Thanksgiving III: a 10kg turkey and a whole lot of other stuff...

In preparations of our Thanksgiving Dinner Garrett and I spent the entire day in his kitchen, chopping, cooking, baking while chatting, listening to music and drinking Champagne... Pretty much a perfect day in my books...

Garrett was responsible for the 10kg turkey he had bought from an organic farm in Germany the day before. To keep it moist he stuffed fresh cranberries under its skin. It worked! Personally I find turkey a bit boring and it tends to be a bit dry. But this one was amazing! We also filled it with stuffing I made inspired by a recipe I found on Epicurious (http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/Chestnut-Prune-and-Pancetta-Stuffing-236422). The recipe uses chestnuts, prunes and pancetta. I also added some sausage meat. It was so good we couldn't stop picking it straight out of the turkey...

Garrett's 10kg Turkey

Stuffing

We couldn't quite decide what side dishes to make we had so many ideas, so we just made them all...
Gravy, cranberry sauce, green beans with fried onions, mashed potatoes, mashed butternut squash, sweet potatoes, brussel sprouts, kale with pinenuts...

Brussel sprouts

For the Brussels sprouts we friend onions, garlic,  bacon and parsley. The sprouts we cleaned and halved, mixed them with the onions, garlic,  bacon and parsley, put everything in oven proof dishes, poured some cream over everything and sprinkled Gruyere cheese on top. Then we baked the Brussel sprouts at 180 degrees until soft.

Sweet potato wedges

As the oven was occupied by a huge turkey we had to figure out a way to make other things without using it. So we cut the sweet potatoes in wedges and then briefly boiled them. We then fried them sprinkling brown sugar and drizzling honey on them.

Yorkshire Puddings

Finally we made Yorkshire Puddings, my favorite to go with roast dinners. And so easy to make - mix 500 ml milks with 3 eggs, 150 gr of flour and a pinch of salt. Leave to rest for half an hour. In the meantime pour a bit of oil in all the holes of a muffin tin and heat in the oven until piping hot. Pour a bit of batter into each hole of the muffin tin - not too much otherwise you'll get small, dense and uneatable puddings. Put back in the oven and don't open for 15 minutes - they should be big and fluffy and perfect.

I'm looking forward to next year's Thanksgiving! Until then I'll be cooking many a Sunday Lunch Roast!