How are you preparing your turkey this year?

Traditional roasted with stuffing. I make the stuffing with homemade stock and the turkey neck meat from making the stock. That was yesterdays project, I have 3 quarts of stock in the freezer and a gallon bag of neck meat.

We're going unique this year. Coq au Vin using turkey, with a Johnny Cake based stuffing.

The usual. The holiday is for what the family asks for, and other times of year are for experimenting.

As experiments succeed, they get asked for at holidays so there is some culinary drift over time.

As a non-American - we don't celebrate Thanksgiving.... but I wish you all a wonderful family occasion!

As always: Two smoked turkeys, and a smoked salmon for the dinner. Also half of a third smoked turkey, so my Dad has a substantial amount of "leftovers."

BDL

All 56 of them will be roasted in our combi ovens and alto shams overnight. They are coming in from Carolina on this Thursday(28 crates). Have been saving bread and rolls for the last 3 weeks. 14 cases sweet potatoes, 300 pounds chef potatoes, 8 cases fresh cranberries. Baby onions, Fresh Brussel Sprouts and on and on.

56 TURKEYS coming in this THURSDAY from Carolina (28 cases) will be cooked in combi and alto shams overnight thanksging eve. 7, cases fresh cranberries, 350 lbs chef potatoes, 8 cases sweet potato, 300 lbs brussel sprouts fresh and 200lbs baby onions from Holland coming this friday. Been saving bread and rolls last 3 weeks. 60 pumpkin pies, 30 custard pie, 20 mince pies( all made here) Thank God once a year This is final ingredient counts.:chef:

How many countries are you feeding Ed?

This will be a bitter sweet Thanksgiving this year. My wife and I both lost our fathers (2 months apart) in Dec and Feb. So I am going to do a really traditional New England Thanksgiving. That's what everyone looks forward to, and I love spending a couple days playing in my MIL kitchen.

Our prayers are with you.

My sympathies. Over our 22 years of marriage, my wife and I have spent WAY more time with her family than mine come holiday season. I would have enjoyed showing off my culinary skills to my father. Too late now, sad to say. My mother passed when I was 10, not much cooking inspiration from her. Sigh.

This year no real plans for Thanksgiving, we'll be staying at home, maybe a few friends over. I've not heard back from Batali or Morimoto whether or not they can make it over for dinner, I have this sneaking suspicion they might have other plans for the weekend.

While it may be a small group here for Thanksgiving, I might still do a large turkey. The motivation is that come Christmas, a holiday our families celebrate, we are expecting a packed house here in Salt Lake. So doing a big turkey this month will result in a good supply of stock base, etc. come December.

It may be, though, that I throw some of Karen's family for a loop. They always have turkey at Christmas. I'm thinking of throwing beef standing rib roast and Yorkshire pudding into the mix. Roast goose might be too much of a stretch for them. We shall see.

mjb.

I'll brine the bird (only about 10-12 pounds), then roast with the cavities filled with apples, onions and herbs. Others are bringing every other part of the meal, so it'll be a joint effort.

I lost my mom in February; DH lost his dad shortly before Thanksgiving two years ago. That weekend was also to be his 60th wedding anniversary with my MIL. My SIL is still agonized over it, but the rest of us move on a bit more every year. I hadn't celebrated Thanksgiving with my mom in decades, so the loss is less acutely felt for her.

In the bird. My family has been doing it that way for years. The only changes I have made to the original recipe was a very reduced turkey stock instead of just the stock from the giblets. Also cooking the day before at friends. They invite all the single people with no where to go for holidays. Having 20+ people this year and serving turkey and ham, mashed, gravy, stuffing, sweet potatoes with the marshmallows on top, jello salad, squash, some other veg. Making 4 pies for Wed and 2 more for Thursday. Cooking for others and seeing the smiles is way better than having to be paid for it.

I use the Traditional Turkey Rub recipe. It is simple to do and easy. Just try this:

Traditional Turkey Rub

To make sure the turkey meat is seasoned well, turkey rubs should be applied beneath the skin.

It can take 10 minutes to prepare

Ingredients:

* 1 tablespoon garlic powder
* 2 teaspoons seasoned salt
* 1 teaspoons poultry seasoning
* 1 teaspoon paprika
* 1 teaspoon salt
* 1/2 teaspoon pepper
* 1/4 teaspoon cayenne pepper
* 1/4 teaspoon basil

Mix all the spices and keep them in an air tight container. This should produce plenty of rub for a twenty pound turkey.

Hope you will try recipe I have here. GoodLuck!

Turkey Deep Fryer - Turkey Rubs

Approx 1300 guest. Sorry to hear of your loss. EJB

Nicko, Julia Child describes a similar method in The Way to Cook. I've mulled this, but one family member seems to need a Norman Rockwell-type turkey on the table to feel satisfied. So I'll roast the bird whole, although I'll bake the stuffing separately.

Nicko, The stuffing doesn't over cook on the bottom of the pan ???? Bill

Due to the success of brining for our fried chicken, we will be brining our turkeys this year.
I think we'll serve half the amount of people Ed will.
Still going to be a long day.

1. Carve off the raw breasts and make turkey roulades with 2 mushroom, breadcrumb, fennel and rosemary, and bacon stuffing.

2. Roast the remaining carcass and pull off all the edible meat and vacuum seal it for sandwichs and turkey salads and such during the coming year.

3. Roast again the remianing bones and carcass and make turkey stock.

4. Turning the last 2 years of remaining turkey stock into Turkey demi glace.

doc

I'm letting the turkey live and aiming for the seafood :) Lucky Turkey - it really is not traditional here - I wish you all luck and happy gobbling!

What kind of seafood is going to be your main??

Turkey Roulade

DeltaDoc

That's exactly what I wanted to see (Roulade)!

My wife is so excited about it she wants to do a "test run" on Sunday.

On Thanksgiving we go to my family's house in another town. It's always good, although I'm not crazy about the fried turkeys. I usually smoke one. My family likes oyster dressing, my SIL likes cornbread, so we have both.

This year I'm going to bring some gravy. The stuff they make there is very thin and full of giblets, and all I can taste is the liver and gizzards and I don't like it.

Aside from the food, i LOVE gathering with the family. What a great day to call it, "Thanksgiving".

I will prepare my turkey for thanksgiving in a traditional way and add some turkey marinades on it. This marinades will add some good flavour or taste in a turkey.

Turkey Deep Fryer - Turkey Marinades

That's a good idea, I think im going to use that method.

My aunt is "cooking" the turkey however its advised to bring plenty of additional food too (including another turkey).

Do the turkey parts go on a rack above the stuffing, or straight on top of it?

Hi Nicko, I figured the bottom part would be the Favorite. This is a Picture of our new addition to the farm yesterday morning. I will be using the black spotted one as a feeder and the two others as breeders................Thanks Bill