I’ll start with a quick look behind the scenes.  You see this picture?  Yes, the picture on the left.  The Thanksgiving-oriented picture.  Yes, that one.

 This blog gets literally hundreds of hits a day around this time of year from people who are searching for this picture. Oh, they don’t know that this is exactly the picture that they want – at least, not until they see it.  But once they see it, they come here to grab it.  By the hundreds.

But that is beside the point of this post.  It’s that time of year again – Thanksgiving.  Some people have a nice, quiet dinner at home.  Some people go to their eccentric great-aunt’s house.  Others gather at the parents house.  And still others go and have a respectable, civilized dinner out.

But not here at Cuisine Capers.  Instead, we are descended upon by around 25 very hungry people (give or take one or two, depending on how things work out).  And, I’ll point out, they are very hungry people who can eat a lot of food.

So, here’s the menu:

• 28 pound fresh turkey
• 15 – 20 lbs of mashed potatoes
• Gravy
• Wild rice and Italian Sausage stuffing
• 7 Layer salad
• Peas with pancetta and pearl onions
• Cauliflower and broccoli mixture
• Cheese Sauce
• Black-eyed Peas*
• Okra*
• Southern Cornbread*
• Green Bean Crap**
• Multitudes of dinner rolls
• Pies, pies and more pies

I’ll be chronicling the prep along the way, if all works out.

Notes:
* Black-eyed peas, okra and cornbread are all a nod to the southern roots, courtesy of my father who is from Hot Springs, Arkansas.  No one but my father will eat the okra (pronounced O-KREE in my family), but most of us will eat the cornbread and the black-eyed peas.

** Green Bean Crap is typically called Green Bean Casserole in most families.  In my family, we’ve changed the name in honor of my sister-in-law Laurie, who, after being assigned this dish to bring a couple of years in a row cried in horror, “No, not that grean bean crap!” after being assigned it yet again.  Needless to say, she will be bringing the green bean crap for the rest of her natural life to every family gathering we have.

1. We had a newly remodeled kitchen to break in – mission accomplished
2. We had to watch the Packers maul the Bears on national TV – mission accomplished
3. We had to see Brett Favre play his last game – we hope that mission wasn’t accomplished, but it sure looked like it might have been judging from the sobbing breakdown he had in his post game interview
4. And last but not least, we had to see in the New Year – mission NOT accomplished. We’re all getting too old to stay up that late.

Prep for this event started the day before, with Vic and Irene gathering at Victor’s house to start making food in Vic’s newly remodeled kitchen. A new Wolf cooktop, dual convection/microwave oven and convection ovens, a shiny new refrigerator, a huge, granite island and lots of other things were newly installed and completed right before Christmas…

Shrimp as prepped, cucumbers were peeled and sliced for serving with hummus, tenderloin was roasted for sandwiches, and cheesecake was made. Beer, of course, was also drank.

(The ironic thing which must be noted here is that we never made the shrimp because there was already too much food, and we completely forgot about the cucumbers. We did, however, drink the beer)

The next day we gathered to celebrate New Years Eve. We had WAY too much food. Thankfully that is mostly Vic’s problem, as the event took place at Vic’s house.

We had antipasto, olives, spiced mozzerella balls, parmesan twists, hummus, black bean hummus, olive tapenade, chicken satay, sliced tenderloin, lots of chips, a really good carmalized onion dip, and much more.

We also made some homemade pizza – a margherita, a pesto, and a pepperoni.

We had found a really interesting looking wine – a Sparkling Syrah. We picked it up on a whim and brought it to the festivities. It was really good and we will buy it again.

The Packers mauled the Bears, as was hoped. It was a good game, and we refrained from singing “The Bears Still Suck Polka” (too loudly, anyway), due to the delicate (pregnant) condition of the sole Bear fan in the crowd.

And today – leftovers and the Wisconsin Badger Bowl game.

Happy New Year to all.

The Turkey!

Anyone who says that a six burner stove is excessive does not cook for 25 people! This was our first Thanksgiving in our new house. We had designed both the kitchen and the dining room to be able to host the family gatherings. We used every burner of the 6 burner stove, and we had both ovens going full speed for most of the day. I don’t know how we would have done this without the kitchen layout. We had mixed veggies, cheese sauce, gravy, peas with pancetta and pearl onions, mashed potatoes and blackeyed peas.

And of course, as usual, there was too much dessert, but most of it went. There was pumpkin pie, pecan pie, raspberry pie, applie pie, blueberry pie and raspberry cheesecake.

All in all, another good Thanksgiving.

Now the plans for Christmas start! In one month we need to do this all over again! I’m torn between tenderloin and prime rib. I’d love to make something a bit more elegant than mashed potatoes, but I’d have a revolt on my hands if we dared to skip those!

Calm Before The Storm

The Wild Rice & Italian Sausage Stuffing is prepared…

The turkey is stuffed, seasoned, and resting on its nice, shiny new All Clad Turkey Roasting set…

The turkey is in the oven….

The table is set…

And the “Queen of Shiba” is awaiting her meal!

It’s that time of year… you know, when you gather in great masses and eat yourself silly while imbibing a bit too much? That’s right, I mean Thanksgiving.

Each year my immediate family gathers for the feast. This year we’ll have somewhere around 22 people descending on the dinner table. I think I’m ready. I’ve ordered the 28 pound fresh turkey from the local butcher, and I am hoping that will do the job.

