So...whats for dinner?

T-Day Prep Update

The stuffing bread was waiting for me this morning. I sliced a sliver and toasted so I could determine if it was any good. Underseasoned for a stuffing bread, but very delicious! I will make another loaf for our turkey sandwiches. I will increase the amount of both sage and salt next year, but I think I have found a good formula for this purpose.

Then I moved to the rye bread. I have never had a rye bread rise so fast, or so much. In fact, it is soooooo tall I might have to cut it down to use as cocktail bread! Haven't tasted it yet, but it smells wonderful.

And finally, the dreaded pumpkin roll. All five of my 1/4 cup measures are missing. [Yea, look at YOU kid.] So I weighed the flour which i suspect was not a good thing. It took a long time to bake, and the thickness of the cake seemed really thin. The parchment pulled off easily. Towel roll up went well, and then it cooled. And sadly, this is where things began to go awry. The cake was so moist that the towel absorbed a lot of moisture, which meant that the non-sugared side of the tea towel stuck to the darn cake. One section became rather lace-like. We decided to forge ahead, and spread the filling. Rolling it back up was not so bad except for the lace area. I wrapped it in plastic and stuck it in the fridge. We just pulled it out to taste to determine if it is guest-worthy. The cake is delicious. The filling was way too sweet. The lace section can be seen when you cut the roll. We are going to try again tonight. Changes will be, we will actually use a jelly roll pan which is slightly smaller than the size called for. We will dust both sides of the cake with sugar and substitute parchment paper for the tea towel. We will reduce the amount of sugar in the filling by half. Here is our failure. It will head to the freezer as a quick dessert for anyone in the house who craves something very sweet.

*susan*

Susan, as always, you are my idol.

Susan- I agree with Nanc, You are my Idol as well, and I thought the pumpkin roll looked good to me, I made one years ago and it certainly did not come out looking as nice as yours. Did you post the rye bread recipe? I would love to have it, not now of course because you are all so busy but maybe in the next few days when you get a chance?

Seaside- Ditto on sending it to my house too lol!

Lacey- Friday at the Fitness center should be slow since every one will be at the Malls going crazy. (not me) You couldn't pay me to go shopping on Black Friday. I found the coleslaw intriguing since your mom was of Italian heritage, so had to look it up. Guess what, Many regions made this dish with there own ingredients, like Sweden, Germany, Dutch, and of course American, but it says that the Italian's loved this dish and usually put ham in it and called it "Insalata Capricciosa" (Capricious Salad) and there ya have it, but you may of already knew this. I learn something new through all of you.

Hi Eric!!! "-))

Every one have a nice day tomorrow, I will probably be the only one here posting since I am not making anything tomorrow. DH is going to take me to the Casino, I will just park my butt on a machine with my oxygen and maybe cook the free Turkey we got for spending 150.00 at Safeway this week-end.

Happy Thanks- Giving!! xoxoxo

Debbie,

This is Nancy's recipe. She posted it on page 565, but here is a direct link to an online recipe holder which I created for myself:

http://www.pepperplate.com/sharedrecipe.aspx?id=d06e8cf1-696a-4083-bc65-964b6627cc05

Will report on flavor and texture when I cut in tomorrow! We know it works in Nancy's house; how does it do here? A mystery!

*susan*

wow it all sounds so good. I hope everyone has a great Thanksgiving! Except for those Canadians who already had theirs! LOL

I spent most of the day going through paperwork. I should have done it yesterday but I just couldnt. So today it was. My DH is home to nite so he will do the floors tomorrow when he wakes up and I am still sleeping. This is the first year I don't need to put the Turkey In BEFORE 8 In The am. Yay! LOL we will be eating late so the hunters can have a full day. So din at 6:30. Much love to all.

minus - "I will be going out to M&S with my ex-husband and his wife....."  there is an interesting story in there somewhere .....

Susan ~ your recipe for turkey stock is wonderful. I made it last night and it is delicious. Thank you for sharing. Hope your pumpkin role turns out great.

Debbie ~ hope you are feeling much better and can enjoy this holiday.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING TO ALL MY BC SISTERS. You make make me laugh and cry at the same time. Bless all of you.

Joy

I'm so very thankful today for all of you, my friends. You are very special to me. Whatever way you are celebrating, have a very happy day.

