|
SHE Shouldn'ts of the Holidays...
Part 1: The Turkey (Who knew a bird could cause so much trouble?)
"She's shouldn't agree to go to Christmas Eve at her in-laws because She will need to bring a couple of food items in addition to gifts for DH's husband. She will undoubtedly be shopping for those gifts on the morning of Xmas Eve frantically wrapping those gifts in the afternoon while she makes pies. She will likely get home at 1:00 a.m. after midnight mass only to have to wrap every gift she bought for her own family and not go to bed until 3:00 a.m. Only to be woken up by her very excited DS's at 6:00 a.m. At 10:00 a.m. she will realize her own 25 guests will arrive in 2 hours. She will still be in her jammies and frantically screaming to clean up, shower dress, AND cook for 25 people all at once. She will be so tired by the time dinner is on the table she will start looking at the clock and wondering how she can get rid of guests so she can fall into bed. She will also have to take at least the next two days of work just to clean up.
No lie this was our Christmas "tradition" for 16 years...........then I found FlyLady ;-)
We have all strived for the "perfect" holiday. And inevitably, this desire for perfection opens the door for those wonderful creative SHE-moments: the stash and dash, the "I can do just one more thing", and more. The result: a SHE Shouldn't for all of us to enjoy! Thank-you so much for sharing. I will be posting more of your SHE Shouldn'ts as the week progresses. - FlyCrew
Please don't try this at your home. Enjoy!
"When SHE invites the whole gang over to celebrate Thanksgiving in her just-moved-into home, SHE should check to make sure the legs on her dining room table were screwed in properly. Otherwise, the weight of the turkey might just mean a Thanksgiving picnic on the living room floor!" - a FlyBaby
First you have to find it....
- SHE shouldn't rush in the house with all the Christmas groceries two
days before the Big Day, madly stash away her
purchases and then dash out the door again to finish
her shopping. That way, come Christmas morn, she
might discover that she's lost the turkey.
Mmm-hmmm. It happened to me. We had to hunt high and
low to find that thing. It was hiding in a grocery
bag tucked in behind the winter boots just below the
coat rack in the back hall. Thawed, runny and
thoroughly yucky.
We ended up having roast beef (thank heaven for
freezers!) and the hunt for the missing turkey has
gone down in family folklore as one of our great
Christmas stories.
- She shouldn't pull the turkey out of the freezer and without actually looking in the large frozen bag, set it out in the other fridge to thaw, only to pull it out the morning of the feast, look in and discover that she had pulled out a bag of pork fat waiting to be rendered!!! Not a turkey at all!!! When she got over the giggles, She shouldn't then run around looking for a store that's open and that actually has a turkey big enough to feed the 13 people who are coming to share in the feast - Did you know that many 'little chickens' can then fill up the large roast pan? the holiday feast has now become a family joke - 'did you check in the bag?'
Then, you thaw the bird....
- My first year hosting Thanksgiving, I had my brother
and his family and another couple over to my fiance's
and my house. Everything had gone smoothly up to the
day before... the desserts had been baked, the
groceries all lined up on the counter waiting to be
made, house cleaned... All I had to do was plop the
turkey in the oven on Thanksgiving morning. But where
was the turkey Thanksgiving morning?!? Still in my
freezer, frozen solid. No amount of cold water baths
was going to thaw this bird in time.
Add to that, when I did finally get it mostly thawed
and in the oven, I had to pull it out for ten minutes
to fit the dinner rolls in. But when I pulled the
rolls out of the oven to put the turkey back in for
its final hour, I accidentally turned the oven off. No
one noticed for about half an hour, when I gasped and
ran back to the kitchen. Needless to say, the turkey
wasn't ready until about 9:00 that night. Luckily, my
SHE SIL (who always overdoes everything) had the
foresight to make TWO turkeys that year. So we had the
other deep-fried turkey to fall back on and my
late-night bird for leftovers.
No one in my family has let me forget my first attempt
at Thanksgiving... A Flybaby in Upstate NY
- This is more like a HE shouldn't. A few years ago my son purchased a
LARGE turkey-frozen solid-the night before Thanksgiving. He called and
asked how long it would take to thaw a 20 pound turkey. He ended up
scrubbing the tub and staying up all night changing the cold water in
order to thaw the bird. That's what he got for procrastinating on
picking up the turkey!
- Flying in Colorado
- My story is from a friend - she didn't have enough time to defrost her turkey....so she put it in the jacuzzi (still in the plastic packaging)....it rolled all over the tub as the jets tumbled it around, she said it took only half the usual defrost time, LOL...
I've never tried it personally - but only because I don't have a jacuzzi!!
- flybaby in NJ
- SHEs shouldn't try to save time by ordering a turkey dinner from the deli
counter at the grocery store. Who knew it came frozen and needed to be
thawed and reheated?
- She's should not try to force the gravy packet out of
the still half frozen turkey. Because the gravy
packet, which is mostly thawed liquid by this time,
will POP from the pressure and spray gravy EVERYWHERE!
I kept finding gravy spots for weeks!
