Thanksgiving

It was the food event of the year, 2009. Very traditional Thanksgiving meal - I ask family to bring appetizers and dessert, and I generally provide the rest. This year, it was turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing (both in and out of the bird), the ubiquitous green bean casserole, and dinner rolls. And gravy of course. There always has to be gravy.

The table setting....

Preparing the "bed" for the turkey

Stuffing - Pepperidge Farm bread cubes with onion and celery sauteed in butter. And chicken stock.

The sweet potatoes, with one set aside for the baby's dinner (well, one-quarter of one sweet potato - he may be a hungry baby, but he isn't that hungry). This was eventually topped with a butter/brown sugar/cinnamon/pecan mixture

The turkey, midway through - it got flipped at this point. This poor turkey was put through the wringer - brining, stuffing, roasting upside down....

And the buffet - thanks to my niece for adding a human touch

We can't forget dessert (and a little taste of the appetizers - a cheesy garlic roll) - spectacular pumpkin pie!

Thanksgiving part 1 - turkey breast

Holy schmoley, it's been a while since I posted. Sorry for that. It's been a weird month. Nonetheless, the mecca of holiday feasting, Thanksgiving, was recently upon us. In installments, I will (without pics, sadly) explain how it went down.

First off, we had a turkey breast (turkey will be discussed later). R and I decided to experiment a bit and brine the turkey before roasting it. Relying loosely on an Alton recipe, I heated about 2 qts of water with about a 1/2 c of kosher salt, 1/4 c of brown sugar, and a tbsp of peppercorns. I allowed that to cool and then poured it into a large stock pot in the sink, cushioned the pot with ice, and put the turkey breast in. I replaced the ice throughout the morning and let the turkey float in its brine for about 4 hours before thoroughly rinsing it, buttering it up, and putting it in its baking dish. Once at the Thanksgiving final destination of the brother-in-law, it got baked for about 2 1/2 hours and was LUSCIOUSLY moist and tender and perfectly seasoned. Would highly recommend doing, and will likely do it to an entire turkey next year. Thumbs up on brining.

Thanksgiving trial run

Having never really prepared a turkey on my own before, or all the accoutrements, I decided to get a bone-in turkey breast and make some fixins this weekend. I had a delightful 6.3 pound breast that apparently needed lots of weird gross juices added to it, which I had to pour out of the cavity and rinse thoroughly. The dog was VERY interested in these smells. Anyways, I seasoned said bird with salt, pepper, and slathered some butter all over it. Then tossed an onion in the small cavity and slung it in a 325 deg. oven. It needed about 3 and a quarter hours until it reached 170 degs internally.

Meanwhile, I prepared some stuffing/dressing. I cheated - I simply softened an onion and some celery in some butter with salt/pepper, then tossed in about 3 c of cubed Pepperidge Farm seasoned stuffing mix and added the requisite amount of chicken broth. Toss in a casserole dish, and it baked alongside the turkey for the last hour or so.

Additionally meanwhile, I made some mashed potatoes. I'm not going to explain how to make potatoes. If you need assistance, see the Food Network homepage.

And finally, I made gravy with the turkey drippings. Drippings, plus flour, mix until flour is unfloury, add chicken broth (or turkey broth) and in my case, pepper and wine. A bit too much wine, so I had to cook it a bit longer and add more broth, but it was still pretty good.

c'est fin.