Not only did we not have one of our turkeys for Thanksgiving dinner, we didn’t have turkey at ALL for Thanksgiving dinner. And we didn’t have Thanksgiving dinner on Thanksgiving, because Fred’s niece couldn’t be there due to other obligations, and since no one really cared when we had Thanksgiving dinner, we pushed it off ’til Friday.
So on Thursday, we didn’t do a whole lot. Fred processed some chickens (unless he processed them on Wednesday. I honestly don’t remember which day he did it on.), we hung out with kittens, and then around lunchtime we headed up into town. We rented some movies at Blockbuster, then drove around looking for a place to pick up food and take it home. There was – not surprisingly – not much open, so we ultimately ended up picking up frozen shrimp and fries, and cooking them at home.
It wasn’t bad, as dinners go.
We watched some movies, snuggled with kittens some more, and just generally relaxed.
Mid-morning on Black Friday, we drove to South Huntsville. It was actually not as bad as we’d feared, though the mall we drove by was SUPER packed. I’ve never done the shopping on Black Friday thing, and I never plan to. I do like hearing about the awesome deals people got, though, is that weird?
Anyway, we had Thanksgiving dinner at Fred’s sister’s house. She’d told us that she planned to have the food ready to eat around 11, so we showed up at 10:30 because we’ve always been under the impression that it’s rude to show up at the time food is ready to be served. We are ALWAYS the first ones to show up, and although the food was ready to be served at 11, we didn’t eat until everyone had shown up 15 minutes later.
There was no turkey because someone in Fred’s family doesn’t care for turkey. We had chicken and dressing (I spent all day Tuesday cooking and deboning three chickens, and saving the broth in a pot. The next morning I skimmed the fat from the broth and put it in an empty milk jug. Fred’s sister came by Wednesday to pick up the chicken, broth, giblets for the gravy, and eggs for deviled eggs. We also brought squash casserole and dessert with us on Friday. BUT AT LEAST I DIDN’T HAVE TO CLEAN THE HOUSE. I would have made every single dish and brought it to Fred’s sister’s house to save myself from having to clean the house.), ham, deviled eggs, and (my favorite) sweet potato casserole.
Let us take a moment to silently appreciate the sweet potato casserole. DAMN that stuff is good. It’s like dessert WITH the meal – and then you still get dessert at the end of the meal! It’s total win-win!
We sat at the table after we ate and talked for a long time, then we moved into the den. Fred’s niece and nephew had brought their… Nintendo? Play Station? X-Box? One of those game-playing systems, I don’t know which one. I’m too old to care about the details – alls I know is that they brought it with them, hooked it up, and put in Rock Star. Rock Band? Whatever that game is where people “play” the “guitar” and “bass” and “drums”.
Jesus, what am I, 95 years old?
Anyway, we watched his niece and nephew play and sing a couple of songs, and Fred smirked and laughed and just generally mocked them before he could stand it no longer and snatched the microphone out of her hand and began singing.
Actually, he had a hard time finding songs because we are 130 years old and had heard of almost none of the songs in the list. Ultimately, he did a couple of songs and then rounded out the show with “Still Alive“. I half expected that he’d want to stop on the way home and buy a Nintendo Station Box, but he didn’t. He didn’t completely discount the idea of buying a karaoke machine in the future, though.
We got home, took naps, hung out with kittens, and then watched movies.
Saturday, we had to take a trip to Lawrenceburg. The Amish guy who’d made us our pantry several months ago had sent us a letter telling us that the bookcase (which will go in my bathroom) we’d ordered was done. Fred wasn’t feeling well Friday night before bed, and I told him we could put off the trip for another weekend, but he just wanted to get it over with.
I always think of the trip to Lawrenceburg as taking about 45 minutes, but I finally timed the trip this time, and it’s actually an hour and 15 minutes, each way. That’s a long fucking trip, believe me.
We picked up the bookcase, and came straight home without stopping to buy stuff we don’t need, which is our usual M.O. when we go to Lawrenceburg. We ate lunch, puttered around.
Took naps.
Hung out with kittens.
The usual.
We watched more movies that night, and then before bed I put the turkey in the oven. This wasn’t one of our turkeys, ironically (I’ll get to that in a minute), but a Butterball I’d picked up at the store at the beginning of the week. I happen to really like turkey, and was sad that we weren’t having turkey for Thanksgiving dinner. Since the sales on turkey were decent, I figured why not have a scaled-down turkey dinner on Sunday?
Also, I was dying to give this recipe a try.
I put the turkey in at 10:00, and Fred took it out of the oven when he got up at 5:00. That turkey was absolutely falling off the bones. The last instruction of the recipe says to slice the turkey and put it on a platter, but there was NO slicing that turkey. All I had to do was pick the pieces of turkey out of the broth and put it in a container. I saved most of the carcass to make turkey soup later this week.
