Thanksgiving

I definitely overdid it for thanksgiving this year – cooking and hosting for 9 adults and a toddler, but it was fun to do one time and will scale back the cooking next year. For the turkey, I used elements of this recipe, and this one, and paranoia that my old oven temperature was off and it was going to take approximately 18 hours to cook and so I randomly turned the heat up after only an hour in. At 3 hours, I took it out of the parchment and added butter, chopped rosemary and thyme, and lemon zest to the skin. It came out pretty well for a first try I think, but was a little overdone. The parchment still kept it from getting dry. 

For sides, I made stuffing/dressing, sweet potatoes with pecans and marshmallows, green beans with mushrooms (this didn’t come out well, which was too bad because the mushrooms were excellent), mashed potatoes, caramelized onions and criminy mushrooms as potato toppings, two kinds of glazed carrots – whiskey glazed and a batch sans-whiskey, and creamed corn which I could eat all day everyday especially with pepper jelly on top. I also made a cranberry pecan pie which I overcooked but it was still good.

Next year we’re going simple. For sides, maybe just stuffing, sweet potatoes in the skin, mashed potatoes and caramelized onions and a fresh salad. And whiskey glazed carrots. I’m still crazy about the creamed corn, but that has been added to the everyday rotation so we’ll leave it off the holiday list.