Since Thanksgiving was so long ago *looks at calender and realizes it's been over two months* I won't bore you with the little details about visits with family, sassy uncles-in-law who verbally bitch-slap your mother-in-law without her realizing it, or last minute shopping trips for that damned can of sweetened condensed milk you had to have for the pie you're supposed to make.
I will, however, be telling you about how we survived the massively kitchen-centric holiday without a working sink or food disposal.
It's a funny story really. Well, NOW it's funny. At the time, it was hardly laughable.
On the eve of Thanksgiving (is that a thing?), my mom and I were rounding up last minute groceries while The Husband and Wee One were winding down at home. It had been a long day of dodging holiday shoppers to get what we needed, and we were dog-tired. Mom and I walked in the front door and immediately something was fishy. Literally. The house reeked of rotten fish.
I said nothing at first and went about putting away the groceries. Then Husband came over and explained what had happened.
While he was trying to clean the fridge out for the abundance of new groceries that would be filling it, he had taken out a lot of old food that needed to be tossed. We have a disposal unit in the sink, and we've never had any reason not to use it. So, as usual, he turned the water on, turned the disposal on, and started getting rid of all the icky. Everything was going fine, and then...
Sardines.
There was an old tin of sardines in the fridge and they decided to clog up the disposal, back up the sink, explode nasty fish water all over the place, and stink up the entire goddamned house.
So, on top of not having a sink that we could use for cooking, straining, washing, etc., the whole house smelled of rotten fish. And let me tell you, oil burners are usually lovely; they give a warm scent and feeling throughout the house. NOT the case when you're trying to cover up fishsmell. Because then the house just smells as though some oaf, for some gods forsaken reason, mixed the two scents together. And that was even worse than the just fishsmell.
Alright, so now that I've finished reliving that horrific episode, let's get on to the good stuff. Though, while you're reading, do try to keep it in the back of your head that anything requiring water or the disposing of water for the duration of the holiday season had to be done in the guest bathroom. That's right. Bathroom sink. Bathtub. (We may or may not have even used our jacuzzi tub to try and wash dishes. Maybe...)
Our first Thanksgiving in this house was a truly singular event. Two days before, on November 23, 2010, I gave birth to Wee One; so on the day of Thanksgiving, we were let out of the hospital. We had no furniture, the TV was on the kitchen counter, and we had a newborn. Sufficed to say, I was not cooking that year. Every year since though, I have been in charge of the bird. Strange as it may be to some, yes, I am the bird lady in our house. The reason being: DUCK.
No, don't physically duck. Duck, the bird.
We've been roasting a duck for two years, with lots of practicing in between holidays. I'd say in the past two years we've probably roasted 4-5 ducks, including the holiday birds.
So, Miller, you ask, how does one roast a duck? Where does one even find a duck?
Simple my friends, simple. Sit back and I shall explain all to you.
We usually get our ducks from Whole Foods. They come fresh or frozen, from a farm called Bell & Evans. They're usually about 5-6 lbs and they come with all the organs inside that you can use to either cook up on their own (duck liver and onions! Yum!), give to your dogs, or use to make gravy (which I did this year and OMG!).
We've used the same recipe each time, well I should say "method", not "recipe" because it's one ingredient: a duck. We tweak the glaze every once in a while however, though the original glaze recipe is fantastic.
When we were first looking for a way to do our duck, I stumbled upon this recipe and we've never looked back.
The duck always produces a load of fat (which can be used for roasting potatoes, frying eggs, or anything else you can think of) and always comes out with crispy skin--and let's face it, if the duck doesn't have crispy skin, it just ain't worth it. And the duck always looks...magical.
See? Magic. Delicious, crispy, juicy, magic.
For this glaze, instead of using the recipe from the link above, I geared it a bit more towards the Thanksgiving tastes. I used:
1/4 cup honey
1/8 cup molasses
1/8 cup maple syrup
1 Tbls. orange juice
1 Tbls. apple cider
1 Tbls. apple cider vinegar
1 Tbls. soy sauce
and just a squeeze of Sriracha.
It came out great. It was amazing. We ate the whole thing. Bones and all. No, just kidding. Those went to the lucky, lucky dogs.
