Thanksgiving cooking - early birds.

[Sarlon]

no prep for me...did MY big dinner last week. This week (thrusday) is with my parents, brother, and his girlfriend.

and I'm incharge of making dessert....anyone have suggestions?

[ADoyle90815]

I'm going to make pumpkin pies tomorrow, as I got the canned pumpkin last week, but most stores still have that available. I was at Trader Joe's getting some cheese and crackers for appetizers, and I noticed they still had canned pumpkin, but they were out of cranberry sauce. The turkey's been thawing since Sunday evening, so it should be ready by Thursday.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Heavy cream and a pinch of salt, put in jar and shake until it starts making butter flakes. Eventually you'll have butter and liquid.

That's pretty much it. Garden variety heavy cream. Shake until butter happens. Although I don't add salt until after. You can shake it, or put it in a mixer (I usually use a bread machine to mix it). I might try it in the blender or with a hand mixer. It's not rocket science, really. Anything that will shake it up should work. My dad used to make it when he was a kid using arm power and a mason jar.

What will happen is you will get whipped cream. Keep going. It will get very stiff. Then it will start to look a little chunky. It will suddenly collapse on itself, and will get thin again. Keep going, this is the stage where the butterfat is getting thrown out of the whey. All at once, the butterfat will clump up and separate and you'll have buttermilk full of butter chunks.

Pour this out through a strainer and save the buttermilk. It is DELICIOUS if you used fresh cream. Oh, you think you don't like buttermilk? Okay, just promise me you will at least try it. You probably have not had real buttermilk. It's not the same as cultured.

Rinse the butter with very cold water. Get all the buttermilk off or it will go rancid on you rather quickly. This is the point I salt it or add herbs if I am making herb butter.

You can clabber the cream beforehand if you want (I see no real advantage to that, unless you want sour buttermilk afterwards.) Clabbering basically means you leave raw cream out on your counter till it curdles. I prefer fresh cream myself.

[MaggieTheCat]

Wow, that sounds really good and really easy. I make fresh whipped cream all the time to top pudding and cakes and stuff. I always do it with a hand mixer, it only takes a couple minutes to get thick whipped cream. Next time I have some spare cream in the fridge, I will try whipping it and just keep going. Thanks for the "recipe."

[AccountingDrone]

Of course I am cooking in advance =) the only thing left to purchase is cream for whipping, and half and half for coffee and other uses. I even bought some german cultured butter that is already herbed . Pies are done [pumpkin and apple, and a mincemeat from an old family recipe using venison. Sourdough loaf is rising in its tub, veggies are selected and ready to cook. Everything is ready to get packed into the car and schlepped up to Rochester. I took over cooking from my mom about 10 years ago [she is 86 this year] and it is just easier for the mountain to go to Mohammad

[AdminAssistant]

When I talked to Mom last night she said she was going to do grocery shopping today. Apparently my sister is spending Thursday with my BIL's family (*SIGH*), so we're doing a separate family dinner on Friday. Because my mother will not be happy until she has husband, both children, and grandchild sitting around the same table.

But she's making her infamous chicken'n'dressing, so it's all good.

[Jester]

Anyone else getting some cooking done early?

I am, but in a different way. I am doing a lot of shopping today and cooking tomorrow or Thursday for a chili cookoff on Sunday. Thursday day I will work at The Bar, and then watch some football, perhaps have one of their special dinners offered that day (either the meat loaf dinner or else the turkey dinner without the turkey but with extra stuffing, since I don't care for turkey but LOVE stuffing), and then maybe go home and cook chili and drink wine, beer, and/or rum. And, of course, watch football!

...a can of cranberry sauce in the fridge...

I was at Trader Joe's...and I noticed... they were out of cranberry sauce.

Once I found out how amazingly easy it is to actually make cranberry sauce, I never bothered buying a can of it again. Find a recipe on the net....very easy. If anyone's interested, I have a killer recipe for it that is just as easy but adds a bit more pizzaz...PM me.

Mashed potatoes are coming out of a box (which i actually feel bad about since i was raised in idaho), gravy's in a jar.

I grew up on instant mashed potatoes, and while I like the real deal, I have to be honest...I like the instant stuff as well. And I never thought they tasted like cardboard....and I grew up on them in the 70's and 80's!

The boy eats like a horse.

Standing up with his face in a bucket?

[It shouldn't]

I started monday.
Did the grocery shopping after work and made the cake part for the pumpkin rolls.
Last night I made the filling and stuffed the pumpkin rolls. I also cooked the cranberries.
Tonight I have to mix up the spinach casserole and bake the crust for the lemon merigune pie.
All I have left for Thursday is bake the spinach and the rest of the lemon pie.
Load everything in the car (Pop and wine is already in it, never unloaded it after shopping) and haul it to my SIL's.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

BUTTER UPDATE:

Okay, I just made the butter. Decided not to mess with the bread machine. So' I tried it in the blender. Here's the problem with the blender. It thickens pretty much INSTANTLY...but then it's too thick to mix. Blenders are tall and thin, so the cream doesn't churn all around.

