Friday, November 26, 2010

Thanksgiving

Wednesday, K2 drove to Texas and picked K1 up for the weekend. They made it back about 1 in the morning. I guess there was a lot of traffic during the drive. She also took her new "friend" along for the ride. He came over on Thanksgiving later in the day and he seemed okay. He's just a young airman.

For Thanksgiving, we deep fried a turkey. I bought one of the Butterball indoor electric fryers and we used that. It worked pretty well. I figured even though it is for indoor use, that J would still do it outside, but he didn't. We used it in the kitchen. This was what the turkey looked like coming out of the fryer:
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I also made Ina Garten's maple roasted butternut squash. I've made this before and it always goes over well, but this was the first time I was actually able to follow the recipe which calls for pancetta (it is pretty non-existent in Okinawa)
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I did make the mistake of not using tinfoil on the pan and I think it's now officially ruined.
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We're not big cranberry eaters in this house, in fact, we never eat them, but J decided to pick up a couple bags at the grocery store, so I made a Cooking Light cranberry sauce recipe. It turned out well, but I don't see cranberries becoming something that shows up on our table at every holiday.
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Since we are now back in the real world where apples aren't outrageously expensive and granny smith's are available everywhere, I decided to make another Ina Garten recipe, this time her deep dish apple pie.
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This recipe ended up making 4 pies, and it is not one I would make again. The citrus flavors were too strong and she doesn't call for enough sugar and spices (I added more than she called for and we still couldn't taste them). The other 3 are in the freezer hoping they sweeten up a bit.
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And the last new thing we tried was a Frugal Gourmet recipe for creamed onions. While I was making it, I made the comment that all the work in peeling the small onions was probably not going to be worth it in the end. I was wrong, these were probably the best thing we had. The Frug called for sherry to be added, but I left that out. I will make these again and probably double the recipe.
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They don't look so appealing, but were very good.
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We went out shopping today looking for LA candy for Christmas presents. It was not a successful trip. I'll have to keep looking. While we were out, J picked up a Craftsman toolbox so he could do some organization in the garage. Getting that thing home was about like getting the grill home. He ended up having to take it out of the box and having K2 come to Sears so we could put it in her trunk. He had to tie the trunk down, but she made it home without incident. After that we headed to K'Mart and bought some glasses. I signed us up for the Heroes at Home program that Sears has and we got a giftcard the other day. J was supposed to use it on the toolbox, but he forgot. I have to say that K'Mart in Bossier City is pretty dirty and nasty and I can't see us becoming a frequent visitor of that store. Other than that, I've done no Christmas shopping-I better get a move on, I suppose.

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