Thanksgiving 2010

[nonelvis]

SO FULL.

I've been brining turkeys ever since Cook's Illustrated first printed the recipe for that years ago, but this year they had a recipe for a glazed turkey, and the hardest thing it called for was butterflying the bird. I have good poultry shears, so I was mostly unafraid, and the rest of the prep is pretty simple: instead of brining the turkey, you rub it with a mixture of salt, pepper, and baking powder, which dries out the skin. Slow-roast the turkey, give it a triple coat of cranberry-molasses glaze, and the results look like this:



It tastes that good, too.

I have no photos of the side dishes, but they were equally tasty: cornbread dressing with loads of mushrooms, Chinese broccoli with olive oil and tons of garlic, cranberry-tangerine conserve, and sweet potatoes with candied pecans. I did not discover until after my brother-in-law had asked me to move the sweet potatoes so he didn't eat them all that he normally doesn't eat sweet potatoes in the first place. I call that a success.

There were four desserts, because you can never have too many of those: spiced apple cider sorbet, chocolate-covered candied ginger, black-bottom pumpkin chiffon pie, and carrot cake cupcakes.

columbina made the pie. We went through about half of it, but it should make fine breakfast eating. Pumpkin's fruit, okay?



I wasn't planning on decorating the cupcakes, but I had extra frosting, so they all got wee carrots on top. They were delicious, too.



I gave away plenty of leftovers to guests, but we still have more than enough left for sandwiches, and most important, turkey gumbo. Mmm.

Comments

[radiantbaby.livejournal.com]

THAT ALL LOOKS SO AMAZING! My Thanksgiving mill was quite run-of-the-mill in contrast (my family isn't known for their cooking skillset, but hey, it was still decent, albeit basic food).

[nonelvis]

Hey, food doesn't have to be fancy to taste good! The important thing was that we both got to share it with family and friends :)

[peebles.livejournal.com]

Oh that looks good.

[nonelvis]

If you give the turkey recipe a shot, I have two warnings: 1) despite what Cook's said, I had no liquid left in my pan to use for the gravy, which I'm sure contributed to 2) the pan is impossible to clean. Next time I do this, I might get huge foil pans to put in my roasting pan, just so I don't have to deal with the cleanup.

[kalleah.livejournal.com]

YUM.

[nonelvis]

Literally the only things I have eaten today are leftovers. This is not a complaint.