Monday, November 28, 2011

Thanksgiving

MASSIVE FOOD PREPARATION. To sum it up.

We had been planning the Saturday after Thanksgiving bash at Chip's the whole week, but I still had to do the Delaware thing on Thursday. So, after massive menu decisions for Chip's, on Wednesday I made devilled eggs and baked sweet potatoes and made cole slaw and bought a bunch of other stuff and went to Delaware on Thursday morning. I had been willing to go Wednesday night to get ready, but my mom pointed out I didn't really need to be there til Thursday AM and Hey, who wants to spend a night in a sweatbox and then get up and cook so I accepted her offer.

I haul my stuff down there and start in. Get the ham in the oven, mash and prepare the sweet potatoes, and peel potatoes and microwave brussels sprouts and corn and make gravy from a packet and make stovetop stuffing into which I stirred celery and onions I had sauteed the day before and bake cheap rolls. Upon the first bite of devilled egg, my mom declares, "You know what's wrong with these...." I didn't kill her. You should be proud.

Also, she has no butter in the house so although I had taken 2 sticks, I had to run to Kroger for more butter because Thanksgiving, it's all about the butter.

My Aunt Midge attended, escorted by her grandson Eric, so it was better with a 'crowd.' She brought cookies. To add to our dessert buffet of pumpkin pie (never cut), chocolate silk pie and peach pie (which I had baked the day before).

I caught some of the holiday parade on TV and the Dog Show was on during dinner. I love the dog show and remember that the wire fox terrier or whatever won Best in Show.

Overall, the meal went great. Eric left around 2:30 and then I started in on the kitchen cleanup which took an hour after which I took my aunt back to her assisted living facility and had the tour, getting home about 6.

On Friday I shopped extensively for Saturday. And prepped so that when I got in the kitchen at 7:30 a.m. Saturday, I was ready to make the sweet potato casserole, cranberry sauce with walnuts, apples, raisins, corn pudding, bacon for the salad and pear cobbler with ginger chocolate chip biscuit topping, which ran over onto the oven floor. With the smoke alarm going off at 10:45, I was loading the car with crockpots and food. I had already taken out the extra chairs and various serving pieces the day before.

I get to Chip's at 11 to find that shrimp needed to be shucked or whatever, brussels sprouts prepared for steaming, potatoes peeled for the mashed, cheese tray assembled. Which is why I started in on the wine at noon. Sharp.

Chip's dad was an admirable sous chef, chopping and slicing avocados and tomatoes for the salad.

Chip's parents and brother and SIL show up around noon for the OSU-UM game. Appetizers are presented. A 23-pound turkey had been in the oven since 6:30 a.m.

My mom and sister show up around 1:30. Chip's daughter and baby daddy and grandson show up around 2:30. There is a mad dash to serve the meal, which worked out great! Eleven adults and the boy, had way too much food (as Chip's Italian SIL had brought lasagna), including the desserts: pumpkin pie and pear cobbler and my mom's cherry 'cheesecake' and a pecan pie, which we forgot to serve.

Menu: turkey, stuffing, mashed taters, sweet potato casserole with marshmallows, corn pudding, rolls, salad (lettuce, avocado, bacon, tomato, gorgonzola), brussels sprouts, lasagna, cranberry sauce from a can, cranberry sauce with stuff in it.

Continued drinking and finally, they all leave about 6 p.m. Whew!

Then I picked up Amy and we went to Kim and Jim's for cards where I immediately lost $7 so continued on to play euchre with Connie and Annette and Jim and finally got home after 11.

I thought I was coming down with some disabling disease but apparently it was just exhaustion. Sunday was fab, starting with coffee and pear cobbler in bed watching Modern Family on the iPad segueing into reading We Need to Talk About Kevin, December's book club selection. Then I did a pilates DVD and later Chip and I went to the aborted Toledo School for the Arts fundraiser. Where we did not win in the reverse raffle.

Although we had done massive cleanup Saturday, I went to Chip's today and made plates for Amy and Connie of leftovers and consolidated some stuff so that there's only 10 pounds of food left, instead of 20. Finished the last of the cleanup, brought home my coolers and dishes and crockpots.

