Thanksgiving and first blizzard

I was up early Thanksgiving morning to bake the pumpkin pie. I did some mis en place Wednesday afternoon, and had the pie crust rolled out in and in the pie pan, and the sugars and spices measured and mixed. It was quick work to mix the pumpkin (in truth, it was butternut squash, which has firmer, less watery flesh), eggs, sugar mixture, and condensed milk and pour it in the crust.

The "pumpkin" pie

My next task was to prepare the dressing. I sautéed celery, onions, and mushrooms while the dried bread soaked up chicken stock. I went out to the herb garden only to discover that the rosemary was brown from frost damage. I would have to use dried. Chopping dried rosemary is pretty near impossible. That’s not exactly true. It is possible to chop it; it is not possible to keep it from flying all over the kitchen. About one-third of what I chopped stayed on the cutting board so that I could put it in the dressing. I mixed everything together with two eggs and put it in a casserole. I like crispy dressing.

I made several math errors in my preparation. The worst was that I figured the turkey would take three hours to cook. The recipe said to allow it to rest for an hour. Dinner was planned for 2:00, and somehow I decided I needed to start the turkey at 11:00. 1:00 p.m. -11:00 a.m. does not equal 3 hours, but I didn’t catch on until 12:30, when the turkey was nowhere near 175°F in the thigh. So we would cut down the resting time and eat at 2:30. Oh well.

Turkey after 30 minute rest under foil

Sliced and on the platter

When Hilda and I were discussing vegetables, I mentioned that I loved green bean casserole. Not content to open a can of condensed cream of mushroom soup, Hilda looked up a recipe from America’s Test Kitchen that involved fresh green beans and mushrooms, béchamel and real cream. Oh my God, it was delicious! My favorite thing of the whole meal.

Sides: Green bean casserole and dressing, with cranberries in the back

The weather was warm on Friday, and the forecast for Saturday had a possibility of rain. I went down to Jane’s house to help her get the outside decorations up. Her cat likes to chew on cords, and she has not put up a tree in the house since Skippy came to live with her.

The rain came Friday night and was done by Saturday morning. Terry and I went out to cut our tree.

Terry cuts a Frasier fir

We decorated it this afternoon just as the snow began. We are under a blizzard warning until 6:00 tomorrow morning. Predicted accumulations vary from 6” to 12”. Awfully early in the season to be starting with this stuff. Judging from my pounding head and aching shoulder, it’s going to be a bad storm. Another sign of impending old age is when your body forecasts the weather better than the meterologists.

Here comes the first winter storm of the year

For tonight, we are warm and cozy inside with nowhere to go and a beautiful tree to admire.

Our Christmas tree