- Flybaby in Lebanon, MO
- Several years ago, I was having my first Thanksgiving for the extended family at my new home, with my new husband. I was up for days cleaning and decorating the house, shopping, making place settings and party favors. The night before Thanksgiving, I was up until 4 o’clock in the morning, setting the table and making lists. When I woke up on Thanksgiving, I realized I had slept right through the alarm, and it was 1 o’clock in the afternoon. The guests were due to arrive at 3pm, and I was still in bed! I ran downstairs and pulled the turkey from the cooler.. it was STILL FROZEN! I checked the tag on how long a 12 pound turkey would take to defrost, when I realized I had misread the tag at the store, and it was a 22 pound turkey! I tried to cram it in the sink but it wouldn’t fit. I had to cut off the drumsticks and wings, and finally squeezed it into the microwave oven, set on high power, and started peeling potatoes and cooking cranberries, and sautéing onions for stuffing. Not having any time for a shower, I barely had a few minutes to change my clothes. The guests arrived early, of course, and waited for hours to eat dinner. It was a complete disaster, and my mother still brings it up to this day. I’m so glad I found you!
Preparing the turkey....
- ........weigh the turkey only just before you're ready to put it in the oven! One year a family member provided our turkey, and I didn't get around to weighing it until last minute, when I was trying to figure out exactly how long to cook it for. Well, it was over THIRTY THREE pounds! I was horrified; there wasn't enough time to cook it! We had 6 guests for dinner that night, and we didn't eat until after 10pm. Everyone just laughed it off, but I was really stressed about it!
- SHEs should not really "wash" the turkey. I was a new mom and newly married making my first thanksgiving turkey. I called my friend who lived down the street to ask for directions as to how to prepare this beast. She who is BO said "just wash it inside and out and then sprinkle with salt, etc." So I set about to wash my turkey. I filled up the sink with hot water and squirted Dawn dish detergent inside and out. I began to scrub it vigorously with a brush both inside and out. Well - there were a lot of suds. So about 1/2 hour later I called her back and told her that I had a problem, she asked if I had salted the inside and buttered the outside yet. I said no, because there were still bubbles coming out. She began to laugh hysterically. She actually drove up the street in her pajamas just to see. By the time she got to my door she had tears streaming down her face and could barely walk she was laughing so hard! We had to "flush" the turkey for at least an hour to get the soap out. We still laugh hysterically about it and this was almost 10 years ago! The good thing is that everyone loved the turkey and we never told a soul until afterwards. After all this was taking place at 5am on Thanksgiving morning...
- in Rochester, NY
- SHE shouldn't bake the turkey without finding out WHY there is no room for stuffing.
- SHE Shouldn't
When calling my mother for step-by-step instructions on cooking my first Turkey, my side-tracked but well meaning mom proceeded to also tell me how she cooks chicken- Throwing in a well intended tip about skinning the bird!
Needless to say, I followed every instruction I had written down, assigning the skinning task to my DH. 10 years later & many more holidays to come, he will recite my cooking skills for a great laugh! I promise my future birds weren't nearly as dry!
- SHE Shouldn't live in chaos and work wierd shifts over holidays.
1 year ago, no Flylady in my life. Dead tired from working the night shift Christmas Eve. 3 hours sleep and Christmas Day begins. Mom, both sisters and their families coming for Christmas dinner at my house.
It was going okay until time to start the turkey. I always use the Reynolds bags. They say, add 2 tbls. flour and shake...okay. I do that and finish up and put the turkey in the oven. Later one of my sisters is going to make gravy. She asks where the flour is. I get the cannister. She looks at it, tastes it and gets a funny look on her face....it is not flour but powdered sugar....oops!
This year, thanks to Flylady and the holiday control journal maybe our turkey will an unsweetened turkey! -
a Flybaby in Iowa
Put the bird into the pan....
- Finding myself always rushing to get everything cooked, mashed, carved, bowled up, etc. for holiday meals, I decided to get a jump on my holiday turkey preparation. I was up before dawn. I was drowsy, but determined to get the turkey ready for roasting before I started all my other dishes. Since it was still very cold, I decided to get it all cleaned up and into the roasting pan early. However, I didn't want it to dry out, so I put a wet dish towel over it and covered it with aluminum foil. There I was, so organized and ready to go. I was pleased as punch when all I had to do was turn on the oven and go off to church around 8 a.m. You guessed it. I forgot to take the towel off of the turkey. It was a very large bird, so it was at least 2 hours before I "untented"it and found it nicely draped. Thanks to the Lord it didn't catch fire!
Having said all of this. The bird WAS nice and moist, but I wouldn't recommend adding it to your list of cooking tips.
- One year when I was home from college for Christmas, my parents went out for the evening and left me to cook the turkey. Well, I cooked it upside down in the roaster! My mom had a good laugh, but my dad said he liked it better because it was more moist! Carolina flybaby
(slowly getting back on track after a car accident that broke my back-full recovery, thanks to the good Lord above, and lots of prayers).
