Comments on: Food Crisis Number 3

By: Cath

Cath — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 10:55:42 +0000

Oh, I love to cook and I love turkey, so I’m feeling a bit envious of you Americans right now.

I cook Xmas dinner whenever I can, and it has to be a stuffed turkey with pan gravy and roast potatoes. And I make my own stuffing. It’s quite easy with a food processor. But in concession to the season I match the turkey with salads, and make an icecream-based dessert. Since I also LOVE Xmas pudding with custard and brandy butter, that happens at another meal. It’s too much to combine them one summer meal.

And on the ADD cooking – we all have these moments. Check this thread, it’s hilarious: http://forums.egullet.org/index.php?showtopic=9096

By: Allura

Allura — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 04:37:06 +0000

DH is the one with ADD, and he doesn’t cook anyway, so mostly ktichen mishaps are a minimum. I still have to go behind him and put away the milk, bread, unplug the toaster, whatever after breakfast, though. :)

DH was on Ritalin as a kid and HATED it. On my doc’s recommendation, he started taking 2 (1000-1200mg) capsules of fish oil morning AND night. It’s been helping, and he says he sleeps better and his legs don’t twitch. Also, he had these little bumps on his arms that have gone down (apparently a side effect of the lack of omega-3 from what I’ve been able to find out). So, yeah, he can focus a bit more without the side effects he didn’t like. The only side effect is, umm…fish burps. NatureMade has a brand that’s coated to avoid that. :)

By: JeanC

JeanC — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 19:52:05 +0000

Nah, a whole turkey isn’t too much for two people, in our house it isn’t enough LOL. Hubby LOVES his turkey leftovers. But then again we have a deep freeze and I process all the leftovers into containers and into the freezer to be used over the course of the next couple months. If you don’t have a freezer, then yeah, a whole bird might be too much :D

Prepping and cooking a turkey is no harder then a chicken, just consider it a BIG chicken, esp if you just get something in the 10+ pound range. No real difference at all :)

I’ve done the box o’stuffing with the bird pieces on top and it has come out nicely. I usually use a bit less water then the directions call for as the bird pieces usually give off enough juices to make it perfect. Cornish game hens are wonderful this way. Split them in have, drizzle with a little olive oil and sprinkle with whatever seasoning you like and YUM!!!!!!!!!

By: kateharding

kateharding — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 17:28:45 +0000

My solution is to put made-up stuffing in an oven-proof dish, then bake chicken breasts on top.

Ooh, good idea, iiii!

Except for the gross-out factor, and depending on your level of salmonella paranoia, messing with the bird is not hard at all. (And look who’s saying that.) In my experience, roasting the turkey is about the easiest part of making a holiday meal, even though it seems scariest before you’ve done it. However, I’m with you on the whole bird being a lot for one person — or two people, which is why I only did a breast yesterday. Maybe you could do Rock Cornish Game Hens on top of the stuffing or something?

By: iiii

iiii — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 16:53:01 +0000

“My own stuffing problem is that I DO like stuffing – as in, I like the seasoned bread cubes with some turkey juices baked in, and so forth.”

Me too! But, since I live alone, it’s a bit wasteful to roast a whole bird just for me. Plus I hate messing with them – it takes too many skills I never learned, and then later there’s a giant bird skeleton. My solution is to put made-up stuffing in an oven-proof dish, then bake chicken breasts on top. The juices run down into the stuffing and fill it with happy goodness. The only down side is that there’s no drippings for gravy.

By: Chiara

Chiara — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 04:59:16 +0000

If you need a roasting rack all of a sudden? Get some really big carrots and onions (cut the onions in half) and use those as the rack. You should probably peel the carrots and take the paper off the onions, but seriously, so good, if you like your roast vegetables dripping with poultry fat. I've only done this with chicken, never a turkey, though: you might have to get really big monster carrots.

By: Nomie

Nomie — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 04:16:13 +0000

Man, I very nearly had a disaster with the apple pie – I was distracted by my mom and my friend, and wasn’t measuring very closely and grated in way too much nutmeg and completely forgot the vanilla. Luckily it tasted fine, but I was super nervous.

Hostess snack cakes are deserving of shunning. Who DOES that? Seriously? Ack.

By: Meowser

Meowser — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:41:47 +0000

You can do plenty with 5 ingredients or less. Especially if your ingredients are tasty in and of themselves. I did count the ingredients in the pecan-crusted catfish I made yesterday (which turned out great), just out of curiosity. Eleven. But most of them were spices that got thrown in with the flour and cornmeal when I was dredging the fish, it wasn’t one of those “roast the garlic powder until it turns puce and then sprinkle in a tablespoon of paprika 3 grains at a time” kind of things. And that was the ONLY thing I made that required anything close to brainpower. Squash was cooked and just needed defrosting, mashed potatoes were done with the skins on, C. handled dessert. I know my limits.

And when I eat my Thanksgiving Sequel dinner on Sunday, when I’m off, it’ll be even more mindless. Stove Top stuffing. Canned cranberries. Canned gravy. Jennie-O turkey roast (that’s about all the turkey you’ll find at Safeway the Friday after TG, I learned my lesson there), and Sara Lee pie (they had a 2-for-1 special).

Hostess cakes? Wow, FJ, you poor thing. Even frozen pies are better than that. They must’ve stopped off at a gas station on the way.

By: Fillyjonk

Fillyjonk — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 03:14:43 +0000

This is why I don’t cook. In fact, almost no part of our Thanksgiving dinner was cooked. My parents ordered up, like they order up every other meal, and then today we went out to my cousins’ and they had caterers. (They asked people to bring desserts, and at least two families brought Hostess snack cakes. Real devotion to family.)

My mom did make roasted carrots, because I objected to the near-zero vegetable level, and they were GREAT. Put the carrots on a baking pan, drizzle with olive oil and salt, and cook at around 400 for around 45 minutes. Even you and I can’t fuck that one up, Kate.

By: JeanC

JeanC — Sat, 24 Nov 2007 01:32:15 +0000

One nice thing about the whole thing is you’ll have something to laugh at in later years. I still remember my great Thanksgiving meltdown when half the oven crapped out halfway thru roasting the turkey. This was the first time I’d cooked turkey day dinner for anyone in my immediate family (my mum) and wanted everything to be perfect. It all came out well in the end, my mom told me stories of her turkey day disasters and I am very thankful for neighbors who let me finish the bird in their oven.

This year’s dinner went off without a hitch (okay, the onions on the green bean casserole were more blackened then golden brown and delicious, but it all was tasty.