Thanksgiving Recap

 Each year for Thanksgiving, I need to drive up to my dad's house as my Uncle David  always seems to  throw a Thanksgiving  party at his house. I always arrive the  night  to prepare things  for Thanksgiving day.  Of course,  these last two years,  I have  learned to make the  turkey.  Usually , my mom  does the  turkey but  since mom passed away  last year, I have  taken over  learning how to do it myself.  Now I must  admit,  last year  it was  an experimentation  turkey but I managed to make it just right.  I was a bit nervous doing  the first one but who wouldn't be right?  My dad told me last year "  If mom was  here, she would have  not let you bring an experiment turkey."  So yes, that might be true as my mom likes to make sure her dishes are  perfect  but for me,   I am different I  just flow  with my  cooking and make  them!  My  dad  finds it  entertaining that I am  brave enough to bring  experimenting dishes to parties.  Honesty, I just cook out of love and I seem to have this way  of praying to spirit and asking them to help me make  something delicious. Dad laughs at how I pray to  the universe for my cooking but then I tell him it works! It comes out  pretty tasty and  pretty much close to the recipe the first time.  I might have a  to tweak something  later but I  pretty much  figure it all out by the 2nd or 3rd time I do a  recipe  whether its  cooking or baking.

This  year, I made the same turkey recipe for the second time..  I love Food Network. In fact, I have  learned a lot watching this channel through out the years.  I love seeing the new recipes and  new ways to cook certain foods.  I will admit , my family is used  to injecting  chicken broth for the  turkey as it does  make it moist.  But I told my dad that the new way is to brine the turkey.  My mom back then  would not try this technique and now that  my mom has  passed,  I am  the one that needs to do the turkey so finally I get to do it my way. I used  Alton's Brown's  turkey recipe, and also his turkey gravy recipe. It is absolutely delicious and  its not hard work at all. The  hardest part is to make the  brine everything else after that is easy.   I love the  gravy recipe too with  the red wine in it , just gives  it even more flavor.

As far as for dessert we had  $5 pumpkin pie at Costco!  I mean its a steal at that price cost less than to make your very own pie. And the other bonus was the mango birthday cake at a Chinese bakery...  my cousin Jon was  born on Thanksgiving day so therefore  this year it actually did  land  on his actual birthday hence  we had  two desserts.  Uncle David forgot the whipping  cream  for the pumpkin but it was needed  just as  yummy without it, I guess that cut down the calories a  tad lol....

  So there you have it , my turkey was cut  by my dad after I was finished and  yummy we always have  prime  rib  when my Uncle David throws the party. It was great to catch up with my cousins too I had a  blast just hanging out   with the  family.  but as far as the left overs was concerned, I was the winner again  for delicious food there was  barely  any turkey left when  we were done, everyone pretty much raved about the turkey again like they did  last year so yay!!! I feel like a professional chef when I make a main  dish  right!

Oh  and  no Black Friday this year for me,  I  checked the ads to make sure  there wasn't anything I wanted on Black Friday  or Cyber Monday, didn't see anything that stood out for me to want to get this time.

 How was your   Thanksgiving?  Was there anything memorable during that day??