Monday, January 9, 2017

Speaking of Thanksgiving

Speaking of Thanksgiving, I guess I should post something about our Thanksgiving Day.  I am so behind that I don't remember everything which is why it bothers me so much to get this behind on my blog.  I want to remember all the cute things the kids said and the funny things that happened.  This post almost didn't even happen since Brian and I did not take one single photo of the day.  I'll have to dig deep and see what I can remember.

Food's always memorable, so we'll start there.  Brian fried the best turkey of our life.  It was a big one.  I thawed it in the frig the week leading up to Thanksgiving, just like always.  I made a new brine this time.  My typical brine is Alton Brown's recipe with some harder to find ingredients, like candied ginger.  I searched and found a quick and easy adaptation which probably did not play a part in the deliciousness of the turkey, but I'm going to switch over to this one permanently just in case (and bonus that it's simpler.)  It is basically the old brine recipe minus the bells and whistles:

12-14 lb turkey
1 lb kosher salt
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 gallon vegetable stock
1 gallon of heavily iced water

The other change that I made was that I brined it less time, about 12-14 hours.  Then I took it out and let it sit at room temp to dry out more for a couple hours before injecting it with a store bought Cajun injection and the Brians fried it.  That last step is supposed to help attain a crispier skin.  It was moist and delicious and every bit of the 14lb turkey was gone.

Brian also smoked 4 racks of ribs.  I made a sweet potato casserole, cornbread casserole, and my old favorite, Bourbon Pecan Pie.  I use this recipe and make it into a pie instead of a tart.  The other Brian made the gravy for me.

But that's not all, because we had many guests that contributed to the Thanksgiving spread.  We had two other families that brought a veggie tray, Texas Caviar, mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, and apple crisp.  Hannah and Isaac's godfather Brian was here visiting and he brought a friend that was separated from his family this Thanksgiving.  The kids just adored him.  He was a lot of fun and even held Bobby a lot for me while I cooked.  We had a total of fourteen kids and eight adults.  We set up some tables in the living room, and it was actually much easier than I had anticipated to have some many people over for a sit down meal.  We usually have Super Bowl parties, Fourth of July parties, and birthday parties, but rarely have we hosted a sit down holiday like this.

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