So Many Dishes

I am definitely getting excited about Thanksgiving. Maybe it’s because my enjoyment of the day last year was tempered by the amount of pain I was in (I took a bad fall two days before and spent a night in the hospital), but my anticipation level is sky high.

Amazingly, all I have to worry about for Thanksgiving dinner this year is the turkey. Ken was pressed into service to make the filling (the Pennsylvania Dutch term for what everyone else calls stuffing or dressing) last year, when we didn’t know when they’d discharge me from the hospital, and he’s volunteered to make it again this year. Ben has taken charge of sides; he’s doing a sweet potato dish and something with green beans. Annie is the dessert queen, so I don’t ever worry about that. The only other job left is to open the can of cranberry sauce. I’ve given up the homemade sauce battle. When I told Alice that I’d bought a can of the jellied stuff, her response was, “only one?”

I have a major issue, however: I can’t find the recipe I’ve used for the turkey the last two years. I spent yesterday afternoon going through my Cooking Light annual cookbooks, because my instinct tells me it’s in one of them, but I couldn’t find it.

What I’ve done has been to make a compound butter to rub both under and on top of the turkey skin. I know that it included grated orange zest, garlic, and rosemary. Beyond that, I can’t remember. So I’m going to go with my instincts and make my own concoction.

You would think that, as hard as I try to keep my recipes organized and track the dishes we cook, I’d be able to simply check my planners from past years to find the source. I checked; all I’ve written each year is “Thanksgiving dinner.” So helpful 🙄 I also realized that I rarely take pictures of Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve never taken a photo of the cooked bird or the dining room table. I have a couple of photos from 2020, when, because of COVID, we ate our dinner out on the patio. And Alice took a couple pictures the next year, when Ben hosted and smoked two turkeys. Hmm, we may need to start thinking about next year…