Thanksgiving post!

So it pains me to say this BUT every year for the last 7 years, when I made Thanksgiving dinner it was normally just one of those precooked dinners that you get from Safeway. But to anyone that has been following my blog, you know that I also just recently started cooking and trying to expand my skills. Well this year, I decided to cook my own dinner...all of it. And so I did.

The turkey was going to be my hardest challenge. I have never cooked one before. I was horrified thinking that I was going to screw it up and all of us would end up with food poisioning (yes, worst case scenario always in my head!!!). I didn't know what brining was so I didn't even bother to do that but I did find a link on PW's site that I did follow (which can be found here ). I didn't stuff my turkey either. My grandmother used to do that all the time and ugh, I hate mushy stuffing. So no go on this one! The only spices I used were kosher salt, pepper and stuffed that thing full of minced garlic. I used so much in fact, I was being asked how much did I use cause the smell was strong. Meh, whatever. It came out DELICIOUS! When I had to baste it, like she says with the butter, I used a stick of butter with lemon juice. Man, my mouth is watering just thinking about it.

It started like this....

And then to this....

And then this!!!

I also made some DELICIOUS green bean casserole (my secret is using cans of cream of mushroom AND chicken...delicious), Main Cook made some delicious sweet potatoes (recipe WILL be coming soon), mashed potatoes, Turkey Stuffing, Cranberry sauce (just out of can, nothing special), turkey gravy (out of jar, again, nothing special) and my pumpkin pie.

My very first EVER homemade pumpkin pie...still working on the crust!

Dinner...was..sooo...good! And the good news is...no one was sick or got sick and everyone walked away from the table stuffed to the gills. That my friend is awesome!

Thanksgiving Dinner with some Moscato...ready to eat!!