- One of our first holidays together, I asked my husband to pick up a Turkey breast. Well, he was very impressed with himself that he figured out that a whole turkey was cheaper by the pound. I didn't have a roaster or know how to cook a whole turkey and he didn't know how to carve one. Basically, we cooked it in a big cake pan and since we couldn't carve it, I just kept reheating the whole thing. One evening, because I didn't want the cats to jump up and help themselves, I put it in the seldom used microwave to cool down. TWO WEEKS later, I opened up the microwave to find a disgusting, green, fuzzy carcass stinking to high heaven! I've since purchased a roaster and learned to cook a little better, but I'll never live that one down. SHEs shouldn't put things away 'just for now'.
FLYing with a Full Nest in Pgh
- When cooking Thanksgiving turkey for the first time, SHE's should
remember that the roasting pan has a top and a bottom, and that you
shouldn't use the top part thinking it's the bottom, because the top part
has a little vent hole in it, which is only discovered after smoke starts
coming from the oven because, for some reason, the turkey keeps dripping all
over the bottom of it.
--
FLYbaby in MN
- My first turkey I was told to wrap it in foil so my husband and I tossed it back and forth across the kitchen to really do it up good. When it was cooked, took the foil off and oh my goodness, skin stuck to foil and it all fell apart. On rereading my instructions I was supposed to make a tent over the top of the turkey, not wrap it in foil. Of course, this was before the day of the plastic cooking bags! I use them all the time now.
What temperature do you cook a turkey at? LOL
- SHE should not try to squeeze in too much crisis cleaning just before holiday company arrives. SHE might, after cleaning the exterior of all her kitchen appliances, replace the oven temperature control knob upside down. Thus the beautiful big turkey "slow roasts" at about 550 degrees instead of the 325 indicated on the dial. SHE will be very puzzled and will apologize profusely to her loved ones when SHE serves them a very dark brown and dry turkey in record time. But the ultimate embarrassment comes a couple of days later when she calls an appliance repairman to fix the "broken thermostat" on her oven, only to be told ($40 later!) that she put the oven temperature control knob on the wrong way! -- $40 poorer but laughing on the shores of Lake Huron
- One year I somehow shut the oven off while frantically
cleaning the stove knobs. We arrived home 5 hours
later to an uncooked and ruined turkey!
- SHE shouldn't decide to buy an extra turkey and cook it early to give a nice hot dinner to her elderly uncle who lives alone. Then put it in the oven which she has set without her reading glasses and then go out to visit her aunt in the nursing home, after that go out for a bite to eat and then to the library and have a very relaxing few hours out completely forgetting there is a turkey in the oven. Then come home to the sound of smoke alarms and a house full of dense smoke. SHE shouldn't run into the house holding her breath to turn the oven off and open doors and windows and get her two cats out of the house (fortunately the young girl next door saw what a crazy thing she was doing and came to yell at her to get out. The firemen came and blew out the smoke out of the house and 1 month and $10,000.00 in damage later things were back to normal. Although SHE had inadvertantly set the oven temperature at 450 (no glasses) - the insurance company paid, the cats survived and in her fury she did make 2 turkey sandwiches from the inner portion of the breast (which wasn't completely charred like the rest of the bird) and eat them even if they were dry and smoky tasting.
2 lessons learned - put your reading glasses on for important tasks and never leave your oven, dishwasher or dryer on if you are going out of the house!!!!!!!
- Flying in BC
- SHE shouldn't let her BO brother-in-law anywhere near the kitchen on
Thanksgiving Day while the turkey is cooking. If she does, he might start
wiping things up, and close the oven latch (just like the dishwasher has)
and end up setting the oven to CLEAN! The rest of the family members might
run around trying to unlock the oven and figure out how to get the poor
turkey out of the oven before it is burned. They might never think to ask
dear BIL about it, as he would be sleeping in the back room. We were all
thankful that the oven cooled down enough to open before the turkey was
burned!
How long does it take to cook a turkey?
- Dear FlyCrew,
This embarrasing moment still brings gasps of horror when I think about it 18 years later! I had invited my extended (large) family to our house for my FIRST Thanksgiving dinner I had cooked for everyone. I was about 25 years old and was sure it was high time I took my turn at preparing the family get-together dinner. Well, I bought a HUGE turkey to feed the 19 people we were going to be having over, and I thought I was SO SMART when I figured out to put it (unwrapped and ready to cook) in the roasting pan in the oven to thaw. I set the oven start and stop timer to turn the oven on at something like 3:00 the next morning and to turn off at noon. I thought that would allow me to sleep in with my family and carve the beautifully cooked turkey when I got up the next morning!
Oh, my, when I woke up at about 9:00 on Thanksgiving and didn't smell turkey baking, I knew there was a problem...It turns out that the oven timer got to 12:00 midnight and turned off the oven, and then thought the task was finished, so it never turned on at 3:00 AM at all.
