The Follow Up

After some cooking, here's my updated Thanksgiving report. 

I completed the sweet potato souffle. DONE

 On to the deviled eggs. I boiled a dozen eggs. Three of them cracked while they were boiling! I didn't let the pot come to a hard boil, and as soon as the water boiled, I turned it down. Grr. So I had to put on another pot of eggs. And you know what? One of those cracked! Maybe it was the eggs? I'm not sure. There wasn't any crazy hard boiling going on, so I'm stumped. 

Finally I got enough eggs.

I made the Emeril recipe and split the batch, as suggested.

The eggs with the chives have pickled jalapenos and hot pepper sauce in them. Surprisingly they aren't that hot spicy. They have a more vinegar flavor to me, which I like. People can choose and that's the point. Right before I serve, I'll sprinkle the jalapeno-less ones with paprika.

Eggs DONE. 

Tomorrow I'm left to 

• finish the pumpkin bread pudding soak and bake it off. 
• bake sweet potato souffle 
• roast green beans
• cook the dressing with my grandmother
• cook the pecan pie with my grandmother

I think that's a pretty good list. I'm feeling good!

So here are the downsides I have found to being the Head Cook for Thanksgiving.

1. the clean up: I've had to clean the kitchen after each dish every night and day. That has gotten boring, but there's really no option. Just a lot of cleaning.
2. My hands are DRY: See #1. With all the hand-washing, pot cleaning, knife rinsing, etc., my hands are super, super dry. I'm lathering my hands in lotion before I go to bed tonight.
3. My refrigerator is full: I've had to move around my standard refrigerator food to accommodate all the food.
4. Cooking apparatuses: I'm not sure you can ever have enough. My pots haven't been big enough, and I'm going to need more oven space tomorrow. Solution? My sweet, sweet neighbors are traveling for Thanksgiving, and they agreed that I could use their oven tomorrow. Hallelujah! The one day you really need a second oven? Thanksgiving. And, I'm sure after dinner, I'm going to say that I need a second dishwasher. This happens to be Jack's mantra: a second dishwasher, and I will be agreeing with that tomorrow night.


That's about it. Other that those details, I've LOVED prepping for Thanksgiving.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING