Thanksgiving Dinner

20121122:
My favorite dish by far was the lasagna. It was so delicious. I don't know if it was the beef, the pepperonis, the cheese, or just the whole combination that worked so well. Perhaps it was hard to go wrong with lasagna.

My second favorite dish was the sweet potato casserole. Despite being a little burnt on top, it still turned out delicious; it was mostly a coloration issue rather than a taste issue. As a side dish it rocked, but the lasagna was the delicious main dish.

[20121126]

---

Dishes Prepared: (Alphabetical)
Green Bean Casserole
Lasagna
Mashed Potatoes
Sweet Potato Casserole (Take 2)

A mix of the sweet potato casserole, green bean casserole, and mashed potatoes (20121124)

---

My Contributions:
Prepared potatoes. | Baked sweet potatoes. | Prepared green bean casserole (base). | Prepared mashed potatoes. | Prodded sweet potatoes. | Prepared lasagna. | Prepared sweet potato casserole | Baked lasagna. | Baked sweet potato casserole. | Prepared green bean casserole (top) and bake it

---

Last.fm:
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Ingrid Michaelson | 8:27AM to 12:53PM
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Florence + the Machine | 12:48PM to 2:14PM
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Jack Johnson | 2:53PM to 6:01PM
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: System of a Down | 6:03PM to 6:36PM
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: The White Stripes | 6:42PM to 7:24PM
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Lily Allen | 7:31PM to 8:00PM

Lasagna

20121122:
My friends and I made lasagna as part of Thanksgiving dinner!

Steps We Took:
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Jack Johnson

Part 1: Pasta
Boiled water for pasta. Salt, olive oil, cooking wine. We cooked the pasta for as long as instructed on the box. After draining the pasta, I almost nearly forgot that we should lay the lasagna noodles out flat. We gathered two pans, a plate, and some aluminum foil on which to keep the pasta flat and usable. As a safety measure, we boiled 12 strips.

Part 2: Beef, Cheese Mix, and Sauce
Added olive oil and some vegetable to my cast iron skillet and cooked (1.38 lb) beef with onions and 1 clove chopped garlic.

Meanwhile, Mark worked on the cheese mix:
: 2 lbs ricotta cheese
: 1/2 cup Parmesan cheese (in place of 1/2 cup grated Romana cheese)
: 1 egg
: 1/8 cup dried parsley (in place of 1/4 cup dried basil)
: 1 clove garlic minced (as opposed to pressed (Wikipedia.org))

I heated up the jar of sauce we bought.

Part 3: Assembly*
1. I coated the bottom of a 9 x 13 baking dish with a thin layer of spaghetti sauce.
2. I placed 3 noodles side-by-side over the sauce.
3. I spread half of the ricotta mixture over the noodles.
: This took some getting used to, because the noodles wanted to slide back and forth. My solution to this was to spread some of the mixture out one way, and then spread some of it out the opposite way.
4. Over the ricotta I added half of the browned beef.

As I went to do something, Mark completed the remaining layers.

5. Mark covered the beef with 2 oz. of shredded mozzarella cheese.
6. I assume he continued following the directions and placed the following layers: sauce, noodle, ricotta, meat, pepperoni, 2 oz. of mozzarella, sauce, noodle, remaining sauce, 4 oz. of mozzarella, and pepperoni.**

Part 4:
We put the lasagna in the oven at around 4:07PM. The recipe calls for baking the lasagna covered with foil and 3 or 4 pokes of a fork for ventilation. Bake for 45 minutes before uncovering and baking another 15. 4:52PM is when we need to remove the cover. Mark took the lasagna out at around 5:16PM.
: We added cooking time to lasagna, because the oven temperature wasn't as high as it needed to be.

*We originally thought about changing the recipe's two layers of filling (three layers of pasta) to three layers of filling (four layers of pasta). But as I began to spread the cheese mix, I estimated that the amount of mix in the recipe would perfectly cover just two layers. With 3 strips of lasagna per layer (9" by 13" pan) and three layers of lasagna, we only used 9 out of the 12 strips we boiled.

**Technically, the recipe had 4 oz. pepperoni slices with the first layer of beef, and another 4 oz. with the second layer of beef. However, I reminded Mark about the pepperoni only in time for the second layer of beef. Fortunately, the location of the pepperoni layers isn't as critical as long as the other layers are in order.

