Friday, November 29, 2013

TGND's 2013 THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS (1): A FEAST FIT FOR A BEAST!

WOOF.What a yesterday . . .



How-do, gang!Hope you're having a furious and frenetic Black Friday out there. We don't much go in for that sort of holiday gift grubbing hubbub around the TGND household---that's what interwebs shopping is for, you turkeys!---but that doesn't mean we don't have our own day after Thanksgiving traditions:




. . . such as a glorious, filling, refueling, just fuck it, it's my house, I'll eat what I want breakfast comprised of leftover pumpkin pie and cranberry salad!



Ahh.



Hm?Oh . . . why, what did you eat for breakfast this morning?



CEREAL?



pff-HA!a-HA-HA-ha-HAAAAA!!



ah . . .



THANK YOU. That . . . that made my Black Friday.



But then, I suppose that's another TGND tradition: reveling in rubbing our gluttonous good fortune and feastery in the cute little faces of all of you Upstanding Outlaws and Lurkie-Loos out there. Let's get on with that, shall we? Oh, lets.



Well, it was a nice enough Turkey Day all around, here in Seattle-town.



It wasn't particularly cold, or raining, or anything, at least. There was a vile caul of smoggy-looking fog, however, which blotted out everything beyond a three to four block radius from our vantage up here in the new apartment, so no Thanksgiving morn view of the Space Needle for us.



But much of that muggy airborne murk moved on by late afternoon/early evening, as our big meal was midway through its preparations, giving us this look-see at last:



Yup. Still there. Not gobbled up by Turk-thulu, I guess.



Anyway, we had an activity filled morning and afternoon, as I'm sure so many of you all did.



At 9:00 we set up Mizmstie's laptop in front of the TV and tuned in (I'm not sure if that phrase even applies in the interwebs era: "tuned in", but "logged on" sounds . . . kind of a little gross, especially when food preparations are involved . . .) to the much anticipated , streaming live off its own little Shout Factory splinter site with six full feature length episodes run back to juicy golden brown back, and hosted by series originator and original captive experiment monkey-man, Joel Hodgson. Awesome.



Such was the soundtrack to our morning, while I got started somewhat later than intended prepping the turkey and wrassling the sumbitch into the oven---thanks to time spent wrapping up ---throwing off our proposed dinner target time by a measly half hour that would, somehow, expand exponentially as the day progressed, until we ended up eating vastly later than anticipated, with nothing at all on ours plate at a temperature above lukewarm. A proper and traditional Thanksgiving, in other words.



Whatever, it all works out: when the big dinner prep plays out like above, you're, A) frigging starving and ready to snarf in earnest, and, B) you don't have to waste time blowing on hot stuff, and may commence with the stuffing. And the mashed potatoes, and turkey, and the rest as well, I suppose.



And speaking, again, of TGND Thanksgiving traditions, things just wouldn't seem right without at least one meal item malfunction. Hardly a surprise, what with two people juggling all of those delicious dishes, like those crazy acrobatic performers that are always tossing loads of tableware and other items up in the air simultaneously. Forget what they're called.



Anyway, back on this blog's first Turkey Day, , but that turned out okay. Then, last year, that used a homemade mushroom bechamel sauce instead of cream of mushroom soup---successfully accomplished by milady---and homemade fried onion rings instead of the canned french-fried onions . . . which was not so successfully accomplished, and also resulted in Mizmstie suffering a minor hot oil burn.



Well, no one was injured this year, but an attempt at a snazzy sounding French Onion Soup Green Bean Casserole from our favorite recipe magazine, , went awry in the pearl onion caramelizing stage:



Yeah. That was kind of both of our bads this time out, as Mizmstie had asked me to mind the onions while she was otherwise occupied.



What still makes it her partial mismanagement, was I had downed a bottle of winter ale (my lunch!), half a bottle of hard cider (shared with the missus), and two glasses of sparkly white wine by that point, and was clearly not to be trusted with anything more complicated than potato peeling, which I was also distracted by at the time this all occurred.



I only turned my back on them onions for a moment, I swears!



It's like, you know how when you're making toast---in a toaster oven, specifically, so you can monitor the toastification through the window---and it seems like nothing's happening for almost ever, but then finally the browning begins to appear . . . and BAM, within an instant it can jump from just starting to brown to well blackened? Or, when you're heating up soup on the stove top, and the minutes keep stretching by, and even though there's a few bubblings here and there, and steam, your test tastings reveal the soup is still barely room temperature . . . and then, POW, out of nowhere it's abruptly scalding hot?



Yeah, so, it was like that. I checked the onions, giving them a single stir around as instructed, and there was essentially no browning whatsoever going on, and then I turned around to pour another glass of wine, then turned back to find all of the onions scorched and the stainless steel wedding present pan so thoroughly blackened we'll probably have to chuck it.



Next year, Mizmstie has sworn, she's just going to make the classic, fancy-pants-less, condensed mushroom soup and frizzled onions version and call it good.



Anyway, after that minor bit of dinner debacle, the rest turned out to be an assemblage of poultry accoutrement pefection:



We went back to the classics a bit this year: after last year's dry blah-bird, I made with the Rosemary Orange Butter turkey from our 2011 Thanksgiving feast again; Mizmstie went with a simple, old fashioned cornbread dressing recipe from "The Treasury of White Trash Cooking" by Ernest Matthew MicklerMizmstie's otherwise lovely green string beans were left alone, albeit to be slathered with gravy, of course; my made it's annual appearance, also of course; and, finally, you've got your mashed potatoes, butter flake rolls, and the homemade pumpkin pie for afterwards, with some Angry Orchard hard cider to wash it all down!



Now, as to the matter of our during-dinner entertainment:



We were just about full-up with MST Turkey Day goodness by that point, but we stuck with it long enough to catch Joel's festive farewell before digging in. Which gives you an idea of when we finally got around to eating. Word to the wise, kids: IT IS NEVER TOO EARLY TO START MAKING THE TURKEY AND OTHER WHATNOT ON THANKSGIVING MORN!



We were aiming for a 3:00-ish mealtime, but didn't get our plates loaded up and in front of us until 5:30.



Anyways, so, we set up our trays before the TV at last, to settle in for a long bout of bountiful belt bursting. And what cinematic excitement did we select to aid in our distended digestions?



? Because, "jive turkeys", right? EXACTLY. That's what I was gonna suggest!



But then, Mizmstie sprang out of the Thanksgiving eve shadows, eyes wild with unholy hunger, bearing in her twitching paws the perfect suggestion for our famished feasting feature:



HOOOOOWWW could I say no?



And, indeed, what better movie to go watch as one devours their Thanksgiving feast, than one about . . . people getting torn to bloody shreds and eaten alive by a slavering, shaggy American man-monster running amuck in Merry Old England? I ask you.



And look! It's even appropriately Thanksgiving themed:



Behold the hidden Easter Thanksgiving turkey egg Mizmstie spotted for me!



What , eh?



(and the turkey drawing beside her is very nice as well . . .)



;D



Here's to the final big belly blowout of the fabulous FALL season, gang---and to the TGND household's first big holiday meal in its slightly more lofty new location!---hoping you all had an equally en-gorgeous Thanksgiving, and a belligerently fabulous Black Friday as well!
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