Looking Back At Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is now done with (except for the left overs in the fridge) and the Christmas season is upon us. But before we totally leave it in the dust, a few notes for next year. :-) I've also included various pictures. Please note that the text next to the picture doesn't necessarily go with the picture. :-) I'm adding them on randomly.

Pomegranate martinis... Those were super tasty! Goes in the “must do that again” list.

Planting carrots in late August or early September will give us good carrots for Thanksgiving. Those in the picture were pulled up Thanksgiving morning. We ended up roasting a couple with the turkey innards and cooking up some gravy, and using some of them with the spinach dip appetizers that my sister made.

Delicious!

2 or 3 different appetizers worked out really well... it wasn't too much to set up and it kept people still able to eat a pretty hearty dinner.

For lox, stick to sliced baguette or bagels instead of crackers. Crackers tasted really good, but we think we may have liked the toasty yet soft texture of the bagel instead.

Wear gloves when cutting sweet potatoes. Don't know if it was because they were par-boiled or what, but once I finished cutting them my hands were a bit yellowish. A few washings had to be done to get it off... so gloves next time.

A little goes a long way with sweet potatoes. I ended up making sweet potato fries too.... why not the fryer was out. To make them, I par-boiled the potatoes, let them cool, cut into fries and fry up.

Yum!

Double the cake recipe of the roll. The pan I had was a little larger than the recipe called for, so the cake part of the roll was really really thin. Next time, double the recipe and make a bigger roll.

The frosting for it was outstanding – not too sweet, creamy and went really well with the pecans. I bet we can use the same recipe and fold in some coffee syrup for our buche du noel.

Do a really really good job of greasing the corners of the cake pan. It stuck... a lot... and with the cake being so thin, it tore away in the corner. I just cut the end result into a rectangle before rolling it up, and I got to try out the cake, so all wasn't bad.

Place fryer at a well lit place next time (or bring better lights near fryer). We place the fryer in the middle of our back lawn for safety, but that made it farther away from the patio lights. We had a small flashlight while we were doing things, but definitely need more light next time.

When frying the turkey, pull out the turkey when internal temperature is 150ish. The carry over temperature took care of the rest and it ended up being so juicy.

Next year, when letting the turkey rest, we want to try to let it rest uncovered to see if the skin stays crispier.

Leftovers will make really good turkey soup... or at least ours will. :-)

Using warmers would probably have helped with the timing.

All in all, I think Thanksgiving was a success. We had fun, hope yours was a success too.

Update [12-3-08]: This last picture shows the zucchini quiches that we added onto the appetizer list last minute because I found frozen shredded zucchini in my freezer. :-)

Update [12-5-08]: A friend just reminded me that instead of using foil and greasing it for the pumpkin roll, just use parchment paper... that stuff works wonders. I should have thought of that -- next time.