So, accompanying our duck, who I named Henry, (I always name the ducks. I don't know why. But I do. Always have. Always will. So sue me.) was a stuffed turkey breast.
Sausage Stuffed Turkey Breast:
One 4-5 lbs. skin-on, boneless turkey breast, pounded out pretty flat
One pound ground pork sausage
Various seasonings
So, if you want something a little less time intensive than the duck, or something that will simply pair really nicely with it, this is the thing for you.
Preheat your oven to 350 degrees F.
On a cutting board, lay out your turkey breast and cover it with plastic wrap. Using a meat-mallet (or, if you don't have one, a small saucepan), pound the crap out of that thing until it's about an inch thick all over and looks like it could hold some stuffing. Remove the plastic wrap from the turkey.
In a mixing bowl, dump your pork sausage (breakfast sausage is fine for this, because you're gonna dress it up anyway) and your various spices. We used a lot of sage, some cayenne pepper, thyme, salt, pepper, and a few cloves of finely minced garlic.
Take your sausage mixture and start plopping it down onto the turkey breast. Once it's all lined on the breast, begin to roll the breast around the mix.
Using kitchen twine, tie the stuffed breast so that it doesn't fall apart in the oven. Spread either melted butter, olive oil, or fat of your choice over the turkey skin; then place the whole precious little bundle on a baking sheet or roasting pan.
Cook 1 to 1 and 1/2 hours, or until an internal meat thermometer gives a reading of 145 degrees.
Crank the oven up to 500 degrees and continue cooking until golden brown and the internal reading is 150 degrees, about another ten minutes.
Remove from oven, let sit for about 15 minutes, cut off the twine, and slice cross-wise into about 1-inch thick pieces. It'll look a little like this:
Next on the menu was a simple gravy, and I can't remember exactly how I made it, but I'll do me damndest to recall the majority of what you need to do.
I took the various duck inards, minus the neck and gizzard, and sauteed them in a pan of butter. I took the butter and giblets and popped them in the food processor, blended them up, and let them stay there for a while.
In the same pan, I began a roux with butter and flour. I let it get slightly brown, then added some of our chicken stock (homemade of course) and the blended giblets to it. I put it all in a saucepan and heated it through, not to boiling though, and decided whether it needed a bit more liquid or a bit of seasoning.
Remove from saucepan and pour in gravy boat (or creamer...since we don't have a gravy boat...) and set aside. Heat it in the microwave for about 30 seconds before setting it on the table.
You get something that looks like this, and I wish you could taste/smell it because--though I was a skeptic and wasn't very enthusiastic about a gravy made from inards--it was amazing:
The supporting cast in our Thanksgiving meal were the usual suspects, sweet potato casserole, my mom's cornbread dressing, cranberry relish, cranberry sauce (because I will never not lot the shaped-like-the-can-it-came-in jelly and you can't make me!), and a delicious brussels sprouts dish that I shall tell you how to make!
I'm not a fan of brussels sprouts. That is, I didn't used to be a fan. Husband has since converted me and we all (including Wee One) love them. I came up with the following recipe by mixing bits and pieces of other recipes together and getting something quite singularly delicious.
You will need:
Brussels sprouts, about a pound of them
A yellow onion, chopped,
A firm, green pear, or an apple of your chosen flavor (we used Fuji), peeled and chopped
Some bacon
Saute the bacon up as you usually would, then chop it into small pieces.
Prepare your brussels sprouts (ie: wash, cut, wash again) and parboil them. Set aside.
In a saute pan with a small amount of butter or olive oil, add your chopped yellow onion and your chopped pear/apple. Cook until the onions begin to turn translucent, add the brussels sprouts and bacon back in, cover, and cook for about fifteen more minutes.
There! Finit!
We had a lovely dinner, but more importantly, I had the most amazing sandwich the next day. I wish I'd taken a picture. My gods, this thing was orgasmic, and I won't even apologize from that terminology. It was.
So, in closing, well...I got nothin' really. I'm too preocupied thinking about that damn sandwich... Here are some pictures instead of a closing comment that will close this up and inspire you.
Sweet potato casserole (my mom's recipe.)
Cranberry relish (mom's recipe.)
The cast.
Pumpkin pie!
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