Tofurky day!

Joe and I had a low key Thanksgiving with minimal mental melt downs. I decided I did not want to have a brain aneurysm so I decided not to make pie crust. Joe decided he did want to have a brain aneurysm and made Peking duck.

This is not duck. This is cornbread.

Joe warned me that the duck carcass would be hanging out in the kitchen the day before to do it's Peking duck thing. So when I came home on Wednesday and Joe told me not to freak out about what was in the kitchen, I didn't think anything of it and expected for the duck carcass to be out on the counter. And it was. The duck was laying on the counter. With our giant fan placed in front of it. If the duck had hair, its hair would be flying in the breeze. I asked Joe why exactly was the duck placed strategically in a wind tunnel? and he told me that Peking ducks are supposed to be 'hung upside down in a windy area'. And because our landlord may not appreciate us dangling a duck carcass out the window on a string, a fan seemed like the best option. Sure.

Roasted garlic. Calorie free, obviously. For the:

... mashed potatoes!

I thought about making the pumpkin pie the night before but then I took some Xanax and went to sleep instead. Such is life. I discovered a pumpkin pie recipe that featured a shortbread crust while I was perusing the Martha Stewart website and I decided to go with that. I hate making pie crust and I don't particularly like it so this seemed perfect.

Brussel sprouts: pre-roast
And post-roast. Yum.

This pie was kind of ridiculously easy but I'm not complaining. The hardest part I had was figuring out when to take it out, since I haven't made many pumpkin pies and the filling is supposed to be jiggly when you take them out. But not too jiggly. And of course not jiggle-less. A gray area of jiggly. And I am not a Jiggle Master. A Jiggle Pro. Head Mistress of Jiggle. I am a Jiggle Apprentice and after checking the pie a few times I took it out at what I decided was an appropriate level of jiggleosity.

Clearly any silly words should not be included in any recipe I make, I just cannot stop.

Cornbread, up close and personal.

I really liked the way it came out, the shortbread crust was super easy and paired well with the filling. The shortbread crust was crunchy and not too sweet and did I mention about nine million times easier than making pie crust? Win win. Joe says he prefers regular ol' pie crust which is fine as long as he's willing to pay the mental health bills.

I was out of the kitchen pretty quickly since making pumpkin pie consists of lots of waiting. In the mean time, Joe made everything else: mashed potatoes, cornbread, brussel sprouts and gravy. I wandered in and out of the kitchen now and then to watch Joe battle the duck. The dimple-y skin from where the feathers were plucked out freaked me out the most. Perhaps because while getting something from the fridge and coming face to face with the duck I realized that is what my legs look like in winter.


I thought everything turned out really well, Joe did a lovely job. He did almost lose it while trying to carve the duck into pieces that did not look like a bear had shredded it. Minor detail though, he doesn't disassemble poultry all year round. He is now convinced he must go through some sort of poultry boot camp and make one every day for a week. I am so looking forward to it.

Here's the two recipes we used, everything else was just hodge podged together.
- Easy Pumpkin Pie with Shortbread Crust
- Skillet Cornbread