My first Christmas dinner

So today was the big day - my first Christmas dinner ever! I woke up at 8 am and started cooking. First on the agenda was the pies. Now, the instant pie crust turned out really well. It was so easy... and it tasted much better than the frozen ones anyway. Which makes me wonder why I spent so much darn time wandering around! I made two pies - the first one I had the oven set on the wrong setting (no heat from the bottom) so it turned out a bit funny - wet crust - but the second one turned out absolutely perfect!



Then it was time to do up the potatos and squash. Yes the 900 yen squash. I made up both of them and set them aside to be baked later. Figured they could cook while the turkey was setting.





I should point out that I completely understand why my mom was always tired at Thanksgiving and Christmas - cooking is hard work! And do you know how many time I had to do dishes today?

Ok, everything was moving along, the turkey was being defrosted in the sink, and timing was ok. I made up the stuffing and stuffed the bird. At first I put cheese cloth in the bird because then you can just pull out the stuffing... but it took up so much real estate inside the bird, that it cut down the amount of stuffing I could stuff in by about 50%. So that came out. Stuffing tastes good, so I want as much as possible! I wasn't sure about the stuffing because it was the first time I had made it, and didn't know what it was supposed to feel like. Anyway, here is my turkey inside the oven, with a meat thermometer in the cavity (stuffing) to make sure no one got food poisoning.



So, turkey in oven, it was time to start doing up the hors d'oeuvres. I defrosted the shrimp, arranged the cheese and crackers and did up the prosciutto. Hurray! Finally, it is time to sit down. Just in time for company to arrive. Hiroshi's friend Masaaki came around 6. His other friend Yosuke was due around 7 and the turkey was supposed to be finished at 7:30ish. So things were good.

We sat around and caught up with Masaaki (haven't seen him in ages) and ate the hors d'oeuvres. The jumbo shrimp wasn't so great - I am disappointed. It wasn't very sweet. The proscuitto was delicious though and the cheese was good too. (How can cheese not be good?).

Around 6:30 I went to check the turkey and noticed it wasn't putting out many drippings. My roasting pan was essentially clean on the bottom. Actually, I really went to smell the space between the door and the oven so I could get a good waft of turkey smell! I decided to turn the turkey around because I figured the glass door side of my oven might mean the turkey wouldn't cook evenly (and I could smell it more if I opened the door). Well, the little red pop-up thing was up! My turkey was done! Holy cow! This was not good. Glad I decided to turn it around because otherwise I would have over done it. Here I was, all worried about undercooking the turkey... and I almost over cooked it! According to the 30 minutes per lb rule and all the websites I looked at, my turkey should have taken 4 and a half hours to cook. It was done in only 3!

This of course created great panic. I checked the stuffing thermometer and it was at the right temperature too, so the turkey was ready to come out of the oven... but Yosuke wasn't due for another half an hour! So I kept it in the oven on low and then began to panic because the great timing for the day was now off.

Yosuke came and I whipped the turkey out of the oven and threw the potatos and squash in to cook. Then I had to make up the gravy and the salad... only I didn't have anywhere to do this because people were sitting at the table, and the turkey was sitting on the only counter space that I have. Oh, and I couldn't do the gravy right away because I couldn't transfer the turkey until it had cooled enough. Help! I didn't think about available counter space when I planned out when to cook things! Hiroshi thankfully pulled out the table we have in the entrance to our apartment and wiped it off for me to use. Then I put him to work as the gravy stirrer. Of course he was completely tanked at this point, and getting a drunk person to stir gravy isn't a good idea because I think he was trying to slop more of it out of the pan than mix and thicken.

Anyway, everything eventually got on the table, and was still hot too. Phew! I finally got to use the Christmas centerpiece that I have been saving for six years (I'm not joking, my mom sent it to me my first Christmas in Japan, and I have never lit the candles in it). Everything looked good and my only regret was not having nice dishes (those special dishes come in handy if you are having a dinner party!).



Everybody ate and ate and ate. Boys like turkey. Everything turned out edible so I was happy and overall had a successful Christmas dinner :) So here's the run-down on the food:

Turkey - turned out great, but the bird wasn't that good. A lot of gristly, fatty stuff that you couldn't eat, so not much meat on the bird at all. The breast meat was good though.

Potatos - a big hit! Sour cream in Japan is like fancy restaurant thick stuff so they were a lot more sour than what my mom (Barb) makes. The guys absolutely loved them though and had third helpings.

Squash - this turned out great! It was so sweet! I just put a bit of maple syrup on top, but the squash itself tasted like it had been sweetened. I'll definitely make this again. I'll post the recipe tomorrow.

Stuffing - I don't think I put enough liquid in it because it didn't stick together very well. The bread was starting to go to mush though when I was making it so I stopped adding water... guess it could have used a bit more. Still edible and tasty though!

Gravy - didn't have much fat on the turkey, but I used the broth from boiling the giblets for my gravy. It was really tasty too. Hiroshi wants to know why it wasn't dark like my mom's though. Not sure which mom he is referring to and why my gravy was so pale. It tasted good though.

Ceasar Salad - the olive oil I bought wasn't very good so it gave the dressing a waxy taste. Mom (Rose) makes this best and mine sucked in comparison. The only thing I was disappointed with.

So here is a picture of the table before we started eating - with Masaaki, Yosuke and Hiroshi.



And this is what the table looked like post-feast. You can see the turkey carnage and the picture is a bit blurry because, well, we had all been drinking.



Of course, the menu review wouldn't be complete without dessert...
Pumpkin Pie - awesome. I even whipped up some real whip cream. It was heavenly. And I even have a picture to make you salivate in preparation for your own x-mas feast.



So that was dinner. It turned out great considering how worried I was! (Lisa, all those pics were for you!) Now I have to do all the dishes .... again! Isn't there something about the cook not having to do the dishes? Unfortunately Hiroshi is passed out from either alcohol or turkey sleeping chemical... or both... so I think it is up to me. Maybe I can reward myself with another piece of pumpkin pie...