turkey day!

I hope you and your family had a very lovely turkey day, er Thanksgiving, yesterday! I just chilled out at home, helped with making the dinner (which was a true “dinner” this year – Jake had to work until 6PM and we didn’t eat until after 8PM instead of our usual “eat-at-3PM”).

I started the day off by baking some scones. These are actually the packaged mix from Fresh n Easy. You just cut in some butter, add an egg and milk and bring it together until it’s just moistened. I forgot I wanted to put blueberries INTO the scones, so rather than run the risk of making the scones too tough, I made a quick blueberry sauce to go on top (just frozen blueberries, little bit of sugar, water and a cornstarch slurry to thicken it up). A delicious way to start the day!

This is the brine I made for our hefty 17lb fresh turkey. We brined it for about 4 hours instead of doing the overnight thing (that’s how Dad likes to do it).

The brine is: 2 cups brown sugar, 1 and 1/2 cups salt, 2 lemons (peeled and the lemons thrown in), 3 tablespoons of peppercorns and 6 fresh bay trees (we have a bay leaf tree, it’s true). Bring to a boil in some water (use a minimal amount of water so you can add it directly to cold water instead of waiting forever for it to cool down…. which is what I did…. oops). Let cool and add to a bucket or larger container with more water and ice.

This is our traditional pork stuffing that goes into our turkey. It is so heavenly, I look forward to eating this every year!

Here’s our golden, glistening turkey with the stuffing spilling out! The turkey turned out great. Dad got a fresh turkey without any of that added crap to it (no injections). It was very moist and juicy and so so so good.

Mashed potatoes. Can’t go wrong with those!

Twice baked yams enjoyed by my parents and me. Jake and T didn’t touch these. I don’t know why, they’re so good! Dad “baked” them in the microwave and then I prepped them for the second bake. I scooped out the middle and added in butter, brown sugar, a touch of sea salt and some nutmeg and then put them back into the shells to be re-baked in the oven. Just a touch of sweetness, these were so good.

I also prepped the green beans, er, haricot verts, this year. Very simple prep – just boil the green beans for 8-10 minutes. Then toss in butter and garlic into a pan and reheat the green beans. This was good since I boiled them first and set them aside until we needed them. I also used my new package of Omnivore Salt here with a few cracks of fresh pepper. I got Omnivore Salt through a Kickstarter campaign and it’s a really delicious blend of fine salt with organic spices – perfect over this dish!

Mmm, dark meat.

Mom always makes the gravy. It’s like the one thing we make her do, haha.

The full spread!

My plate of goodies.

T and my Dad.

Jake and I.

And Maya, too! Who got to partake in a bit of turkey.

Jake’s mom dropped off some mini pecan pies and some Ritz “cookies” for us that she made. Yum! For dessert, my dad INSISTED that we just get a Costco pumpkin pie and I said, “okay”. But after tasting the Costco pie well… let’s just say I’m gonna make the pie next year, for sure. After a whole homemade meal, a store bought pie just did not cut it! Oh well, lesson learned for next year. Dad says I should be in charge of everything next year. We’ll see how that goes, eh?

Hope everyone had a wonderfully bright, deliciously awesome, terrifically fabulous Thanksgiving!