Ethelred Unraed's Journal: Happy turkey day

Turkey Day Ethelred style is now over. Though this year we left out the parades, the hordes of court jesters, the gladiatorial battles in the Imperial Colosseum and can-can dancers, and just had a quiet dinner with the kids, Gloriana's godmothers and a new American friend who babysat the kids the other day.

Our guests really enjoyed my cookin'. We had:

• Roasted turkey breast with thyme, sage, and pepper, and wrapped in bacon strips, basted with melted butter
• Creamed corn Southern style (with milk and grits)
• Candied carrots
• New potatoes
• Cranberry sauce in its proper form (i.e. shaped like a can, extra imported from America for the occasion...can't get cranberry sauce over here)
• STUFFING!

As always, it was...interesting...trying to get and/or improvise the necessary ingredients, as the heathen running-dog Krauts are such infidels that they don't celebrate Thanksgiving, nor do they provide all the stuff needed in convenient pre-packaged consumerist bliss. Thus everything...and I mean everything...is from scratch, not because we're Ultra Gourmets, but because we have no choice. (Tuxette, stop sniggering.)

For dessert, BoE made a pumpkin pie from scratch -- from Hokkaido squash (we couldn't find "regular" pumpkins). Turned out pretty well, though the one pumpkin was still a bit green. (The pie was done on our pie pans imported from America, using English units measuring cups and spoons from America, with Crisco shortening from a foreign food import store. See, Germans don't do pie. Infidels!)

One of Gloriana's godmothers spent some time in Ohio and was thus familiar with Thanksgiving. When I invited her, she said she would happily come late, but just in time for the pie. As it was, she came on time and loved the turkey.

The new American friend, oddly enough, is from Ohio, and is a Fulbright scholar (wooo!). Nice person, and good with the kids -- especially with Gloriana. Meanwhile, when asked for her impression of the Confessor, she responded, "Wild."

Meanwhile the House of Unraed discontinued two of its annual Thanksgiving traditions. One was the "hunt for the meat thermometer and go out and buy a new one" tradition, as I actually found it without having to search around. The other was the "Ethelred prepares far too much food, as in two to three times too much" tradition. Amazingly we only had a bit of carrots left over, but everyone was top full (though I got lucky, because the other godmother ended up not bringing her son -- otherwise we probably would have had too little). Success!

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving to all. As a small bit to lighten your day, I give you this picture, which has nothing to do with Thanksgiving whatsoever, but is strangely amusing in a guffaw sort of way.

Simple things amuse me.

[Timex]

...like the fact that the Slashdot Tagline at the bottom of the JE when I read it read, "You will obey or molten silver will be poured into your ears."

Just thought I'd share.

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

I planned that, of course.

Cheers,

Ethelred

mine

[ces]

Cooked at a friends house and ate dinner with some others not doing the family thing this year.

Roasted turkey breast with thyme, sage, and pepper, and wrapped in bacon strips, basted with melted butter

Did a whole 23lb. turkey they had in the freezer. Unfortunately it didn't turn out as well as the one I did last year. Partially because I left it in the oven too long while getting the side dishes ready and partially because I tried using one of those roasting bag things. Thanks to the roasting bag I did mana

Re:

[Ethelred Unraed]

The heathens don't have cranberry sauce?! Do they at least have fresh cranberries?

They do have them (Preiselbeeren), but not in sauce form -- you can get a sort of compote, but for some reason it tastes different from what I'm used to. BoE tried making cranberry sauce (actually jelly) from scratch last year, but...uhm...forgot to strain it. It was...interesting.

It's also a running joke in my family that cranberry sauce isn't proper cranberry sauce unless it's shaped like a can. My mom made some from s

Re:

[ces]

They do have them (Preiselbeeren), but not in sauce form -- you can get a sort of compote, but for some reason it tastes different from what I'm used to. BoE tried making cranberry sauce (actually jelly) from scratch last year, but...uhm...forgot to strain it. It was...interesting.

Assuming you can get fresh cranberries, you don't need to strain the sauce ... actually if you like the smooth sauce you should puree the cranberries first. But I don't mind and I'm lazy so I make chunky whole-berry sauce.

Ya, stuf