Comment:
Making the lasagna reminded me of the time I baked chicken and eggplant Parmesan, because both dishes are built in layers, have cheese, have some sort of tomato, and have some sort of meat. However, the lasagna was definitely easier to make. In particular, the ground beef was easier to cook than chicken, and the lasagna noodles were easier to prepare than eggplant slices.

Vague Result:
Of the various Thanksgiving dishes, the lasagna was my favorite.

[20121130][20161112 Edit]

---

Relevant Links:
Yummy Lasagna (AllRecipes.com)
My Thanksgiving Dinner (Table of Contents) post

Green Bean Casserole

20121122:
Today my friends and I were making Thanksgiving dinner and one of the dishes we made was green bean casserole.

While this dish was simple to put together, we didn't gather the ingredients ahead of time and that caused for some occasional downtime.

Steps We Took:
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Florence + the Machine

Part 1:
Boiled water. The instructions called for 1 to 1.5 cups for a bag of green beans.

In a separate pan, Mark melted 1 tablespoon and 1/2 teaspoon of butter. I measured out 1 tablespoon and 1/2 teaspoon of flour and Mark mixed it in with the butter. Not ready to add the other ingredients, we left the pan aside.

At around this point in time, I realized we needed to begin boiling the green beans. Both the instructions on the back of the bag and a Google search suggested boiling green beans for about 7 minutes.* I then also learned that if boiling, a minimal amount of water should be used so we poured out some of the boiling water until we were left with about 2 to 3 cups before adding all the green beans to the pot. While some of the green beans laid above the water level, Mark and I agreed that we didn't need to add anymore water. We then set the timer for 7 minutes** and began working on the other part of the recipe.

I grounded and gathered 1/2 teaspoon salt and measured 1/2 teaspoon sugar. I diced a whole onion (I recall it was a sweet onion) and we put about 2 to 3 tablespoons in with the salt and sugar. Then, we scooped out between 3/4 to 1 cup of sour cream.*** Mark mixed the salt, sugar, onion, and sour cream together with the butter-flour mixture.

After the green beans were slightly overcooked from having boiled in the pot for an extra minute (for a total of eight minutes) we lined them up and cut them into thirds.**** Note that the package we bought already had the ends removed.

Mark mixed the green beans and previously prepared mixture together in a big pot and divided the mix into two containers. Technically it should all go into one big container, but I already reserved my largest glassware for the sweet potato casserole and figured two smaller containers would suffice.

We covered the top of the containers in clear plastic wrap and put them in fridge.

Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Jack Johnson

Part 2:
Later at 4:56PM I finished the top of the casserole as follows. I mashed up some Ritz crackers in a measuring cup and added what remained of the butter - a little less than a tablespoon. Then over the Ritz crackers I sprinkled some cheese and immediately put the two containers into the oven and waited for 30 minutes.

*The bag also had instructions for preparing the green beans in a microwave.
**Given that the green beans would end up baking in the oven, perhaps 4 or 5 minutes would have sufficed as well.
***We had scaled the recipe by 3/5, which meant using approximately .604 cups of sour cream. However, some how we ended up just eyeballing the amount needed and the requested .604 cups became a vague "use about 1 cup of sour cream." Yikes.
****I made cuts perpendicular to the line, but I should have made diagonal cuts, which look much more elegant.

Comments:
Although we slightly overcooked the green beans, Mark and I figured it wouldn't have any impact on the dish.

Results:
Overall the dish was tasty, but I would have preferred grilling the onions a little first as opposed to working directly with them raw. Also, while the use of Ritz crackers for breading was interesting, I would consider finding a different choice of breading in the future.

[20121201]

---

Relevant Links:
Green Bean Casserole (AllRecipe.com)*
My Thanksgiving Dinner (Table of Contents) post

*The original recipe called for three 14.5 oz. cans of green beans. But I bought two 14 oz. bags of them so I changed the serving size of the recipe from 10 to 6.

Mashed Potatoes

20121122:
Today my friends and I got together and made several Thanksgiving dishes, including mashed potatoes from scratch.

Preparation of the mashed potatoes from scratch was simpler than I thought and took less time than I thought it would take. As such, I learned that mashed potatoes are a great dish to prepare while other dishes are baking. This would also efficiently skip the need to reheat them. On the other hand, there were steps I could have taken to prepare the dish ahead of time and then just bake it before serving.

