As I said in the previous post, I hosted Thanksgiving Dinner for some friends this year. I have never really cooked much at all or had very much experience entertaining, but I decided to just rip the band aid off and start by hosting Thanksgiving.
I gotta say, it was not that hard!
What helped a lot was that I was off from work (all of my expat colleagues were not as it's just another normal day over here). I had off the entire week, actually, to travel and see an American friend in another city. On the one hand, this made things a challenge as I had to find the grocery stores in the new city and find the ones that carried foreign imports like canned pumpkin. I sadly wasn't able to find anything cranberry (jelly...canned...dried...nada). I was bummed because I think it makes the turkey and gravy so delicious, but I was able to move on.
On the other hand, I had a ton of free time and felt totally unstressed on Wednesday and Thursday as I prepared our meal. And I gotta say, allrecipes.com was fantastic. Everything that I used from there turned out AMAZINGLY! Also, the cider and mulled wine that I threw together as people arrived was de.li.cious.
The Turkey Adventure
On thing that we nearly screwed up was the turkey! I had remembered something in the back of my mind about defrosting the turkey, but I thought it only needed to sit in the fridge overnight. Wrong! We bought our turkey at 11pm on Wednesday and had one horrified moment when we read that it needed to sit in the fridge for 3-4 days!!! Fortunately, the package also said that we could put it in the sink overnight. Phew. Crisis averted. We then laughed for a bit at how we almost ruined dinner before even getting started.
Our turkey thawing away.
The rest of the last minute items that we got at 11pm on Wednesday.
The next day, I remembered that I had to remove the neck and giblets. I had never done this before nor watched my mother do it, but I had heard about having to do this. FYI, I have a major phobia about dead things. I know that it is wimpy to eat meat but not be willing to prepare it, but I really hate even the slightest bit of blood on a piece of raw chicken. My mother always yells at me and says if you're going to eat meat you need to know where it comes from and be able to handle it.
Anyway
I figured the turkey neck issue couldn't be that bad. Well. I had a hard time ripping the neck out of there. Sorry if that sounds graphic but that really is what happened. It was attached, which I didn't realize. So instead of cutting the skin and tissue I just grabbed on and ripped. Yes, there was screaming and squealing on my part. I didn't have tongs so I used a knife and spoon as tongs because I just could not touch it!
After the neck was done I could not find the giblets. I was so confused. I peered all inside and dug around with a spoon and could not find the bag! I wanted to call my mother but it was 3AM on the East Coast and I'm guessing this is not something she would have wanted to deal with at that hour! I ended up gchatting a friend who was still awake in CA. She doesn't cook either but she googled giblets and tried to help me out. We couldn't figure it out and she went to bed.
Finally, I decided to just go ahead with stuffing and baking it. I was really worried about what might happen if I baked the turkey with the giblets bag still in there (does anyone know what happens???), but fortunately, as I was cutting little slits in the skin to put some butter in, my knife poked what turned out to be a bag. Hooray! Potential crisis #2 averted.
I packed it totally full of stuffing and set to baking for about 4.5 hours, basting whenever I remembered to do it.
Look how pretty!
Everything was so so good. I couldn't believe that it turned out so well given that I had a) never done this before b) not planned too much in advance c) had to make do with whatever ingredients I was able to find abroad and d) didn't pay too much attention to what I was doing. I didn't time any of the cooking - just winged it! In fact, my friend just moved into her apartment and didn't have any measuring devices! I literally guessed on every single ingredient and it still turned out great.
My mom was so proud when we skyped on Thanksgiving and I showed her pictures! I am still so proud! I now feel all empowered about cooking and can't wait to work on more recipes.
PS: I even managed to impress the Food Czar!
I gotta say, it was not that hard!
What helped a lot was that I was off from work (all of my expat colleagues were not as it's just another normal day over here). I had off the entire week, actually, to travel and see an American friend in another city. On the one hand, this made things a challenge as I had to find the grocery stores in the new city and find the ones that carried foreign imports like canned pumpkin. I sadly wasn't able to find anything cranberry (jelly...canned...dried...nada). I was bummed because I think it makes the turkey and gravy so delicious, but I was able to move on.
On the other hand, I had a ton of free time and felt totally unstressed on Wednesday and Thursday as I prepared our meal. And I gotta say, allrecipes.com was fantastic. Everything that I used from there turned out AMAZINGLY! Also, the cider and mulled wine that I threw together as people arrived was de.li.cious.
The Turkey Adventure
On thing that we nearly screwed up was the turkey! I had remembered something in the back of my mind about defrosting the turkey, but I thought it only needed to sit in the fridge overnight. Wrong! We bought our turkey at 11pm on Wednesday and had one horrified moment when we read that it needed to sit in the fridge for 3-4 days!!! Fortunately, the package also said that we could put it in the sink overnight. Phew. Crisis averted. We then laughed for a bit at how we almost ruined dinner before even getting started.
Our turkey thawing away.
The rest of the last minute items that we got at 11pm on Wednesday.The next day, I remembered that I had to remove the neck and giblets. I had never done this before nor watched my mother do it, but I had heard about having to do this. FYI, I have a major phobia about dead things. I know that it is wimpy to eat meat but not be willing to prepare it, but I really hate even the slightest bit of blood on a piece of raw chicken. My mother always yells at me and says if you're going to eat meat you need to know where it comes from and be able to handle it.
Anyway
I figured the turkey neck issue couldn't be that bad. Well. I had a hard time ripping the neck out of there. Sorry if that sounds graphic but that really is what happened. It was attached, which I didn't realize. So instead of cutting the skin and tissue I just grabbed on and ripped. Yes, there was screaming and squealing on my part. I didn't have tongs so I used a knife and spoon as tongs because I just could not touch it!
After the neck was done I could not find the giblets. I was so confused. I peered all inside and dug around with a spoon and could not find the bag! I wanted to call my mother but it was 3AM on the East Coast and I'm guessing this is not something she would have wanted to deal with at that hour! I ended up gchatting a friend who was still awake in CA. She doesn't cook either but she googled giblets and tried to help me out. We couldn't figure it out and she went to bed.
Finally, I decided to just go ahead with stuffing and baking it. I was really worried about what might happen if I baked the turkey with the giblets bag still in there (does anyone know what happens???), but fortunately, as I was cutting little slits in the skin to put some butter in, my knife poked what turned out to be a bag. Hooray! Potential crisis #2 averted.
I packed it totally full of stuffing and set to baking for about 4.5 hours, basting whenever I remembered to do it.
Look how pretty!
Everything was so so good. I couldn't believe that it turned out so well given that I had a) never done this before b) not planned too much in advance c) had to make do with whatever ingredients I was able to find abroad and d) didn't pay too much attention to what I was doing. I didn't time any of the cooking - just winged it! In fact, my friend just moved into her apartment and didn't have any measuring devices! I literally guessed on every single ingredient and it still turned out great.
My mom was so proud when we skyped on Thanksgiving and I showed her pictures! I am still so proud! I now feel all empowered about cooking and can't wait to work on more recipes.
PS: I even managed to impress the Food Czar!
1 appreciated comments:
WOW, I'm impressed and you SHOULD be proud, that's quite an accomplishment! I had to totally laugh that this is what you take on for the first time, but you did it and wow, what a beauty that turkey is!!! How wonderful to have the week off and be able to prepare and host like that!
It's amazing the ways the www can help us do so much!
Are you hosting a Christmas feast too?! :)
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