What I made for Thanksgiving

22lb Turkey with homemade stuffing.

5lb ranch mashed potatoes. Unfortunately, Newman's ranch dressing doesn't work as well as Hidden Valley for this particular purpose.

Sweet potatoes with marshmallows toasted on top. Not sure of the exact quantity, but it was 8 large yams. To be fair, Kraig did the mashing and seasoning for both sets of potatoes.

Greenbean casserole. 4lb of beans and three cans of cripsy onions and cream of mushroom soup.

Homemade cranberry sauce. This was to die for. 1 bag of fresh cranberries, 3/4 cup sugar, 1 cup water, 2 tbsp orange juice, 1 tbsp each lemon and lime juice. Bring water and sugar to a boil, stir in berries and simmer until appropriately mushy. Mix in juices. This will come out rather tart, so add some more sugar if you like it sweet.

Orange and ginger glazed carrots. Recipe from the NYTimes. Kind of wishing I'd just made the traditional brown sugar glaze, but the fresh grated ginger gave it a nice kick.

Butternut squash soup. Recipe courtesy of Chris Towle. I actually made this a day ahead of time because it is seriously messy and keeps/reheats well. Fortunately, I'm getting more coordinated with the blender and did not end up with orange spatters all over the walls this time.

Apple Cobbler with vanilla ice cream. I'm using the recipe from the Better Homes and Gardens cookbook, except that the original topping was SO boring, so I added extra cinnamon and some nutmeg. Problem solved :)

Kraig made gravy and I also had canned cranberry sauce and rolls.

We started the turkey at around 10:30 am and I was cooking pretty constantly until everything was ready around 4:30 pm. I spent most of the morning cleaning greenbeans and peeling the potatoes, and then started on the cranberry sauce, which needs to cool to room temperature and then be refrigerated. Things got pretty crazy at the end when we had both sets of potatoes boiling on the stove as well the carrots simmering, the apples cooking, the turkey coming out of the oven, and me trying to start the cobbler topping all at the same time. Conclusion: Kraig and I need a bigger kitchen with two ovens and a larger cooktop.

Everything was really delicious and I have a TON of leftovers :) Success! Now to NOT go shopping today.

Happy New Year!

I just had an interesting exchange with a student that has prompted my rumination on the topic of calculators. In summary, he had thought that it was my own perversity that students aren't allowed to use calculators on their exams. I assured him that it was a department-wide standard, excepting the more advanced classes that use MatLab or the like. He had also mentioned that he had discussed it with his mother, who is also a math teacher.

It makes me wonder where this reliance on calculators really comes from. Admittedly, lots of students have trouble with arithmetic. But I feel like it's because they rely on calculators so much.

Mid-semester Thursday Evening

Dinner is eaten, cats are played with, now time to work on my lecture for tomorrow. Maybe some DVR'ed Olympics if I finish that before falling asleep on my keyboard.

Tomorrow should be a good day: 9:30 appointment at Health Services to hopefully get something to help my face, followed by Roseann's ballet class at Dance Complex, office hour and then teaching at Tufts. Lastly, I'm meeting up with at least one, but hopefully two, of my bffs for shoe shopping and cosmetics hunting.

A food critique: I can only describe the smell of Trader Joe's frozen mixed seafood as "c***-ish," and not in a good way. Scratch that one of the list of dinner short-cuts.

Kraig surprised me with purple tulips today. A+