Today, I applied for a web project manager job at Thread Marketing in Maumee and got a phone interview an hour later. Wish me luck. Also applied for a web content specialist job that I had applied for in September but was re-posted. Finished the book club book, talked to Miss Jenks for 2 hours and now it's bedtime.
________________________

Wednesday, November 16, 2011

Cookery

Usually, my recipe radar is pretty good. By this I mean, I can spot a recipe and, by dint of its ingredients, deem that it would be tasty. So I decide to make carrot and squash cannelloni. I had to read the instructions several times because it seemed so complicated. And has some odd stuff in it: swiss chard, chanterlle mushrooms, pasta sheets.

Chip had made pulled pork and cole slaw egg rolls last week so there were some egg roll wrappers left over and googling, I could see they are interchangeable (pretty much) with pasta sheets.

I Meijered for the other stuff, paying way too much for an acorn squash ($2.14) that I know farm people are practically giving away. Whatev. So in the end, it was not a cheap dish but it was unbelievably delicious.

The recipe was so dense with verbs I had to make an abstract of it to keep track of where I was.

First you roast the carrots and squash and some garlic cloves. Then you brown some sage leaves in butter til crisp. Then you roll the carrots and squash in the pasta sheets. Where I somehow believed (wine) that I didn't have to cook the egg roll wrappers first. But they worked out OK. You bake those for a few minutes with some parmesan on top.

Then you saute the mushrooms and then the chard with it and some chicken broth and then throw in the roasted garlic. And serve the rolls on top of the chard/mushroom mixture.

Every bite was a wild combo of mushroom, carrot, squash, chard, garlic. MMMMM. So good.

So if you feel like spending a lot of time on one dish, this is the one for you.

Plus I made some bread pudding with raisin bread and chocolate chips and pecans that was out of this world. Wish I had some now....

_____________________________

Monday, November 14, 2011

Slidin' by

Time just goes...

Since I last posted, we had Connie's birthday party at GFT which was huge fun although the Snaps were nervous and jangly. The other bands were outtasite!!

Also I had my other cat put down due to severe liver failure which I apparently had not noticed the signs of.

Plus I had to go take my mom to some doctor's appointments because my sister got a new dog and can't take it anyplace or leave it home alone yet. As usual, they wanted dinner so I whipped up the usual--spaghetti. I could make this in my sleep. My mom said the sausage was too hot and the sauce was watery. Sigh....

The Atomic Mama and I attended both the Sonny Morman show at the Maumee Elks and jazz Sunday at the Village Idiot. Which really does have the best pizza I've had around here.

There was GNO at Ginger's which was heavily attended and included many good snacks, such as my famous devilled eggs and some soups and hummus with those evilly delicious chips from SS6. She had a fire in the backyard device and it was a lovely evening. There have been many lovely evenings lately, for it being November.

Lynn combined her retirement party with a Joe Baker Band appearance at Howard's. Chip and I went out to eat first so by the time we got there, we had missed the lame stripper Donna had hired for it. Apparently it was some skinny tattoo artist who had never been a stripper before.

Also Chip and I went to the Ark Oct. 30 to see Hayes Carll, who was pretty good, but no Todd. Beforehand, we ate at the Common Grill in Chelsea which was delish as always. We both had fish with oysters and calamari for appetizers. Seafood extravaganza! Also a great Chardonnay by Acacia.

Thursday night is book club chez moi. Friday, Chip and I are going to the Toledo School for the Arts fundraiser. Saturday is the holiday parade in BG and Julie's birthday dance at Otsego Park and Reel Big Fish at the Clazel and Fishing Ice at Doc's in Togany.

Today I applied for 2 jobs: web content specialist with siop.org and web manager for the Findlay Courier. Fingers crossed.

After all the booking of flights for Austin for Christmas, now Tom cannot get all those days off. This all just came up today so I don't know what we'll do.

Amy is still laid up. Went to the doc today who said 4 more weeks of no weight on it and put on a walking boot. Although she cannot walk on it.

Right now it storming like a mofo. November. Thundering, lightning, torrential rain, etc.
____________________________