Happy Turkey Day

I was informed yesterday that Adam’s parents are coming over tonight for Thanksgiving dinner, which will be my first attempt at a turkey. No pressure or anything… I figure if I totally screw it up I’ve got ground turkey in the freezer and I can do something creative with that. Or pizza. There’s always pizza. And I’ve no doubt the side dishes will be fine. It’s just working around the big thing in the oven and the timing of everything that will make things challenging. Luckily most of the sides are pretty quick so I should be able to prep them while the bird is taking up oven room and bake them up while the bird is resting and being carved (not by me…)

And for the interested parties (and everyone else who reads it), here is the menu:

* Roasted Turkey – pretty basic, and I’m not stuffing it. I’m of the Alton Brown club – “Stuffing is evil.”
* Smashed Potatoes & Gravy – pretty basic here too. Red potatoes with sour cream, milk, butter, smooshed with the masher. I’m cheating and using a gravy mix packet. Well, ok, I’m going to try and make a gravy from pan drippings but I haven’t had the best luck with that in the past so I’ve got backup. I just thought of something – I don’t have a gravy boat. I guess that’s what I get for not registering for wedding gifts. Hmm. I’ll have to improvise.
* Roasted Butternut Squash – as requested by Adam. Hopefully the skin on my hands won’t peel off in layers this time.
* Roasted Squash Medley – yellow squash and zucchini in this one. I’m keeping them separate since Adam wasn’t too interested in this one.
* Stuffing – Totally cheating here and using Stove Top. It’s just so yummy…and easy.
* Rolls – Yay for Pillsbury oven rolls. And yay for carbs!
* Chocolate Angel Food Cake – I’m not a fan of pies and while I can go pick one up free from Festival thanks to my employer (and I might do that), I will not be making one myself. We all know what happened last time. Angel Food Cake I can do, assuming it’s the “from a box” kind. And I figure it’ll be even better if I toss some cocoa powder into the mix. I plan to serve it with ice cream toppings and whipped cream. Yum.

You may notice a lack of cranberry sauce. I had completely forgotten about it when I did the original shopping list and for some reason it occurred to me last weekend when we were going somewhere – up to GB I think. I asked Adam if he wanted it and he said no so I just decided to skip it. I was never much of a fan anyway. It’s too tart and makes everything else taste weird.

I don’t think I’m missing anything else completely obvious am I? I’ve got a bottle of sparkling apple juice and I’m guessing we’ll all be drinking water aside from that, unless Adam feels like getting out the martini set we got from his cousin and playing bartender. There are still plenty of cookies left in case Angel Food Cake isn’t someone’s thing.

For those of you not lucky enough to experience this in person, fear not, I plan to take pictures of everything like I always do. I think sometimes it annoys Adam a little. I’ll put his food out on a plate and he’ll pick it up to go eat and I’ll say, “No! Not yet! I need to get a picture!” Heh. But I think a cooking blog goes over better if you have visuals for each recipe you blog about. Even the ones that come out looking like cat barf.