This year I’m making just a turkey breast. Quick meal for only three people this year; no holiday travel, either. It’s not that I am virtuous, but everyone is either too far or too old this year.
I am going to make a traditional pound cake. One pound each butter, sugar, eggs, and flour. No salt, baking powder, soda, or flavoring. My grandmother used to make them. Hers were always good.
7 comments:
Learned something new today. Happy Thanksgiving.
You have to whip them long and hard, because there’s no baking powder/salt or yeast to make them rise. Thus, you have to put the air in by hand.
If you’re patient with it, though, it’s great. All the ingredients are transportable by covered wagon or ship, making it appropriate for the holiday. Sugar and flour are dry, butter keeps indefinitely if you pack it in the flour, and you can bring egg-laying chickens and milk/butter producing cows with you.
I would like to recommend a book on the subject. One Small Candle: The Pilgrims’ First Year in America, by Thomas Fleming. I found it in October, 2018, and I’ve read it each year at this time. I don’t now remember how I came across it; perhaps someone here in the Hall mentioned it in a post. It’s definitely worth your time.
Thank you for the recommendation. I’ll pass it along.
We made a turkey though only for the two of us. The neighbors who normally would join us on both sides are quarantining, not by orders, but for reasons of personal duty that they find convincing. One was recently exposed and tested positive, though he's had no symptoms and can't be sure whether it's a false positive or an asymptomatic case. The neighbors on the other side live with a 99-year-old relative; no one wants to take any chances at all with her. So each household had a holiday meal, and we talked by phone. Today my niece will join us for the turkey leftovers that are my favorite part of the tradition. We start with the dark meat we prefer on Thanksgiving Day itself, saving the white meat for my husband's incomparable turkey tetrazzini and, after that, turkey and dumplings.
I've already made the dumpling dough with the skimmings from the turkey broth. I found that skimmings, which end up being about half broth and half fat no matter how careful you are, are perfect for adding to the flour to make dumplings, along with an add and as much salt as needed. Then the trick is to roll them out as thin as you can get them, even stretching them a bit once they're cut into spoon-size pieces, before they go into the soup to boil.
We thought my niece might be bringing a new recipe, a sweet potato sour cream pie, but that's not looking good, so I'm going to see what we have in the way of makings for some other pie, perhaps apple or pecan.
She's bringing 3 large dogs, to add to our 2. This should be interesting.
I'm going to see what we have in the way of makings for some other pie
Three-layer upside down chocolate pie.
Eric Hines
Sounds like everyone did the best they could. We traditionally host Thanksgiving for both my and my wife's families. Some years we've had 18 people. This year, some members of the family remained quarantined for good reasons, and those of us who could came and enjoyed it as well as we could. I was happy that we were able to break one or two of the preposterous rules given by the authorities, so that it was officially a protest on my part at least. We got a smaller turkey this year, and ended up with little leftover, so I fear I'll miss out on my wife's famous turkey enchiladas that I look forward to the weekend after Thanksgiving. Ah well- next year, one hopes, will be better.
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