it, and only decided to a few days before hand, and that I hadn't ever cooked a turkey before, and it later got hacked to tiny bits because I let someone else carve it. I do recall it being somewhat dry. But, whaddyagoindo? Well, brining seems rather fussy, deep frying is for the insane, and basting it constantly would need actually owning a baster. From some food website which I can't remember now, I found a link to a recent Washington Post article about spatchcocking (which is the fun word for butterflying) a turkey. As I was sifting through the New York Times archive for stuffing recipes, I also came across another spatchcocking recipe. It sounded very sensible, keeping the dark meat on top, "protecting" the white meat. And very fast. I enjoyed watching jaws drop when I claimed I would make it in an hour. Well, that was what the New York Times claimed, but comparing the recipe with the Washington Post, I chickened (ha! HA!) out. The memory is a bit hazy, but I think I started cooking it around 4 pm, in an 425C degree oven for half an hour. I turned the heat down to 390C for the rest of the time. I think I took it out around 5:45 pm, as the thigh meat was at a temperature of 170C. As you can tell, I was completely hedging my bets between the two recipes, and couldn't really estimate when the turkey would be done. After some poking around by my roommate and I, we determined the turkey to be definitively not done on the lower half the the drumsticks and the breast meat closest to the bottom of the pan (although there was a rack in the roasting pan), and threw it back in the oven until maybe 6:10. I cut off the top, done parts, then threw the turkey back in the oven for 20 minutes and cut off some more pieces. The next day, I decided it really wasn't cooked completely, and put all the leftover parts and bones into dishes and cooked at 350C for a while until everything was nearly burnt.
So, I would do this again, but not be afraid of high heat (I had been overly cautious since the oven started smoking at 500C the day before) and give it more time than the newspaper cheerleaders claimed.

"But what was it like, to cut a raw turkey in half?"

As I said during the process, it was incredibly satisfying. It made me think maybe I really should become a forensic pathologist. (But then as I was trying to go to sleep that night, I kept on imagining my own bones being cut through, then being flattened out. So maybe I'm more sensitive than I thought. Cutting through the bones was fun, but pulling the halves apart was harder, as I forgot that cut bone might be sort of hard and splintery. Finally, you flip it over and push down on the breastbone to flatten which was a neat sensation. I think there might be something wrong with me. Anyway, the three steps are shown below.

To season it, I rubbed butter over and under the skin ("This feels amaaaaazing") and salted and peppered the skin, and rubbed on some sage. I also threw on a few tablespoons of soy sauce, in honor of a friend of mine who helped me cook the turkey before and insisted on soy sauce to my protests. It turned out nicely browned, and probably would have not required several round of cooking if I just left it in long enough the first time. Poor thing does look rather scared though, no?

Stuffing and Rolls and Rice

As a young child, I was deprived of stuffing...I don't believe my grandmother ever made it, and my family has a lot (A LOT) of food allergies, including a wheat allergy running rampant. While I escaped that, it meant that stuffing was not really around. I may have had it first in high school. This makes me sad, in retrospect, but at least I can eat it now. But, as a consequence, I have no childhood image or taste in my mind of what stuffing is supposed to be. I'm fairly happy with StoveTop, but I had some Target-brand stuffing a few weeks ago that was really really bad and turned me off of boxed stuffing. I ended up combining two recipes, one from the Minimalist, and one from Simply Recipes. I think I made enough changes to call it my own. As will become clear, I am sort of adamant about very traditional stuffing, with no excess things in it.

Out of Deprivation, Stuffing (or, "Sorry, Sister! Wild Rice is very good also! Stuffing")
1 gigantic loaf of french bread
1 smaller loaf of semolina bread, both bought a few days before cooking
giblets and neck from turkey, or chicken broth, probably
2 onions
butter
tarragon
rubbing sage

Simmer giblets and neck for an hour in water. Pour out liquid and reserve. Throw giblets away on grounds of being icky. Simmer neck in a new pot of water indefinitely/until tender/until gone since you've picked at it so much. Turkey neck is excellent. From liquid, decant most of the fat.
While innards simmer, cut the bread into cubes. It should be slightly stale. Spread out in pan and put in oven at 350C or so until more crunchy. Melt butter in pan and throw in bread cubes. This took me two go-rounds. Let bread cubes get toasted on a few sides. Meanwhile, melt butter in a large pot and saute chopped onions. Add bread cubes and some of the stock, tarragon and sage. Stir. Cover and periodically add more stock (and bread cubes, if they didn't fit in the pot the first time). Take off heat after an hour. When ready to serve, spread out in pan again and cook at about 350C until warm and slightly crisp. Stuff self.

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The rolls were super-easy and could be made up to 2 hours in advance and kept in the fridge. My, and your, favorite part is grating frozen butter. The recipe is from Baking Illustrated, of course. As my roommate ate three of them, they evidently turned out well.

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As I mentioned earlier, my family usually has wild rice instead of stuffing, so we made some from a box too. I only bought one box, which I sort of thought would be okay since we wouldn't be eating the recommended serving size, what with all the other food, but then I reconsidered and wanted to buy more, but then forgot. Short story, I should have bought more. Also, due to flat surface limitations by the end of the evening, the rice cooker went on the floor, all lonely.