Quick note: Nancy, you are a rockstar!!!! Had a piece of toast this morning using the rye bread, It is absolutely fabulous! I made a few modifications [very minor] and will let you know what they were after the crowd has polished off the food!

*susan*

Happy Thanksgiving everyone. 

Eric

Debbie - hugs and happy to hear you are on the mend.  Good luck at the Casino.

Posted this on another thread.....

I have just read that this year, the first day of Hanukkah falls on Thanksgiving, a coincidence that last happened in 1888 and will not occur again for 79043 years.

Here is Nick & Rebekah, they ran the 5K Turkey Trot in Ayer, MA. It was very cold this morning but being a true New Englander I didn't mind. We had a wonderful day today together, went to Plimoth Plantation for a Thanksgiving Buffet. I am stuffed.

Susan- Thanks for letting me know where to find the Rye bread recipe, and happy you loved it, so now I will make it too, I just love Rye bread- Sending you big huge hugs for your losses,been a tough year for you!! And thanks Nancy for the recipe.

Minus- I sure have missed a lot, I didn't know you started back on Chemo. I hope your SE are gentle on you and your able to eat something. (((hugs)))

Thank-you Joysley ;-))

Luvmygoats- These steroids have me starving and hungry all the time now, and your 24 hour fruit salad sounds good, can you share please?

Tazzy- Good to see you back here too, I didn't did not win at the casino but it was nice to be away and take my mind off of things.

Chabba- I was thinking about you wondering if you were working your tail off as usual on every holiday cooking for so many others, good for you that you took some time to yourself, yay!! Glad you had a nice dinner with DH.

Eric-That is one Gianormous cooking vessell. Looks cool.

Deb- Glad you had a nice day with your daughter and SIL. Cute picture!

Monica- I have been waiting for comments on everyone's dinner so happy to hear yours went well.

It's after 3AM Can't sleep so here I am. The buffet at the casino was backed up for a 3 hour wait so we ate at another restaurant there with no waiting, dinner was not so great but at least quite. Casino was packed and I feel like I smoked a cartoon of ciggerettes. YUK! I will be cooking my free turkey this weekend and hopefully the rye bread and fruit salad from Luvmygoats if you see this and post it.

Hope you had a nice day joyce!! Hugs!

Off to try to sleep,,,,

It was a good day. This year, I made "sheets" of smoked salmon, piped the herbed cheese in a long line, and then rolled them together. T-Day morning, I then cut them into 1 1/2" lengths and put them on the platter so people could see the roll. I then cut off the "head" of half of the rye bread, and trimmed the side crusts. This left me with a 4x4 inch square. Thinly sliced and then cut in two. Last task was to slice cucumbers on the mandolin. The rye and cucumber then alternated on the round platter. It was very pretty. As I mentioned yesterday, this rye bread was terrific. It tasted of rye [which isn't easy in a bread that can rise] without being too winey. The texture was tight enough to slice thinly but not dense. This is a great example of, yes, making the bread was worth the extra work. The only modification I made to Nancy's formula was I reduced the sugar and yeast from 2 teaspoons down to 1. The bread still rose a bit too quickly, so I might reduce the yeast in the sponge next time. The thing is, the bread didn't taste like yeast, so the fast rise was not a problem at all. My mother took pictures, which she will send to me when she gets around to it. But I did get one glamour shot of the bread after I cut into it for the first slice.

Isn't she a beauty? Now, I am going to go slice the head portion that I lopped off and toast it for breakfast. Maybe a bit of my special Meyer Lemon marmalade would go well with this?

*susan*

Debbie - Here is the link to the fruit salad. I made the dressing just as it said and used the 48 small marshmallows. I put in whatever fruit sounded good - halved black grapes, fresh blueberries - handful, canned pineapple, splurged on can or Royal Anne cherries, maraschino cherries, mandarin oranges. I've seen the recipe with well drained fruit cocktail too. It turned out the perfect amt. for 6 of us with leftovers. I did put a wee bit of sugar in the finished product mainly because I couldn't find the powdered sugar to sweeten the whipped cream. That prob. explains why I could not get a good whip on the cream but it was good enough and melted into the marshmallows.

http://www.tastebook.com/recipes/993374

I found that I have a bunch of "Tastebook" recipes saved.

I've also seen the recipe with variations of Cool Whip/the cooked egg dressing or CoolWhip/sour cream (which I bet could be plain yogurt as well). Lots of variations so maybe you don't have to shop for anything.

Enjoy it.