Thanksgiving plans and menus

I've been traveling [again {groan}] and after being home 10 days finally feel caught up with myself... just in time for Thanksgiving! OMG!

We're going all out this year (for us anyway) and having a couple of friends over. I was printing out the recipe for Chorizo to make chorizo/cornbread stuffing and remembering that T-day dinners can be wonderfully regional and family specific (my dad always had chicken and dumplings growing up in Texas, very common there) I got to wondering...

What y'all having for T-day? And what're yer plans?

We're having...
roast turkey breast
chorizo/cornbread stuffing
sweet and sour red cabbage
baked sweet potatoes
pumpkin pie
haven't decided on the beverage yet...

Mostly we're just going to cook and enjoy our friend's company. No TV, no 'big game', no excessive alcohol but definitely excessive eating. LOL

And sharing with the animals... part of our tradition is to include ALL the 'family'... carrots for the donks, small dinner portions for the dogs, seed & suet for the wild birds... and gratitude for this good life.

It’s always a good day for chicken & dumplings and I will be working on T-Day unfortunately. (only have one more T-Day to miss before I retire, yea) Ah --- couldn’t talk you into sharing the sweet and sour red cabbage recipe could I? :-)

Bummer about working T-day, but hooray it's only one more time after this. =0)

So besides chicken and dumplings, is there any other side dishes that you usually have?

It's a rough and ready, this looks about right one... I get the biggest head of red cabbage I can find, and the biggest red onion.

Saute the sliced onion in olive oil or the fat from a fair amount of bacon you've cooked up for the recipe (depends on how much your fixin').

Slice the cabbage as thinly as possible and add it to the pot when the onion is translucent... I have to use my biggest pot, 'cause I loooove this dish and make a lot.

Cook the cabbage covered over medium heat til it's wilted, then start fiddlin' with it... add some apple juice, some brown sugar, some cider vinegar till it starts to taste like you like it.

It takes a few hours to cook the cabbage soft, so I usually just add a bit of apple juice til it's close to done, then start adding the sugar and vinegar to taste. I keep it covered til the cabbage is as cooked as I like it, then uncover it if I need to cook off some liquid.

Today I think I probably used about 1 1/2 C vinegar and 3/4 C (?) sugar... it was what was left in the bag and it was just enough. I think it was about a 4-5# cabbage.

Oh yeah, if you're using bacon, crumble it in towards the end. You can also add a few celery and/or caraway seeds if you like... I don't.

Thanks for the recipe, it really sounds good. The chorizo/cornbread stuffing sounds good too but DW doesn’t like chorizo. I have to go out to get my chorizo and eggs.

This year I think there will be something like 27 people attending T-Day at one of the in –laws. The persons hosting are responsible for the turkey and dressing and everyone else brings their side dish specialty. Needless to say there are some strange things that show up on the table from time to time. But all and all, most everything tastes great. I believe they are frying the turkeys this year.

I will miss all the hub-bub this year but usually score a nice doggy bag to pick through that evening.

Have a happy T-Day.

My SO isn't into chorizo either, but when I make a batch (this new one I tried lamb) I just freeze small portions and then I can cook up just enough for me. =0)

Good heavens! 27 people... oh, forgive me, but I'd rather have the doggie bag! I'm not much for large gatherings. Which is probably over 4 people for me. LOL

What do you do that you're working, if you don't mind my asking?

Know what you mean about the crowd. Sometimes having to work isn’t that bad a deal. LOL T-Day is the only one we do in a big way. For the rest of them everyone is on their own.

I’m a Deputy Sheriff and work graveyard shift in the Houston area. Only 15 more months of it and I can go back to just being a good-ol-boy. Can’t wait. After 25 years of solving everyone else’s problems I’m ready to look after a few of my own =0)

Oh man, you must have one heck of a case of short-timers disease. I think I would.

Did you make much progress on your rain water ponds?

Oh yea, at this stage of the game I am definitely on coast as much as possible. I will be 60 when I retire and that is way to old to be out chasing these thugs around.

The water-harvesting project is still a go. Have a couple of projects a head of it but will start work on the first pond this spring. We decided that the first pond should be by the patio where all the runoff from the house will enter. It will be ornamental in nature with a waterfall and plants ECT. DW plans to plant an herb garden around the outside of it.

