Thanksgiving 2008

I tried so hard to come up with a more interesting title to this post but to no avail. All my brain power must be zapped after this year's Thanksgiving festivities. It was a good Turday Day. It will certainly be remembered.

Dori and Micah are old enough now to really anticipate family gatherings and holidays and such. It is so fun to watch their excitement as we prepare. This was evident for the entire week leading up to Thanksgiving. We hadn't even eaten in the dining room yet, since we moved in, so it was a BIG deal to get that all set up and pull out the crystal glasses that haven't seen the light of day in oh....5 or more years! D and M were beside themselves waiting and waiting for the big day. We cleaned house all through the week and got beds ready for our overnight visitors. I probably let them stay up too late, but it was a special week and I'm pretty lenient like that.

I promised D and M we could make cookies and use these cute fall cookie cutters. I ended up completely wasting 2 pounds of butter trying to make shortbread. I'm scared to ever try that again. Even Micah wouldn't eat whatever it was that came out of the oven. He thinks I put too much butter in the mix. He's probably right...but that's what the recipe called for! So on Wednesday we had cookie making attempt number two and it was definitely a success. The sugar cookie recipe I used turned out fantastic and I highly recommend it for Christmas cookie cut-outs. It is so good and got rave reviews. Check it out here. The cookies were supposed to be dipped in almond bark, but I let it burn while I was doing something else and not paying attention. Oh well--these cookies were so good, it didn't really matter.

Dori ironed a couple of the *good* napkins before she got scared of the steam coming out of the iron. I gave her and also Micah the job of setting the plates and silverware out. They also wanted name cards for everybody at the table, so I let them make some. They really crack me up:

Big turkey and little turkey.

Angry pilgrim shooting turkey.

Two turkey with long legs.

This was the finished table. They had so much fun making everything so nice! It's a lot of work to wash and care for all the "good stuff," but really makes it extra special sometimes.

So the turkey was stressing me out a wee bit. Everything hinges on the turkey. If the turkey isn't done yet, then dinner must wait. It the turkey is overdone, well, no one is happy. As I said in an earlier post, I completely screwed up the first turkey I ever cooked--using a "no fail" recipe, no less. I failed big time and I've been a bit gun shy ever since that experience. But this year I searched allrecipes.com for THE perfect easy turkey recipe, and I'm happy to report that it seemed to work! Here's what you do:

as fast as you possibly can, yank out the neck and inside parts that are for some reason saved and stuffed back into the turkey. This is the hardest part of the whole cooking a turkey experience, in my opinion. I seriously close my eyes, reach in, and throw it in the garbage with the quickness. Gross!

after you have braved the giblets , you rinse the bird and dry with a paper towel thoroughly. Place whole carrots, onions, celery sticks, etc. on the bottom of your roasting pan and then place the bird on top of that. Rub softened butter all over and up under the skin if you can. Salt and pepper it (I used lemon pepper seasoning), and make an aluminum foil tent over it.

I put it in the oven on 250 at about midnight Wednesday night and cranked it up to 325 at about 8 the next morning. The key (I'm told) to having it juicy is in the basting. I faithfully basted the turkey every 30 minutes until it was done and removed the foil during the last hour. It turned out pretty good and now I'm feeling better about my turkey cooking skills. Here's a pic:

This next picture is what happens when Jason and Micah are playing football in the house. Plants get knocked over and we all experience some dyson love, lol. Jason took care of the huge dirt pile, and then once he had sufficiently cleaned it up.....knocked it over again and had to do it all over. My brother laughed so hard at this he made Dori grab the camera and take a shot of cleanup in action!

I hate to close on that note, but it is getting late and like I mentioned at the top....my brain is just not up to par right now!