Since I had done a bunch of preparation the day before, on the actual feast day, the main thing on the agenda was the turkey! And before I get into it let me tell you that I deserve a kick in the shins for FORGETTING to take a picture of it when it was whole and roasted and golden brown and delicious. Blergh.
Anyways, I don't like putting bread stuffing inside my bird, so I stuff the cavity with aromatics and veggies. I used carrots, onions, celery, lemons and some herbs. For the outside, I melted some butter, added a little olive oil, and just sage and thyme. I poured that all over the bird and stuck it in the oven. Oh, I also put most of a box of broth in the roasting pan, along with the rest of the veggies I cut up that didn't fit in the cavity. I basted it towards the end of cooking, but then came my ultimate Thanksgiving worry... was this thing cooked? I was getting wildly different temperature readings on either side of the bird. I decided to cook a little more but then decided that the average of all my measurements was a little more on the cooked side of where I wanted to be, so I took it out of the oven. When carving time came (luckily I was doing this by myself in the kitchen away from everybody!) it wasn't cooked through!! Eek! But I had a brilliant idea to carve the entire thing, shove it on a roasting sheet in a crazy hot oven, and it cooked it the rest of the way quicker than anybody even noticed! Phew.
Meanwhile, I needed to finish the rest of the dinner. Luckily for me the stuffing and mushroom and lentil pot pies cooked at the same oven temp, so that made it a lot easier. The morning of the feast, I had gotten the stuffing prepared. I used a mushroom and toasted walnut recipe I got from a Martha magazine, and it was fantastic! I will never use another recipe again. I have been trying for years to replace my family's recipe because I don't think it is very good, and this is the winner! To finish the pot pies, all I needed to do was to make the dough for the crust and put some cheese over the top. Simple.
The last things I took care of were the veggies. I had to make mashed potatoes, duh, and I decided to make green beans with a lemon cream sauce (mentioned here).
That is it! Dinner was done. Oh wait, also gravy. I made gravy using the drippings and broth from the turkey, along with wine and potato starch. It turned out really well.
Everybody ate 2 or 3 helpings, so I feel like my feast was a success! I am glad that amount of work is only once a year though. And I am glad that I have enough leftovers to last for a while :)
