I pulled all my recipes from Food Network's front page. Since I was searching for recipes a mere three days before Thanksgiving, I thought it appropriate that they had the easiest and best-loved recipes listed right there, first thing. Savvy Food Network people.
So, in reality, the process began the night before Thanksgiving with my creation of a yummy-smelling turkey brine solution. After cooking for some time, it promptly went into the fridge to chill. The next morning, we (anytime I speak of raw meat, "we" actually means "Dan") submerged the turkey in the solution and let it soak in our fridge for six hours.
In the meantime, the boys and I cooked our pumpkin bars that would be our dessert.
Dessert duty was followed by cranberry sauce duty (Dan's project).
Then, we waited...and waited...and waited.
Closer to dinner time, we made onion/green bean casserole, delicious skin-on mashed potatoes, brown gravy, stuffing, and corn on the cob. I also whipped up some cream cheese frosting for the pumpkin bars.
By the time the turkey thermometer read 160, the giant, hovering, behemoth boys were starving (as were the little ones). I swear they were like a school of circling sharks, and when dinner was served conversation was almost non-existent as the men dove into their food with a frenzy, practically inhaling entire plates of food. As a first-time Thanksgiving dinner maker, it warmed my heart to watch their enthusiastic reaction to the yummy food.
Thanksgiving 2008 - Success!
Things I would do differently next time:
1. Make homemade rolls
2. Buy a regular turkey, not a free range turkey (which tastes really fowl-y).
14 comments:
ha ha, I just wrote on Daniel's blog, "Were those store-bought rolls I spied on your Thanksgiving table?" That comes from the Ogden genes. My side of the family always did homemade. Store-bought are okay when no one else is contributing to the dinner. It's a survival thing.
Daniel said the food was 'really' good. He loved your pumpkin bars. Sara says we have to do pie for Christmas since they didn't get any for Thanksgiving, just pumpkin cheesecake.
I'm so impressed! Everything looks so delicious! I have a fabulous and extremely easy roll recipe you can use next year. Great job Liz!
Impressive! It looks like you all had a fun time. Your boys are so cute. Happy belated Thanksgiving!
ps - I agree about the whole free-range turkey thing.
Hey the food looks great! Looks like you had a great Thanksgiving!!
Great job! I have never done a turkey, it kind of scares me. Way to go, everything looked great!
Wow! I am impressed! Move over Martha Stewart!!
Congrats on cooking your first Thanskgiving dinner! It is a lot of work. It looks like everything turned out delicious. I have never heard of soaking the Turkey before hand.
Nicely done!
haha! I was laughing at the "anytime it involves raw meat we means Dan" comment. That is awesome, and how I feel too. I tried to cook salmon straight from the ocean once- and I nearly threw up while trying to pick out the bones and other parts. Jarem saw me heaving in the kitchen and tossed it. By the way, I was extremely jealous that Daniel and Joseph got to eat the "rewards" of your hard work. I want to be there too, and eat that yummy stuff!! Next time we're flying you up here, and you can cook for us too. How's that for fair? :)
Good job on the Turkey Dinner...
As I am sure you read on my blog..I don't cook on THanksgiving or Christmas...Morris does the honors...and has for years now.
Your house is so cute...I could really see it in these pictures.
I love the big window in the kitchen.
B.
What a great looking dinner. I can't believe you made homemade cranberry sauce, that's awesome! I love all the pictures you took, but I always do!
It all looks wonderful. Did the Brine turn out?? I saw that on the food network too and I wanted to try it! I used a turkey bag instead- worked great. Homemade cranberry sauce is WAY more impressive than homemade rolls.
Looks so delicious! I made my second-ever turkey dinner the day after Christmas. We also brined the turkey both times and I think that is definitely the best way. Way to go, Liz!
Amy
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