Happy Thanksgiving

I hope you will have a wonderful Thanksgiving with lots of family around you enjoying all the best turkey meals. My favorite recipe comes from a Bon Appetit magazine from 1995. It has been a standard in my house since then. One of the techniques in this recipe involves mashing butter, crumbled bacon and chopped sage leaves together and gently working the combo under the skin. When the turkey is nicely browned, the pieces of bacon and sage are visible under the crisp skin. Chopped leeks, sage leaves, and bay leaves season the turkey from the inside. Here is the link to the recipe on Epicurious.com: http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/828
The dressing that accompanied the turkey in this recipe is our favorite dressing recipe. It uses sourdough bread cubes, mushrooms, bacon, leeks, and other veggies. It is not stuffed inside the turkey but baked in a separate dish (considered safer by most dieticians). My son loves this dressing so much it is what he requests for his birthday dinner.
http://www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/880
Homemade cranberry-orange relish, creamed onions, mashed potatoes, string beans, and lots of gravy round off the menu. For dessert I'll make old fashioned apple pie and pumpkin pie with pecans and brown sugar for decoration.
If you need help with your turkey, there are lots of web sites, including www.butterball.com which has English and Spanish instructions for beginners and experts alike.