Steps We Took:
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Florence + the Machine

Part 1:
Mark and I began peeling the potatoes. After they were mostly peeled, I worked on peeling any remaining skin and Mark began to wash them. We boiled water in a large pot. Then I cut the potatoes into smaller chunks. To keep a uniform size, I cut each potato in half along the length of the potato, and then cut each half in half. Finally, I cut each quarter into three or four chunks depending on the length of the slice. Mark put the potatoes in the boiling water.

Part 2:
After an unknown amount of time - though longer than half an hour - we poked the potatoes with a fork and no resistance was met. Now that the potatoes were nice and soft, we took turns mashing them with a spoon.*

Needing to scale the recipe, we estimated that we had bought large potatoes and that a large potato is about 8 ounces. Thus we figured we had 40 ounces (or 2.5 pounds) of potatoes. Finally, since the recipe on the site used 5 pounds of potatoes, we concluded that we would cut the recipe in half.

We used 3/4 stick, or equivalently 6 tablespoons, of butter. We also added 4 ounces of cream cheese. At this point, the original recipe adds a 1/2 cup of Half & Half. If I had some, I would have added it - but I didn't have any - so I just ignored it. Of the various spices and herbs I had, I decided to add dried parsley, Crazy Jane, and freshly ground black pepper. Perhaps - even after adding the Crazy Jane - the mixture was under salted, but we figured people can add salt later, and gravy tends to add enough salt to mashed potatoes.** We placed the mashed potatoes into a large bowl, covered it with clear plastic wrap, and put it in the fridge.

*Apparently its good to mash the potatoes over low heat to allow steam to escape to prevent them from becoming watery or mealy. Unfortunately, I didn't read this tidbit in detail until writing this post. Fortunately, I think we mashed for long enough that most of the steam escaped without mashing over low heat.
**While the instructions mentioned that one can keep it simple due to the gravy (come Thanksgiving time), they later advised to avoid undersalting the potatoes. This was hard advice to follow.

Comments:
While I didn't have the time to fully follow and learn all the details that go into making mashed potatoes, the link I used was a great resource. With that being said, being able to improve on mistakes is part of why I blog my attempts at baking/cooking.

Some Missed Advice:
The resource I used to make the mashed potatoes had two useful tidbits I didn't notice.

The first was to top the potatoes with more slices of butter, cover with foil, and refrigerate.

The second was, when preparing the dish a day or two in advance, remove the mashed potato out of the fridge two to three hours before serving time and bake in a 350-degree oven covered with foil for 20 to 30 minutes (or until warm).

In contrast, I just covered the bowl (didn't top with butter), refrigerated it, and then microwaved it for 5 minutes.

The "tastes good without gravy" Version

Partial Result:
The mashed potatoes were hardly touched at the dinner and so I had enough leftovers to which I can bake after adding more spices and herbs.

[20121130][20161112 Edit]

---

20121130:
I've slowly been chipping away at the mashed potatoes over the past few days. Overall, I'm happy that I achieved the creamy texture that was intended by the recipe. Unfortunately, the mashed potatoes were bland on their own and depended on the gravy to give them any taste.

[20121130][20161112 Edit]

---

20121201:
Today I added paprika, lemon & pepper, Jane's Mixed-Up Salt, dried oregano, and pepper to the mashed potatoes. Then I sautéed about half an onion (chopped) until browned, or even charred, and added it to the mashed potatoes.
Results:
Today's adjustment made the mashed potatoes delicious. I saved what I had left of this new mix for dinner.

I also loved the smell that the sautéed* onions left in my apartment. It filled it and I noticed it most after I had left and returned to it.

*I replaced the adjective "browned" with "sautéed" because there are different ways to brown onions and hence I wanted to be more specific on how I browned the onions by specifying they were sautéed. On the other hand, sautéed onions don't necessarily have to be browned. In fact, a lot of the chopped onion had begun to blacken.