The ponds will be 10 x10 with a 2-foot plank wall above ground. The center will be about 3 feet deep in the center and taper up to the wall like a bowl and be lined with a pond liner. Don’t have my figures handy but it should hold about 3500 gals. and the cost per pond is low compared to other avenues.

Along with being pretty (I hope) the first pond will be a catchall for junk coming off the roof and easy to clean. When it is full a pipe will carry the overflow to the next pond and so on down the line. All the other ponds will be covered with 90% shade cloth to help deal with evaporation and algae. Then we can pump from these to irrigate the nursery, garden and fruit trees.
With our annual rainfall we should have no trouble keeping up to four ponds full…..Sounds good on paper anyway.

Once we get started on it I will try to update the progress with a picture or two.

So I'm not the only one working tonight and Thanksgiving, on the graveyard shift. Yay us :)

First Thanksgiving alone in too many years to count....25 or more. However, the landlord and her husband invited me up for dinner...well, breakfast for me, but...0_0 At least I don't have to cook. Planning on making a key lime pie to take up (and leave so I don't eat it all!), along with some fresh herbs that she requested to use on the stuffing and such.

Those ponds sound very cool lizard. Maybe I can do something like that IF I ever get to closing and THEN get all the other stuff done :)

Happy Turkey Day all!

The ponds sound really great... I'm looking forward to seeing the progress. And I know how it goes with getting other projects out of the way first... I'm still working on getting my wood pile out of the way so I can bring in a load of road base to continue on the earth bag wall... I think I'll have a chance to break out the chain saw this weekend and cut up some more logs.

Those first holidays alone ARE tough... hugs to you Hineni. Of course we're with you in spirit, and it does get easier as time passes, but knowing that doesn't mean this year won't be grueling. Hang in there, enjoy the life around you, appreciate what you shared with your dear ones, and be good to yourself.

Think of it this way... only the lucky people get to know this pain. Those who live long and love well. It's part of the package.

Blessings...

T-Day is over. Hope everyone had a good meal and good company.

Just finished going though the doggy bag and now don’t want to go to work. It would be nice if all the crooks would stay home for once =0)

Know how it is to loose someone. Lost a daughter-in-law 5 months ago to a senseless accident and this was the first T-Day without her.


This message was edited Nov 26, 2009 10:14 PM

Interesting perspective Jay; I'll have to keep that in mind as it is a pondering statement if I ever heard one. Thank you for your thoughts.

I am so sorry lizards, to hear of your family's loss. I hope your son is doing well; it is a long, slow road I am finding. I hope for your sake all the crooks stay home tonight, or get in line for a good deal at a store and keep themselves otherwise occupied :)

Quiet here on my shift tonight so I'm working on an herb garden plan and mapping out the new place on grid paper. Turkey dinner was delish and there were snow flakes whirling when I left to come back to the house. I spoke with my mom and my oldest daughter; all in all a good day.

Back to scribbling in plant names :)

Belated Happy Thanksgiving ~ all. Here's hoping everyone survived safe and sound.

Hineni ~ give us some of those herb names and maybe we can fill in the blanks?

edited to correct spelling and get another cuppa. Off to work.

This message was edited Nov 27, 2009 6:09 AM

Hope everyone had a nice day yesterday and the bad guys were too full to move. Our friends had to cancel last minute, so it was just me and my SO, which made for a very quiet, mellow day; we didn't even have to knock ourselves out cleaning and straightening! LOL We managed to get the feast cooked and delivered to the table with no fights (2 cooks + a small kitchen = a recipe for squabbling) and just had a regular oink-out. Oh my... had to wait an hour before there was any room for the pie.

We've got snow predicted on Sunday (70%, so it might even happen!) and the split wood pile is getting low. Looks like today will be for cutting up and splitting more logs. If the chainsaw starts... small engines are fussier than a colicky baby.

I've already been looking forward to next years garden. Eliot Coleman says I can start planting in the high tunnel Jan. 15... I'm trying to figure out what. Kale? Do I start things indoor and set them out? Little details I haven't found yet.

My volunteer lettuce in the cold frame is picking size, but it's covered with aphids... a problem I don't usually have, as I grow under row covers. But these little lettuces popped up in the neglected frame and by the time I noticed, so had the aphids. I've let the plants continue just to see how long the growing season might go with minimal effort.