I scrambled so hard to try to take off the metal band around the turkey's feet by myself, so my DH would not know my predicament. VERY HARD to do, even with pliers, but I got it off. Then, as I was shoving with all my might to wedge it into the (old fashioned big model) microwave, my oldest DS who was about 10, found me and "ratted me out" to the whole family. We ended up going to the grocery store and getting all the cooked turkey they had, plus about 6 of those little turkey roasts in tin pans to quickly bake in the oven. AND can you just guess what the most told story that Thanksgiving and most of them since, has been....?!!
- Blushing flybaby in SD
- I thought I'd be effiecient one Thanksgiving and cook the turkey in the microwave. After the alotted cooking time from the recipe I had, I popped the turkey out of the microwave oven to discover a beautifully well-done topside, but embarrasingly uncooked bottom side. I somehow overlooked the instruction to flip the bird over half way through the cooking cycle. Moral of the story - read ALL the instructions when trying anything for the first time, especially when you're trying to SAVE time!!!!!
- Once I borrowed my mother's Turkey Roaster pan for Thanksgiving because I was was having my entire in-law family over. When she gave it to me, I thought she forgot the lid. So I roasted it with some foil over the top. For some reason the house just didn't have the turkey roasting aroma that it should. Everyone was arriving and were ready to eat. It had been baking long enough but didn't seem done, but as it was getting late, I went ahead and carved it. It was just OK. But as I was doing the dishes and washing the roasting pan, it fell apart and I realized that I had BAKED THE TURKEY INSIDE OF THE LID!!! . Apparently the lid part was insulated and didn't get quite as hot as it was supposed to, therefore my turkey wasn't quite done. Just glad noone got sick!. Anyway that is my SHE Holiday moment. Many laughs followed.
- Mobile FLYBaby
- a she shouldn't EVER put a turkey in the oven and leave the house to get a "few" last minute things before picking up the in-laws from the airport. she will find that the only grocery store open is an hour away and the in-laws will not be able to find their luggage. It will be at least 2 hours before they fill out the appropriate forms and your car which you left running in the loading/unloading area "just for a minute" is now towed. by the time you get back to the house by taxi sans luggage, half and half, eggs and marshmallows...your turkey is jerky.
- flybaby in metro-detroit
- She shouldn't wait util 4 in the afternoon on Christmas Day to wonder why she couldn't smell the 26 lb. turkey cooking! The oven may actually be broken! Thank Heaven for the 2nd oven to put it into and then the wait begins, Christmas Dinner at midnight is another family story - 'have you smelled the turkey cooking yet' has become a Christmas Day refrain,
- We were going to my brothers house for thanksgiving last year. My husband had gotten a turkey fryer and had used it about three times. The turkeys he made with it were incredible. So, of course my DH volunteered to bring a fried turkey to Thanksgiving. Thankfully, my brother was also baking a turkey and a ham. My DH asked the guys to keep an eye on the turkey while he came home to pick me and the kids up. Apparently the football game took precidence over the turkey because my brother called about 20 minutes later to tell us that the fryer caught on fire! When we got to my brothers house, his father in law admitted that he got so caught up in the game that he completely forgot about the turkey! No one was hurt, so, of course we all got a good laugh!
- There is a lot to be thankful for on Thanksgiving. I'm especially thankful I will not be cooking. I always loved to cook, and I consider myself a pretty good cook.
When I first got married, I was a little afraid to try cooking a turkey. It just seemed a little too difficult. My mother-in-law has always made the perfect Norman Rockwell turkey, and eventually shared some of her secrets with me. As a result, I started to try my hand at turkey cooking for no special occasion. We would just prepare a turkey dinner and invite people to help us eat it. The turkeys actually started to be very good.
When I thought they had risen to the point of perfection that I could actually invite my mother-in-law down for Thanksgiving dinner, I did just that. I invited not only my mother and father-in-law, but also great-grandma. I was determined that I would be cool and collected. I knew I could do it. I had done it so many times before. I really thought I had the whole thing down to a science.
Since there were more people that usual, I decided to borrow a huge roaster to cook the turkey. I scientifically calculated the correct time to put the bird in the oven. I was so sure of my technique, it was like child's play. Grab the roaster, throw the bird in, add the usual spices, wine, salt, pepper, and go about my business.
After about five hours, I set the table, arranged the flowers, opened the wine, and checked the turkey. It seemed a little, well, raw. I called my husband in to take a peek. He concurred. It was sort of a nice blue color…not exactly Norman Rockwell, a little more like Andy Warhol. By now, all my company had arrived and they were seated around the dining room table expecting the meal which I had guaranteed would be ready at 5 o'clock. By 7:30, I had begun to get the sinking feeling that maybe this bird would be ready at 5 o'clock the next morning.
I had no idea what I had done wrong. I was sure the oven was broken or even some evil spell had been visited upon me. Just as my husband and I were assessing the state of the uncooperative turkey, my father-in-law happened to peek around the corner. When he saw the blue turkey, he announced to the assembled starving throng that the bird was indeed nowhere near done.
As the beads of sweat began to form on my brow, I asked my husband to get the lid for the roaster thinking that maybe if we covered it, it would speed up the process. We searched high and low, but no lid was to be found. Ok, let's take it out of the oven, hack it into smaller pieces, and see if maybe we can microwave the pieces. (We were beginning to be delirious with hunger).
