Yesterday we had people over for the app party and had 6 less people than we had anticipated. A lot of people had not seen our kitchen yet so it was a nice surprise for them. I managed to do everything that I had to and also setup the new coffee machine as well as help Xavier setup his bench so he could do some exercise. Mel did everything else. Nothing too major. Clean the house completely, that involved clearing the renovation supplies and everything associated with that, setting up the tables, rearranging the furniture and cleaning the washrooms. The washrooms must be cleaned prior to receiving a guest. Mel learned that from her mother. We had a steady stream of guests so Mel had to make sure it was pristine all day long. I did not think that it would fatigue me as much as it did, but by the end of the day I was tired. Luckily we have a lot of people that always help clean up and they took most of the food away as left overs. Our fridge/freezer is only 54″ wide so we do not have enough capacity for everything. If we had bought the 66″ like I wanted or the walk in then we would have capacity for leftovers. Of course I do not like leftovers and everyone loves them so it works out. I appreciate everything that Mel does even though I am sure that she thinks I am a pain commenting on her execution of the tasks.
Everyone loved the after dinner coffees and were all impressed with the quality of the coffee. I am sure that everyone is going to run out and buy their own now. They are relatively cheap compared to going out to a coffee shop several times a day. I just do not think that people realize how expensive it is. Mel enjoyed it as well and we will need to learn how to tweak and modify the settings so we get coffee the way that we like it. We had a lot of people at the house so Mel opened the window a bit. I had to put on a second sweater and have a blanket. People still questioned how much I ate, but I managed to eat a little bit throughout the meal. I had to sample my cooking and took bites here and there.We finished with the first round of guests this morning with my side of the family. I was up at 7am prepping for brunch and then we opened gifts. I had a small break and then we had to start dinner prep. With our new range, our ovens are small, only fitting pans that are 17inches in length. We had some roasting pans, but none that for our new ovens. We have had to make due with what we have and squeeze things together. It is less than ideal and you would think that by now we would have know better and purchased some new ones. I will order some new ones so that in the future we do not run into this problem again. The other option would have been to spatchcock the turkey and then place it into the oven. We were only in charge of cooking the turkey, making the cranberry sauce and gravy. That is what I have spent the afternoon doing and Mel is taking a nap. I will do that as well shortly once I simmer my broth for a while prior to making some gravy. Energy levels right now are managable, but I know that I will need a break and rest shortly. I have eaten some things and will need to eat again prior to me taking a nap.
We finished dinner and there are some things that we realized. The first is that our oven is quite efficient and our 19lb turkey was supposed to cooked for 15min for each lb. So the estimate would be approximately 3 to 3.5 hrs. Our convection oven at a lower temperature cooked the turkey in 1.5hours. this was the first time that we had done this, so it is a bit of a learning curve. I was also able to cook and maintain relatively good energy throughout the day. I got tired when I was helping Xavier setup the area for the Smith machine. My father in law is coming to help set it up tomorrow. Food wise I have been able to eat fairly well and my weight has been increasing daily which is a good sign. I think that I am starting to get things under control now.
Q