Green Beans and Gravy

I've never made green bean casserole, as we usually just had broccoli in my family. My family (and I) love broccoli like nothing else. However, the rest of the apartment had very very strong feelings about the casserole, and I'll admit I was also tempted by the wholesome, too-happy families on TV serving it. Or maybe I was just tempted by the fried onions. Which took forever to find, they were next to the crackers. I (=roommate's sister, before the tragic cranberry sauce incident) made it according the the back of the can of cream of mushroom soup. We did use freshly cooked green beans however, and it was not too bad. Next time though, I think I might try this recipe instead.

As for the gravy, I made a roux-thingy with two tablespoons of butter heated until frothy, and two tablespoons flour stirred in. The pan juices, after decanting most of the fat, were added, along with minced neck meat from the long-simmering neck. I threw some chicken stock in, but I should have used a lot more, since the gravy was a little too thick and there wasn't really enough to go around generously. I was sort of tired at this point and wanted to eat, so I didn't spend very long on it.

Yams and Potatoes

Yams and potatoes could probably carry most of the meal, along with maybe some turkey and stuffing. Candied yams MUST have marshmallows on top because it is a) delicious and b) tradition. I think Mom (the standard to which this entire meal is compared) usually gets the yams from a can though, and I have determined that that part is not tradition. So, I cut up the giant yam that resembled a seal and two or three smaller yams, wrapped them in foil and threw them into the oven on a baking sheet at 425C. I glanced at these two recipes for guidance, but mostly for cooking times and general ingredients. I poked at them with a fork to test for doneness, then let them cool slightly, easily peeled off the skins, cut into slightly smaller chunks and threw into the fridge. When I was ready to throw them in the oven again, I think I melted about 3-4 tablespoons of butter, stirred in 1/4 cup of brown sugar, a dollop of Vermont! maple syrup and some shakes of cinnamon. I then mixed all that with the yams and threw them into the oven, 350C-ish for about 20 minutes. Threw on marshmallows and cooked about 5 more minutes until brown and about ready to fling themselves out of the bowl. For the mashed potatoes, I (meaning my sister) peeled nearly 5 pounds of potatoes, cut them in half and threw them into a large pot of boiling water. They took forever to cook, and then I (meaning my sister and my roommate's sister) mashed them with butter and milk and salt and pepper until they "tasted good. Don't you know what mashed potatoes are supposed to taste like? Add more butter!" (verbatim transcript)

Pies

For those you who were not at dinner, and therefore not on the large mass email I sent out inquiring about the menu, you missed out on the Pie Wars of 2007. Apparently the chasm between Apple and Pecan is unbridgeable, with accusations of fundamentalism and unpatriotic behavior being bandied about wildly. And obviously, pumpkin pie has to be made for Thanksgiving. So I ended up making three pies, which was actually the easy part, as I, you know, like baking. And since the pie crust is the biggest bother, scaling up is no big problem if you're already making one.
My usual problem is that I don't roll out the pie crusts enough, or there simply isn't enough dough. Using a butter:Crisco ratio of 2:1, I made crusts for 5 pies, and rolled out 4 crusts from that, which worked well. Also note my apron in the picture below, sewed by my same sister. I'm too much of a throwback sometimes I fear. Still, it lets my wipe my hands on something other than my pants or shirt, which is probably a good thing.
Now, I know the last time I made a pumpkin pie, I said I would try to make it from a real pumpkin this time. Ha! I didn't even try to look for a sugar pumpkin. Three pies is still more than enough work without having to boil pieces of pumpkin. But next year, people, next year! Also, the way to test for doneness is to have a knife come out clean, but it leaves a large mark. I don't know what to do about this. Maybe I should bake a leaf of crust on the side so I can cover it later. This might be thought of as "obsessive." Anyway, the same recipe was used for the pumpkin pie as before, and I turned to Baking Illustrated for the apple pie, although I used six apples, not seven.
The pecan pie I was most worried about, since I had never made it before, and most people (5 out of 6) wanted pecan over apple. It turned out very very good, and I wouldn't mind making it again soon. It didn't really really fill the pie shell completely, so I guess I should have used the smaller pie tin for it instead.

Introduction

Alright. I think the easiest way to do this will be to provide a main overview, then separate posts for *special* foods, then a post on what I would have done differently. Thank you, five paragraph essay form, and a shout-out to my high school English professor. (Hi Chick!)
And in case you think I'm insane for writing up Thanksgiving this much, it's really all for my benefit so the next time I have (get!) to do this, I'll be a little more prepared.
So, I made three pies Wednesday night, schlumped about and made hand turkeys and watched the dog show Thursday morning. The menu was, and I quote from my notes: turkey, gravy, potatoes, yams, green bean casserole, peas, rolls, cranberry sauce, wild rice, stuffing. My notes also have asides, like 0 min (cranberry sauce, which turned out to be more exciting than one would think. And by exciting, I mean bloodier. I hope my roommate's sister is still alive, is all I'm saying.) and ~20 min for the wild rice.
Finally, all pictures in this series were taken by my extremely capable little sister, who has a real camera and a knowledge of things like light, and composition. Below, a picture of the kitchen table before any of the cooking, and a picture of the dining table set up in the living room before any food.

The elaborate post for all the cooking is going to take forever, so in the meantime, the short list:

Tea and toast in the morning.

Turkey, gravy, mashed potatoes, yams with marshmallows, green bean casserole, stuffing, wild rice, biscuits.

Pecan and apple pie (too full to eat a slice of pumpkin too)