Thursday, November 13, 2008

Only 13 more cooking days until Thanksgiving

Hey, internet! I'm getting all excited that Thanksgiving is coming.

You know, I never used to be particularly enthusiastic about Thanksgiving, but then, about four years ago, we took over cooking Thanksgiving dinner for my husband's family. And we'd do it in New Hampshire, where I could never remember where I left the tablecloths, or whether I had any candles, or where we keep the carving knife and fork. And then a major appliance would fail just when it was needed most, and that would screw things up so badly that I'd start to feel kind of weird and goofy, as if I'd been teleported into an episode of I Love Lucy.

But we'd have a great time, anyway.

Now, this year, we doing Thanksgiving again, and we're not going to New Hampshire, which means that the time I usually spend waiting to go through airport security can now be spent digging out the turkey shaped gravy boat. And putting new Thanksgiving-y colored candles into the freshly-polished candlesticks. Stuff like that.

So call me mental, but I'm going to begin the travel-free, slow-food Thanksgiving celebration by cooking a bunch of pumpkins. Because I still have eight pie pumpkins leftover from the Girl Scouts pumpkin-carving meeting. Isn't that all green and thrifty and recycle-y of me?

I don't know how much puree I'm going to end up with, but definitely enough for a couple of pumpkin pies. I'm also thinking of forcing my husband to make pumpkin ravioli with sage butter. If he balks, I'll remind him that our brother-in-law is a vegetarian.

I'd also considering the possibility of trying a new recipe I found in this week's New York Times food section. It's for pumpkin cake with chocolate chips. I know--weird, right? I can't wrap my brain around the idea at all. I'm probing at the concept with my mental taste buds, but seriously, the combination simply will not compute. My brain is de-evolving even as I type. It's saying something like this:

PUMPKIN + CHOCOLATE != GOOD | > /dev/null.

And yet, somehow, I am still fascinated.

But maybe I should just stick to the classic pumpkin pie.

So what about you, Internet? Are you happy that Halloween is over, yet the long National Nightmare that is the Christmas Shopping Season is not yet upon us? Are you, too, getting psyched for turkey day?

11 comments:

  1. Chocolate always makes everything better.

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  2. Well, I came across a recipe for Deep dish pecan pumpkin pie with butterscotch cream. Interested?

    FA

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  3. We made pumpkin bread with chocolate chips last week, and it was delicious. 2 loaves gone in one day.

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  4. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  5. You're going to turn into one of those crazy gardeners with a million zuchini recipes. Pumpkin cake, pumpkin pasta...

    I'm glad I only have to bring the wine this year.

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  6. With that many pumpkins, you'll get about two cups of puree per pumpkin. I know, because I just finished freezing a lot of puree.

    As for Thanksgiving, I dislike it for many reasons that I won't articulate here, but it all has to do with being the child of divorce and having to eat two or three Thanksgiving meals every year when I was growing up. Even now, we still have two huge meals every Turkey Day. I'd boycott it, but that would unfairly punish my mother and her family.

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  7. I want to do Thanksgiving the way we did it when I was a kid - by going out to dinner. No muss, no fuss!

    Problem is, there aren't any Stouffer's restaurants any more.

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  8. I absolutely LOVE cooking Thanksgiving dinner, and offer to host it every year. There's nothing worse than going to a relative's house for dinner and it's dry, boring turkey, bland stuffing, greasy gravy, etc. Some people just don't get the importance of an extravagant feast with elegant, tried and true recipes. No green bean casserole here!
    This year I am allowing a cousin to bring dessert, because he insisted, so I suggested pumpkin cheesecake from the Cheesecake Factory. It's the only store-bought dessert that probably tastes better than the one I make every year.

    Not only is this a crucial meal, and all of my kids always come home for it, it also includes tons of champagne and good pinot noir, and a long nap afterwards.

    Not to mention that the holiday decorations go up the next day after our morning shopping excursion for poinsettias and half priced socks!

    I'm counting the days with you!

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  9. Have you tried pumpkin cream pie? It'll make that pumpkin go further.

    One year, we went to the Lions game on Thanksgiving Day and hoped to stop at a restaurant to eat on the way home. We ended up at IHOP.

    One of my favorite Thanksgivings. The whole family chowing down on pancakes.

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  10. We had our first garden this year so we have lots of pumpkins that we still have to figure out what to do. We've been assigned the green bean cassarole and sweet potatoes for Thanksgiving at the in-laws so no pumpkin pie for there. Maybe the week after... just for us! Vikki www.food-self-sufficiency.blogspot.com

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  11. I'm ready for Thanksgiving with my menu plan & complete shopping list.

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Gentle Readers:

For the time being, I have turned off comment moderation. Please don't spam; it's not nice.

xxx, Poppy.