[20121201][20121202 Edit][20161112 Edit]

---

Relevant Links:
Delicious, Creamy Mashed Potatoes (ThePioneerWomen.com)
My Thanksgiving Dinner (Table of Contents) post
My Sausage, Asparagus, and Mashed Potatoes post

---

Grammar Lesson:
Question: Which of the following do you think is correct? 1) "The mashed potatoes are bland" 2) "The mashed potatoes is bland" 3) "The mashed potato is bland."
Answer: First, the dish in American English is called "mashed potatoes" while the dish in British English is called "mashed potato" (analogously there is "scrambled eggs" and "scrambled egg"). In American English, one would say "The mashed potatoes are bland," analogous to how one would say "These pants are blue." One could alternatively say, "The mashed potato dish is bland" or "The mashed potatoes dish is bland," analogous to how one would say "This pair of pants is blue."

Sweet Potato Casserole

20121116:
I like potlucks, because they give me a reason to cook. At the moment, however, I don't have enough motivation to cook without them.

The finished product. (20121116)

For today's potluck, I asked the audience whether they wanted a sweet potato dish, green bean casserole*, or cranberry sauce. When I next checked back, the vote was more or less spread evenly. So I tipped the scale by introducing my preference and decided to make a sweet potato casserole.

*I did, however, eventually make green bean casserole for Thanksgiving dinner.

Steps I Took:
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Norah Jones

Bake the sweet potatoes:*
Washed the potatoes. (Should have been Step 3)
Poked the potatoes with a fork. (Should have been Step 4)
Lined baking sheet with aluminum foil. (Should have been Step 2)
Set oven to 400 degrees F. (Should have been Step 1)
Baked for an hour.

Topping:**
Pounded dark brown sugar which dried out. Sifted. 4:17PM
Sifted 1/3 cup flour twice. Added the flour and sugar to a bowl and mixed.
I forgot I was going to double the topping.

The (poked) sweet potatoes. (20121116)

I opened a box of light brown sugar and added a 1/2 cup to the mix.
I added another 1/3 cup flour.
Next, I cut up (1 cup) butter into pieces and then added it to the mixture. I sliced the butter into smaller and smaller pieces.***
Added 1 cup chopped pecans. 4:37PM

Took out the potatoes at the 1 hour mark.**** Lowered oven to 325.

Potato Mixture:
Measured 1/4 cup sugar.
Beat two eggs and mixed them with the sugar.
Ground and added 1/2 tsp salt.
Added 1/2 cup evaporated milk.
Added potatoes.
Blended it.
Mixed in 1 tsp cinnamon by hand.
99% certain I added 1 tsp vanilla extract and 75% certain I added 4 tbsp butter.
Threw topping on top of potato mixture.
Put mixture into the oven. 5:15PM.
Planned to take it out around 5:45PM.

Topping mixture, pre-pecans. (20121116)

*Things would have been more efficient if I had done the steps as numbered in parentheses.
**I doubled the topping ingredients except for the butter
***The recipe instructed "to cut in the butter" and to do it until coarse. Then I found this snippet on About.com:

"Cutting in" means incorporating shortening or butter into the flour in such a way that little lumps of the raw fat remain whole within the flour mixture. When the dough is baked, these little lumps create separation in the structure of the product, which is what gives it that flaky consistency.

****My one undoing might have been not baking the potatoes long enough. I was crossing my fingers.

Comments:
Starting the baking process at 3:50PM was problematic for a 5:30PM deadline. But I could have used the time the potatoes were baking as preparation for the dish.

Doing some reading while I waited for the casserole to bake, I learned that preparing the topping first would be another problem. The topping would be less flaky, due to the softening of the butter. Apparently another option would have been to put it in the refrigerator. Live and learn.

Potato mixture in glassware. (20121116)

I can attempt to make this dish again for Thanksgiving! Though I might consider looking up a marshmallow version. I think I had such a sweet potato dish once and loved it. Though I like sweet dishes. It might depend on how sweet this one turns out.

Follow-up Comments:
The dish together with the glassware was heavy and I wasn't sure if I would make it to my destination without dropping it. It was about a fifteen to twenty minute walk and I had to use an oven mitt on my left hand and pot holder on my right hand. The glass underneath felt a bit slippery, but thankfully the lid on top is plastic and provided a sufficient grip.

While the heat made it difficult to hold, it eased my mind knowing that the dish would still be cooking, if not already cooked. It also eased my mind to know that the topping crumbled and behaved the way I would expect topping to behave.

Being rushed, I didn't have time to precisely measure the amount of potato that was suppose to go into the potato mixture. However, I happily succeeded with using my intuition to get the right consistency. Furthermore, the amount made perfectly came to the brim of the glassware I used.

