Thanksgiving Recipe Recap

I have discovered PioneerWoman. She is my new girl-crush and I would totally stalk her if I knew where she lived (please be my friend, Ree, PLEEEEESE). She is a very funny writer and a very talented photographer. I have not yet finished reading her archives but I look forward to finishing.

She also has a website/blog PioneerWomanCooks and I tried a number of her recipes for my Thanksgiving dinner this year. This is my review of her recipes and how they worked for my little family.

Brining a Turkey: Oh, my fucking God!! I will never roast another turkey without brining it first. The meat! So moist! So flavorful! Ahhhh.... She uses a brining solution that she gets from Williams and Sonoma. Ummm...I googled "brining a turkey" and got some recipes. I did this for a number of reasons, not the least of which is I decided to do this (brining) on Monday and none of the stores that I visited on Monday night had a packaged brining solution and I was not going to tack on an overnight delivery charge to the $17 (yep, SEVENTEEN DOLLARS) that W&S wanted for their stuff. Hey, I got the turkey for free and you expect me to dump $17 on it! Um, no. Anyway, turkey was awesome.
Lessons learned: I rinsed the turkey well enough but I don't think I got all the brining solution out of the cavity as the gravy was a bit saltier than it should have been. Next time I will dry the turkey well before putting it in the roasting pan.

Sweet Potatoes: Good recipe. I quite liked them.
Lessons learned: Use about half of the sugar and half of the topping as it was just a bit too sweet for my taste.

Mashed Potatoes: Mmmmm! I will definitely use this recipe again. They were heaven.
Lessons learned: For my tiny family, only make about half the recipe.

Turkey Gravy, baby!: Yummm! Yep, this was quite good.
Lessons learned: See brining a turkey above. Gravy was a bit salty but I think it was from the excess brining solution.

Anyway, that is my recap of some of the new recipes I tried for Thanksgiving. Did you try anything new this year?

Coming up: Tomorrow I will post my favorite pumpkin pie recipe. This is not your typical pumpkin pie recipe, it is much much more. Stay tuned.