Cooking plans

[serene]

Any time between now and T-day:

• Make cranberry sauce
  
• Make & freeze cranberry relish
  
• Make caramel sauce

Wednesday:

• Make pumpkin soup
  
• saute celery/onions for stuffing
  
• make vegan version of stuffing
  
• Make pies
  
• Start cold-brewed espresso
  
• make/buy ice
  
• start giblets
  

Thursday:

• 7-730am: Make stuffing and stuff turkey
  
• 8-830am: Put turkey in oven
  
• 1130am: Put out munchies, stuff celery
  
• 1pm: peel/prepare potatoes, squash, sweet potatoes
  
• 130pm: Put squash & sweet potatoes in oven
  
• 2pm: Start potatoes boiling; make salad; pull cranberry relish out of freezer
  
• 230pm: Take turkey out and make gravy
  
• 245pm: Heat corn
  
• after dinner: whip cream

Comments

[berkeleyfarm.livejournal.com]

That's a big turkey you have there, missy.

I actually have my List (which has Monday, Tuesday, Weds, and Thurs entries) on a clipboard so I'm not tempted to doodle on the computer. I have a lot of cleaning left to do, but far less than I did yesterday morning. (tomorrow is soup and appetizers; tuesday I get and brine the turkey and make broth for gravy; weds I blanch the beans and make rolls; but my turkey should only take 2-2.5 hours to cook.)

How late are you going to be up and about on Friday? Elissa is visiting and I told her about your At Home. We'd like to drop by.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

The turkey is 20.01 lbs. Why, yes, I *did* marry a geek. ;-) 20 minutes a pound works out to almost seven hours, but my mother said to do six. Do you think that's too long? (I've never cooked a turkey.)

And we will be home and awake on Friday from approximately 6pm until somewhere between midnight and 2am. Come over any time before midnight, and I can offer you snacks and drinks. I'd love to see you both!

[danger-chick.livejournal.com]

Cooking meat makes me nervous, so I use a meat thermometer.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Oh, I'm *definitely* using a thermometer -- just trying to put the bird in the oven at approximately the correct time. If folks have to wait for food-safety reasons, they'll just have to wait.

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

A larger turkey will take less time per pound than a smaller bird. I'd give a stuffed 20-pounder about 15 minutes/pound, but start checking it for doneness at about 4.25 hours.

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I'm planning to use this site to check doneness: http://www.hormel.com/templates/knowledge/knowledge.asp?catitemid=36&id=426 -- does that look about right?

[klwalton.livejournal.com]

That looks good. Normally I don't bother checking the breast meat temperature because if the thigh is at 180 and the stuffing at 160, the breast is surely done.

Have a *wonderful* Thanksgiving! I'll be thinking of you as one of the people I'm thankful for on the day :).

[glitterophelia.livejournal.com]

You are SO organized! :)

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I get a certain obsessive joy out of planning things, AND I would never get anything done if I didn't make a list. :-)

[glitterophelia.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that might be why I NEVER get anything done. LOL

brining

[simplykimberly.livejournal.com]

you probably know this already, but just in case...

If you brine the turkey before cooking it, you will have a much greater chance of still having juicy breast meat when the dark meat is done. And the whole thing will be extra yummy and tender and juicy and ... I think I'm getting hungry again - eep!

Sounds great!

Re: brining

[serenejournal.livejournal.com]

I have heard people talk about brining, but I don't have the foggiest notion how to do it, and I'm not sure I'm up to the extra effort -- would I need a big ol' pot to put the turkey in? I should google this, but I think it may go over my limit for new stuff to do this t-day. Thanks, though!

Re: brining

[simplykimberly.livejournal.com]

Take a look here: http://www.cooksillustrated.com/turkeyhelp/faq.asp#b (http://www.cooksillustrated.com/turkeyhelp/faq.asp#b) for turkey brining info (and lots of other great turkey info, actually! Basically brining is a snap, just requires think-ahead time, and a large pot ... or a meat/crisper drawer from your fridge works too, if it's large enough.

Either way - I'm quite sure you'll have a delicious day! :)

Re: brining

[berkeleyfarm.livejournal.com]

I am going to brine mine in double oven bags (Reynolds turkey size), placed in the roasting pan in the fridge. Put turkey boobs down in bags in pan, pour in, squeeze out air and knot first bag, do the same with the second. The brine is something like 1 cup kosher salt and 1/4 cup (? must look this up) sugar to 1 gal water.

I pick it up on Tuesday, will brine Tues evening, will take out of brine on weds eve (apparently this brine is designed for 18-24 hr use).

Brined birds cook faster. Also, you should put a cup of water or so in the roasting pan when it starts out, as it will not have as many drippings.

Under NO circumstances should you use salted broth when making gravy with a brined bird's drippings.