giving thanks

I am so thankful that Dave and I had friends and family who traveled to Madison for Thanksgiving with us! Mom, Jen and Drew were here for the holiday. We all divided up the cooking, so Mom and I worked on the turkey, appetizers, pies, and sweet potatoes, I did the stufffing, Mom did the carrots, Dave did the mashed potatoes (and carved the turkey beautifully), and Jen and Drew did the green beans, cranberry sauce, rolls, and another pie! Jen's pear ginger pie - yum! Yup, all that food for five! Everything was delicious!

Since this was my first turkey, I called my dad for assistance. He always manages to cook up a moist turkey, so I asked for his brining methods and followed them to a "t". Well, I did the best I could and the bird turned out great!

I also accidentally developed my own secret turkey method: keep the bird upside-down in the roaster in the fridge over night. Yeah...when we were preparing it to go in the oven Thursday morning, Mom pointed out that the bird was upside-down and had been all night. Whoops! Jen and I decided that made the breast jucier. Yeah, we'll go with that!



So anyway, despite the upside-down turkey, I was totally impressed with all our cooking (and eating) abilities! Happy Thanksgiving everyone!