Getting Ready for Thanksgiving
Sheila's radiation treatments are now behind us... by only days, but behind us nevertheless... and I am now scrambling to get ready for the holidays!
My goal is to make the holidays as easy for Sheila as possible and, so far, things are going well in reaching this goal. We are having a few people over for Thanksgiving, quite a few people over for Christmas and a house guest from overseas for about a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was well past time for a new, larger kitchen table so I had to get busy extending our table.
I got a great deal on a piece of Birch butcher block (just a couple of hundred dollars)... I grabbed it instantly since Thanksgiving was only a week away... unfortunately, this meant that at this point I was committed to accomplishing another fair sized project before Thanksgiving. I jumped right into this project by building a big tent in our kitchen to contain most of the sawdust...
We decided that we wanted one end of this table to be slightly rounded so I sketched an arc on the tabletop and then started cutting. After cutting with the jigsaw, it was time to make a cloudy, dusty mess with the belt sander to smooth out this arc. While I had the sander out and since I was making a mess already, I did a once-over on the entire top...
After I was satisfied with my sanding, I conditioned and stained the butcher block to match our kitchen and living room. The legs in this photo, below, are still the legs spaced for our much smaller old table.
Below is the table while waiting for the stain to dry...
Here is a photo after applying the first of seven coats of polyurethane...
Once the polyurethane dried enough, we moved the heavy butcher block to the living room so I could extend the base to fit this new table... more staining... more polyurethane... assembled it using dowel joints... then mounted the butcher block on top...
Of course, with a much larger table, we needed more lighting so I bought new lighting fixtures for the entire kitchen...
The new table is looking nice but it is not fully completed yet. We are waiting to order all our kitchen cabinets from our friend, Tom, because Sheila's cancer treatment put this big kitchen project on hold until better health and warmer weather returns. When we get the cabinets, we will be making this table a kitchen island with seating with cabinets underneath. We have such a tiny kitchen that we need to utilize all the space we have available! Hopefully, we'll be ordering all the cabinets in the next three months or so... about nine months behind our planned schedule.
After finishing and polishing the new table, I got started on getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. I started with some iced tea with blackberry mint syrup and some mint sprigs... I'm looking forward to this on Thanksgiving!
After making the tea and syrup, I got started making a small batch of homemade cranberry sauce...
Various spices, diced pears, some apple juice, a small amount of fresh lemon juice and zest...
Starting the boiling process... with a little bit of sugar, maple syrup, and I think I even added some honey...
This was a small batch this time. We always had far too much leftover in the past so I halved the recipe this time. We ended up with three Ball jars of homemade cranberry sauce...
This morning, I got started on preparing the stuffing... bread cubes, sausage, sauteed onions, fresh garlic, sage, thyme, parsley and dried cranberries. Tomorrow I just need to add some broth, cover it again, and slide it in the oven...
As I was putting together the stuffing, I par-boiled some sweet potatoes for a sweet gooey yam dish... sliced the sweet potatoes... sprinkled with dark brown sugar... drizzled with honey and maple syrup (our gallon jug of maple syrup is now empty)... just waiting for some browned marshmallows... this just needs to be covered (uggg... this is a mistake I keep repeating... it needs to be heated up uncovered), heated up, and then topped with marshmallows...
Tomorrow morning I'll get started on my own mashed potato recipe... and my own green bean recipe topped with homemade fried onion strings. In the afternoon, I'll deal with a smoked ham and some gravy.
This afternoon I hope to get most of the house cleaned so Sheila doesn't need to do much for this holiday except enjoy...
My goal is to make the holidays as easy for Sheila as possible and, so far, things are going well in reaching this goal. We are having a few people over for Thanksgiving, quite a few people over for Christmas and a house guest from overseas for about a month between Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was well past time for a new, larger kitchen table so I had to get busy extending our table.
I got a great deal on a piece of Birch butcher block (just a couple of hundred dollars)... I grabbed it instantly since Thanksgiving was only a week away... unfortunately, this meant that at this point I was committed to accomplishing another fair sized project before Thanksgiving. I jumped right into this project by building a big tent in our kitchen to contain most of the sawdust...
We decided that we wanted one end of this table to be slightly rounded so I sketched an arc on the tabletop and then started cutting. After cutting with the jigsaw, it was time to make a cloudy, dusty mess with the belt sander to smooth out this arc. While I had the sander out and since I was making a mess already, I did a once-over on the entire top...
After I was satisfied with my sanding, I conditioned and stained the butcher block to match our kitchen and living room. The legs in this photo, below, are still the legs spaced for our much smaller old table.
Below is the table while waiting for the stain to dry...
Here is a photo after applying the first of seven coats of polyurethane...
Once the polyurethane dried enough, we moved the heavy butcher block to the living room so I could extend the base to fit this new table... more staining... more polyurethane... assembled it using dowel joints... then mounted the butcher block on top...
Of course, with a much larger table, we needed more lighting so I bought new lighting fixtures for the entire kitchen...
The new table is looking nice but it is not fully completed yet. We are waiting to order all our kitchen cabinets from our friend, Tom, because Sheila's cancer treatment put this big kitchen project on hold until better health and warmer weather returns. When we get the cabinets, we will be making this table a kitchen island with seating with cabinets underneath. We have such a tiny kitchen that we need to utilize all the space we have available! Hopefully, we'll be ordering all the cabinets in the next three months or so... about nine months behind our planned schedule.
After finishing and polishing the new table, I got started on getting ready for Thanksgiving dinner. I started with some iced tea with blackberry mint syrup and some mint sprigs... I'm looking forward to this on Thanksgiving!
After making the tea and syrup, I got started making a small batch of homemade cranberry sauce...
Various spices, diced pears, some apple juice, a small amount of fresh lemon juice and zest...
Starting the boiling process... with a little bit of sugar, maple syrup, and I think I even added some honey...
This was a small batch this time. We always had far too much leftover in the past so I halved the recipe this time. We ended up with three Ball jars of homemade cranberry sauce...
This morning, I got started on preparing the stuffing... bread cubes, sausage, sauteed onions, fresh garlic, sage, thyme, parsley and dried cranberries. Tomorrow I just need to add some broth, cover it again, and slide it in the oven...
As I was putting together the stuffing, I par-boiled some sweet potatoes for a sweet gooey yam dish... sliced the sweet potatoes... sprinkled with dark brown sugar... drizzled with honey and maple syrup (our gallon jug of maple syrup is now empty)... just waiting for some browned marshmallows... this just needs to be covered (uggg... this is a mistake I keep repeating... it needs to be heated up uncovered), heated up, and then topped with marshmallows...
Tomorrow morning I'll get started on my own mashed potato recipe... and my own green bean recipe topped with homemade fried onion strings. In the afternoon, I'll deal with a smoked ham and some gravy.
This afternoon I hope to get most of the house cleaned so Sheila doesn't need to do much for this holiday except enjoy...
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