When we took the roaster out of the oven, we discovered something very remarkable. In my hurry to get the bird into the oven, I had failed to notice the missing lid of the roaster was right inside the pan. So, my roaster had done a marvelous job of insulating the bird from the oven's heat! It probably would have taken another ten hours to get it to the golden perfection I had accomplished all those other times for no special occasion.
It was an interesting Thanksgiving. Actually, that was the last one my mother-in-law ever agreed to attend at our house. Of course, I have since made mouth watering turkeys, which no one has ever seen but us. Maybe when I make the next one, you'd like to join us?
Remember the fixin's...
- A few years ago I was making Thanksgiving dinner for my family and when it came time to make gravy, I did what I always do… add flour to the drippings from the turkey and cook it until it thickens. Well this time I cooked and cooked and added more and more flour but it just wouldn’t thicken up. I finally gave up and just served thin gravy. Let me tell you that was the sweetest gravy anyone has ever eaten. Yep, instead of flour I had been using powdered sugar out of my UNMARKED containers. I still get teased over that one.
- An Embarrassed Flybaby in Kansas
- I'm a tiny Flybaby as I just started 2 days ago. Already I cannot believe how motivated I am already. (still having trouble with the shoes,tho)
My holiday mishap is when I decided to make cornbread dressing for the first time. My family always made bread dressing. But my new husbands' did the cornbread thing. I thought I'd surprise him and make an effort with the cornbread kind.
As you've probably guessed by now, I didn't know you had to bake the cornbread first . When he went to spoon the dressing out, there was a big mess of onions, seasonings and cornmeal.
So do you know how often that story of my first Thanksgiving turkey has been told? TOO MANY..... lol
Thanks for you great motivational e-mails,
- Ponchatoula,La.
Of course, there is the clean-up!
- SHEs shouldn't let someone else clean up after a big turkey dinner. I let
the men clean up and forgot that I had moved the remaining half of the
turkey into the oven to make some counter space. I didn't notice that it
hadn't made it into the fridge until lunchtime the next day when I was ready
for some leftover turkey!
- Flybaby in CO
And just when you thought ham or roast might be a safe alternative to turkey....
- SHE shouldn't... spend a lot of time decorating the ham with pineapple, cherries, cloves and a homemade glaze to serve it to the family Christmas Day with the wrapping still on underneath! (SHE'll never live this one down!)
- in CA
- SHE shouldn't forget double check everything! I had
moved home to take care of my Grandmother, who was
elderly. My aunt and uncle were coming to dinner, and
then I was having friends over to eat. Grandma wasn't
well, so it was up to me to cook. I got up early and
put the country ham in the oven. Then I bustled
around and fixed all the side dishes. Everything was
wonderful and I was feeling soooo good about how the
table looked with all the wonderful food. My company
arrived and I went into the kitchen to put the ham on
the table for Uncle Fred to carve. Guess what? I had
forgotten to turn the oven on! Needless to say, I'm
compulsive about checking the oven now (even 20 years
later!)
Happy Holidays
- I was sort of new to cooking and invited my parents over for dinner. I decided to make a roast ( can't really screw that up now could I)........Well my mom was eating and kind of ( not so) discreetly spitting in her napking what I thought was possibly a bit of fat, then she asks....did you take the paper ( that one that soaks up the blood) from the bottom of the roast???? And I said..."no, I guess it didn't have one"....we'll...guess again....it did....I just cooked it!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww...............
- FLYing way high now in Orlando
- You should never have Thanksgiving at your Mom's house when she is expecting 30 or more guests dropping by throughout the day in addition to 20 family members at the main meal. Your mom who is also a she will of course not have things prepared ahead of time and will get VERY sick the day before Thanksgiving leaving only one SHE to prepare food for so many people. You will stay up ALL night getting everything perfect and barely getting done in time to get dressed in the morning before guests arrive. Then you will sit down to dinner amidst all the praises of how beautiful and good the food looks... until someone is ready to cut the ham (which you have carefully glazed and faithfully basted) completed with pineapples and cherries on top. Then you will discover the ham is still wrapped in plastic and you cooked it and basted it AND served it with the plastic still on! LOL BUT...everyone will comment and you will agree (after the embarassment wears off) that it is the juiciest ham you ever had in your life.
More Holiday Cooking SHE Shouldn'ts
"I am a fly baby from NJ. A few years back my DS (dear sister) who couldn't cook to save her life was given the easy job, we thought, of bringing one vegetable and a desert to Thanksgiving Dinner. My other sister and I told her to buy the desert and just make a simple veggie. She came to dinner right on time with a bag of frozen corn and a 1/2 gallon of ice cream. That DS passed on 6 years ago at age 44 of breast cancer, that is one of the best stories of her that brings smiles to our lips and tears to our eyes." - a member
- SHEs that live in Minnesota at Christmas, shouldn't put trays of maple pecan candies on the roof of her car to harden. I certainly hope the squirrels enjoyed their unintentional Christmas present.
