Thanksgiving spread - the general idea of it anyhow

Hello all! Here it is already days past Thankgiving and swiftly coming into Christmas if you can believe it. We had the usual Thanksgiving set up this year which was having my mom and stepdad over for the feast. Since most of the dishes we prepare are very traditional to all homes that celebrate this holiday I won't bore everyone to tears by posting each detail about every one of them. Instead, I decided to do a basic overview of my day.

It starts with this handsome fella. This is a fresh Diestel turkey I bought a few days prior at Whole Foods. I have always heard great things about brined turkeys but this was my first attempt at doing one myself. Whole Foods had a bucket of their in house brining mix for sale so I bought that as well, and boy howdy am I glad I did. I don't think I can ever have turkey any other way again. So here he is after being brined overnight, ready for some love.

I took a stick of room temperature butter and added some herbs and spices. I went very easy on the salt as the turkey is brined which contains a lot of salt. In with the butter I added Italian seasoning, cumin, garlic powder, and some pepper. I would have added some cayenne but unfortunately my mom is unable to eat spicy foods. I then mixed this all together to make a quick herb butter.

Which I then rubbed all over this grateful turkey. My original plan was to start it breast down and flip it most of the way through the cooking. My understanding is that this makes for an incredibly juicy breast. I decided against that since I was a) unsure about what difference there might be in cooking a brined bird and b) this would definitely NOT be my first time ruining a turkey if it didn't work out. Yeah, I have never ever had a turkey come out perfectly. In fact, last year we had to pull the still mostly raw turkey apart and cook it in the gravy in huge chunks since HOURS had passed since we should have eaten! Many many tears were shed, and many bottles of wine consumed to ease the pain. ANYWAY.

I did a lot of prep work the night before, which made a huge difference in the panic level the day of. Wednesday night I peeled and diced the potatoes for the mashers, and the yams for the yam dish. Then I put them in their individual pots, covered with water, and left in the fridge overnight. This tip worked well and will be one I use from now on.

Yuck, look at my dirty stove burner things. What are those called? The racks or what have you? My absolute least favorite chore in the entire history of chores is cleaning my stovetop. I would rather clean anything else, toilets included. So, who wants to come over and scrub my stovetop in exchange for me feeding you delicious foods? Think I'm kidding?

I put the turkey in the oven @ 5oo degrees for half an hour. Then I took it out to baste it and make sure there was enough liquid in the pan. Then it was covered (with aluminum foil as the lid wouldn't fit on the pan with this huge beast in it), the temp lowered to 350, and put back into the oven. This was an 18 lb bird, and after the initial 30 minutes I believe it was in for about another four hours.

Ahh pretty birdie.

Now I prepped the brussel sprouts. This is an old family recipe originated by my Oma. This will be made a star in its own individual post at a later date. Brussel sprouts in the bowl on the left, odds and ends in the compost bowl on the right.

Once the yams were tender I drained them, mashed them, and put them in a casserole dish. Dotted the top with some Earth Balance. No marshmallows this year as I tried to lighten things up a little. The taste was still delicious.

Melty goodness...

I sliced each brussel sprout in half and tossed them in the steamer, then whipped my potatoes with plenty of garlic in the kitchenaid mixer. After the bowl was tightly covered with aluminum it was set aside, and was still plenty warm to serve when it was time to eat.

I may or may not have eaten almost a pound of these myself to "taste test" them before serving. Hey! I was starving! A good cook always tastes as they go!

Periodically the turkey would be taken out and basted, I would say every 45-60 minutes.

Then I started on the dressing. It was a classic style dressing. I used a loaf of my mom's handmade bread that I cubed and let sit out for two days to get stale. I also added mushrooms because they are delicious. The recipe also called for dill, but not much, so now I have a whole bush of dill in my fridge. Know of any recipes or good ways to use it?

Chicken stock in pan heating for the dressing, oil and butter on the right for the onions and celery which would also go into the dressing.

Turkey Tom, all done and gorgeous.

The spread! Clockwise from the bottom left green bean casserole (mom brought), yams, dressing, gravy, rolls (mom brought), Oma's sprouts, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce (homemade from mom), and the star Tom.

This was my first brined turkey, but positively NOT my last.

Just look at all the spectacular leftovers.

