Saturday, November 22, 2008

Preparing for Dinner

I think I'm done with the grocery-buying for Thanksgiving Dinner. It's at my house this year and I'm doing the cooking. Today I bought the ingredients for Dad's cranberry sauce, the potatoes for mashed potatoes, and vanilla ice cream to go with the frozen chocolate cake I bought last week. Dad's cranberry sauce is homemade, of course. It's pretty easy to do. Mince up about a two cup bag of cranberries, a small can of mandarin oranges, and this year I'm throwing in some strawberries - not too many though. Pour some sugar on all of this (no, Poison didn't sing a cranberry sauce song), add a few drops of lemon juice, a little bit of vanilla, and let sit in the fridge overnight. Stir up and put back in the fridge until just before the big dinner, then serve. As you can tell, I make this the night before. A tip - you can freeze whole cranberries for up to one month. So, I buy two bags now and put one in the freezer to use for Christmas dinner.

The mashed potatoes are made from yukon golds. This is not in keeping with Alton Brown's belief that russets are the best. I was watching Food Network today and he was doing a Q&A on Thanksgiving Dinner and mentioned potatoes. I peel and boil them, then mash them using a Ricer. I hate lumps. Then I add butter and just enough milk to make them a little smooth. I hate runny mashed potatoes so I don't add a lot of liquid. Oh, and I salt them in the boiling stage and probably while I'm stirring them up. Taste as you go along.

The frozen chocolate cake is a Peppridge Farm multi-layer chocolate cake with chocolate frosting. I'm adding the vanilla ice cream to balance out the chocolate. It make be a bit more expensive than making a box-mix chocolate cake with ready-made frosting, but this way I can control the portions. There won't be a lot left over.

I also bought some frozen hot roll dough. I first thought I was going to buy ready-made rolls, but the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could go ahead and bake some. I just hope they rise in this house. I'll have to turn up the thermostat.

Last week I bought the turkey, green beans, gravy, sweet potatoes. I might have to sneak and steal some bacon fat out of mom's larder when I go there tomorrow to put on the green beans. That's how dad likes them. I might have to buy some bacon bits to add to them, but I think I might have bacon bits in the fridge.

I've been having some knee pain lately and I think it's because I've been sitting with my legs crossed. They are usually crossed, either because I have my dinner on my lap or because I have a dog on my lap. And at work, I cross them without thinking about it. My left knee is feeling better, but the right one wasn't feeling good today. I used the heating pad today and will probably do so again before I go to bed.

I went to the store early this morning, as usual, and couldn't believe how cold it was. My hands were completely frozen, i.e. numb. Finally, on my way home, I looked down at my dashboard and saw the temperature outside. 15 degrees!!!!! No wonder I was so freakin' cold. I had the heat in the car turned up to 90. LOL.

I read a new to me Diana Palmer book last night - Rawhide and Lace. It was very good. I think I like Tyson Wade the best of all of her heros. Cash Grier would have to be second now, even though he fell for Tippy and I don't really like her.

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