Thanksgiving Dinner

Alrighty, it's the big test! We've just got back from the shop with our supplies and I have a vague idea of what I'm doing :) Apparently the ham is precooked and already flavoured, all we have to do is reheat it by boiling it which gets rid of a load of sodium. Apparently!

Currently I'm making Cranberry Sauce, the sugar and water are in the pan working on boiling and dissolving, the cranberries are draining after being rinsed. I have to "pick them over" which I'm not sure what that is...I'm assuming check there's no bad ones...?

So far my only problem with the cranberry sauce is that we ALMOST didn't have enough sugar. We BARELY had a "cup" of sugar, but luckily there was just enough :)

Other than the cranberry sauce, it all shouldn't take more than like...half an hour to make (or that's what the veggies will take, I don't know about the ham, all my boyfriend says is "not very long"). He's going to take care of the gravy as he admitted he does know how to do that from scratch. I'm hoping he'll help boil the ham as I've never even HEARD of boiling meat!!

So all I have to do is make up a salad (lettuce, baby tomatoes, mushrooms and croutons), make mashed potatoes, roast potatoes and boil some carrots! Easy Peasy :) We bought the pumpkin pie, we've been given stuffing/dressing, and whipped cream. So I think we're sorted! I'll keep updating this post with each new development :)

It all sounds surprisingly simple, though we aren't doing it wholly "traditional", but I think I can actually manage :) I feel like I should have like...decorations and centrepieces, flowers and candles or at least a tablecloth...! But so long as the food is good, and the company will be amazing, I'm sure it'll be wonderful :)

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Alrighty! Dinner is eaten, the kitchen is cleaned (within 15 minutes of finishing, I feel so efficient!), time to blog about it :) When I left off I was making cranberry sauce...

So originally (as in, originally as of this morning) it was going to be just me and my Boyfriend as his sister got called in to work. I asked when he wanted dinner and he suggested 5pm, I then realised that her note said she had to leave for church at 5.30, so...theoretically...I could make it in time for her to eat too! Awesome :) So I got everything prepped, the salad was ready in the fridge (lettuce shredded into the bowl, mushrooms in one small bowl for my boyfriend, chopped tomatoes ready to go in at the last minute). The potatoes were cleaned and draining. The cranberry sauce was in the fridge cooling. The dressing/stuffing was already done. It's all looking...surprisingly do-able!!

I started cooking the roast potatoes first with the logic that I could then leave them in the oven to stay warm while reheating the stuffing on a low temperature. Next I chopped up the potatoes really small to put in the pan for mashed potato (I prefer to have them in small pieces, they cook faster and mash easier), I put the carrots in another pan and the ham in a third pan. Mashed potato, roast potatoes and carrots I can do, but the ham was alien to me. So I dragged my boyfriend over to show me EXACTLY what to do. He put water in the pan to mostly cover it, then put it on the hob/stove on a relatively low heat to warm it up (it was pre-cooked) and remove some excess sodium. He said that's how they always cooked ham in his family.

It was all going well, the ham was cooking, the roast potatoes were nearly done, the carrots and potatoes were starting to boil..and he got a phonecall off his mom, could we send her two plates to where she was working for her and another employee.

Cue panic! I don't like reheating food, so I try and avoid cooking excess. If I'm cooking for 3 people, I aim to cook enough food...for 3 people. My boyfriend calmed me back down from my momentary panic and reminded me there was too much ham, we could easily send some ham, there was too much stuffing, we could send that...breaaathe! This made me realise there was probably enough cranberry sauce and salad too, there just wasn't enough potatoes. So I started rapidly peeling a couple more potatoes, I managed to get them in there in time that it didn't cause a problem.

At this point I was able to start setting the table, which I'd cleared and cleaned earlier in the day (as well as cleaning all the kitchen counters, sweeping the floor and keeping on top of all of the dishes, I felt awesome!). I don't like having people all crowded around the stove or something, getting in everyone's way, so my intention was to put all the food on the table and let us dish up our food there. That's what we typically do at my house, my Dad hands out the meat as he carves it, but other than that we dish it up ourselves from our seats.

Well that didn't quite work as I planned! I'd asked my boyfriend to mash the potatoes as there was a little too many potatoes for me to easily do it myself (I'm such a weakling!), which took longer than I'd anticipatd (ie. more than 2 seconds LOL). I also didn't think through the fact that putting hot food into cold bowls would make it start cooling instantly. So about halfway through eating all of my food was cold. Woops!! I later realised that at my house, we set out all the placemats, and put all the dishes the food was COOKED IN (typically pyrex dishes) on the table. I couldn't do that here as I couldn't FIND any table mats, and I mostly cooked in pans and the handles would have got in the way. Oh well!!

Apparently they really enjoyed it which I'm glad about :) I think they may even be mostly sincere and not just being polite!! They reaaaally made a fuss about the cranberry sauce, though his sister was slightly bemused when faced with made from scratch cranberry sauce, with fresh cranberries...not something out of a tin!! It did make me concerned that that was the ONLY good part as they were making SUCH a big deal out of it (kind of like..."the rest sucks...but OMG THIS PART IS GOOD!...shame about the rest..."), but my boyfriend assures me that it was tasty :)

In the end it turned out we had plenty left over to send to their mom (his sister delivered it on her way to church) so I'm pleased. Hopefully they enjoy it too! :) My boyfriend even (reluctantly!!) sent a couple of slices of "his" pumpkin pie, which was very sweet and in the spirit of the holiday :)

I was delighted that I timed things so that everyone finished eating at 5.30 (when his sister had to leave), though I didn't account for the time it'd take her to get ready, so she didn't quite leave on time. Oh well, I kept up my end :P She was quite impressed at my timing skills, I don't normally manage to time things so well, I've just been doing good recently!! I used to be terrible, I'd mistime my various dishes so one thing would be cooked and I'd just eat it while waiting for the rest to finish cooking!!

Me and my boyfriend rapidly cleaned up the kitchen (ok we did put most of the dishes in the dishwasher), and now he's back on his playstation while I blog, once we're done we're going to watch Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets :) We're going to see the new one again tomorrow, but he only owns that one film. A random one to have!! We haven't had any dessert yet, still digesting, but we'll probably eat dessert while watching the film :) I don't think he'll resist the pie for long :)

He keeps turning round and telling me that he loves me, that he's thankful for me and my cooking (and the fact it's improved significantly in the past couple of months!). He seems to really appreciate that I cooked Thanksgiving Dinner, he was pretty disappointed that our plans fell through. But I think our quiet, sweet little Thanksgiving was perfect :)

So I'm delighted to say it was a - SUCCESS!!!

Betcha no-one saw that coming when I first announced I was cooking Thanksgiving Dinner ;p