bonnie & jason

Happy Wangsgiving!

Yes, the title is a shameless ripoff of Dennis’ Yangsgiving, but share and share alike I say. Besides, I gave him some top secret charcoal for his turkey, so we’re square.

Anywho, we hosted a bunch of Bonnie’s family as well as our friends Jeff and Xiao-Yi today. We actually started cooking Tuesday but today was the real busy day.

I made two turkeys, one on the grill and one in the oven. The one on the grill was brined with a concoction of apple juice, oranges, brown sugar, bay leaves, garlic, and salt. I actually messed it up a little… too much charcoal I think. The meat itself turned out very nicely… but the skin was a bit crispier than I would have liked (ie burnt.) Even with the outside “seared”, the inside was still moist and quite tasty as the combination of the brine and hickory smoking did their thing.

The one in the oven was just salted and oiled a little before going in the roasting pan. It was pretty much your standard turkey except that I cooked the turkey upside down with the breast side on the bottom. That way, all the juices run through that notoriously hard to keep moist area of the turkey. As it turns out, the technique worked quite well. That side didn’t brown much, but we carved the turkey before serving anyway, so it didn’t really matter. In retrospect, I should have brined both turkeys, but I didn’t have enough room in the fridge to do both. That being said, I still think the grilled turkey would have been tastier… nothing like cooking with charcoal!

In addition to the turkey, I made most of the traditional sides.

1. Wild rice stuffing with celery, cranberries, onion, tossed with crispy bacon and toasted pecans.
2. Traditional style stuffing with oatmeal toast and roasted apples
3. Garlic mashed potatoes
4. Creamed corn
5. Homemade gravy from giblet broth and turkey pan drippings

Bonnie also made a pumpkin cake, pumpkin spice popcorn, and buttermilk biscuits. And of course, everyone who came brought food. Needless to say, there was a ton of food left over but thankfully, everyone took some home so our fridge isn’t overflowing.

I’m so full… Xiao-Yi’s pumpkin cheesecake made from scratch did me in. So good! I’m pretty tired from all the cooking and cleaning plus the couple glasses of wine and turkey tryptophan (apparently an urban legend). But it is Thanksgiving, and given our family, friends, and good health… I would be remiss if I didn’t end this post saying that we are absolutely thankful for what we have!