Thanksgiving Recipes

It's the week of Turkey day! This post is coming a little late . . . and, I know, I know! I haven't posted about anything in forever. No pictures of my exceptionally adorable children, no hilarious Jackaroo quotes, no pictures of my unbelievably gorgeous new house that we moved into three weeks ago. Sorry, friend. I would say they're coming soon, but we all know that I'm unpredictable and sometimes a liar. So, yeah, expect those posts soon ;)

For now, I'm posting some of my favorite Turkey Day recipes. For the past two years Mark and I hosted Thanksgiving at our place in Alby, so we made the turkey and various other dishes, and then we tried to invite as many people over as possible so we wouldn't have to make absolutely everything. In the end, I think we smelled weird or something because people were always coming up with excuses not to come to our Thanksgiving. Lame things like, "Oh, we'll be out of state," or "Some of our family is coming into town, so we're hosting it at our place," or "Dang! Our kids have strep and croup!" or "You smell bad." Anyway, I've had the opportunity to make pretty much every dish Thanksgiving has to offer, so I thought I'd share some of my favorites.

Turkey
Both years I brined my turkey, and I have one and only one thing to say to you. Brine. Your. Bird. Brine it!!! Both years Mark and I had the best turkey we'd had to date, and it was all about that brine, bout that brine, no stuffing. The first year I made Alton Brown's turkey, but the second year I mixed in a little bit from The Pioneer Woman's turkey. Check 'em out.
Alton Brown's Turkey
The Pioneer Woman's Turkey

Turkey Gravy
Once again, PW comes through. I don't do the whole giblet thing, because giblets freak me out, but the rest is gold.


Stuffing
I actually haven't made the stuffing yet. Both years I managed to outsource that particular dish, but this year I signed up to bring it to my parent's Thanksgiving shindig! Here's the recipe I'll be using. Hopefully it turns out amazing. I'll let ya know.


Rolls
Not gonna lie . . . I just use rhodes rolls. They are delicious, easy, and don't stress me out to the max on a heavy cooking day like Thanksgiving.

Green Bean Casserole
I didn't make this last year, but I bought all the ingredients, and, at the last minute, convinced my friend Dani to come to my Thanksgiving and take my ingredients and make this for me. I loooooooved it.

Sweet Potato Casserole
I've already raved about these on this blog, but I'll say it again: the best sweet potatoes ever. In the history of time. If you think you hate sweet potatoes/yams on Thanksgiving, give these a try before you abandon the vegetable completely.

Mashed Potatoes
I don't really use a recipe for this. I just do either gold or red potatoes, milk, butter, various seasonings, and I keep them taters warm in my crock pot, because there isn't anything worse than cold taters.

Our go-to desserts are no-bake cheesecake (there are a million recipes out there, you'll have to figure this one out on your own), pumpkin squares (I hate pumpkin pie. Sin, I know, but I love these. Make these instead of pumpkin pie, you won't regret it), and pecan pie (the ambrosia of the gods. Make two. Make five. Make five million).

And, lastly, my absolute favorite pie crust recipe and tutorial found here. If you've been searching high and low for the perfect, flaky, buttery, flavorful, wonderful crust, then look no further. This crust also freezes well for later use, so I always double it. Oh, and I don't use leaf lard (because I still don't know what it is), I just use all butter. Maybe someday I should find the mystery leaf lard and give it a whirl though.

K, go forth and bake and cook, and eat and eat and eat!!