The turkey was REALLY good. And it was nice to pick the turkey apart when I got up, because then the turkey was ready to eat whenever we wanted to eat, and I didn’t have to mess with it later.
We ate at noon, and along with the turkey we had stuffing (Stove-Top, if you must know. Don’t mock.), scalloped corn, and cranberry sauce. Hey, I said it was going to be a scaled-down turkey dinner, didn’t I?
The scalloped corn was a challenge. It looks super easy, but first of all I didn’t have any creamed corn in the house. So I ran over to the dollar store hoping against hope that they’d have some. They did, to my relief, so I figured I was all set. I got ready to put the recipe together, figuring it’d take just a few minutes then I’d pop it in the oven, but of course
OF COURSE
I had no bread crumbs on hand. Back to the dollar store I went, hoping they’d have bread crumbs. They did not, so I ended up going up into town to buy bread crumbs. I finally got home, got it tossed together, and then put it in the oven. Then, since we had half an hour, Fred and I decided to take the pig trailer out to the back forty. They’re going to Freezer Camp next Sunday, and so Fred wanted to start feeding them on the trailer so that next Sunday they’ll be easy to get into the trailer.
He ended up getting the truck stuck in the mud, and had to get the tractor out to get it unstuck. By the time he got it unstuck and out to the back forty, the corn was done cooking, and so was the stuffing.
We ate, and it was everything I’d hoped for. The scalloped corn was good, but I don’t know that I’m going to add it into regular rotation.
We napped, we hung out with kittens, we ate dinner (a bowl of bran flakes for him; leftovers from lunch for me), and then we watched movies.
Oh, but I forgot to mention what happened earlier in the day.
Actually, I need to go back a few days. Thursday morning, the turkeys rampaged. They kept coming over the fence and going all over hell and creation. Fred had to go out at one point and herd them off our next door neighbors’ property. They’d stay in the back forty for a little while, then jump over the fence and maraud around like assholes.
We talked about it, and decided that despite our desire to raise turkeys next year from the ultra-personable Hjonkie, it was time to process them. It’d be one thing if we lived in the middle of 40 acres or more, and it didn’t matter that the turkeys were marauding assholes, but we live on 4 1/2, we don’t want them tromping across our neighbors’ property, and I’m sure it was only a matter of time before they’d go tromping into traffic and get hit.
Fred had intended to get up Saturday morning and process them, but he wasn’t feeling well, and had pulled a muscle in his back, so he opted to put it off for another day. He still wasn’t feeling so hot Sunday morning, but when he looked out into the back yard and saw that all six turkeys were in the back yard, surrounding Tommy, and displaying in an aggressive manner (Tommy was freaked OUT), he knew it was time for them to go.
It took him almost two hours to process all six of them, and when he came inside with the mostly-cleaned turkeys, he announced that he never ever wanted to have to process another turkey again. Apparently it’s a great big pain in the ass.
So we’ve got six turkeys sitting in the fridge for a couple of days, “aging” before they go out to the freezer. I’ve already told Fred that I want to have one of them for dinner on Christmas day.
We weighed the largest turkey, and he weighed just under 8 pounds. Not huge, but certainly big enough for the two of us.
That was our weekend: eating, napping, hanging out with kittens, and murdering turkeys.
I consider it a good one.
If you didn’t read Love & Hisses in the past several days, you missed Hydrox’s new career, excellent True Blood news, and some adorable kitten movies.
Speaking of kitten movies, I just want to make sure all y’all have seen this one. Warning: You will die from the cute.
Pretty Veruca.
Silly Violet.
Augustus Gloop: The Floofening.
I’m surprised she’s gaining any weight at all – she doesn’t appear able to get any of it IN her mouth. (I still add pumpkin to their canned kitten food occasionally, mostly because they seem to really enjoy it.)
Snoozin’ babies.
Don’t be fooled by the sweet little face. Blue wasn’t grooming that poor sleeping baby – she was biting him. She wanted to PLAY!
I was wrong yesterday when I reported that Hydro X is his rapper name. It is, in fact, his superhero name. Of course.
Just a boy and his pink feather boa.
Jake and Elwood, atop the cat tree in the front room. (MAN that thing is looking ratty. I need to figure out how to get that sisal rope to stay up. Super glue? Anyone?)
Previously
2008: No entry.
2007: MOOOOOOOOOM! Make the shirt stop touching me!
2006: That’s really a bitch of a way to start the day.
2005: “Au contraire,” said the ringleader. “We found a SESAME SEED!”
2004: I give it two weeks before someone barfs on the new comforter.
2003: No entry.
2002: No entry.
2001: “What will I do now that I don’t have to clean dust off my ball?”
2000: I’ll just not think about that.
1999: When she came to a stop, she sat up and swayed back and forth, blinking sleepily up at me.