Thanksgiving Eats

I spent about a month trying to find fun new recipes for Thanksgiving. I love trying new foods and I always try new things out on our guests for better or worse:).

I tried taking pics with our fancy camera and I couldn't get the settings right and the food was getting cold, so Josh only had the patience to let me take a few quick and blurry shots of our food here. The result makes for some unappetizing pics, but if you can ignore that, I found some real winners.

Josh showing his nice manners and his Mom helping out (she is a work horse!)

We had a very short night but the turkey wanted us to get up early to get started on it. I gave it a nice massage with butter and herbs. Ahh, that sounds good. I used Martha Stewarts two turkey recipes (below), yes, we had two turkeys (both 22 pounds).

Mashed Sweet Potatoes with White Cheddar: 5 Stars!

This was amazing. Ours doesn't look quite like the picture on the website, the apples were chopped really small in ours instead of wedges. I'm sure you can substitute parmesan for the pecorino, but I splurged for the two ounces it called for. You must try this dish, even if you don't like sweet potatoes! A nice change from the candied sweet potatoes (although I like those too!).

Green Beans and Lime: 4 stars

This was very good and for a family that said they didn't like green beans, they were gone in a snap. The hazelnuts were a fun addition. The only reason it wasn't five stars was because it had just a little too much lime, which could have been our fault. The fresh herbs really made the dish.

Our cousin Krissy made these great rolls, sorry no recipe :(.

Thanksgiving Roast Turkey with Corn Bread Dressing: 3.5 Stars

This was tasty, but somehow not enough flavor. I think we added extra bread crumbs so that may have been a factor. We even did the cornbread recipe from them, buttermilk included which we never buy! Doubt it made a difference. It was good, just not a wow.

Orange Cranberry Sauce: 5 Stars!!!

We made this a few years ago for the first time and it's awesome! It's so simple and the best thing ever.

1bag cranberries

1 orange

1 C sugar--which we only put in 1/2 C (maybe some splenda to make up? Josh did it this year)

We love to just put it on toast, so we try to stock up on cranberries during this season.

Rose's Baked Artichoke Hearts: 5 Star

This was incredible too. I think a little too greesy though. I'd put less oil and salt in, but the salt was just to taste, so that was my fault. REALLY GOOD even if you don't like artichoke hearts (at least that's what I heard:).

Big Martha's Mashed Potatoes with Cream Cheese: 5 Star

Hard to go wrong with cream and butter. I've never put cream in mashed potatoes, wow, they were good and sort of against my whole "healthy" potatoes and recipes I usually strive for. I still didn't put all that it called for in and they were delish.

Classic Mashed Potatoes: 5 Star

These were also from Martha's Nov 08 magazine but couldn't find the recipe. Nothing spectacular, just good. I added a little low-fat cheddar and cut down on the fat and left the peels on for the nutrients and chew factor. I love the peels.

Yummy gravy: 5 Stars

Sorry, no recipe. Just the drippings plus a flour roue (?). Excellent. Josh's Aunt Cindy made it, I've never had one taste so good. We also did a seperate one where we added a jar of gravy that I heard on Rachael Ray just really made for a good gravy. Both were great.
Roasted Dry-Brined Turkey:4 Stars

I didn't get a picture of the other turkey, but it was really good too. Just imagine ours looked like the one below from the magazine:). I gave Josh the recipe and let him go to town. It was minimal prep, just a dry brine, but he added more herbs and I think it still lacked a little flavor. Well, it was great with cranberry sauce and mine wasn't due to the herbs, so there's a bonus.

Herbed Turkey Breast:5 Stars

I LOVED the fresh herbs. We used a whole turkey, so it probably wasn't quite how they planned, but very good flavor. Excellent on it's own without any garnish or potatoes even.

We had great pies brought as well, but no pics :(. They were delicious too.

Hope you had a great Thanksgiving! I'm thankful for all this good food!