Thanksgiving

I have so much to be thankful for...it would take the whole post just to list a few of them! Basically I realize that I've been blessed beyond what I deserve and it brings me joy.

This year I was assigned (for lack of a better word) to make the turkey. I had Dan pitch in to help a little, because I could not stick my hand up the business end of a turkey without gagging. Here are a few shots showing our progress:


First rule of cooking: Make sure you have everything on hand!


We put the bird in the sink. I actually prayed over this bird. I realize that Heavenly Father must get a lot of prayers over the turkey on Thanksgiving, but I just didn't want to completely screw this up. After all, a turkey gave its life so that we could enjoy this tasty meal, right?


All bagged up and ready to go! At Rachel's suggestion I decided to go with the Reynolds Oven Bag. It was easy to put together and came with simple directions. Dan thought he could improve on the directions by "injecting" some butter underneath the turkey's skin; instead, he just put two little drainage holes for the juice to leak out of.



I also made some apple pies (someone else made pumpkin). After some practice I'm now able to do pies pretty easily, and it's relaxing to put the crust together, roll it out, smooth it carefully into the pie pan. One of the pies has an "A" for apple cut into the crust; another has an "H" for Helena.

I don't have a good "final turkey" photo, because after we removed the bag it all looked pretty messy. It tasted okay, especially the dark meat, but the top breast was a little bit dry. Oh well. Practice makes perfect and I'll probably get another chance to work on it in the future. Also, my pictures look a little dark. There's another area I where I could use some improvement!