Day After Down Time

 I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving. Ours was nice and quiet with just the 3 of us. My son baked a pumpkin pie using sweetened condensed milk. I honestly had never heard of such a thing, so I was excited to try it. The pie has a more condensed texture, but is really good IMHO. Will I go out of my way to make another one? No, but only because it's more expensive to make. While going down the rabbit hole of looking up the sweetened condensed milk recipe, I found that some people use cream and milk in their pies. Very interesting. I'll have to try that. 

I went out to my local farmer to pick up our turkey. He called and said they were in the process of butchering it. I went to his farm to find that we were the lucky recipient of a 37 pound turkey!!! Yes, you read that correctly - thirty-seven pounds!!! Never in my life did I ever expect such a big bird! Well, I lugged it home and cooked it yesterday. That was a trip in itself. I had nothing large enough to bake it in. All my roasting pans were way too small, so I lugged out the roaster only to find that was also too small.

I ended up taking out the liner and using it as a baking pan and covered with foil. What an adventure! I got up at 3:30am to remove any lingering feathers, cleaned it and had it in the oven by 5:15am. The bird was falling apart done by 1pm. We had a huge feast and a TON of leftover turkey. I put it in the fridge to chill and will be repacking it today for MANY dinners to come. The bones, drippings, skin, giblets, etc. are now in that same roaster with some veggies and spices. Tomorrow I'll have a delicious broth to chill to get off the unwanted fat and then Monday or Tuesday, I'll can it for the winter season. We'll have some of the best bone broth to cook with! I can't wait to see how much I'll have from this bird! 

I think I'll take some time today today to see what items are on Black Friday Specials. Most that I've seen so far have been MEH, but every once in a while I find a goodie. I did order a couple of cookbooks that should be in soon. I'm looking forward to them! I'm also looking forward to getting a little crafting time in. Today is not so pressing with tons of leftovers to eat. 

I hope you had a lovely holiday with friends and/or family and you are enjoying all the leftovers as well!

Prepping Before The Holiday

 Today is a day of preparing anything I can do ahead of tomorrow's Thanksgiving meal. My son seems to be very excited about dinner and has a big interest in what we will be having tomorrow. We've discussed pies and the menu - something that he really hasn't cared about in years. He's had a lot of changes this past year with the new house, being rear-ended and having his car totalled as well as a new-to-him car. 

His dream home isn't so dreamy at the moment. Every time he turns around, there's something else for him to do. Major things that were missed during the inspection. Yes, I know that it is part of home ownership, but it has opened his eyes of the woes of owning his own place. Currently, he has a pipe somewhere in the home that is leaking sewer gas. That's his next challenge. His dad was supposed to help, but he's been down sick for more than a week. Sick enough to go to the Dr. Hubby's currently on meds and ear drops - yup, this illness came complete with a serious ear infection. So, as soon as Dad feels better, they will be tackling the pipe together. 

I'll be trying a non-corn syrup version of the pecan pie. I stumbled across it on YouTube. It's not a new version, but instead an old one of pecan pie before the invention of corn syrup. The video tells not only the recipe but the history behind pecan pie in general. The channel is called Tasting History and is created by Max Miller who has a LOT of great and fascinating information on his channel.

 

 

With the preps, there won't be much (if any) crafting today or tomorrow. I did get some done on the baby blanket I'm working on. I have a few rows left to go before I do the edging. This will be another addition to the donation box. This is called the Honey Bee Mine Blanket and was the April 2023 Crochet Kit of the Month from Mary Maxim. As far as I can tell, this pattern is not available. This has been in my rotation since April 2023.