cook: double stuffed baked potatoes

I stayed after school the day before Thanksgiving break glazing a bunch of bisque. I still didn't finish, and it was already dark at 5. However, the lights at SFO were pretty in the night sky. 

 

And after grocery shopping, I stopped at a discount department store to get my Black Friday fix but without doing so on the actual day when the store would be swarming with bargain hunters. I merely wanted to see what useless stuff I would be tempted to buy if I weren't trying to be a minimalist. For example, I am a sucker for tongs, but didn't buy.

And I like the idea of this egg container, but then remembered that I hate, hate, hate the stupid home edit trend of fridgescaping and pantry organization of stacking clear plastic storage with labels. In my 20s, I liked the Container Store, and now well, its concept is just dumb. And the Princess Diana cookie tin caught my eye because it reminded me of the travel candy tin of her wedding portrait that I bought as a souvenir when I first traveled to London and that now stores some of my buttons. Don't need it. Didn't get it.

 

Back to cooking for Thanksgiving. I was originally going to fry spuds for patatas mixtas, but then decided to cook ahead double stuffed baked potatoes in order to not crowd the kitchen. I got up early just to bake the potatoes, which I cut in half after an hour in the oven and then got to chopping scallions and chives while ....

 

....melting butter in half and half in the hot oven.

However, the potatoes looked pretty dry even with the hot dairy, and so I melted even more butter and some heavy whipping cream to boot in the microwave.

  

Yep, that made the whipped potatoes even creamier and fluffier.

 

....and more importantly, even tastier. Lots of salt and pepper and the green alliums to season and flavor the spuds. Potatoes stuffed back into their jackets....

and ready to be covered with foil and then re-heated for the afternoon feast. I kept the side simple and did not add the sour cream or cream cheese or cheese called for in various recipes.

Roast chickens were delicious for thanksgiving, and leftover chicken made for a delicious chicken salad sandwich for lunch the next day.

 

And I've got a cold, but am trying not to flake out on social commitments. I got together with Meral on this Black Friday after our ceramics session....

...and ate a delicious dinner at a Pakistani-Indian restaurant where we ordered papadums just for the mint and tamarind chutneys and paneer makhani and a spicy chicken biriyani with raita and some kind of warm red sauce. I'm supposed to do friendsgiving tomorrow, but my throat is scratchy and my head hurts. No fever, but I feel just yuck. I'll get up early to take the stupid turkey out of the refrigerator to come to room temperature and start the gravy and mashed potatoes. Ugh. I'm thinking I'll just do cooking duty and then bow out of lunch because I see myself becoming more miserable in order for this cold to run its course.