After plopping on the couch, watching parades and holiday movies, we tried our best to start our own Thanksgiving traditions this year.
Both kids are now old enough to sit at the table with us, and they were troopers. We had a simplified version of a civilized meal. Both kids are pretty picky eaters, especially when it comes to proteins, so we did our best to get them to try everything.
My favorite Thanksgiving tradition involves the use of fingers and giant black olives. It was the one day a year we were allowed to play with our food, and I completely planned on letting this happen here. And it was a success! What fun!
See this scrumptiously golden brown and delicious bird? ONE HOUR, people! ONE HOUR is all it took to cook! When we bought this house, it had no appliances. As a foreclosure, it had been stripped – so when it was time to get appliances, both Xiris and I agreed that it was time to DO IT RIGHT or DON’T DO IT AT ALL. So we researched and tested, finally settling on a Jenn-Air gas cooktop with combination gas/convection oven. SO WORTH IT. We put the turkey in at 500F for 30 minutes (btw: on rapid preheat –both gas and electric heat at the same time – it took less than 10 minutes to reach the cooking temp). After that, we stick the oven probe in the breast, tell the oven there is a turkey attached to the other end, hit ROAST CONVECT and the desired finish temp (allowing for coasting) of 161F. Oven does the rest, even shutting off and putting itself in HOLD WARM mode until you retrieve the bird. Juiciest, best turkey yet!
