A Quarter Year Full of Fun

This year marks an oddly active social schedule for a few weeks. I had New Year’s Eve event, the Super Bowl, and coming up soon, St. Patrick’s Day, the Polar Palooza, and finally Easter. I’m going to look at what I made/brought versus what I am going to make and test. This is part of a new strategy of year round TH2 thinking. 

One month into 2013 and I have already I missed a couple opportunities to make a test dish this year's TH2. New Year’s Eve we (my wife and I) brought a mixed case of good beer to the gathering we went to. In hindsight,  I would have liked to have made a test dish for the upcoming Superfun. A German Bread would have been a good  choice. The recipes I have for the breads are on the sweeter sides, and heavyish. There were a few desserts, but none that were bread-like, mostly cookies and cake. I'm going to blame food fatigue for just bringing the beer.Sometimes, even I like to just sit at a party.

For the Super Bowl of Games Event I had Feb. 3rd, I made a smoked brisket and grilled buffalo wings. I know people love the brisket, but I won’t be making either of these things for TH2.6 because they aren’t “on theme”. I have decided that this year I’m going to increase the themed side dishes and remove some of the less popular sides I have made in the past. I didn't experiment because I sent out the Anyvite before I came up with my whole year thinking. If I had to do it again, I would have made several German sausages. 

I now have the “birthday day” at work soon, and I think it’s time to start using these days for all they are worth.  I have about 2 weeks to prepare something. The food that is brought in has to sit out for 8 hours. This severely limits what I can make. I do not want to bring in a crock pot or just cut up some cured meats. A dessert or a dry side dish, or maybe one of the breads I talked about earlier. I am fairly detached from my co-workers tastes, but if most of what I bring is eaten I think I'll have a starting opinion.

The Polar Palooza is in early March. I had planned on making something simple, chili. Now, I need to figure out which German dish I am going to try out and then have to explain what it is to 40 people that night. The best dishes for these outdoor all night events are items in a crock pot. The last time I was at a Palooza I made a 2.5X batch of Boeuf bourguignon. If I can find something that the German people make that is along these lines I will bring this. I made a mistake foodwise at last years Polar Palooza. The Crock Pot will fix this.

St. Patrick’s Day is not as of now a party at home day. Last year we did a mini-pub crawl in Phoenixville. Maybe I will make something just for me that day. A German dish with potatoes maybe, or some other root vegetable. A nice belly filler to prepare for the walk around town.

Finally, Easter is March 31st this year. This is my first real shot at making a big bold dinner-type dish. As of right now I have no clue what I would make. I may sniff through my Amish/ Early Pennsylvanian cookbooks for an idea. As I get closer to each of these days, I'll keep you up to date too. 

Welcome back Thanksgiving 2 enthusiasts!

This is the first in a series of entries that will follow my social adventures. I realized that I have been using my social events to help me fine tune my Thanksgiving 2 (TH2) preparations and experience for a few years now. I hope that these musings will help other people pull off their own TH2 events.  That is the goal of course. I can’t wait for the day where someone I know throws another TH2 event and helps to spread the joy. 

The Time of Dish Experimentation

I will spend the first 5-7 months keeping track of any social gatherings I’ll be attending, participating in, or running. This will include work birthday celebrations to full blown 50 people parties. I’m going to use these entries to keep track of any new dishes, drinks or ideas that come up. I feel this will help me do two things. 1, I’ll have the entire year to test out any recipes, and 2, I can keep a nugget of the holiday spirit alive every time I make a new dessert or side dish. I’m guessing that between the “Birthday Days” at my regular job, holidays, and just random cooking binges I should be able to test at least 15 new dishes. My regular job holds the mandatory “Birthday Days”. These will be great opportunities to test out new desserts or cold side dishes. As for holidays, I have Easter, Memorial Day, July 4^th, Halloween 2, Christmas 2, Halloween 1, Labor Day, and of course Thanksgiving 1. Maybe once every 5 weeks I get an itch to make something brand new. This year I’ll be funneling these times and ideas towards TH2 foods. Since I’ll be adding in a large number of new side dishes this year, these test times will be crucial. Wish me Luck. : )

Chew Time! (cause crunch time doesn’t make sense)

Its now Wed of Thanksgiving 2 week. I have finished the pasta salad, macaroni salad, cran/pineapple sauce, and both batches of choc nut bars. Tonight I will be brining both of the leftover turkeys. (both you say!  That’s another story altogether)  Tonight and tomorrow may be the roughest parts of the whole process. Brining the turkeys is just messy. Hurling 2 16 pound turkeys into my sink and then into the coolers is not the easiest thing. The process does make a big difference in the long run. It makes cooking the turkeys more of a shotgun than a sniper rifle.

I left myself pretty wide open tonight other than the brining process because I don’t really remember how long it took me to do last year. I think I had help, but I’m not sure. I am into the homestretch if all goes well tonight. I still have a lot of room in the fridge, and then on to Thursday. If I can make it thru Thursday I will be just fine for Saturday.

Thursday is the de-meating of the leftover turkeys. I know this will take me a long time. Cutting off the breast meat will be relatively simple (I bought an electric knife), but the legs and thighs and carcass is where real men are made. I almost want to invite people over to give me motivation while I scrape all the meat off. I am sure y hands will be nice and supple afterwards.

How does he do it?!?

In case anyone out there decides to take Thanksgiving 2 into their heart in future years I thought I’d help you out. I have made my schedule of preparation. I have the 7 days prior planned out. I did not include shopping, but I believe everything else, from when to fix the decorations to when I should be heating things up. My list assumes I will have around the same size crowd (about 50) and I think this allows me to be rather leisurely with little stress each day. I did include the addition of a helper on the final day and the help of my wife leading up to the final day. I will have my regular Christmas decoration up before Thanksgiving 1, so anything else in that area will be minor. I think it’s funny how much more work is involved with the side dishes than the turkeys.

Saturday and Sunday have been combined into one entry because I am unsure whether or not I will be busy that Saturday and Sunday (it is Thanksgiving 1 weekend after all). I can’t really do any cooking quite that far ahead it’s mostly cleaning and set-up.

Monday is mostly rearranging and further indoor set-up. I don’t have kids, so I can take advantage of having my house be “out of sorts” for a few days. You’ll notice I have my first cooking on Monday. My chocolate nut bars can keep for well over a week. They take a full day to set anyway. The hardest part of making them is saving them. They may be one of my favorite desserts I know how to make.

Tuesday may very well be the roughest day. Cutting the vegetables for pasta salad takes forever. (It took me and 2 other people 8 hours to make it for my wedding. We did make over 30 pounds though.) I’m hoping to have my wife help me with this step. Macaroni salad is simple in comparison.

Wednesday starts the potato dishes and the first turkey step. I will be brining both turkeys for 24 hours in a cooler filled with water and ice. For those who do not know, brining prevents the turkey from drying out and also imparts a lot of flavor into the meat. It’s a simple step that is a safety net for me. Even if you overcook the turkey a bit, it will still be juicy. I’m trying something different with the porch this year also. I want to use the porch as the drink area. It should be cold enough to keep all beverages outside on a table. I’d prefer not having anyone dig into my fridge.

Thursday is more outside preparation. This is the first year I will be trying a tent, and Sean and I will be doing the fried turkey prep. That is very important, because I don’t want to burn my house down. The turkey for the leftovers will be roasted this day too.

Friday is an unknown. I will be making 2 totally new dishes, turkey soup and veggie turkey loaf. I am again hoping to have a little help this day. I will need some help with the final décor steps and maybe with the pie baking. The pies are some of the few items I will not be making from scratch. However, I may be making a special trip to a bakery in Levittown to pick up some “homemade” pies. I haven’t decided yet. I’ve kept Friday fairly light so I don’t become too stressed. I figure with help I will be just about ready for the big day.

SATURDAY! There are some steps I just cannot do ahead of time. You’ll see a lot of Saturday is simply reheating food and placing items in the proper space. The roughest part of the morning is going to be the cutting and slicing of the bread for dipping and sandwiches. The dipping bread is easy and I won’t stress over that, but the bread slicing I will be doing because I know I won’t squish the slices. This has less to do with my faith in other’s slicing skills and more to do with my guaranteeing it will be how I want it. After the little bit of prep and heating there is still a dish or two that will have to be made. They are easy, and should be finished with time to spare. I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait.

It's Beginning to Smell like Swiss Colony

Some of you may know of my love of the Swiss Colony company.   For those of you unfamiliar with Swiss Colony they are basically a food mail order company. They sell meats and cheeses, a large assortment of chocolates, nuts, hams, and few kinds of cakes. Everything I have ever ordered from there has been really good and I’m wondering if I should take advantage of their services this year for the big day.  

The main course of Thanksgiving 2 is basically taken care of. I am making the turkey leftovers, and my friend will be doing the turkey frying, so I have no reason to get one of their honeyed hams. The parts of the meal where I could use help are the beginning and the end. Before the meal I was debating on whether or not to get a nice collection of meats and/or cheeses. They also have some nice dip choices, but those are easy enough to make on my own. The Swiss Colony cheeses and meats require minimal prep work (just slicing really) and they do taste really good. The debate I suppose is whether or not the time I would put into the appetizers that I would replace is offset by the amount of money it would take to replace the quantity of homemade food.

The end of the meal is a whole different story. Desserts, especially some of the choices they offer, are significantly complicated to make. So, I have to weigh cost, recipe difficulty and flavor. Flavor is easy. Evreything I make will taste good and everything I order would be something I have ordered before. Difficulty almost always equals more cost to me. A rare ingredient (which means they don’t have them at Wegmans) also means increased travel time. For example, the Swiss Colony baklava is a bit more expensive than what I could purchase at a bakery, but it arrives at my house and is incredibly tasty. Flavor and convenience are hard to argue with.  Swiss Colony eliminates the difficulty factor, but trades it for cost.  I would like suggestions as I’m not sure which direction to go with this. I can only come up with one plan. I’ll pick up a few desserts and a small assortment of meat sticks because It won’t be as Christmasy feeling if there are no Swiss Colony Beef Logs.