- Never forget to clear our oven/broiler hotspot before preheating - the platters from our last special dinner could still be there.
- My mother is always very prepared to cook the holiday meal. She gives each of her three children our dish-to-bring assignments weeks in advance, so there’s no reason to be unprepared with our dishes. My favorite was broccoli/rice casserole. And I’m particular about it. I want fresh broccoli, the right kind of cheese, and I add a few green chilis. It has to be RIGHT!
But my mother was not at all understanding when I showed up (with then-DH and my two toddlers) at her house an hour before the time she said dinner was to be served, with … you guessed it … raw broccoli, cold cheese, uncooked rice, a can of green chilis and an empty casserole dish. She had this idea that she would cook the bread in her oven and there was no room for MY broccoli casserole.
I was assigned ice and paper plates for YEARS after that! - Flying in Texas -- for two whole weeks now! -- I truly believe I’ve found the right solution for my home and family – thanks!
- SHE's shouldn't use one of their double ovens to store random tupperware pieces (the lids with no bowls or vice versa) - even though they NEVER use both ovens and are squeezed for cabinet space. Just as guests are arriving for Thanksgiving, SHE will preheat the other oven, which is suddenly so useful to have, only to have DD age 4 ask why there's a fire, DH (who knows his wife well) will finally use the fire extinguisher he insists on keeping in the kitchen, and SHE won't be able to get the smell of burnt plastic out of the house for almost a week. (This happened last year, before I found FlyLady and her crew who wisely told me to THROW THAT STUFF AWAY!!!)
- FlyBaby in Northern CA
- SHE's shouldn't peel 10 lbs. of potatoes, then try to run the garbage disposal FULL of peels 2 hours before hosting her first Thanksgiving at her new home (with her in-laws, no less, several of whom were BO). SHE may not only stop up the kitchen sink, but the plumbing in her whole house. DH may ask her to never use the disposal again, because it doesn't work. DH made that statement as he was opening the plumbing stuffed full of peels looking like they did right off the spuds!
- SHE shouldn't try to roll out Christmas cookie dough on the counter over the dishwasher when it is running hot water to clean or drying dishes. What a sticky mess!!! I could not figure out what I did to mess up the batter. ;-)
- Note from FlyCrew: More proof that we are not alone in our SHE-ness LOL (laugh out loud).... A She should never decide that the garbage disposal can handle all of those potato peels at once; especially when this She spent days in a frantic rush to make everything "perfect" for the guests when they arrived and then send her darling hubby to pick up the SHE's BO mother from the airport.
This She was found sitting on the floor in the middle of the remains of a backed up sink spilling over onto the floor because the garbage disposal was overwhelmed and she was too!
- SHE Shouldn't forget to put yeast in the holiday bread and wait for hours and
hours for it to rise before realising that the yeast is still on the counter
and not used yet.
- from Hamilton, Ontario
- Every Christmas my DH's office hosts a Christmas party. There are 9
employees including the partners so everyone is asked to bring something
homemade. I love to make chocolate chip cookies with real butter and
walnuts. They are my favorite anytime of year! So, one year I decided to
make 30 dozen (yes thirty!) for the party and for gifts. Of course I didn't
check the pantry for all ingredients, this was pre-flylady. Part way through
the cookie-a-thon I ran out of white and brown sugar. I was about 2 cups
short. I searched the pantry and found a clear bag (unlabeled) of white
sugar, hooray! So I poured it in and made several hundred beautiful cookies
that tasted like SALT-LICKS! That was salt in the bag! So remember to stock
your pantry and check (or better yet FLING-BOOGIE unlabeled ingredients)!
- flying in Jamesville, NY
- My husband teaches a handbell choir class at a local college and it has
become a yearly tradition to have them (12-15 college kids) over for a
"Christmas Dinner" with all the fixings on the last day of classes each
December. The first year we did this I had one three year old daughter so
we went all out and had a BIG meal and a very fun evening. So we have this
BIG meal tradition which is now a bit more of a challenge to pull off since
we have added an additional four little blessings (now we have five kids
ages 9 down to 7 months) in the past six Christmases. Last year, while
pregnant, I worked on this dinner all day with an eye on the clock thinking,
"Hmmm, am I going to get this dinner made?" while my sweet darlings were all
trying to help. Just when it looked like I had everything under control
(WHEW!) I told my four year old daughter she could help me with the topping
of the cheesecake as soon as I ran upstairs to get dressed. I quickly ran
upstairs, got dressed, dashed through the house (well, I did my pregnant
best) and did a last minute pick up and went back to the kitchen to find my
very proud girl standing on a chair by the counter saying "Look Mom! I did
the topping since you are so busy!" She had liberally sprinkled PEPPER
(which I had not put away when I was done with it) all over the cheesecake
and poked her finger into it about 20 times. After my initial shock, I
could not stop laughing. We served that special "Pepper Pie" (with an
explanation) along with more traditional holiday fare and some of the
college kids said it wasn't half bad! But, I don¹t think we'll add that to
the annual tradition.
