https://imgur.com/gallery/day-20-GPDCLqY
A few days ago I asked if people thought I should concentrate of walking faster (i.e. continuously rather than step-move-step) or farther (i.e. more laps) and almost everyone said the latter.
Well, 3 laps is still my limit, but I’ve ended up working on the more continuous walking as i can, and I think that’s helpful, too.
I’ll try for 3.5 laps when I’m able, but that’s not yet.
Also, I’m starting to do my Thanksgiving prep. I have very limited energy, but I want to prepare some sides. So I’ve written up my recipes and strategy and I’m posting that in the ieh.one post, so if you want to see that, go there. Hopefully it can help anyone else who needs to pull back a bit on the energy.
So what do you need to do that you’ve been putting off because it’s hard and you’re low on energy? Go do the thing and let me know you did. And if you want to be poked on it - I’m happy to make a list and check in with you. Every week? So there’s not much pressure, but hopefully enough to help you. I’ll never judge. You can see with this project that although I’m walking every day - I haven’t walked every day, just almost every day. I’m the last person to judge you. I have severe ADHD. My executive function is terrible. The only reason I’m still walking is because knowing there are people waiting for me to post who will miss it if I don’t. That’s what helps me overcome that.
So one thing I can offer to help repay the massive support y’all are giving me - one way to give back - is to help you remember to do the things you want to do. So let me know how I can help you, and I promise I will.
Note that I copy/paste what I write in Youtube to Imgur and here, so that’s why I reference visiting ieh.one when you’re already here. 
Okay, let’s go with the recipes for Thanksgiving!
The problem I have is fatigue. Also, it’s awkward to cook in a wheelchair - nothing is the right angle. So I’ve learned to step back my efforts and simplify. I think I’ve come up with a good Thanksgiving dinner, and I’m going to discuss some options for each component.
My plan for this year:
- Turkey
- Dressing
- Roux gravy
- Green bean casserole
- Mashed potatoes
- Carrots
- Squash with onion and bacon
- Corn pudding
- Cranberry sauce
So here’s my plan for each, along with some options that might help you:
Turkey
I haven’t done a full turkey in several years. My first step was to pull back to a turkey breast with the bone. I’ve also roasted a boneless turkey breast. Follow the package directions. It’s actually easier and better than a full turkey can be just because you only have to worry about the breast and not overcooking bits while other bits need to finish cooking. And while I prefer dark meat, turkey breast is what screams “Thanksgiving” the most to me, so I’ve long felt that was most important.
But this year, I’m simplifying even more. There’s a company that offers sliced turkey breast in the same configuration as a sliced boneless quarter ham. So you get even slices of turkey - real turkey - that are easy to heat up. You could microwave them, although I’ll put two servings in a dish to heat in the over with whatever else I’m heating up.
It doesn’t have the same preparation, but it’s just the two of us, and it’ll be pretty enough on the plate. So this, to me, is a win.
Dressing
I prefer cornbread; my wife prefers bread. So here I am doing both. I grew up with a ton of ingredients in it - trinity (onions / bell pepper / celery), eggs, breakfast sausage, occasionally oysters, walnuts, and I think at least one or two other things that have slipped my mind over the years.
I’ve picked up a bag each of herbed and cornbread stuffing, and a tetrapak of stock to split between them.
I don’t have the energy to cut up my vegetables, so I am paying the fatigue tax to get a little bit of pre-cut veg. It’s worth the money to add the flavour and not expend energy on that. You could also get a bag of frozen “seasoning mix”. That’s a slight step down from fresh, but in the stuffing, it’s not going to matter much.
Now, I like my vegetables tender in my stuffing, so I’ll saute my vegetables in butter until the onions are translucent, and then I’ll add the stock and let them simmer for 15-20 minutes to get nice and tender.
I’m skipping the eggs and oysters, but I do have the breakfast sausage. I’ll add it to the vegetables sauteeing, and the veg getting tender won’t be bad on the sausage getting tender and spreading that flavour around in the broth as well.
Then halve that mixture into the two baking dishes that contain the dry stuffing, and bake.
Roux Gravy
This is an important part of Thanksgiving for me. Growing up as a Southerner with roots in Louisiana and Mississippi, roux gravy is important to me. Being able to make a good dark roux is a critical skill in my book - my creole gumbo recipe uses a dark roux.
The roux for Thanksgiving for turkey is only a medium roux, and I think it is accessible to anyone.
I like having plenty of gravy around, so I melt a stick of butter in my skillet and add an appropriate amount of flour. I think that’s about a cup of flour, but I don’t measure - I add until the roux is not quite liquid, meaning that the flour will just barely sort of stay in some clumps as opposed to flattening out if you stop stirring for a moment. But the exact ratio is not important.
I also have cooked roux since I was around eight years old, so I take the risk and cook on high heat for a fast roux. If you haven’t cooked roux before, go ahead and keep it on a medium heat. It’ll take a little longer, but it’s much much safer. If you burn your roux or bits of it, there’s no going back, only starting over.
Before you start your roux, have your stock ready. I use chicken stock for this. For beef, I cook a darker roux and have beef stock. But either way, you want room-temp liquid standing by and ready to go.
While you are cooking your roux, you will stir constantly. You do not want any part of that roux sitting against the heat of the skillet for more than a few seconds.
As you cook it, it will first go from completely raw to a little golden in colour. When this happens, it’s to the point where you could add milk and cream and make a cream gravy for things like biscuits and gravy or chicken fried steak.
But keep going.
