Blogging Thanksgiving Part 4

Got new yeast and tried to restart my rolls, to no avail. Realized I'd increased the recipe by 50% except for the flour, which I'd doubled. Whoops. Stupid all-night cooking.

Restart the rolls. Carefully do math on 50% increase, but the dough is way too wet. Still batter-like. I slowly add flour until it comes together, and hand knead in the rest. Put it away to rise.

Don't think a single 9 x 13 of dressing is going to do it for the crowd, so I do another batch. Back and forth to the store to get chicken broth, more milk, more onions. 4 trips in 16 hours. Damn.

For the second batch of dressing, I'm doing caramelized onions, which increases the raw onion factor by six. Single good saute pan means I'll have to wait to cook the bacon. De-glazing with some of the broth. Cut bread into cubes before drying them. Duh.

Rolls seem to be rising. Good. 30 month old yeast was certainly a factor.

Caramelized onions are the bomb. I wonder if I should have done it in the bacon grease. That might have made more sense.

Definitely bailing on pumpkin pie. Jana is picking up my slack. Oliver says he's definitely going to do the potato dishes. Oh good.

Got a nice rise on the second try at the rolls. This is a lot of work to replace the Pillsbury. Well, now I know how to do them. Can see why doing it a week or two ahead of time is better. (the recipe discusses how to freeze them). I'm bad at actually forming them into triangular rolls. And making uniform rolls. I split the dough into two sections and the second half goes better than the first. Cover for a second rise.

Saute of second dressing batch has more volume than the first. Caramelized onions? Bigger apples. Which reminds me, peeling the apples was easier the second time around. Repetition and technique. Go figure. Mix in the herbs until they're fragrant, about a minute, then combine with beaten eggs, salt, bacon, and bread cubes. Second batch is in the dish, chilling, ready for transport tomorrow.

Rolls haven't doubled in size, but I'm freezing the second, better formed batch, as they've definitely risen. Moving first batch to the oven to proof in "warm" mode.

Thinking about pulling out that turkey to get the gravy going. Wondering if I'll be able to dance tonight at Strutter's Ball. Quash that thought!