- SHEs shouldn't bake a dozen pumpkin pies with the help of her young granddaughter, and try to tell her how much salt the recipe calls for, while also making the pie crusts for those pies. My Mom did this, telling my daughter to put in Tablespoons rather than Teaspoons. Not even the dog would eat it! Yikes! My daughter is still upset that she got blamed for it!
SHEs shouldn't plan an elaborate holiday dinner without writing down EVERYTHING on the menu and keeping the list in a prominent place. AND check the list immediately before calling people to the table! How many times have I left something in the refrigerator?! Or worse yet, the corn that was cooked in the microwave, and found the next day!
SHEs shouldn't add kiwi fruit to a jello salad, because it will look so pretty! Did you know jello won't jell with kiwi in it? Especially don't do this at the last moment and grab it as you head out the door to the festivities with your one and only contribution!
SHEs should transport apple cider to a holiday party in a loosely covered pitcher, no matter how careful you plan to drive! Inevitably, you will forget all about it and take a corner too sharply...and enjoy icky, sticky apple cider car for the next month or more! (Ask me how I know!) - in Wisconsin
- She Shouldn't...wait until Christmas morning to check the potatoes that she is expecting to make mashed potatoes with. Chances are she bought then months ago and they have gone bad. Result...having to buy 4 really small, high priced boxes at a convinence store, that's if they still have that many left. I was lucky...they had some in the store room...otherwise I would have been up a creek.
- Ever since I first learned to make yeast rolls, I have been the roll baker for Thanksgiving which was always at my mother’s house. Back when I was in high school I had made a double batch and needed the dough to do its first rising. We heated by woodburning stove at the time. The stove had just been lit and was barely warm when I set my dough in a Tupperware bowl on top to start rising. You guessed it! By the time I got back to check it, the fire was roaring and the bottom of the bowl had started to melt. I think that was when I first became known for the phrase, “Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time!”
- Fluttering in Indiana
- SHE's shouldn't ever, EVER, make brownies at the last minute to take somewhere. SHE may decide to sprinkle the top with a little powdered sugar and then the top may fall off the shaker and a very large mound of powdered sugar may end up in the middle of the brownies. What to do? The kids are running around and you have to leave for the party in 5 minutes. Then SHE shouldn't (don't even think it) try to use the vacuum cleaner to suck up the powdered sugar. If SHE does, the hose will suck up to the pan and make a nice hole in the middle of the brownies. If SHE really did try this, she could try cutting the remaining brownies into squares on a platter to take to the party.
- Okay I usually would not admit this but beings that you all have helped me out so much I will indulge you with my "sheness".
My mom was ill close to Christmas last year so I made her a tuna casserole to help her out while she was trying to get her last minute holiday things finished.
I called her to ask her how the casserole was and she said "hmmm well sweetie, it was good but tasted a little funny". Right at that moment I knew why.....I forgot the tuna!!!! The was bfl (before fly lady!).
I don't think I will live that one down!
- She shouldn't skip the last line of a new recipe because.....she will assume the green bean casserole is baked without a lid and the french fried onions sprinkled on top will become rock hard and break her tooth requiring extensive dental repairs!!!
- SHE'S shouldn't bake without reading the labels very closely.
I decided to bake a cake for company we were having. I used a boxed mix. After I had baked it and taken it out of the oven I noticed that it was very flat and had not risen like a cake should. I got the box out of the trash that I had taken the mix from to see what I had done wrong. It wasn't until then that I noticed that I had baked a cake from a frosting mix instead of a cake mix.
- SHE shouldn't let her SHE sister help with holiday
dinners. Every time my sister has assisted me in
preparing a holiday dinner something ALWAYS catches
fire! Dish towels, potholders, plasic bags, spatulas,
the icky stuff that boils over from the potatoes and
then catches fire when the gravy is made on the same
said burner later or my favorite is when sister SHE
poked a hole in the aluminum turkey pan when testing
the temperature with one of those instant read
thermometers causing the juice to leak into the bottom
of the oven smoking us all out of the house on a
freezing cold Thanksgiving day and delaying dinner 2
hrs while we cleaned the oven! Lessons learned, two
SHEs are definitely NOT better than one and a fire
extinguisher can be a SHE's best friend!
- Hi FlyCrew,
A couple of years ago, I wanted to make the ultimate chocolate cake for Thanksgiving. No recipe, thought it up all by myself. I decided to use double fudge cake mix, with dark chocolate icing, chocolate pudding in one layer, brownie for another layer, and fudge for the middle layer, oh and malt balls as a grape decoration on the top of the cake. Well, it looked wonderful and I couldn't waite to serve it. Now, because it had pudding in it I put it in the refridgerator. Well, dinner was over and we were putting out the desserts and everybody was oohhing and ahhing over the chocolate cake (we are major chocolate lovers here!!). So that was the first thing we decided to cut. Well, I should say, TRY and cut. My dad got about 1/2 way down the cake and couldn't cut any further. I thought he was joking at first; until I tried and also couldn't cut any further. I couldn't imagine at first what was stopping it from cutting. Of course, the jokes started flying as to what could have been in the cake, then all of a sudden I realized, I had fudge in the middle of the cake and it had gotten as solid as a rock from being in the refridgerator over night. All of a sudden my father looks at me and says he has an idea. Stand back he yells to everybody in the middle of wiping tears from his eyes from laughing so hard. He plugged in the electric knife we use for carving meat and cut the chocolate cake with it. We laughed so hard that day, and at least one person every year at Thanksgiving asks if we need to break out the electric knife for any of the desserts I've made this year.
