Cheesecloth can be used for spice bags, cheese making, straining berries or for a creative use in making mummies for Halloween, among others.
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Like he would trust me not to eat half of it.
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I guess I could make cheese. It didn’t work very well as a spice bag. The mustard seeds fell right out, and I used a double thickness, as directed.
The mummy idea is a good one.
This method is garbage BTW. You cannot manipulate the shrunken, cooked skin to shove herbed butter underneath. It just tears.
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We invited a pescatarian friend to join us for Thanksgiving - we made Cioppino, and garlic bread. She brought homemade pizzelles and we made pumpkin cheesecake bars. Appetizers were smoked bluefish pate with wasabi rice crackers, endive stuffed with gorgonzola, dried cranberries, candied pecans along with some marinated olives. We stretched our visit with her out for over 7 hours. A very good time - there was gin and wine.
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And jelly!
And @small_h , I now use tea balls of assorted sizes for spices that are going to be removed.
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This is the last time I will either buy a ‘Hertiage’ Turkey or spatchcock a turkey. The HT (10.6#) was impossible to remove the backbone. I ended up cutting off the leg quarters (with a meat cleaver and a mallet). The bones were the thickest and toughest I’ve ever encountered and and was not able to flatten the breast. So, it was roasted on a wire baking rack over a foil lined, rimmed baking sheet was the method, salted, peppered and buttered. No basting. Started @ 400°, down to 325° and it was done in about 2 -1/ 4 hours.
The meat was refrigerated for making sandwiches today. Very moist and I had to refrain from devouring the skin last night. I cut it up into fine shreads for todays ’ sandwishes’. They were successful as was the vegetable soup (the grandies had fun identifying the myriad of veggies and beans in it) and the two pies, acorn squash, chocolate pudding pie and honeycrisp apple crisp. No pictures. One adult guest wanted ‘stuffing’ on his sandwich. I told him I didn’t have any ‘Stove Top’ brand around. Guest volunteered to go to thecstore to get some, however stores were closed.
The cranberry chutney recipe I mentioned a few days ago was a success. I tweaked it a bit by adding some small diced onion and fresh cranberries and a smaller amount of canned cranberry sauce. I’ll use less ACV next time, it will be a repeater, for sure!
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WOW I am in awe of this beautiful soup. What a tremendous Tgiving feast! Your whole menu is drool-worthy.
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Thanks, mig. We’re actually going to cook some turkey parts tomorrow because we miss the sandwiches!
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Yep, that’s what I pivoted to. Much better.
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I get that! Would love to try my hand at Cioppino, though - I don’t suppose you cook it from a recipe…?
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Cioppino has become a family tradition for Christmas Eve for us.
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My husband is French Canadian - we make Tourtiére for Christmas. Here’s the link for Roger’s Cioppino https://bigdeliciouslife.com/cioppino/
We went to Nauset Fish and Lobster in Orleans, MA and bought cod, scallops, cherry stones, mussels, rock shrimp in a tomato broth with garlic, shallots, leeks, fennel, tomatoes, fish stock and clam broth.
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Oops! Moved my post to the WFD thread.
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Also straining sauces and making labne from yogurt. I do like the mummy idea the best.
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I would love to be in your house right now! I can smell the aromas. Would love the coziness of the tree. I have to twist my spouses’s arm this year to do that but I will prevail.
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Come on over ! There is plenty of pie and ice cream to go around. 
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Nice! MIL has no idea where it came from.
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thank you!
No photos this year as we (me and 2 daughters) were making everything here and then porting over to my MIL’s house.
Menu (with some commentary)
Spatchcocked turkey, about 13 pounds sans spine. Herbed and salted Tuesday (salt with fresh rosemary, thyme, and sage that I dried just a bit in the oven then blitzed in the spice grinder, pasted with about 15 cloves of garlic, and olive oil). Cooked in 425°F oven and surprised when the breast hit 155°F (with thighs done) at 60 minutes. Cooked over a bed of onion/garlic/celery/carrots. Turned out darned good except the wing “flats” and the outer portion of the thighs ended up a bit too salty. I must not have been careful enough about distribution of my salt/herb rub.
Mashed yeller taters with S&P, butter, cream, sour cream, cream cheese (this is how I always make them; travels and reheats pretty well).
Gravy (gluten free) - giblets except liver, neck and backbone the day before roasted and broth-er-ized in the Instant Pot. Pan drippings scraped with boiled water and defatted. I didn’t use the onions etc. but sometimes I blend them in for a super rich gravy, but this was good enough on its own. Made a roux with KA GF 1:1 flour but it didn’t have enough thickening power so I ended up adding some cornstarch slurry, too.
Green bean casserole (gluten free) - all from scratch, with the exception that we didn’t try to make the crispy GF onions ourselves (found some at Kroger in a last ditch effort). Combo of KA GF flour and almond flour in the mushroom sauce for thickening.
Rutabagas boiled, smashed, and flavored with brown sugar and butter.
Dressing (gluten free) - D2 got Canyon GF bread and otherwise fairly standard recipe, with raisins and crazins. It was decent but not as good as the usual (non-GF). We’ve got some learning to do about how the GF breads handle liquids. Added extra turkey broth but it still got drier than we wanted.
Pull-apart rolls (not GF - D2 who is gluten sensitive put on a mask while mixing, covered everything in the kitchen in case of dry flour “floofing” into the air). Fortified (milk, eggs, butter, etc.) and very tender and tasty.
Baked sweet potatoes with butter/brown sugar (the usual stuff).
Pumpkin pie with regular crust and smaller pie with GF crust (D2 blitzed some pecans and I don’t know what all else in the food processor to make her crust).
Cranberry fluff (crushed fresh crans, crushed pineapple, whip some cream (no sugar needed) and mini-marshmallows).
Granny Smith apple crumble (GF again, both for thickening and crust/topping).
I think that’s about it. Maybe I’ve forgotten something.
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