TNG's Turkey Day Thread

Begins with the table:

Brining my 18# bird. Brine consists of veggie stock, beer, water, salt, peppercorns, lemon and lime juice, ginger, allspice, brown sugar.

I'll remove from brine tomorrow and pack some herb butter under the skin and atop the skin and stuff with carrots, onions and fresh sage and rosemary. That's the plan!

The turkey is brined.

Now I create space between the skin and the bird so I can rub this:

Two sticks of butter, olive oil, rosemary, thyme, salt, pepper, nutmeg and a little cumin. Generously apply and stuff bird with apples, lemon wedges, rosemary and (not pictured) stuffing:

Aromatics of apple, garlic, onion, butter, water, beer, cinnamon stick, carrots and celery:

I am going to use Alton Brown's method of cooking it for 30 minutes at 500° To brown and then a lower temperature for about 2 1/2 hours.

I made Whiskey Sours:

The Bounty:

Only shot of the bird:

My first helping:

Desserts: chocolate cream pie and pumpkin pie. It's always nice to invite a baker to thanksgiving. She also made the fresh bread shown above.

Also pictured, some Mcallan 12 year which we all enjoyed after dessert.