Along the way I’m also amassing supplies for the wild rice and sausage stuffing, the mixed vegetables with cheese sauce, the garlic mashed potatoes and gravy, and the cranberry sauce.

A note about the cranberry sauce. I’m disavowing any responsibility for it. There are only 2 or 3 people who eat it, and they demand that canned, jellied stuff. If I had my way it would be a made from scratch fresh cranberry sauce. Oh, well, there is no accounting for taste.

Contributions towards the dinner from family members include 7 Layer Salad, Black-eyed peas, Deviled eggs, bread, pies, pies, and more pies.

And we mustn’t forget the “Green Bean Crap”. In most households celebrating Thanksgiving, this is typically referred to as “Green Bean Casserole”. However, in my family it is now officially known as “Green Bean Crap” due to the fact that my sister-in-law always gets assigned to this dish, and one year as it was once again being assigned to her she said in dismay, “Not that Green Bean Crap again!”

Ah, family holiday traditions.

New Years Day in Wisconsin – what could that mean? Yes, that’s right, it’s a college football bowl game!

Though I have to say that it was a disappointing year for our UW Badgers. They started out the season on a 9-0 run, with visions of #1 dancing in their heads. And then they choked their final 2 games (well, now I know how you Vikings fans feel every year!) and ended up going to some bowl slightly higher than the toilet bowl, but not much higher. When a chain restaurant (The Outback) can name a bowl in their honor, there’s something wrong.

And when Texas can play in the Rose Bowl, there’s something even worse wrong.

Ah, but this blog isn’t about football rants is it? No, it’s about food. And food there was as we invited friends and family over to watch the toilet bowl…. errrr, Outback Bowl together.

As the game started at an ungodly 10:00 AM (-insert another rant about minor bowl games here-), and as it was New Years Day, we decided a brunch made the most sense. So a couple types of egg casseroles, some hash brown bakes, and a french toast souffle were prepared the day before, popped in the refrigerator overnight, and the baked the morning of.

Bloody Marys, Mimosas, beer and coffee were served along side, with lots of soda and orange juice for the kids.

And my mother brought over a family tradition that has made its way from Arkansas to Wisconsin: Chocolate Gravy and Biscuits.

There was also some kringle to be had, but that will have its very own entry in upcoming days.

And we aren’t going to talk about the results of the bowl game. It was, after all, just a minor bowl game anyway.

But it still irks me that Texas is playing in the Rose Bowl.

In a bit of a surprise, Christmas morning dawned with the first snowfall of the season. This first snowfall was unusually late, and fairly welcome, given that the landscaping for our new house is on hold til the spring thaw, and it’s better to look at a blanket of white snow rather than a mud pit.

The pupster seemed to enjoy her first snow as well, pouncing, attacking, biting, and rooting around in it.

Dinner preparations for about 20 guests began early. The prime rib and ham were pulled from the refrigerator by 10:00 AM to bring it up to room temperature before it was popped in the oven. The 10 pound ham went in at 11:30, the 14 pound prime rib went in at noon.

I followed both my gut instinct, as well as the recommendations of my fellow food bloggers, and I put the prime rib into a preheated oven at 500 degrees, dropping the oven temperature to 250 after 15 minutes, and letting it slow roast. But more on that later…

Ten pounds of potatoes were peeled by the volunteer parents who showed up early and assisted in the preparations. (And fed the puppy everything in sight, too… but that’s a different story that I’ll spare you all from.) The main dining table was set up in the dining room, with the secondary (children’s table) set up in the dinette nook.

The prime rib roasted exactly as expected (hoped for?), rising to 120 degrees by 2:30 PM. It was pulled from the oven and wrapped tightly in foil. In the meantime, guests ate various appetizers (and so did the puppy, once again using her cute little puppy face to convince people that she was deserving. But I digress).

The Viking cooktop performed admirably, though disappointingly I didn’t use every single burner! Something to shoot for, I guess. Peas with pearl onions and Pancetta, broccoli with cauliflower and cheese sauce, potatoes for mashing, and au jus cooked away as the prime rib rested.

Then it was time to carve the meat. It had rested for more than 30 minutes, wrapped in foil. This is always a bit of a stressful moment. Will it be way too rare? Will it be cooked to shoe leather consistency? Making that first slice is always a bit hard to do.

But I’m pleased to say that the slow roasting method came through. The prime rib was perfectly cooked! Oh, yeah, the ham turned out fine too.

And the puppy was so full of appetizers and cookies that she couldn’t even bring herself to care that people were eating prime rib for dinner. Her puppy tummy was on the verge of exploding, and she was forced into a food-induced coma because everyone kept feeding her off-limits food.

But I’m not going to get into that at all….

I’ve got a 14 pound boneless prime rib sitting in my refrigerator. It will be sacrificed to the hordes of people descending on the house tomorrow. Along with the prime rib will be a spiral cut ham, mashed potatoes, blackeyed peas, broccoli and cauliflower, peas and pancetta, and bread. And possibly shrimp scampi, depending on how much of that is left over from tonight.

But on to the Prime Rib Dilemma… How to cook it? A few choices:

1. 375 degrees steady, til done.
2. 450 degrees for 30 minutes, then 225 degrees til done
3. 450 degrees for 30 minutes, turn oven off and let sit a couple hours, then back on at 375 degrees til done.

Anyone have a preference out of one of the above? Or maybe even their own foolproof method?