It Was Home, Home on the Free-Range

Paul and I made dinner on Sunday for my fambly out at the Ranch. It was fun, and exhausting-- and we're really grown-ups now!

Lessons learned:

1) A convection oven is a most amazing yet confusing appliance. The turkey took about 2 hours to cook, which meant it was done at about 1 or 2 in the afternoon-- and my family is not one of those eat-christmas-dinner-at-lunchtime families, so we set the turkey on the counter for a few hours, only to realize that my mom's fool-proof method of telling when the turkey is done (wiggling the leg) is not so fool-proof, necessitating a 5 o' clock scramble to put the rather cool turkey back in the oven and get it up to the actually fool-proof trick of meat-thermometer-at-170 F. (Speaking of scrambled, wasn't that sentence?)

2) No matter how fancy the apple-cider-glazed turnips with sage, the orange-dijon green beans, the maple-roasted brussels sprouts with glenfiddich, she cooking the vegetable dishes will be stubbornly referred to as a wonderful sous chef. Hmph.

3) It's really tiring! Cooking all that stuff! And Grandma even brought the cabbage rolls and the perogies already-made!

4) An afternoon cheese course from Janice Beaton got my Dad eating blue cheese (which he "hates") and my Grandpa to skip his nap and not grumble for dinner to start at 4 o' clock. Good to know for next time.

5) There will definitely be a next time-- it was really fun! And my mom really appreciated it! Points!

It was a beautiful sunny 12 C, we cooked with the porch door open and the fresh air coming in, listening to the chickadees and watching a piliated woodpecker through the window.