One Thing At A Time

Ah, my first feast in my tiny house: Thanksgiving, 2024. The last of the leftovers are on the kitchen counter, waiting to become a lunch: duck breast. The rest is gone, sort of. Redefining decades of traditional turkey dinners required some thought and a tape measure. Pardon me as I explain.

Disclosure: My tiny house has a standard-sized, suburban-conventional, range. It is a normal range in a normal house and a behemoth in a tiny house, but I do have it. That means it was possible to cook an enormous turkey with stuffing and cornbread, while on the stovetop: veggies could be sauteing, potatoes boiling, a tea kettle whistling, and have a burner left over in case I needed it, or at least needed a sturdy trivet. But. But, the energy isn't reliable like electricity or piped-in 'natural' gas. It is a propane appliance fed from the same kind of bottle used for outdoor grills. That's all fine enough if there's enough fuel, and I have a full bottle of fuel as a backup, but. But the flames pop out. The electric starter sparks and sometimes the flames ignite and sometimes not. Even after they ignite, the flames may quietly go poof. Hmm. Is it out of fuel, out of spark, or is the gas flowing into the air hunting for a candle? That does not make for a relaxing cooking experience. I am glad I have it because at least it has a chance of working if the power goes out. Pardon me as I continue.

Soon after I moved in, I bought two small appliances: a Cuisinart convection oven and a Duxtop induction burner. For most meals, that's more than sufficient. For a feast, some logistics would need to be considered, and that was acceptable. Bring it on!

Start with the main course: the bird. It might be possible to find a turkey small enough for the convection oven, which is also a toaster oven, but that might be a ridiculous search. I've cooked chickens in it, but that's too pedestrian for a feast. Cornish hens? Too small. Capon (basically a large male chicken)? Too hard to find. Duck? Duck. Duck is not easy to cook for culinary reasons I'll leave to foodie networks, but I only had myself to feed and pizza can be a backup. First, I had to measure the oven interior, then go to my local coop and measure their birds. I found a frozen brick of a bird that barely fit and brought it home. Done.

One oven means one thing at a time. The pumpkin pie filling was from scratch, so, simply from the time required, roasting the pumpkin was done the evening before. I cheated on the pie crust when I found a gluten-free pie crust for sale. OK. Fine. Roast the squash. Make the filling. Let it set. Go live in the fridge for a day, to start. Some taste testing may occur.

Cornbread is another one that needs its own oven time, but would in any case considering the temperature differences of the different dishes.

And then there were the veggies, and the circuit breaker that tripped a few days before. 

This is a detail that has more to do with my tiny house, but I'm sure someone else will encounter it.

I think my tiny house does not have any 220V appliances, except maybe the hot water heater which I haven't checked because it is in a closet. Those two appliances I bought are both 110V. So is my new washer/dryer. (Washer Dryer Whew) Great! Simpler is better. But. But those appliances must be pushing a limit because if I turn them both on, the breaker trips and the cooking stops. It happened one day with a long-simmering meal that meant I didn't notice the lack of cooking for about an hour. Oops. Quiet cooking has its drawbacks. That meant I had to cook a bird or a side dish but not both at once. (One solution would be to run an extension cord to a different outlet, but a bit of pacing made that unnecessary.)

So, the rice was cooked on the stove before the bird went into the oven, and the veggies sauteed away while I cut up the cooked bird. (Side note: The convection oven worked so quickly that the bird was done in less than an hour, had the crispiest skin of any duck I've cooked, and had the best flavor. It meant I ate early. Nice.)

There is drama and skill to deliver everything to table at the same time, all hot or warm or ready as appropriate. That creates that mayhem that is a traditional Thanksgiving morning in millions of kitchens. My space required that I think it through and do one thing at a time. It meant adding an evening, but I probably would've done that anyway as a way to miss the mayhem. It also meant that the dishwashing detail was never too onerous, continual, but not insurmountable.

I said that the duck breast is the last leftover, but that's not exactly true. The rest of Thanksgiving was putting away some leftovers, but cooking down the bits like the neck and back took hours as they turned into some sought-after cooking fat, and some rich stock. Those two culinary products will last me through to Christmas when that feast happens.

Pardon me as I enjoy a duck breast salad.

(PS I skipped a lot of culinary details, like describing herbs, spices, nuts, oils, etc., because that could be a blog of its own, and I know there are better sources out there.)