it's a feast!

thanksgiving morning, i woke up at 9:30 to get back to work.  mister benjamin had morning and evening practices like usual, and i figured it would be a good opportunity for me to maximize my time by doing a bulk of the work while i was home alone.  turns out it was also convenient when i needed him to stop at the store again on his way home! ;)


went to town slicing the bread for the bruschetta - was going to finish it later so the bread wouldn't get soggy or stale or anything.  moved on to prepping the celery for the stuffed celery, pending ben being able to find spanish olives in the store. otherwise, i'd use this celery for the stuffing and wouldn't need him to get the extra that i'd asked him to pick up.  can you see my thoughts at work?  emailed momma mac with a few more questions about the dinner, namely what to warm up first and what could wait until further along in the process.


that was when i found out that i'd messed up.  apparently she doesn't pre-cook everything, she pre-prepares it, then cooks it the day of.  my heart dropped when she sent that.  big time.  the last thing i wanted was for everything to wind up dried out and overcooked when it was time for dinner.  i was convinced that i'd ruined my first thanksgiving.  with her help, we sort of trouble-shot the situation, and i was feeling positive again.  she even said, "lots of times, the leftovers are better than the first time," and that's pretty much what mine were going to wind up being: a whole ton of untouched leftovers!  momma mac always makes things better.


by then, ben got home with the things i needed, and we were on to finishing the stuffing.  he wanted to help, so i told him he could cut up a bowls-worth of onions and another of celery for the stuffing.  this turned into a project, though, because i then had to show him the easiest way of quickly cutting onions, then explain the easiest way to dice up celery, etc.  it would have probably been easier to bang it out myself, but the whole cooking-with-my-boyfriend thing was way too good to pass up, especially when he was so eager to help!  there we were, sleeves rolled up in the kitchen, preparing our first thanksgiving meal: it couldn't have been more perfect.


by about 3, everything was set & ready to go, with the exception of being warm.  i put the dishes on the table, and wondered to myself where the food that eboni was bringing was going to fit.

the boys left for their evening practice, and i got dressed and started getting out silverware, etc.  


when he got back, he told me that "the team is coming." umm.... all of them?


sent benjamin to the store AGAIN for paper plates, cups, and so forth, since we had nowhere near enough to feed an entire team on!  he was back just before people started coming, and it worked out just fine.


in the end, there were 12 of us... hardly the entire team, but all of the americans were there and it made me happy to be able to provide a thanksgiving meal and evening at least for the ones who would have typically celebrated it if they were home.  it was breaking my heart to think of people sitting alone in their apartments on thanksgiving.  did i mention it's my mom's favorite holiday?  this is what she would have - and has - done, too, so it made it even better to put it into practice for our first thanksgiving.


eboni & kevin showed up with tons more food, and we had to scramble big time to fit everything on counters and in places where people could easily access it.  we were running around like crazy trying to get things warmed up in our tiny single oven (i now fully understand the importance of double ovens) .. by the time we pulled out the final few dishes from the oven, the ones we'd put in first were back to room-temperature.  there was really no way we were going to win, so we wound up telling people they'd probably have to microwave their plates.  it is what it is, right?


towards the end of the night, i excused myself to skype back home to the family and friends that were at my parents house, and spent a bit catching up with people from there that i haven't seen in ages.  while i was chatting, our guests in the other room (mister benjamin was with them.. i didn't just abandon them!) decided that it was time to head out.  i'm pretty sure we ran out of alcohol, and that if we hadn't, they probably would have kept the party going.  


went back into the kitchen to tidy up, and realized that all 12 people hadn't managed to eat even half of the food we had made!  ended the night enjoying the company of my amazing boyfriend and a wonderful feeling of contentment after having successfully pulled off our first thanksgiving dinner!


leftovers for a week?  yes, please!!


xox k

thanksgiving shenanigans

i had told benjamin that i wanted to wake up very early on wednesday morning to head out for the thanksgiving dinner groceries in order to be back in the kitchen cooking by about noon.  


mind you, i had asked him on monday to let his team know that we were planning on doing thanksgiving and to try to find out how many people wanted to come join us, namely the americans, since i totally thought they should all have a place to celebrate the holiday!  fast forward to wednesday, and i still had no idea if i was cooking for 6 or 20.  i guess being italian, it wasn't a huge deal, since i was going to cook for an army regardless of how many people decided to come enjoy it with us.


on my part of the menu was stuffed celery, stuffed mushrooms, bruschetta, my grandma's stuffing, mom's delmonico potatoes and swiss string beans, and baked stuffed chicken with a ricotta, parmesan, mushroom, and spinach stuffing.  eboni had another entire feast planned to bring, as well.  we did the groceries, came in way under budget for what we expected (yay) and headed home so i could get a move on.


first things first meant that i needed to open a bottle of wine.  not sure how things get done in most homes, but in ours, it's with significant amounts of alcohol consumption ;)  my christmas music was on blast, the oven was heating, the stove was fired up, and my glass was full... time to get busy!


i must have emailed my mom 20 times that day with questions about the recipes and how to do things best, what to substitute for things i couldn't find, and so forth.  i also must have sent ben to the store about 3 more times after we got back from our initial shop.  woops!  at the end of the day, though, i felt great about what i'd done.


i went to sleep that night having already made the potatoes, string beans, mushrooms, and chicken, and then used the extra stuffing to make fried patties with a little bit of spicy thai sauce mixed in - kinda like a crab cake minus the crab.  that left the bruschetta, celery, bread stuffing, and gravy for thanksgiving day. 


no problemo, right?


xox k