The finished product. (20121116)

In hindsight, I could have gotten away with perhaps one-and-a-half topping instead of doubling the topping recipe. That is, I preferred the topping thick, but it ended up being too thick. Also, doubling all but the butter worked out just fine.

Finally, I'm not sure how essential the cinnamon was, but I'm glad I remembered to add it.

Results:
I liked it. I don't think it was too sweet. But as I mentioned in the follow-up comments at the end of this post, I could have balanced the dish out by reducing the amount of topping.

Given the amount that remained, about five spoonfuls in spots along the edge, I'd consider the dish a success. Of course, my standards for a successful dish are low. I'm happy if I make something that people are willing to eat.

[20121117]

---

20121122:
I was looking forward to baking this dish for a second time for Thanksgiving dinner, but unfortunately things didn't go as smoothly.

Baked sweet potatoes. The one at the right broke open prior to being prodded. (20121122)

Steps We Took:
Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Ingrid Michaelson

Part 1:
My friend Mark set out to wash the sweet potatoes while I lined a baking pan with aluminum foil. We set the sweet potatoes on the foil and baked them at 400 F.

Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Florence + the Machine

Part 2:
I just went to check on the sweet potatoes at the two hour mark (2:30PM) and I realized I forgot to prod them with a fork before putting them in the oven. One potato had opened on its own, but the others had internally bloated. I guess that's why you have to prod them. From this experience, I've learned that you don't have to prod them too much, just a couple here and there to allow the steam to escape.

Listening to Last.fm Radio Station: Jack Johnson

Part 3:
Potato Mixture:
After letting the sweet potatoes cool, Kalina set out on peeling the potatoes. Afterwards, she worked on the sweet potato mixture.

Potato mixture in the glassware. (20121122)

1/4 cup sugar, 2 eggs (beaten), Ground and added 1/2 tsp salt, 1 tsp vanilla, 4 tbsp of butter

I didn't buy a can of evaporated milk, because I had a can at home. Unfortunately it was already expired. You could tell, because it had turned yellow. Then I saw a can of condensed milk, but that had expired too. So then I started boiling some milk and was happy until I realized it was fat free! So I added 4 tbsp of butter. The pot had about 2 cups of milk. I continued boiling it and used half a cup. Thus there was approximately 1 tbsp of butter to make up for any loss of fat.

Topping:
2/3 cup flour. Sifted once.
1 cup light brown sugar.
Kalina began chopping some pecans, but she was doing it ever so carefully. So when I said we needed a cup of chopped pecans, she didn't look so happy, and I took over.
Then I cut 3 tbsp butter into the mix of flour, sugar, and pecans with two table knives.
In the end, I poured most of the topping on top, but not all of it. I made the assumption that the topping should be like icing on a cake: put a bunch on and let the person eating decide how much to ignore.

Part 4:
At 4:31PM, I put the sweet potato casserole in the oven. The oven was at 375 for the lasagna but the recipe calls for the sweet potato casserole to bake at 325.

Topping. (20121122)

I decided I should wait until about 5:00PM to check on it.

At around 4:50PM we moved the temperature up, as it was short of 375. We'll need to add some cooking time on the lasagna (because the oven was at 325 instead of 375).

Comments and Results:
Darn! I didn't take out the sweet potato casserole on time; I took it out at the same time as the green bean casserole. As a result, it was slightly burnt, if not in taste, then certainly in color. And since I believed the look of a dish affects one's perception on how it should taste, I was a bit disappointed.

On the plus side, it was still sweet and delicious. I could taste a smoky and burnt flavor every once in a while, but I was still satisfied with the overall taste. As such, the dish didn't turn out as well as the first time around, but it turned out well enough and it showed I still have a lot to learn.

Focusing on what went right, while I didn't prod the potatoes, I definitely baked them long enough this time around, and so the potatoes could easily be mashed by hand. Thus, the resulting consistency and color of the sweet potato mixture turned out nicer than the first time around.

[20121130][20161107 Edit]

---

20121130:

A week later... the last portion. (20121130)

---

Relevant Links:
Yummy Sweet Potato Casserole (AllRecipes.com)
Baked Sweet Potatoes (RealSimple.com)
My Thanksgiving Dinner (Table of Contents) post