Thanksgiving

Post “Turkey” Coma (Thanksgiving Part 1)

Happy Thanksgiving! I hope that all your meals turn out as fabulous as our first Thanksgiving of the season did. Holy Wow! 1st Thanksgiving what? So, the NCHA futurity is going on in Ft. Worth, Texas right now and my uncle has some horses entered. When we started discussing Thanksgiving plans last month, we weren’t sure when he’d draw to show, plus the fact that this isn’t our year to have Tbug on Thanksgiving so we just decided to celebrate Thanksgiving last weekend. It was perfect.

There are 6 of us that headed to my aunts house in southern Oklahoma and right now we only have vehicles that will haul 5 people at a time so Abug, Mom, and I loaded up first thing Friday and drove down to AC & UB’s. Hubby took the day off to try his luck at deer hunting and be ready to pick Tbug up after school, come home and have chores done, pick dad up after work, and then they headed out. I should mention that they swung by J.L’s BBQ in Pryor (which is a little out of the way…..) for dinner before heading on to AC & UB’s but that’s okay 😘.

When AC & UB were up last month for a horse show, we ran to Sam’s Club and AC bought me a Cast Iron cookbook with the “stipulation” that I had to make something out of it for Thanksgiving. I decided to make the Orange Rolls (kind of like Cinnamon Rolls) for breakfast for Saturday morning. They were a little dry, but very good.

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Bacon Wrapped Turkey

Backtrack with me a few years, 2011 to be exact. For YEARS and I’m talking YEARS I’ve wanted to make Thanksgiving dinner. I’ve heard making a turkey is difficult to keep moist yet get thoroughly cooked, etc. 2011 I was given the opportunity to try. The year before if you’ll remember Pioneer Woman challenged Bobby Flay to a Thanksgiving Off (or whatever they called it).

I made her turkey, stuffing, etc. I almost made her exact meal, but not quite. Anyway, then I went on the hunt one day in 2012 for the perfect Turkey recipe. Does one even exist? Well, I think the answer is yes. I found a recipe for a Bacon Wrapped Turkey. I had the opportunity to make the 2012 Thanksgiving dinner as well, so I knew we were going to try this turkey.

I have to say, we’ve tried to change it up a bit, one year we smoked it, one year we forgot the bacon blanket, etc etc… but if you find something that works, why mess with it? Seriously!

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Thanksgiving 2015

If there’s one thing that hubby and I have come to love to do, it’s preparing a Thanksgiving turkey. Obviously if we go somewhere, that’s great too, but when we get the opportunity, we jump on it.

This year was one of those years. So a couple weeks before Thanksgiving we made out our menu, planned out our plan of execution, made out the shopping list, and cleaned house. Cleaning house included rearranging some too… we invited 16 people to our humble little abode so we needed to make sure we had room to set up tables. Easy Peasy! Yup, Abug was helping daddy move the old desk out of the living room :).

We were able to get Tbug on Tuesday night. Tuesday afternoon Abug and I started working on one of the desserts, a recipe that my aunt makes when we go to her house. This cake is awesome! Chocolate, chocolate ganache, a praline topping, what more could you ask for? Oh yeah, there were like 6 other options for Thanksgiving…. (and ignore my fashion sense, remember, there’s a reason I’m not a fashion blogger!)

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Candied Pecans

Can you believe we’re at Thanksgiving week? Didn’t we just ring in the New Year? This year has flown by. In the last couple days I have been putting together a document on Christmases and as we’re approaching my favorite time of the year, between Thanksgiving and New Years, I’ve been a scrooge the last 3 or 4 years at Christmas time. How the heck does that happen? I wish I had an answer but I don’t. Maybe this year will be better? Here’s to hoping!

My mom laughs at hubby and me because we write our Thanksgiving game plan out with courses, how long they cook, at what temperature they cook and even when we need to start working on them to get them in the oven at the correct time.

One of the recipes we’re making this year is a Tennessee Whiskey Cake with Candied Pecans. Hubby was going to buy some candied pecans, but I told him I would find a recipe and make my own so that’s just what I did yesterday… made my own candied pecans. Can I tell you how easy they were because wow, they were! The hardest part was I accidentally dropped my egg yolk into the egg white I was separating out and broke it while I was at it. Bummer!

That just meant I had to start over. Seriously, separating the egg white from the egg yolk is the hardest part of this recipe.

You drop the white into a mixer (or do it by hand, I was being lazy), bring to a frothy white, add brown sugar, fold in the Pecans, spread on cookie sheet lined with parchment paper and bake in a 175˚ oven for an hour and a half. And…. then you have Candied Pecans.

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Bacon Wrapped Turkey

In 2012 I was surfing the internet one day and found a recipe for a Bacon Wrapped Turkey. I knew that we were going to be cooking Thanksgiving again this year so I shot the recipe to hubby and asked what he thought. He read through it and said he was in. So the next task was gathering the ingredients.

We’ve made it 2 years now and plan on making it again this year. (last year hubs thought he’d do it but smoked it instead of the oven. Then we forgot our bacon blanket….)

