Back home, finally. Yay.
The good: survived the stay at Jenna's mom's house. Her relative that had come over that hated me last time we met...seemed waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more chill this time. It has been years and I know people do change, but she was practically a different woman. Which is great, since she's about as shy as Super about sharing her opinions so if she had still hated me it would have been a very difficult week. Also, house has been all fixed up and the landlord will be shaving some off of next month's rent since we weren't able to use our house for 3-4 days. Dunno how much yet, but even just $100 would help alot.
The bad: sleeping on a mat on the floor for 4 days has done wonders for my back. As in it is a wonder my back still works after that. Owie. Jenna's in about the same shape. Also, upon arriving home we discover that the cleaning chemicals used while we were out have left a rather unpleasant, and extremely powerful, odor.
The ugly: cooking thanksgiving dinner for a family with the following dietary limitations. 1) a low sodium diet. And by low I mean as close to "no sodium" as possible. 2) a low fat diet. Again, by low fat I mean as close to fat free as possible. Same person as before, by the way. 3) no garlic. Same person as the previous two is allergic. 4) no onions. Not the same person, but someone that needed to be catered to, so onions was out. 5) a largely sugar-free diet. One person strongly on this diet, and the same person as the low sodium/fat diet is partially on it. Cooking without salt, fat, garlic, sugar or onion was...a thing. But I got it done somehow.
As a note, the woman on the very restrictive diet was Jenna's mother, who was letting us stay at her house and is on such a diet since she just had heart surgery. So we definately had to cater to her needs there. And the no onions person was HER aunt, a woman in her...late 70s, I think? Not going to tell someone that old that they can just eat something else when I can find a way to cook around it. Ended up making my own vegitable stock from scratch to "brine"(as much as you can call it that without salt) the turkey in overnight, a weird eggplant stuffing thing that I'll post the recipie for later because it was delicious(this is also what was the biggest pain in the ass too cook. I love eggplant but godDAMN is it difficult to work with), and some mashed potatoes with only the barest hint of margerine to help smooth it out a touch. All in all was good eats, just more effort then usual to make.
