Well, my S22 called last night - he’s not coming home for Thanksgiving, he’s staying at his school and was planning to eat dinner with some of his friends who are also not leaving. We had a whole kerfuffle last year with his food (that ended up with nothing being delivered to him his first Thanksgiving away from home, but a friend with parents at a nearby AirBnB invited him over last minute) so this year I was ahead of schedule and able to organize his food. He has a car this year, so I ordered food from Whole Foods in the next town for him to pick up for him and his friends. I made guesses at the number of people and told him just to get me a firm number by Monday, or I couldn’t adjust.
So he called last night to tell me that he got a late invite to his friend’s house out of town, he wanted to go, could I cancel. Sure, I said, since it was still Monday.
Except joke was on me - I had to cancel by 4:00 Monday and he called me at 7:30.
I can’t cancel, I’m out the money, he still wants to go to his friends house. So he problem solved and tracked down some guys in his fraternity who are sticking around and have nowhere to go. One of them has a car and can drive to the nearby town to get the turkey for four, stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, sweet potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls and apple pie. I’m a smidge annoyed, because it wasn’t cheap to order all that, but I’m hopeful that these guys - whoever they are - at least get a nice dinner out of it!
I know we’ve kept mainly to food on this thread but other components of thanksgiving include TRAVELING. We (Ohio) are entering a few days - through the weekend of potentially rocky weather for traveling.
I am such a travel worrier. Throughout the weekend we have people traveling by car - no more than 2.5 hours but if the weather is snowy that is still hell!
Sending good vibes for any car/plane/train travel!
I grew up in Wisconsin with a 3 season porch (screened), and for the 4th season it had storm windows but was still mighty chilly. For the holidays we used it as an extra fridge. On the picnic tables would go pies, the turkey carcass before it was stripped, even extra bags of ice. Just cold enough.
Sometimes we can do that now in our garage (depends on how cold it is outside) but usually have to put things into a cooler first.
Well, just like with most questions, the verdict about pies/cobblers is mixed - in vs out of fridge. I guess I will stick them in overnight (tomorrow, to eat on Thursday) to play it safe, and they will be out for the car ride and during dinner Thursday.
Costco has their pecan and apple pies out at room temp; only the pumpkin is refrigerated. That said, maybe they are filled with preservatives, I have never looked.
Some Thanksgiving prep has started! I minced & cooked the onion & celery that goes into the stuffing. That’s now in a container in the fridge ready to use. Started defrosting the turkey yesterday. Deep cleaned all the bathrooms. Mopped floors. Still have to vacuum.
Both of my kids have devoured all the tortilla chips in the house so it looks like I’ll have to go out to get more tomorrow. Jury is still out re: when exactly aunt & uncle are arriving tomorrow night.
This made me google to see what “might” be the right answer as I was in charge of picking up Costco pies for the 39 family members we are having this year. Looks like while the apple and pecan would be ok for a day or two at room temp, it would be best to refrigerate all of them. I do remember one year the left over apple pie did mold after a couple of days. Figured it can’t hurt to put them in the fridge since I bought them tonight. I was going to wait and go in the morning, but decided I wanted to get done.
As we have enough dessert for the weekend, I want to make sure we can safely eat all as leftovers. Besides the pies, we are having Krispy Kreme donuts, requested by a couple of the teens, toffee, and a big birthday cake Friday night. We will be on a sugar high if all of this gets eaten over the 2 days!
Because pumpkin and pecan pies are made with a custard/eggs they should be refrigerated. Purchased pies may have different instructions, but homemade need to go in the fridge
If you can find the space, refrigerated is always safer! Having two or multiple refrigerators really comes in handy when there’s a ton of stuff that need to be kept cold. My folks used to have 3 refrigerators but really just kept things WAY past when they needed to be tossed and would get themselves and others actually ill because the food was bad. It was a part of the dementia.
I don’t volunteer to make or bring things that I can’t keep at the proper temperature. For day of, you can keep things in a cooler on blue ice for a while if need be, as the refrigerator where the gathering will take place will likely be stuffed.
I’m a little proud of myself. My sister makes wreaths and I bought one from her. It turned out to be huge, and I have a double door in my entry. So I turned it into this! I added a fake pumpkin and candles. I think it looks like it was meant to be this.
as I decorating the table, I’m curious as to what you do if you serve TG buffet style. Do you put the plates on the table as decoration? Do you take them off before people serve the themselves? Do you have people go theirs from the table, thereby securing their seat?
I’m putting this here because it’s related to Thanksgiving (kinda). We always wait until after Thanksgiving to decorate for Christmas. As such I still have my pumpkins outside and all my fall decor indoors, including my fall leaf table runner in the dining room and pumpkin runner on my kitchen island. Our plan was to get the house decorated for xmas Saturday with our daughter.
Except…..yesterday was mid 50s and very mild. Today is crazy windy and dropping quickly into the 20s. Forecast for Saturday is 5-8 inches of snow and high 20s. I made a management decision to decorate the outside of the house for xmas so no one would have to freeze on Saturday (including myself). But, I left my pumpkins out so it looks a little bit weird ; )
