Thanksgiving

Wow! What happened to November? It took me so long to catch up with October.... Big Daddy and I hosted Thanksgiving again this year. We kinda have an agreement with HRM Momsy. We do Thanksgiving and she does Christmas. Fair enough. Only last year it took them 3..THREE hours to get to our house. Mind you, they live 77 miles and all on state/local highways. No driving through twisted mountain roads, no snow...just cars and people. So, we decided to celebrate Thanksgiving on Friday. No bad traffic and everyone arrived calm and happy.

Big Daddy is a Kindle fan. It's that electronic reader from Amazon.

He downloads all kinds of books, some for free. When he first got it, he downloaded the Cooks Illustrated somethingarather. He was browsing on Thursday whilst I was creating about 60 "Best Rolls Ever" and 3 pies. He found some kitchen testing on turkeys and decided we should try a new approach. So at 11 pm after playing 2 1/2 hours of Monopoly (which, of course, I won) we began to "brine" our turkey. We used a clean,orange Home Depot bucket, filled it with water and 2 cups of table salt, dropped the turkey in, snapped on the lid and set it in the backyard. I know...sounds scary. But botulism never entered my mind. Im a positive thinker when it comes to food. Big Daddy got up early Friday morning with Drama who wasn't feeling tip-top, and checked on the turkey. It was 37 degrees outside, so we were pretty safe. By the time I got my lazy can out of bed, he had rinsed and dried the bird. We stuffed it with carrots, onions and butter, shoved it in a cooking bag and plopped it in the over. 5 hours later, we had the MOST delicious turkey we have ever cooked.

Puppy, aka Oliver, waiting for turkey to hit the floor.

It was mosit and tender and yummy. It even made the best gravy I have ever created.

This is me, sans makeup, pouring gravy into a thermos carafe. This is one of the most ingenious ideas some told me. It kept the gravy nice and hot for over 3 hours. And it's easy to pour and easy clean. Just a tip.

Here was the key...of course SALT. I am so bad when it comes to salt. I salt food before I even taste it. Salt green apples and watermelon....yumm! So when the bird came out already salted and spiced, not all dried out like pioneer food.

So...Big Daddy scored big in the kitchen this year.

In addition to the turkey, we had mashed potatoes, green bean casserole (note to self: make only 1 batch next year. 2 was too much), gravy, sweet potatoes (also note: we could probably do without since I am the only one who eats it) and of course, cranberry sauce. Not out of a can though. I found some deliciously made sauce at Henry's when getting produce. It was also delicious with Brie on crackers.

Oh...food, glorious food.....

Here are some happy campers. I think Lazy Boys was the only one of this kids who ate a little of something. Next year, mashed potatoes and rolls only.

Oh, and HRM's Almond punch.

Forget the rest!