So, I put it into a bowl and tried the hand blender on it. Probably would have worked, but decided it was impractical because now, I had to chase the cream around the mixing bowl with a little hand blender.

And I was experimenting for you guys. So, time to try the hand mixer.

The mixer worked fine. Here are some tips for making butter with a mixer:

Use the biggest bowl you can find. I used a huge steel mixing bowl. Stuff splashes when it starts throwing the curd.

Hold it at an angle and swipe over the stuff that sticks to the sides often. Scrape it down with a spatula a couple times for good measure.

Once it starts really throwing, hold the bowl at an angle and keep the mixer blades in the liquid. The whirling motion with throw the curd up against the side of the bowl.

This method makes for easier rinsing, as the butter ends up in fine crumbles. I put it bit by bit into a mesh strainer and poured water from my refridgerator dispenser through it until it ran clear.

Drain the water out and pack it into a container. Or just let it stay crumbly. Your choice.

[MaggieTheCat]

Hey RK, and others who make homemade butter. I've been doing a bit of reading and some people who have tried to make their own butter say that ultra-pasteurized cream doesn't work. What is everyone's experience with this? I just checked the cream I have in the fridge (which I'm saving for our big dinner on Sunday, so I can't try it myself right now) and it is ultra-pasteurized. If ultra-pasteurized cream doesn't work, any suggestions on where to get cream that will work? This brand is the only brand I've ever bought (at a regular grocery store) so I'm not sure if I'd be able to get non-pasteurized cream there or not.

[RecoveringKinkoid]

I don't know anything about that. I usually buy whatever heavy cream I find at the store and go to town.

Now, I've had some cream throw it's curds faster than others, and some I've had to run through a couple cycles in the bread machine, but I've never had it not happen.

The stuff I used today was nothing special.

Okay, I just walked to the fridge and looked (I have several cartons of the same cream). It's ultra pasteurized and it threw just fine. So clearly, that is not the case.

I'd give it a try with whatever you have.

I do know that some people who've tried to make butter dont understand the changing texture of the cream as it is churned, and may have simply given up when the cream re-liquified again. Which is normal. They probably are getting a nice whipped cream, and when it re-liquifies, they think it's not working.

[AccountingDrone]

oooooo hun, you took the really hard way to make butter....

get 2 kids, about 6 or so years old. Take a 1 gallon mayo jar salvaged from a deli. Insert cream and a very clean dinner fork. Place kids about 4 feet apart. Place jar on its side between them. proceed to make them roll it back and forth between them. About 15 minutes of this and you have butter and buttermilk

Or you can put a pint of milk into a clean 1 quart jar and shake the hell out of it [this is the way they do it in kindergarden in western NY]

[RecoveringKinkoid]

That is how my dad did it when he was a kid.

[draggar]

The squash is done (and such a pity, there was too much for the container so I had to put some in a bowl. With some butter and pepper..

RK - do you think I could make the butter with a Kitchen Aid mixer (like this: http://www.amazon.com/KitchenAid-KSM...9191539&sr=8-2 )?

Should I use the wisk attachment (a wisk as opposed to what a normal blender would use).

I may actually want to try this.

How cold should the water be for rincing? In FL out "cold" water isn't too cold - should I just put a gallon of tap in the fridge the night before? Or leave the butter in the strainer and use ice water?

get 2 kids, about 6 or so years old. Take a 1 gallon mayo jar salvaged from a deli. Insert cream and a very clean dinner fork. Place kids about 4 feet apart. Place jar on its side between them. proceed to make them roll it back and forth between them. About 15 minutes of this and you have butter and buttermilk

I'm assuming it could work with dogs, too?

[RecoveringKinkoid]

Yeah, I actually looked on line about a week ago to see if a Kitchen Aid would make butter and evidently, it will. Haven't done it, mind you, but if you google Kitchen Aid Mixer +making butter, you should get plenty of advice.

Someone wants my bread machine and since the only thing I use it for anymore is making butter, I'm considering giving it to them...provided I can still make butter. And it gives me a reason to ask the husband for a KA.

Here is the deal with the cold water....it has to be cold enough that it does not soften the butter. You melt the butter while you are rinsing it, there goes your butter. I use the water out of the fridge dispenser because I know that water is really cold. I have used tap water...because I generally only make butter in the winter and the tap water is cold in the winter .

Basically, if it's warm enough to soften the butter, it's too warm.