Thank you Hineni.

Sounds like it’s time to nuke or change the soil in those cold frames. =0)

Wow! You do take the big gun approach, lizards...
I'll just clear the cold frame of vegetation, turn in some compost, and when I next plant use the row cover again.

Occasionally I do get aphids under the row cover... if it's a crop I lift the cover for often... and then I just 'kidnap' a few wild, free-range lady bugs and put them under there... works great. I mean, about 6 ladybugs took care of a 20' row of peppers under cover.

Nah, I'm saving the nukes for the blinkin' earwigs on the corn... I only got about 6 ears out of 20 plants 'cause those cussed things ate the silks off. Grrrr....

And just for the record... earwigs don't seem to be much put off by diatomaceous earth... did not 'take a powder', as it were. Vermin!

Since it doesn’t get cold enough to kill the little buggers around here in the winter, you sometimes have to go to extremes once they set up house keeping, other wise you start paying homage to them. I have seen a few aphids around here that would scare a self-respecting ladybug half to death too. lol

Paying homage to aphids... one shudders at the thought.
Maybe what you need are some "I ain't no lady" bugs...
LOL

Have you ever watched a lady bug larvae eat an aphid... OMG, they calmly take them up, bite into their soft, juicy bodies, and suck them dry, all the time the aphid's legs are waving around... you can almost hear the screams.

Gruesome, yet satisfying.

We usually have a couple of areas, well away from the nursery, where we plant Mexican Milk Weed for the Monarch’s. Only problem is that the aphids and a few others love the stuff too. It’s a battle zone. The tender stems are full of aphids and ladybug larva eating them. Mixed in the fray are shield bugs, assassin bugs, ants and others. Hard to tell but I think the aphids are the only ones being eaten.

Now for some reason we have hundreds of Mexican Bean Beetles flying around. Hope we have a hard freeze soon and they die.

As an after thought, I haven't heard of earwigs attacking corn silk. At least not down here anyway. My information on control lists Diazinon spray or a shoe. I would guess the shoe would be for the ones that made it inside the house =0)

This message was edited Nov 30, 2009 7:37 PM

Hey Pod...when I get a concise list made, I'll get back to ya on the herbs.

Jay...LOL nearly spit my tea out when I read 'ain't no lady' bugs. That was great!

Those fake ladybugs were a nuisance here for about two weeks, always trying to get in the house. But now all I see around are their crusty little body shells. They were much worse last year I think.

I'll have to look up Mexican Bean Beetle, as I've not heard of that one Lizard.

Off to fix a nice cuppa tea before logging in to work....

We have a hard freeze coming Friday night and i hope it kills all of them. I don't have my books with me right now or I would give you the low down on them.

Well hmmm....those look like the bugs that were here!! Someone had told me they were Japanese lady bugs. Now I'm all confuddled (combo of confused and befuddled).

I will give some info on them after i take a nap. They look like a ladybug but have 16 spots in stead of 4 or 5. They arn't nice at any rate lol

I haven't had much problem with the bugs so far... though we do have a lot of ladybugs here. But I learned to grow under row covers while I was down around Albq., so basically we hide from the bugs. I can't compare the size and muscularity of the earwigs here to the ones in Albq. as they didn't seem to be the problem there that they are here... they're my biggest headache so far.

Oh wait... I forgot, we do have a ton of corn earworms here... last year every ear of 100 stalks was hit. This year, though, I got my system down for them, so I can put another notch in my spray gun. =0)

I had a few Mexican bean beetles this year, but not enough to trouble with. I do a lot of rotation, and I also noticed they seemed to bother the Royal Burgundy pole beans less than the Romano pole beans... so I think I'll probably emphasize the purple pole beans in the future. Also, I can grow bush beans under row cover.

Your probably right about the bug ice cubes Pod but it was a pleasant vision anyway. I just plant by Grannies Rule - three of everything (one for the birds, one for the bugs and hopefully one for you) and hope for the best.

Right now I’m more worried about the cold than bugs. Supposed to be 22 degrees in the morning and that’s a little too cool even for cabbages to be happy. But then the greens should be double sweet. lol