- ps. the cake really tasted great too!
- Shes shouldn't plan on flambed Christmas pudding.
- SHE shouldn’t spray the oven with oven cleaner the night before SHE plans to do some baking. Because SHE will forget to wipe it out before SHE preheats the oven.
Muskoka, Ontario Flybaby
- Shes shouldn't turn the crockpot on HIGH when trying to heat up the
eggnog for the Holiday Party (because you forgot to
heat it up BEFORE the party started) and then forget
to turn it to low.
No-one likes cooked (or should I say curdled?) eggnog.
I had no idea that you could make eggnog-flavored
scrambled eggs!
- newborn FLYbaby in California
- My family loves good old Southern dressing made with lots of cornbread. We don't ever stuff the turkey (that's why it's dressing not stuffing), but we cook it in the huge roasting pan that the turkey was cooked in, plus at least one other 9x13 dish. Well, a few years ago I had Thanksgiving at my new (to me) house for my DH's side of the family. I was very excited to get to use my double oven, since I had never had one before. This was back pre-Flylady (and I am a now-recovering perfectionist), so things were very hectic in my kitchen. We did sit down to a nice meal, after I made sure to turn the oven off. However, I left a big dish of dressing in the lower oven to keep it warm (warm for what, I'm not sure--supper???). Being the SHE that I am, I didn't use the lower oven again until Christmas Eve. Boy, did I have a surprise when I opened that oven door!! The smell about knocked me over. It was quite a little incubator for the science project I found inside. Mostly I was just sad that all that good dressing had gone to waste.
- West Texas Flybaby Shelly
- I think being a SHE is genetic - Years ago, my family was at my DG's (Dear Grandma) house for Thanksgiving dinner. What a dinner it was! We had everything we could ever eat, but while clearing the table, we noticed the oven was still on and inside the oven was a couple more side dishes! (Like we missed anything with all the food on the table!) Our family is quite small (there were 5 of us that day) and there is no way we could have eaten all that food! Grandma was a great cook, and I guess she just wanted everything to be perfect!
This is the same DG that dried her homemade noodles with a hairdryer because she needed to finish the noodles quickly!
I really miss her!
Flybaby in Colorado
- Try making a carrot cake, shredding the carrots
putting the cake in the oven baking it and realized
you forgot to put the carotts in the silly CARROT
CAKE!!! Or mailing a thank you card to a
friend and putting your address where hers should have
been. SHE moments happen for me when I've been up
all night with a baby or a real good book or a real
good Idea.
- She shouldn't say in front of her children that the recipe for butternut squash souffle calls for more sugar than it needs to. Then when She COMPLETELY forgets to put in the sugar at both Thanksgiving and Christmas, they will be sure She did it on purpose!
Flappin' in Katy, TX
- I was having a dinner party and making a tray of brownies. I found I didn't have any oil for the recipe. The only oil I had was flavored with herbs and garlic. Thinking back, I'm horrified, but....I used it as a substitute. Stupidly, I thought no one would notice. Duh!!!
- SHE shouldn't believe the person who answers the phone at the BBQ restaurant
and assures her that they will be open Christmas morning at 11am so she can
pick up a roast brisket.
The first year she is married, SHE shouldn't offer to have her new husband's
family over for Thanksgiving, then neglect to make gravy. ("You didn't make
GRAVY???") She didn't forget to make it, she just didn't feel it was
important. -- Flyster in Texas
- SHEs shouldn't try to make gravy while distracted by 10 guests and three children under the age of 5 in her kitchen, because SHE will allow the drippings to boil over, causing electric burner on stove to ignite into a lovely grease fire, which burns until SHE and her equally SHE-ish husband tries to get all of the Thanksgiving dinner out of the kitchen before deploying the fire extinguisher.
Flybaby in AL
- SHEs shouldn't try to melt the butter on their toast, with more bread
in the toaster - because when the newly toasted bread pops up, the
other bread will tip over, causing the cinnamon and sugar to spill on
the hot coils of the toaster - smoke and flames will shoot from the
toaster - which SHE will discover happens while she is standing in
the next room, trying to decorations hung up and quick sign some
cards - all at the same time.......
- in SC
- This one is from my Mom. SHE shouldn't leave the large, expensive Christmas Roast on the table and walk out of the kitchen for a while because when she comes back the platter will be empty with a trail of meat juice smeared across the table and onto the chair where the cat is happily gnawing on it! Because then SHE will be so mad she'll throw the cat AND the roast out the back door! The cat was fine. The roast wasn't.
- FLybaby in NJ
- SHEs should never, ever cook without an apron. Especially when they
are in their brand new holiday finest!
|
