Thanksgiving Leftovers

The food for our early Thanksgiving Dinner last night was delicious despite a couple of fiascos. First, the turkey did not defrost by the time we needed to put it in the oven.  My poor husband had to run to H.E.B., our local grocery store, and buy a fully cooked turkey which cost $22 and took two hours to warm up in the oven. So much for my grocery budget this week!  The turkey was very bland and it felt like big waste of money, but we had guests coming over and they were expecting turkey.

Then, when we added the cornstarch to the gravy, it clumped up and we ended up with many white little balls floating in the gravy.  We solved that crisis by straining the gravy.  It looked beautiful and tasted great.

Other than that, it was so much fun spending all day cooking in the kitchen.  I started off by making the cranberry salad.  I posted that recipe yesterday.  Then we made the green bean casserole, the mashed potatoes, the sweet potato casserole, the stuffing, and the gravy.  

Roast Herbed Turkey

The original 12 pound turkey is finally defrosted and my husband is roasting it.  He rubbed it inside the skin with 1/2 a stick of butter; 2 tablespoons each of sage, thyme, and rosemary; and salt and pepper. He placed a whole apple and a whole onion in the cavity.  He tented it with foil and will leave in the oven for 3 1/2 hours.  Removing the foil tent the last 45 minutes. I can't wait to eat tasty turkey. 

My husband is also making turkey broth with the turkey carcass from last night.  We will have turkey noodle soup tomorrow night using that broth.  Yum!

I have been spending a lot of time checking out other foodie websites and I have to conclude that the people writing them have no children.  How do you make elaborate dishes every evening when you have children underfoot?  Having said that, I think I am going to start using less shortcuts in my meals and making them from scratch.  It is nice to know exactly what you are putting in your food and we can all use less preservatives.  I would also like to start eating less meat.  I'll need to incorporate that into my menu next week.

Provecho!