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Welcome to my blog. The purpose here is simple: to chronicle my thoughts, actions, plans, and goals in getting healthy in the year 2017. Feel free to look around and offer encouragement or suggestions.

Saturday, November 25, 2017

Thanksgiving Lite

I've always loved Thanksgiving. I love the eating, but more than that I love the sense of accomplishment of putting together a feast. Seriously, I lose my freaking mind. I go for a huge turkey and a million sides, even when it was just me. I've gotten my system of massive food production down to a science.

Unfortunately my system was worth exactly nothing this year. My traditional feast...like every bit of it...was loaded with fat and carbohydrates that the nutrisystem meal plan frowns upon. I got three emails from my study coordinator reminding me to enjoy the holidays in moderation. My fiance even commented on how Thanksgiving was going to suck this year because I can't eat any of the good stuff. Needless to say, I felt pressure to prove that a healthier Thanksgiving was not only possible, but also incredibly delicious. I looked up recipe after recipe. I had a plan. I was going to make turkey, of course, as well as whipped carrots, mashed cauliflower, sweet potato gnocci, corn soufflé, sautéed green beans with mushrooms, caprese asparagus, and butternut squash macaroni and cheese (because something has to be fatty and cheesy).

Here's the thing: this was beyond a doubt the most frustrating, disappointing Thanksgiving meal I have ever made. First off, due to a complete lack of reading comprehension, we only had half a turkey because we picked up a turkey breast instead of a whole turkey. That's fine, I told myself, breast meat is healthier anyway. The cook times on the package, however, were clearly the stock intructions for the whole turkey because it was finished two hours early. Which might have been fine if I weren't sidetracked for an hour trying to make the sweet potato gnocci work. After following the instructions I ended up with a sticky mess that had twice the flour in it than was called for and a headache. So that recipe was out the window. My fiance did the mac and cheese because I had dogs to go walk. They were the best part of our entire meal. I went to make the whipped carrots, which were supposed to have orange and mint, and confused it with the recipe for the cauliflower, which had thyme and garlic. Those, however, were salvageable because garlic and thyme in carrots is delicious. At this point the turkey and mac & cheese had been done about an hour and I decided to scrap the green beans, which I hadn't yet cleaned, the asparagus, which I hadn't yet trimmed and which need the oven (which was occupied keeping the mac and turkey warm)  to roast, and the corn sufflé which I hadn't yet stripped the corn off the cob. That left me with mashed cauliflower. I didn't have a steamer big enough so I tried steaming in my colander, only to have the steam lead to misshapen legs on it. So that took longer than planned. Then my little 4 quart food processor took very small batches to mash. I walked away in frustration while my fiance finished that. And that was dinner.

Y'all. I'm going to rant here.

Anyone who insists that cauliflower is an adequate substitute for potatoes is lying to themselves and others. Don't get me wrong. I like cauliflower. I eat it raw, steamed, or roasted. I will never again, and I do mean NEVER, mash that shit and try to pretend it's at all potato like. They came out watery and gross. After squeezing and draining. In spite of having delicious additions like ricotta and toasted garlic and thyme, it was overwhelmingly cauliflowery. It leads me to question what kind of potatoes people who claim they can't tell the difference have been fed. Mashed cauliflower bears only a superficial resemblance to mashed potatoes and all other aspects were so incredibly not worth the amount of effort it takes to force cauliflower into an unnatural state of being. I'll stick to roasting, thanks.

So sum total: One very dry overcooked half a turkey. Check. One side, as planned, unhealthy. Check. One healthy side, delicious, but not at all as planned. Check. One gross mush that neither of us ate. Check. It was a pretty disappointing meal and I literally cried over it. I haven't had a Thanksgiving meal go this badly since I moved into my first apartment and tried to do the whole thing with two pots a pan and an aluminum serving tray.

BUT I have an incredibly supportive partner who encouraged me the whole day, and took over when I was just about ready to literally throw the entire meal out the door. I'm not kidding. I got two tasty sides and some turkey that tasted good, but definitelt needed some water to go down right. I got the absolute conviction that cauliflower is never replacing potatoes (or, by extension rice) in this house again. And I have some things to cook tomorrow.

And there's always next year.

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