Hot, Hot Kitchen
You know, today would be a great day for it to be cold. By mid-morning, the kitchen was stifling hot, and the oven will be on almost non-stop until tomorrow afternoon.
In the oven today:
Baking pumpkins, for pumpkin pie
Baking pie shells
Roasting two chickens, to serve cold tomorrow
In the oven tomorrow:
Roasting a turkey, from about 6:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m.
Baking two pumpkin pies (separately, as they won't fit at the same time)
Baking a dish of stuffing
There have been a few, um, substitutions necessary. In addition to giving our dinner a nod to the Philippines with some noodles and rice, I'm baking pumpkin pies from scratch. After scouring the area supermarkets for canned pumpkin, I started to think about using fresh pumpkin.
"Do you think it'll be worth the effort?" I asked.
"Probably not," Shelly said. But she doesn't eat pumpkin pie, anyway, so I don't know why I bothered asking her. She's baking chocolate chip cookies, instead.
I sought a second opinion. Mom has been good at suggestion time-saving substitutions for dinner, most of which I rejected. Using a frozen pie crust, for example, would actually be a great idea if I was using pumpkin from a can. But I can't make the filling from scratch and cheat on the crust.
"I wouldn't see why using fresh pumpkin would be much more work than using canned pumpkin," Mom said. "When you read the side of the pumpkin can, all it lists for ingredients is pumpkin."
So I was off to the market to make what might have been the store's largest-ever single purchase of pumpkin. These aren't the big, orange pumpkins I grew up, but actually a much tastier, much smaller green pumpkin that I first ate in Japan but have started to see in the supermarkets at home.
Pumpkins, fresh from the oven
I'll let you know how it goes. Brad's stuffing recipe will be getting a work-out, too, substituting dried blueberries for dried cranberries (my other choices of dried fruit seem to be mangos or bananas, neither of which would be any better than blueberries), walnuts for pecans and Filipino longanisa sausage for pork sausage. But, like I said to Jim yesterday, the Americans at the party will just be glad for the Thanksgiving dinner, and the Filipinos at the party probably won't realize anything's wrong if the taste isn't quite right.
8 comments:
Greg,
As I was shoveling and yes also using my trusty 25 year John Deere snow blower, to remove three inches of Wisc. snow off my drive way. I thought about one of your comments in an earlier blog, exploring your interest in securing work in Manila; while I am not sure Shelly can get you out of the kitchen, maybe she can redirect your efforts. I see opportunities to open an American cuisine grocery store, (you could have a sit down counter and serve American hamburgers, maybe an Iowa pork tenderloin, and of course American "french fries" topped off an with a rich chocolate Wisc. custard malt or shake, etc. Have you found all of those over there??) you could stock pumpkin, american cat food, and many more American delicacies in "Mister Tanaka's" store. And, with your law background possible those seven garbage men need a labor agent, although it appears with seven on one truck, maybe they already have one.
Summary:
I have enjoyed your daily posts, I usually read them on at least on a weekly basis and enjoy the heat, it was plus 7 farenheit the other morning in WI.
Lizard....is that you? It's either you or Uncle Larry. Sounds more like Liz, but I could be wrong. Either way, thanks!
We bought a pumpkin pie from Bing's Bakery for $4.95 this year. It definitely was easier than your approach! Hope yours turns out as good as Bing's. We did make the turkey, stuffing, potatoes and cranberry salad -- so we're not far behind you. Of course, the temperature in our kitchen was very comfortable. Hmm, I wonder who the WI anonymous could be. :)
The last posting was Sat. Nov. 26, 2005, "Hot, Hot Kitchen",
Did it get so HOT that your new computer melted? We are waiting for the BIG Sunday PARTY UPDATE?
Now I'm curious as to the WI person too. I don't think I gave Uncle Larry the blog address. Maybe he got it in DE!
Come on! The kitchen must be cleaned up my now! or Did you take up my recomendation to open a deli, from the look at that pile of pumpkin, you could have opened up a bakery with a full rack of American pumpkin pies. or; I hope your not out riding on the gargage truck, or did you bribe the driver in order to drive? We are waiting the American Sunday party update, it must have been great!! This is like waiting for the next "Harry Potter" edition to come out.
I'm updating today...Tuesday, Philippine-time. Sorry!
WOW, an impressive update, the next edition has arrived. Sorry we missed the Sunday party, could have shipped some North American snow your way, we had plenty in ND and it is plus -6 F this am. Did you ask for a ride in the FED EX plane. You could have said you knew Tom Hanks, but then it may have turned into a Gilligan Island adventure instead of "Mister Tanaka's Oversea Adventure"
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