All & Nothing: What's Cookin'?--Thanksgiving Edition

Monday, November 21, 2011

What's Cookin'?--Thanksgiving Edition

Welcome to the Thanksgiving Edition of my weekly menu! I hadn't exactly planned on cooking Turkey dinner on Thursday, but due to some last minute changes, it turns out I am. To be honest, I'm a little intimidated by it. Yes, I love to cook and I do it a lot, but I've only ever done Turkey dinner one other time and it was a team effort with my mother-in-law. This time I'll be on my own, plus I think it's going to just be my little family of four, which means I'll really be on my own in the kitchen. So, while I was planning our menu, I tried to keep it fairly simple with at least half that I could prep on Wednesday in order to keep Thursday less labor intensive. I've also taken advantage of the fact that I'm solely responsible for the Turkey day meal and planned it to be 99% paleo. The 1% off will be the mashed potatoes, but I fear mutiny if I skip out on those!

Here's the menu I settled on for Turkey day:

Dry Brined Turkey (Paleo Comfort Foods pg 232)

Cranberry Apple Stuffing (Elana's Pantry)

Mashed Potatoes (Recipe from Gluten Free Girl's cookbook)

Gravy (just using coconut flour, drippings and broth)

Cranberry Sauce (Make it Paleo pg 340)

Sweet Potato Casserole (Paleo Comfort Foods pg 200)

Sauteed Green Beans (Paleo Comfort Foods pg 202)

Pumpkin Pie (Make It Paleo pg 384)

Coconut Fudge (Make it Paleo pg 396)

Chocolate Pudding Pie (Make it Paleo pg 382)

Relish tray: pickles, black & green olives, baby carrots, deli meat and cheese

Rice crackers and tapenade

Deviled eggs?

So, here's the menu and game plan for the week:

Monday: Leftovers. {Prep: Turkey, brined, into frig}
Tuesday: Taco Night {Prep: Bake Paleo Bread for stuffing}
Wednesday: Bacon Omelet Roll {Prep: Cranberry Sauce, prep Sweet Potato Casserole, Pumpkin & Chocolate pies, Coconut Fudge, prep Stuffing}
Thursday: Turkey, Green Beans, Mashed Potatoes, finish baking casserole, stuffing.
Friday-Sunday: Leftovers of some sort or another. Maybe Biscuits via Paleo Comfort Foods with turkey and avocado?

Okay, so there's the plan. Here's the take on last weeks nibbles:

Self-portrait of Kera and I while she gobbled watermelon as an after-school snack.

Butternut Squash Soup (Make it Paleo, pg 290)

It was super tasty. Everyone in my family liked it, which is big because they don't usually like squash in its solid state. Good to remember!

Baked Chicken Thighs (MiP pg184)

These were so easy and tasted so good! I'll be making these again, I'm sure. (NO, I didn't cook them in this container. I barely remembered to take a picture before putting away leftovers.)

Artichokes were on sale so I bought 2. I've never cooked them before, but Lindsay had mentioned she wanted to try them. I googled a prep option and threw them in a pot of water to steam. Then we dipped them in a mayo/mustard mixture. Super tasty. All of us liked them, so I guess artichokes are on my "loved veggie" list.

Chocolate Cookie Dough Ice Cream (Make it Paleo pg 420) --This is the dough part of the recipe. It was basically the chocolate chip cookie recipe minus eggs and baking soda. I could've just eaten this plain!

The handy-dandy ice cream maker doing its job.

The final product.

Which I loved. It was too much cookie dough not enough ice cream for Kera, but she liked the flavor. Next time I might only add half the dough. My only complaint is that homemade ice cream is so hard--like rock solid after a day in the freezer. These pictures were taken right after I'd mixed it all together. The next day we had the rest for dessert after dinner and had to chisel it out of the container.