This year was Maddie's second official Thanksgiving but the first where we spent it with just the four of us. In typical years, family from around the country would come to celebrate - usually grandma/grandpa. Despite this, we didn't want the occasion to seem any less festive so we invited our friends, the Paik's and the Hsu's over for Thanksgiving dinner. We split the cooking duties, and since we were hosting, Jin and I tackled the bird.
I've been on an all-organic binge lately since discovering how our food supply is tainted with unnatural and harmful farming practices, so we opted for a juicy 13 lb. organic, free-range turkey from Costco. It felt good to serve my family and friends a healthful and environmentally balanced meal, but if I had to rate the taste of the turkey compared to conventional corn-fed caged meat, I have to admit, those darn corn-fed birds do taste juicier! This coupled with the mishap with our broken meat thermometer (resulting in over baking the bird an extra 30 min), and we had one over-cooked, dried bird situation. In the end, it looked more like turkey jerky than a presentable bird, but it was still nothing a little gravy couldn't fix!
Prepping the bird...
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| Bella was my Sous Chef |
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| Jin took care of cleaning the bird (but managed to leave the bag of gizzards inside to roast - it's ok, honey!) |
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| Despite slathering it with butter and meticulous basting... |
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| ...the turkey looked like the dried-out carcass from National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation |
Never fear, delightful side dishes were here!
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| maple glazed carrots |
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| sweet potato and yukon gold potato au gratin |
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| Apple cake |
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| Northwestern wild mushroom stuffing |
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| Other dishes included Olive Bread (delish!), green beans, corn, cranberry sauce and of course, pumpkin pie! |
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| Tim googles how to carve a turkey since our resident turkey carver (Uncle Ed) wasn't present |
Despite the turkey jerky, everyone still ate like kings and queens (except for a few picky eaters whom shall remain nameless):
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| (hint, hint...picky!) |
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| Maddie relaxes comfortably after eating |
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