Yay Thanksgiving!

[jlh]

There's something about getting up early in the morning to cook that means Thanksgiving to me. When I was a child we had the holiday dinner in the mid-afternoon so everyone could get home before the roads started to ice after the sun set, so the turkey needed to get into the oven in the morning. My job was to make a giant loaf of bread into toast cubes for stuffing, so I would stand in the kitchen on a chair toasting bread and then cutting it with a bread knife and throwing it into our largest bowl. Later my job became peeling onions (my super power—I rarely cry) for boiling and for the stuffing.

While yesterday I made up the brine and got the turkey steeping, I left everything else until this morning: a pumpkin pie, cornbread and then dressing made from it, and some compound butter and turkey stock for roasting the turkey. Then soupkills came by with help to take me and the food up to his and calloocallay's place for the big meal. 10 of us at table, everyone brought something fantastic like cheesy bread or spinach casserole or buns with marzapan inside or chocolate mousse or apple pie or cranberry sauce with port. Before and after stuffing ourselves was much playing of Rock Band and talking about all manner of things. Just a fantastic day.

The turkey came out great, but I've been making that particular recipe for seven or eight years now and it's tried and true. What I'm really excited about is that I managed to pull off the gravy, which doesn't always work for me because I just can't seem to get the hang of it for some reason.

Recipes:

Turkey, from New York magazine. It's an incredibly reliable recipe that results in a moist breast every time. And the leftover compound butter makes for great sandwiches the next day because the herbs make the bread taste like stuffing. Also, putting the turkey on a bed of veggies makes for super easy clean up.

Pumpkin pie (filling). Last year I really wanted a pie that didn't call for canned milk, and this recipe is as easy as the one on the can, but calls for half-and-half. and so has much better flavor and texture. Instead of a pastry crust, I make a crust of gingersnap crumbs—use any graham cracker crust recipe, just don't add sugar in with the cookie crumbs.

I hope everyone had a great day, whether they were celebrating a holiday or not, and don't get crushed by the holiday shopping crowds!