Thanksgiving Wrap Up
| November 30, 2008 | Posted by Angela under Family Stuff |
We had a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday. Jason celebrated his first Thanksgiving with my family. We also made our first turkey.
My parents have everyone over to their house every Thanksgiving holiday. When I say everyone, I mean everyone! This year, they sat 60 people. Traditionally, the night before Thanksgiving, some family will come over to my parent’s house help set up. We make stuffing, pies, the giblet gravy, the table centerpieces and whatever else that needs to be done. The next day, everyone comes over to eat at 1pm. The ladies will play scrabble and gossip and the guys will watch football all day. A day to eat, relax and laugh.
This year, I was in charge of making one of the turkeys. We bought an 19 pound fresh turkey from Costco. That thing still had a few feathers on it. My mom needed the giblets and the neck for the gravy. I love to cook but I am not real big on cooking animals so this was going to be a challenge. The giblets. Hmm, where could those be. We couldn’t find them. I called my mom and she said that they were in a bag inside the turkey and we probably just needed to turn it over and grab from the buttocks side. Gross. Jason stuck his hand in there and pulled out a bag of giblets. Now if someone took the time to bag it, why put it back in? Can’t they just stick it to the outside of the turkey? Next, we needed to find the neck. The neck should be the easiest but for some darn reason, I couldn’t seem to find it. Finally, I grabbed something that was loose and pulled it out. It was a long neck…I was so grossed out that I threw it into the sink and started gagging. Phew, we were done with the gutting part.
We took the giblets and neck over to my parents house so my mom could make the gravy. We also made the stuffing. If you were to come over the night before Thanskgiving, it would look like chaos to you. Really, it was all under control.
That night I had to make the pumpkin pie and stuff the turkey. Jason did the pleasure of stuffing the turkey. I followed a simple recipe I found on allrecipes.com. We put the turkey in the bag and did all the needful. I also added some orange slices. I wanted to do everything I could to make sure our turkey was juicy. We woke up at 6:30 am to put the turkey in the oven. It was ready in 4.5 hours. I didn’t have a thermometer so we had to go by just looking at the turkey. It smelled so good! The aroma filled the house and it felt like the holidays. Getting the turkey from the pan to the platter was a challenge but we did it. There was something funny looking about our turkey. It honestly looked like crap. It was so messy looking with the skin falling off and pieces of meat falling off. I guess that meant it was juicy. We loaded into the car and took it over to my parents. I was so nervous because everyone was going to want to see my turkey since it was my first one. I didn’t want anyone to see it because it was so ugly. I just wanted to be judged on taste, not presentation. Well everyone said it look wonderful but I know they were lying.
We serve everything buffet style on my parents patio. We first join together in prayer. We then find a table setting, grab a plate and get in line. The first turkey went fast so it was time to cut my turkey. My dad cuts the turkey every year. When he was about to cut my turkey, he couldn’t find any meat. He kept looking at it and poking at it and realized that is was upside down! We served the turkey upside down. That is why it looked like crap, we didn’t turn it over. So my dad turned it over and it was actually a beautiful turkey. Since everyone was waiting to eat, we didn’t get a picture of our beautiful turkey so you will just have to take our word for it. It was tasty though!
The rest of the day fell into place. We ate, played scrabble, watched football and just enjoyed our time with family.
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Angela; oh my! What a great read! I laughed out loud at your description of gutting the bird. You all took a LOVELY family photograph as well. Blessings to you and Jason and your entire family this holiday season!