Not a bit of the turkey went to waste. After it cooled enough I tore it apart.

Meat in the bowl, skin and bones into a seperate container to make stock. My house smelled just as good the next day while the stock cooked.

There you can see a very excited and blurry Rusty in the back ground. Yes, they surely each got their share of goodies. This year was much less rushed than past years. Part of that was because of all the work I did in prepping the night before, and it is the way we will do it from here on out. Sadly we were unable to be surrounded by all of our family but that's the way things go sometimes.

Gobble gobble, I hope all who celebrate had a great Thanksgiving as well!

What are your plans for leftovers?

Don't forget to share any recipes requiring dill if you have them!

Carmelized Chipotle Chicken

This recipe comes from the September 2009 issue of Gourmet magazine. A friend also posted this recipe on another blog. I immediately knew I wanted to try it.

The original recipe serves 6. I cut the recipe in half, as it was just 3 of us eating. Cutting it in half still left us with plenty of leftovers. With those I plan to make warm chicken salad, once I find a decent recipe for it...

Ingredients: (this is from the original recipe, which I cut in half)
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
8 large garlic cloves, thinly sliced (about 1/2 cup)
2 medium onions, chopped (about 2 cups)
1 cup ketchup
2 tbsp dijon mustard
2 tbsp packed brown sugar
1/4 cup chopped canned chipotle chilies in adobo (from a 7 oz can)
1 tbsp worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp cider vinegar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
2 whole chickens (about 3.5 lbs each), each cut into 8 pieces

I used a whole chicken, which I then realized I would have to cut up myself! Yikes. Never done that before. I immediately thought about one of my favorite cookbooks, which has excellent infortmation and instructions on exactly this kind of stuff.

And it again had exactly what I needed. I decided to just split the chicken, as opposed to cutting it into 8 pieces.

I did a pretty decent job!

At this point, I tossed some red potatoes and two smashed cloves of garlic into a pot of salted water. I didn't turn the heat on yet, just wanted to get them in there. I mash these skin and all. Which I will show more of later.

Now here is an excellent tip I learned from watching the Food Network. Wet a paper towel, and lay it on your counter. Then put your cutting board on top of it, that way the board won't slip around as you are working on it. Brilliant.

It really works.

Here are some of the ingredients. Mingling, getting ready to play a part in a beautiful dish!

Heat your oil in a large, heavy, skillet. I got mine about a year ago from Kohl's. One of the best purchases I ever made. I love this thing. It can go from the stovetop, right into the oven.

When the oil is shimmering, toss in the garlic. Stir it constantly, as it can burn quickly. Have you ever tasted burned garlic? That is a horrible flavor that takes days to get rid of!

Once the garlic is golden, transfer it to a bowl or plate with a slotted spoon.

Reduce the heat to medium, and cook the onions. Stir just occasionally, until the onions start to brown.

Now the kitchen is really starting to smell amazing. Of course, I think garlic and onion cooking smells just like heaven. My kind of heaven anyhow.

This is the perfect time to start getting the other ingredients together.

When the onions are done to your liking, add the garlic back in, and then toss in the rest of the ingredients.

Vinegar, worcestershire sauce, cinnamon.

Mustard. I didn't have dijon so I used stone ground mustard.

Brown Sugar

Ketchup

and the chipotles.

Also add a bit of salt and pepper.

Simmer, stirring occasionally, until the sauce has thickened. It only took mine about 10 minutes or so. I imagine it would take longer if you used the full recipe.

While waiting for the sauce to thicken, preheat the oven to 450F.

Coat the chicken with half of the reduced sauce. Then roast it, skin side up, for 25 minutes.

Remove the chicken from the oven, and brush on the rest of the sauce.

Then pop it back into the oven, until it is cooked through, and well browned in some areas. Mine too about 25 minutes or so.

By this point I had boiled the potatoes until they were done, and drained them.

Now get a pen, because these instructions are very specific.

I put in a generous splat of butter, and a hunk of cream cheese. Very scientific measuring going on around here I'll tell ya.

Add some milk, salt, and pepper, and mash them. Or, smash, would be a better term.

It's time to cut up the chicken. I let the man of the house do this, makes him feel like he has a part of making the meal you know.

The spread! Yum.

Enjoy!