Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners were always handled by my mother and grandmother, or Logan's mother. I would occasionally bake cookies or help out a bit here and there, but never had anything to do with the main components of cooking the dinner.
So today I cooked what was supposed to be our Thanksgiving turkey, but ended up being our Christmas turkey instead.
I learned a lot from this experience, I tell you what!
First of all, I need to get a real roasting pan, not one of those disposables. My disposable sprung a leak early on and now my oven needs a serious degreasing.
Second of all, I realized I didn't have a platter or any dish big enough to hold the turkey after cooking. I had to pop it in my wok while I spooned the veggies out of the roasting pan.
Also, I found out that the recipes I got off the internet were incomplete. One gave me the neat idea of using veggies (onion, carrots, celery, and a few potato and mushroom chunks) on the bottom of the roasting pan as a cushion for the turkey, as I did not have a rack for it to rest on. But it didn't show me anything about actually roasting the darn thing! And later, when I got to the gravy part, they didn't give any details as to how many cups of milk or how much corn starch. I had to guess by looking at the demonstration video and hoping I was right (I was a little off and now have tons of gravy, but at least it tastes good.)
I made a royal mess in the kitchen that had to be cleaned up three times during the whole process, thanks to the leaky roasting pan.
I started panicking when I reached the end of the roasting time allotted by the recipe I was using and the internal temp was still just below raw! I added nearly two extra hours before it got to an acceptable temp.
The veggies were really tasty (probably the best part of the meal. I will definitely do that next year.) The gravy was a bit watery (or milky, I guess you'd call it), but flavorful. The turkey was NOT dried cardboard, as I had been worried it would be. And so far, neither of us is screaming of stomach pains or dashing to the bathroom. The organic, whole wheat cookies and brownies were a bit dry, but yummy. Logan seemed pretty happy, so I guess it was a success.
We took pictures of the process and I wrote down a whole lot of notes from the experience so that next year I can do better.
The whole meal together: turkey, brown rice, gravy, veggies, and chocolate chip cookies!
Look, Dad! I can cook!
The cleanup time took a while. After looking at the amount of garbage generated and considering the amount of money spent (and wondering if we'll be able to finish the leftovers between the two of us), I do kind of wonder if this kind of meal is worth the effort it took. I learned a lot, it was fun, and it tasted good, but I was wiped out afterward. And I had to spend extra time cleaning up after. I do admit, however, that the cleanup wouldn't have been as big a deal if my pan hadn't been leaking.
My mother mentioned that the cooking time may have taken so much longer because of where we are. We are definitely in a different location than California, that's for sure!
All in all, it was a fantastic experience. I think I'll invest in a few more cooking tools and try roasting a couple of organic chickens in a few months. Maybe for my birthday ...
Merry Christmas!
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