So this Thanksgiving was just about my hubby and I but we decided to still cook like we where feeding a crowd. He loves turkey and gravy and wanted to make sure he had tons of leftovers. I knew I was gonna be cooking all day long — but I wasn't to stressed about it because I made sure I did a LOT of planning ahead of time. I started researching menus a couple of weeks before (Marthat Stewart, Epicurious and How2Heroes) and we also went grocery shopping on Tuesday so we did not have to deal with the crazy crowds. It really went smoothly.
We decided to brine the turkey this year, we did a dry brine we saw on MS and it was super easy and fast. You just mix salt and bay leaves, rub it all over the turkey and then pop it in the fridge for at least 24 hrs. Thursday morning we just took our 18lb turkey out of the fridge and let it rest for about 1.5 hrs, cleaned it really well and then stuffed it with oranges, limes, garlic, celery and tons of yummy herbs. I followed Martha's recipe of Roasted Turkey and it worked out perfectly.
ALSO ON THE MENU:
_Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic: Roasted the garlic the day before.
_Corn bread stuffing with sage & turkey bacon: Started from this recipe but replaced pecans for chesnuts & turkey bacon for the ham.
_Brussel Sprouts: Simply sautéed in a pan with garlic, salt & pepper
_Gravy: Same MS recipe, but only added about 1c of wine
_Cranberry sauce: Made it the day before
The results? the Turkey was delicious and super juicy. I really think brining helped. It cooked in about 3.5 hrs, almost 1 hr before we planned, so we had to rush a bit to finish the rest of the sides... it all came out delicious! After dinner we made the apple pie and the pumpkin pie (I made the crust dough ahead of time) so that gave us enough time to digest a bit and then had some amazing warm pie. By the way, we watched an amazing movie called "The Fall"—rent it... it's awesome!
Hope your thanksgiving was delicious too!
