Get Set...

Up at around 10 AM yesterday, Thanksgiving. Usually I'm up by 7:30, o.k. eight. Now I feel sleeping too late is downright slothful. I guess it's from my grandmother Mast coming in the bedroom, throwing open a window encouraging the cold morning air and singing:

"lazy bones, lazy bones,
sleeping in the sun,
How you gonna get
your days work done".

I guess it took because my single thought yesterday AM was: "Screw all this food I've got to cook. I'm thinkin' Arby's". Nice thought but the reality of the situation was my putting the turkey into the microwave to defrost. Auto defrost is the second most important scientific breakthrough of the last century. I'm sure there must be something more important, like maybe, putting twist on caps on wine bottles other then MD20/20 and Boones Farm.

The Turkey: Butterball breast (no wings or legs) came with a gravy package and cooked beautifully following instructions included. The gravy package worked fine with the addition of some pink wine (twist off cap) I had purchased and no one drank and some cornstarch.

The Green Beans: My grandmothers (see above) Mennonite recipe. Green beans, onion, vinegar and bacon. Cook the bejesus out of them on low heat.

The Greens: Canned, "Glory". Add ham hock, onion, garlic, Cajun (BAM) seasoning, and cook as above.

Sauerkraut: Some kind of canned the crew got when they went to "the market". Now, I learned about this stuff from Mrs. Hinkelmann. She was Austrian and was a regular rider back in my taxi driving days. She said, "white wine, brown sugar and fruit". My choice of fruit this day was some dried apples and some dried mangos. Also added the same stuff as in the green beans and that's right, cook as above.

A note on mangos. I'm glad they were finally "discovered". I'll never forget the sweet taste of the "pineapple mangos" we would pick off the neighbors tree when I was a kid. The sticky hands and arms (the juice ran)
that would be cleaned in the clear water of Boca Ciega Bay. Kids now day's just don't know what they've missed.

Glazed carrots: nuf said. I add rum.

The Martha Stewart sweet potato recipe I almost remembered: Bake until tender, scrape out the insides and mash with sour cream, butter, cinnamon, brown sugar (what would Thanksgiving be without brown sugar)
and return mixture to skins. Cook as above.

Ham: coat top with honey and Dijon mustard. You got it, cook as above.

Now the stuffing, now that was special. Most of my recipes start the same way; saute' onions and lots of garlic.
For those of you not having Corrugated-cap Milky's (Lactarius corrugis) http://www.mykoweb.com/photos/large/Lactarius_corrugis(mgw-01).jpg
growing in your yard, I guess any kind of mushroom will do.
And chorizo, you know that plastic wrapped Mexican sausage. When all this looks yummy add the boxed stuffing mix per directions and you know the rest by know.

So it all came out together promptly at 6:30 PM. Reviews thus far have been good.