Turkeygeddon, or The Pies Ate My Brain

Hi, all. Sorry I never posted on Wednesday. I got overly ambitious (I know, shocking!) with my Thanksgiving cooking. I meant to post a minimalist pie crust recipe for all of you trying to make the perfect pies, but I failed because I was busy making four pies, two of which I’d never made before. And for complicated reasons, I ended up cooking stuff for Thanksgiving on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

Wait, you’re saying. That’s AFTER Thanksgiving. Yeah, I know. Overly ambitious, remember? Possibly overly social. Let me explain. No, too long; let me sum up. We go to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving every year, which is lovely because lots of people come, and everyone contributes something different, the hosts providing the turkey, stuffing, and gravy. But my daughters wanted a small, intimate family dinner this year. So I ordered the smallest possible turkey and planned to make it Saturday. Meanwhile, I mentioned a post-Thanksgiving tradition to some friends and somehow wound up hosting it: Pie Breakfast, when everybody gathers on Friday morning with their leftover pies and eats them for breakfast.

Thus, this was my week:

• Wednesday: made two pies (traditional pumpkin and triple chocolate pumpkin), prepped brussels sprouts and left them to soak in salt water overnight.
• Thursday morning: made mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, whole wheat rolls, appetizers, two more pies (savory pumpkin and nutella tart), and marinated the sprouts in preparation for cooking them just before dinner at my friends’ home.
• Friday: Hosted Pie Breakfast, where I put out the leftovers from the four pies, baked Costco mini quiches, and made a veggie frittata for the gluten-challenged.
• Saturday: Turkey! Also cauliflower au gratin, delicata squash, and fruit salad, plus leftover mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and (you guessed it) pie.

And now I have tendonitis in my right elbow from spatchcocking and hauling around the turkey. More on that later.

To make up for not posting last Wednesday, I’ll be posting recipes for everything new I tried this Turkey Day, plus one I didn’t try but really wanted to:

• Spatchcocking a turkey
• Triple chocolate pumpkin pie
• Savory gruyere and pumpkin pie
• Cauliflower au gratin
• No-bake Nutella tart

Stay tuned! Recipes to come…