Happy Thanksgiving!

It will be a busy weekend, starting with some meal preparations tonight.  We are planning a smallish Thanksgiving tomorrow with my parents, our daughter and her friend, and our niece—a pretty small group for the 23-pound turkey that Trevor brought home. (But turkey leftovers are prized at our house, so I’m sure that won’t be a problem.)

No, this is not our Thanksgiving turkey.

A few years ago we ran across the best turkey recipe ever—Alton Brown’s “Good Eats Roast Turkey” from the food network.  It’s a tremendously tasty turkey —you brine it overnight and then cook it (using a probe thermometer) just to a specific internal temperature, so it’s perfectly done but never dry.  Surprisingly, it only takes about two and  a half hours for a turkey that size. Trevor usually does it on the grill, partly to free up the oven for other dishes and partly because the spattering that takes place in the oven during the 500-degree portion of cooking sort of makes the house smell greasy.

Also in evidence on our table will be lots of pickles (of course). . . sweet pickle chunks, dilled carrots, and beet pickles, at the very least. And we’re going to roast potatoes and  carrots from our garden. . . I’m thinking purple potatoes and purple carrots—wouldn’t that  be awesome??  Actually, I’ll probably do a variety (I’m sure that won’t surprise you) because I just think it’s so pretty when there’s a mixture of colors. Although I think what I mostly have left is regular orange carrots and purple carrots, which are purple on the outside and orange in the middle.  But the contrast of those with the white and purple potatoes should be appealing.  Trevor is also going to make his famous (at least to us) Caramelized Butternut Squash, with what is, I believe, our last CSA squash.  It’s a Barefoot Contessa recipe, and it is insanely good—the little squares of squash get so sweet they are almost like candy.

It will be good to utilize so much of our fresh produce for the Thanksgiving meal—I don’t think we’ve ever been able to do that quite to this degree before.

Then, on Friday, we will do what we do every year—get up before the crack of dawn and spend all day doing what’s left of our Christmas shopping.  I feel so lucky to have married a man that loves shopping as much as I do! So, maybe we’ll see you out and about on Friday, if you’re into that—we’ll be the ones with big Starbucks cups in our hands and huge smiles on our faces.

Happy Thanksgiving!