It will appear to stop turning colour for a while. That’s fine. Have patience and keep stirring. You don’t have to stir like a maniac, but do NOT stop. Make sure you stir every single bit as you move around. I will often go around the outer rim, make circles to the middle, then swish back and forth in the middle, then go back to the outer rim again. Just to make sure that every bit is stirred.
Over time, it will again start to change colour. It’s less of a panic than if you were going dark, because it turns from chocolate to burnt very quickly. But you’re going for a nice milk chocolate colour here, even a light milk chocolate. You definitely want it to be solidly brown, but medium brown, not dark brown.
It’s not an exact science. The more colour, the deeper the flavour. Beef benefits from stronger, and poultry from a bit lighter.
Once it reaches the colour that you decide seems right, add that stock and stir stir stir. Let it come up to a boil while you stir, and congrats, you have gravy.
Test for salt. If it needs a bit of salt, use a bit of bouillon (“better than bouillon” is my go to) to pack in some MSG and salt and flavour.
Good gravy consists of the following flavours:
- Well cooked roux
- Salt
- MSG
- Meat flavour
You can add some pepper or whatever other seasonings you’d like. But I keep mine simple.
Green Bean Casserole
This was the firs dish I ended up simplifying. I have a couple of levels for this one as well. It’s not a complex dish anyway, of course.
My classic version:
- Four cans French cut green beans
- Two cans cream of mushroom soup
- Two cups shredded moz
- Real bacon pieces
- French fried onions
- Shredded cheddar or more moz
Baking is superios and not too difficult, except that it’s one more large dish to worry about, and this is a dish I’ve found that microwaving is sufficient for. But first, for the baking:
- Drain the green beans and combine with all other ingredients. I put a generous sprinkle of the bacon pieces (to taste), as well as part of the french fried onions
- Top with more of the onions along with some shredded cheese, either moz, cheddar, or both
But I’ve simplified from that to a microwave-friendly version. Combine all the ingredients - everything. Portion out into containers that hold enough for your intended eaters, i.e. for my wife and I, I put two servings into a container. I can freeze all of them except one that I leave in the fridge to heat up on Thanksgiving.
Sure, I lose the crispy top, but that’s a small part of this dish, and worth it to me. And the nice thing is that for a few months, I can pull one of these out of the freezer and have green bean casserole in just a few mintues.
But I’ll get a little more into my prep below the recipes.
Mashed potatoes
You have options here. The simplest two ways I’ve seen to handle mashed potatoes:
- Cut a ring around the middle of your potatoes before you boil. After you drain, let them cool and you can pull the skins off easily
- If you can peel them, chope them into pieces and boil in barely enough water until tender. Drain and while you’ll lose a tiny bit of potato, you won’t lose enough to matter
My favorite potatoes include way too much butter, some sour cream, a bit of MSG, some heavy cream, and a bit of freshly ground pepper.
This year, however, I’m buying pre-made mashed potatoes. Not instant, but letting someone else do the work. They are 95% as good as homemade, and fit in with my energy levels.
Carrots
This is actualyl one of the places where I put in a bit of extra energy compared to everything else. Peeling and chopping the carrots is always work - in part because I do five pounds of them because I can eat five pounds of freshly cooked carrots.
Seriously, if carrots are not on your “awesome” list, try this method:
- Peel your carrots
- Slice into generally even rounds. Fromt he thick end, make slices. By the time you get down to the narrow end, make them thicker so they have some decent percentage of the same mass as the big slices
- Boil in water until just tender
- Drain very very well
- Melt butter - about a tablespoon per pound if not a little more - and cook off the water content
- Add salt and MSG and freshly ground black pepper, then the carrots, and saute for a minute just to make sure the carrots are well coated and any excess water is removed
Ideally, you want no water left so the butter coats and clings to the carrots with all that flavour.
Seriously. I could eat way too much of this.
Squash with onion and bacon
Wash your squash and slice. I will quarter the thick part and just slice the thinner part. Slice up an onion into slivers - or for lowest energy, pre-chopped onion is quite acceptable.
Melt butter in a skillet, saute the onion until transparent. Add bacon pieces and squash and cook over low heat until the squash is tender and the onion is as well.
The squash will put off liquid, and that’s fine. It will help tenderize the onion, and this is a dish that benefits from tender onion, imho, as well as time for the bacon to spread its flavour as well.
I season simply - salt, msg, fresh ground black pepper.
Corn pudding
This is one I added since moving to Virginia. It’s already a simple recipe:
- Beat two large eggs in a mixing bowl
- Add a stick of butter (melted), 8 oz sour gream, drained can of corn, undrained can of creamed corn, and mix
- Add a box of Jiffy cornbread mix and gently mix until just combined
- Bake 45m at 350°
Can’t make it much more simple than that. You can, however, cover it in shredded cheese if you want. You could also add chopped jalapeños and/or bacon pieces to the mixture.
Cranberry sauce
Super simple. To me, this is a can of jellied cranberry sauce. Period. Done.
Putting It All Together
The main thing I do NOT do is cook all of this on Thanksgiving. That is more energy than I have.
So I look at my schedule BEFORE Thanksgiving, and I pick one item to cook per day. When I cook that day, sufficient quantity for Thanksgiving goes into the fridge, and the rest is portioned out and frozen. I can handle that - one dish per day.
Then, on Thanksgiving, I break out the oven and set it to a warming temp of 350° and heat everything up. Takes a little time, but it’s easy to do and no fuss.
We get an overloaded plate - no need for seconds - and it’s easy to clean up.