The breast of my spatchcocked turkey was still raw at the bone despite the thigh thermometer reading 165. Had to put it back in. Have decided unless someone else is bringing and cooking the turkey, from now on our Thanksgiving meat is the spiral ham we prefer anyway.

Rolls came out great, Rhodes and rose just right

Someone else made potatoes and they didn't taste good

Green bean. Casserole didn't seem hot enough.

Turkey was great as was orange cranberry relish, and I don't even like cranberries.

fabulous Brussels sprouts , having leftover of those now.

I bought the fancy Whole Foods free range, boa, boa , boa turkey and brined it. It was stringy. Should have just bought a butterball, I guess.

Anonymous wrote:We roasted a chicken instead of making turkey. I accidentally turned off the oven while setting the timer, which I didn't notice until the very end. Oops. All the side dishes were great though, and I'm sure the chicken will be wonderful tomorrow with our other leftovers.

I did this once with an apple cake that had to cook for FOUR HOURS. I didn't realize until FOUR HOURS later. Oops.

No mishaps this year. We go to potlucks and don't host Thanksgiving.

For the life of me couldn't find the giblets, cursed whole foods for ripping me off. Had to make a turkey neck gravy. Found the giblets as I was carving the turkey. I did a brine for about 15hrs the turkey was really juicy and surprisingly good, despite maybe slightly over cooking, not sure I read the end of the thermometer right.

Oh, and turkey number one from giant on sale for 8$ was frozen and not defrosted after the second day so I tried to defrost in the microwave. After reading you have to cook it right away (still day before thanksgiving) I ended up throwing it out and running to whole foods to get a fresh turkey $25.

My husband said at that point the bar was set pretty low. But the sides, stuffing and gravy came out really well. Although, I had to improvised With the gravy as I had very little pan juice from the turkey not sure why. But, I just added the turkey neck stock to the pan and tried to deglaze as much as possible from the roasting pan then poured it into a medium size pot with the corn starch and turkey meat. I could have cooked it more to get it a bit thicker but by then folks wanted to eat. I didn't have time to make the sweet potato casserole but got as far as boiling them and I will make it tomorrow.

It's not on the usual menu, but DW was craving a red meat appetizer, so I made chicken liver pate. It was a hit with the inlaws.

We over cooked our turkey and I forgot to make the gravy. Didn't realize until I was doing the dishes.

Dh grilled turkey breast on grill. That turned out great.

Turkey #2 (we hosted 19 people) cooked in the oven. It was taking forever to cook and totally messed up the timing of everything elsr.
Problem: cooked it upside down.
Then almost dropped it pulling it out from the oven.

Anonymous wrote:My gravy separated despite my best efforts. I should have used less of the drippings; the flavor was way too intense.

But the turkey was fabulous. We brine and roast at 500 and it comes out perfect.

My gravy separated and it had a layer of seasoning that just sort of sank to the bottom and wouldn't mix in with the gravy. So it was pretty gross.

I never, ever make gravy so I have no idea what I'm doing in that regard but I just googled that Martha Stewart first time Thanksgiving menu and there are directions for making gravy from the pan drippings. What I should have done but didn't do was pour the gravy through a sieve to get rid of any solids. Then I should have skimmed off the fat. And the good stuff left is what you make gravy out of. I will try this next time. Thank goodness I had a jar of gravy on hand and it was alright in a pinch. But it bums me out that the pan juices from that delicious turkey went to waste like that. Oh well...next time.

Bought the premade dinner from Fresh Market. It was really good. The only thing we didn't care for was the cranberries (mine is better)!

Ordered from Wegmans. Turkey dry Stuffing ok. Everything else delish.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was setting a piping hot dish onto a trivet on the dining room table and managed to accidentally touch and melt a little spot on the fabric of my brand new tablecloth .

How do you melt fabric? Plastic you mean?

No. It's a nice, red holiday fabric tablecloth. There is a shiny spot where the hot casserole dish touched it. I put it in the wash but I'm pretty sure that the fabric actually melted a little. Didn't hurt the table - thank goodness!

K. Then your "fabric" is polyester. Ergo plastic. Real fabric doesn't melt. Geesh.

Well, as a matter of fact it is 100% polyester. It is a synthetic fabric but it's pretty and nice for the holidays. I'd be bummed if it's ruined. I guess I'll find out soon enough.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was setting a piping hot dish onto a trivet on the dining room table and managed to accidentally touch and melt a little spot on the fabric of my brand new tablecloth .

How do you melt fabric? Plastic you mean?

No. It's a nice, red holiday fabric tablecloth. There is a shiny spot where the hot casserole dish touched it. I put it in the wash but I'm pretty sure that the fabric actually melted a little. Didn't hurt the table - thank goodness!

K. Then your "fabric" is polyester. Ergo plastic. Real fabric doesn't melt. Geesh.

You are weird. Happy Thanksgiving.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was setting a piping hot dish onto a trivet on the dining room table and managed to accidentally touch and melt a little spot on the fabric of my brand new tablecloth .

How do you melt fabric? Plastic you mean?

No. It's a nice, red holiday fabric tablecloth. There is a shiny spot where the hot casserole dish touched it. I put it in the wash but I'm pretty sure that the fabric actually melted a little. Didn't hurt the table - thank goodness!

K. Then your "fabric" is polyester. Ergo plastic. Real fabric doesn't melt. Geesh.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I was setting a piping hot dish onto a trivet on the dining room table and managed to accidentally touch and melt a little spot on the fabric of my brand new tablecloth .

How do you melt fabric? Plastic you mean?

Microfiber will melt -- stain resistant tablecloths are the only way to go.