Gobble Gobble Gobble

Tags

Food, friends, friendsgiving, recipe, thanksgiving

Hi! I’ll be blogging all this week. Hope you all enjoyed all the wonderful tips Janet posted last week. And congratulations to World of Cos for winning our first giveaway! Stay tune for another giveaway next month with some of my favorite things 🙂

It’s thanksgiving week! Need a turkey recipe? I’ve been using Alton Brown’s turkey recipe for years for a moist turkey with ton of flavors. Last year, I hosted our first Friendsgiving where our friends finally tried my turkey sans Janet 😦 It was a hit! This year I decided to continue the tradition and host Friendsgiving this past Friday. Ton of pressure on making this turkey. The outcome….last year was better. And I believe the reason was the brand of the turkey. Last year I purchased a Butterball and this year I purchased a Jennie-O. Butterball all the way! Turkey still came out moist but not like last year.

Here are the steps I follow to make a juicy turkey:

First, thaw out the turkey in the fridge at 38 degrees. I like to use World Market Turkey Brine to brine the turkey. But any type of brine will do. This is the key to get a juicy turkey: brine.

Brine the turkey with breast side up first and half way through flip the turkey. Need to brine between 12-24 hours. I had an 18 lb bird so cooking time was 3 1/2 hours. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees. Place 1 red apple (cut into large slices), 1/2 onion (cut into large slices), 1 large cinnamon stick with 1 cup of water in a microwaveable bowl for 5 minutes. Wash the brine off the turkey and pat it dry. Add the items that was microwave in the cavity and add a few springs of Rosemary and Sage. Coat the turkey with canola oil. Create a triangle with aluminum foil that will fit on the turkey breast and coat the foil with oil and set aside. Insert a meat thermometer probe deep into the breast side of the turkey making sure not to hit the bone. In the oven on the lowest rack for 30 mins. After 30 mins, reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees, place the triangle foil on the breast and cook until the thermometer reaches to 161 degrees.

I stumbled on Andrea’s awesome recipe for Cheesy Garlic Bread. First time using yeast and making bread. It was a hit and everyone really liked it.

Tons of food and tons of wonderful friends and family. Can’t wait for next Friendsgiving!

-Josie