 The Turkey

This recipe is for an 18-20lb turkey but extremely easy to adjust for bigger or smaller. And make sure that if you’re using a frozen turkey you give ample time to defrost it!
What you’ll need:
A large plastic bag (optional, it’s just used for the brining process)
A platter or pan that fits the turkey in the fridge (I use a big stock pot and no bag and get along fine)
Kitchen twine
A roasting pan that fits the turkey (and fits in your oven. Check, this is important!)
A probe-style meat thermometer.
A turkey (remember, if it’s frozen, give it ample time to defrost!)
Lots of Kosher Salt
1 1/2 pounds bacon
1/2 pound butter
Fresh herbs: sage, thyme, oregano, parsley, marjoram, rosemary
Roasting Vegetables: carrots, celery, onions, apples
Brining the turkey:
Dry Brine the turkey. It works great and is super simple. We learned don’t brine the turkey more than 24 hours in advance or it gets too salty. One year we salted it Monday night and wow, the turkey was way to salty and my husband salts his food and he kept claiming that it was too salty. Remove all the interior parts from the bird.  Discard them or use them for stock, or the giblets for gravy.  Wash the bird well, inside and out. Place the bird in your brining bag or pot of choice.  Rub kosher salt all over the turkey, inside and out.  Use a lot of salt.  Wash your hands. Put the turkey in the fridge for up to 24 hours. Thoroughly wash the sink you rinsed the turkey in and your hands.

For the Butter:


 You can make this up to a week in advance to help with time on Thanksgiving day, especially if you have to get up at the crack of dawn for a noon lunch. We eat in the evening so there isn’t as much of a push but we still make the butter in advance.

In a food processor,  add 1/2 lb raw bacon slices, 1/2 lb butter and generous handfuls of the herbs (sage, thyme, oregano, parsley, marjoram, rosemary). I don’t have exact measurements we use for each of the herbs, just play around with it, we do every year. haha. Place the lid on the food processor and blend together until it makes a smooth paste.

Now if you’re going to store, place in an airtight container.

Preparing turkey day of:

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Thanksgiving Part 1

Never do we have the same year twice when it comes to holidays, even when we try to pick the same menu… This year proved no different. We weren’t able to go to Oklahoma to be with my aunt and uncle this year so we stayed home and planned Thanksgiving here.

Hubby wanted to go in to his dad’s house as well, so we planned our meal that evening and went in to his dad’s house for lunch.

When we got to his dads house, baby girl was asleep but she immediately woke up. Memaw swooped her up and took her around the house to talk to everyone. Liss lost count but said upward of 50 people were there. My FIL said he thought closer to 60. That means there were 60 people in his house… oy! 🙂

We definitely had to come in our Thanksgiving Best. We may not have totally cooperated for pictures of our best, but we definitely brought our A-game in the dress department. But just let it be known, we still don’t like shoes.

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The Star of the Show

So this year we weren’t able to make it down to Southern Oklahoma where my aunt and uncle lives to celebrate Thanksgiving with them. I think we were all sad, but sometimes life gets in the way for everyone and you have to do with what you can. So hubby and I decided to do dinner at our house Thursday night with my parents and his parents, that way we could go to his dad’s that day to see his family.

A couple years ago you may remember that we did the Bacon Wrapped Turkey… YUM!

Circa 2012

We discussed how to cook the turkey this year. One thing that was proposed by hubby was just to buy a Turkey Breast and do that, but then my mom said that they had a turkey already and suggested smoking it.

Not going to lie, I kind of had my heart set on the Bacon Wrapped Turkey again, so I asked/suggested doing a Bacon Wrapped Smoked Turkey. Hubby said we could probably handle that. Now a few years ago we did a dry brine on the turkey but this year he decided to do a wet brine.

Our brine consisted of:
Dissolving 1 cup Kosher Salt in 3 cups of water.
Then we used a quart bottle of Cabela’s Marinade (that is no longer made but hubby bought a whole bunch of….), about 15-20 cloves of Garlic, 1 serving Mandarin Oranges and juices, 1 serving peaches and juices, about 2 tbsp Rosemary, about 2 tbsp Black Pepper Corns and 1 cup of Sugar.

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Thanksgiving {in one post}

Okay, one post.  Let’s get this show on the road.  We’re going to do Thanksgiving in 1 post which will make it photo heavy so get your eyes ready, your coffee brewed and whatever else you do!  This year’s Thanksgiving we headed down south.  My aunt and uncle live in southern Oklahoma and the NCHA Futurity is going on in Ft. Worth.  A guy that works for UB had a horse in the futurity show on Thursday morning so UB woke up at 4am and headed to Ft. Worth.  He said he’d work his horse and help Shane and then he’d be home so we planned our Thanksgiving meal around that time frame.

Hubby and I were in charge of the turkey.  Tbug helped AC with some of the appetizers and sides.  I jumped in and helped as well because we all know I love to cook.  But mostly I stood around and took pictures and drove my aunt nuts… haha.  I guess she didn’t know I’ve gotten into taking pictures of everything.  We had a very leisurely morning, appetizers for lunch and ate dinner around 4pm.

I guess now we’ll allow the photos to do their own talking, except I’ll help now and again :).

Don’t worry, I chopped the ‘shrooms after Tbug washed them.

We had eggs and bacon for breakfast Thursday morning.

One thing that I absolutely love is watching the Thanksgiving Parade.  Usually I don’t get the chance so it was exciting to see Santa Claus bringing an end to the parade.  Let the Christmas season come!

Dad was able to watch all the runs going on at the Futurity because I set my laptop up and he watched the live feed.

Appetizer lunches are the best.

Don’t show AC, she’ll disown me but it was soooo cute.

Happy Thanksgiving!

After we ate dinner we went to help AC set up her Christmas tree.

Tbug kept picking on me and I told her I’d sit on her.  She didn’t think I’d do it so I showed her.

One of my favorite comments of the night… This tree has to be like 10-20 feet taller than me.  Holy cow!  I’ll have you know the tree is 12′ tall. But it totally cracked me up.

I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and let the Christmas season commence.

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