Food day!

[mistressofmuses]

Today was pretty good. Mellow, which is my preference for holidays.

Mom is in New Mexico (and grandma had dialysis today, so I think they'll be doing their minor celebrating tomorrow.)

Went over to Taylor's last night, and we played through a bit more of Final Fantasy XIV. Also weirdly had a more productive writing night than I've had (on actual fiction!) all month... except not on anything that I was supposed to be working on, of course.

Last night Taylor and I made cranberry sauce, but decided that was about all that we wanted to make ahead of time.

This morning we washed and chopped the stuff that needed washing and chopping - potatoes, onions, celery, sweet potatoes. Alex came over (later than initially intended, but not too late) with the rest of the stuff, and we did our cooking.

Everything was really good this year!



We just did a turkey breast, since a whole turkey would be way too much. Contrary to EVERY SINGLE EXPERIENCE EVER that I have had with cooking turkey... it was done right at the minimum suggested cook time, which meant that nothing else was ready, because we were anticipating needing a lot more for the turkey, lol.
Alex made the green bean casserole - the pretty classic kind, because we like it.
The mashed potatoes turned out really well this year. I used a "recipe"/advice that I saw go around on tumblr, about not draining the water, and also about cooking some of the potatoes very lightly in butter before boiling the rest. They turned out really well and had great flavor and texture even before adding butter and milk.
I also baked sweet potatoes with brown sugar.
And also pretty basic stovetop stuffing.

Alex crashed right after we ate and slept on the couch for a few hours. Taylor and I watched some video essays.

Now it's snowing and very cold and I'm dreading my commute to work.

Comments

[ex_flameandsong751]

Oh that looks good! I'm glad you had a good day!

[galadhir]

Oh, I've seen that Tumblr post about mashed potatoes too, and wondered about trying it. I'm glad to know that it does turn out well. I'll definitely do it, in that case :) Do sweet potatoes baked with brown sugar end up tasting more like a dessert? I was wondering if you could do some kind of pumpkin pie type thing with them.

[spikedluv]

Sounds like you had the most important Thanksgiving Dinner items covered! *g* I'm glad you had a nice time with Taylor.

I've been watching TWC warning of snow coming your way, with some pretty good accumulation amounts. I hope you didn't get much and your commute to work is not horrible. *fingers crossed*

[umadoshi]

I'm glad it was all so tasty! *^^*

[mistressofmuses]

Thank you! It was a good day.

[mistressofmuses]

Yeah! I'd seen it before, and I think gave it a half-assed attempt last year from memory (I didn't do the "cook some of the potatoes in butter with some garlic" part last time) and it was pretty good, but not really much different than the usual way I'd do it. This time it really was a huge step up! The texture and flavor were a lot better, even before adding anything else. I'd say it's well worth trying, but don't skip the cook some potatoes step, ha. I also did cut the potatoes much smaller this time.

The sweet potatoes with brown sugar really are quite sweet and would work well as a dessert. I just slice the sweet potatoes into rounds that are about an inch and a half thick, and then bake them with butter and brown sugar. The butter and brown sugar make a sort of caramelly sauce for them. I'm sure it's nowhere in the realm of healthy, but they taste good! I've seen sweet potato pie as an option, though I like pumpkin so well I've never gone with the sweet potato as an alternative, ha.

[mistressofmuses]

We covered all our favorite Thanksgiving bases, haha. It was a good time.

Ugh, mostly we've just gotten cold! The accumulation isn't as much as was threatened (though it hit pretty badly north and west of us last night.) We could still get more tonight, but I'm hoping it doesn't screw up the roads.

[mistressofmuses]

Thank you! It turned out very well!

[galadhir]

Gah, I keep forgetting that I can't have butter now. But I suppose I could fry the potatoes in olive oil with garlic instead, and use a nut milk for loosening up the mash. I'm going to have to learn to cook all over again.

That sweet potato recipe sounds amazing :) I could probably try that with olive oil too. Or even sesame oil for a bit of extra interest. Thank you!

[mistressofmuses]

Oh no! I completely forgot about your dairy adventures!

Cooking a few of the potatoes with some olive oil, garlic, and any other seasonings you want should work well! The texture of the potatoes was really excellent even before adding any dairy stuff, so a little bit of the milk substitute of choice should go a long way!

For the sweet potatoes, I'm sure olive oil would work as well. Sesame oil + brown sugar sounds delicious to me! Or, if you want something that still skews a bit sweeter, you could try something like coconut oil. (I haven't used it, but I see it as a suggested substitute in some recipes. Idk about how available it is, since here I think it only got easier to find when it got trendy, lol.)

[galadhir]

Ooh, I would love coconut oil. DH doesn't really like coconut though. I'd have to try it and see how much you could taste the coconut in the final flavour. Some other kind of nut oil might work though. Hazlenut sounds good :)

[mistressofmuses]

Oooh, hazelnut sounds amazing! That would be an amazing fall flavor combined with the sweet potato. (We can never do anything with tree nuts because Alex is allergic, but I miss them!) I think coconut oil is usually a fairly mild flavor in the completed product, but I'm not certain.