I thought it would be nice to go back to this post and talk about how everything worked out. I know, Thanksgiving is SO LAST MONTH Y’ALL, but I don’t care. Also, don’t remind me what month it is, thanks.

So let’s start off with the big thing, the turkey. I doubled the Apple Cider Brine Recipe because my bird was 23 pounds, and I still ended up having to add extra water to make sure the bird was completely covered. Never having had a brined turkey before, I wasn’t sure what to expect as far as flavor (I was particularly concerned about saltiness), but it was much more subtle than I had anticipated, and there was, of course, more flavor closer to the skin than further in. There was also a LOT of juice, drippings, whatever you wanna call them – they filled 3/4ths of the roasting pan, so I had PLENTY to work with for gravy, and OH MAH GAWD let’s have a moment of reverence for the gravy, y’all, because it turned out to be the best Thanksgiving gravy I’ve ever had, so I’ve been putting it on nearly EVERYTHING. My mashed potato and turkey leftovers are finally gone, and the rolls never stood a chance, but there’s still stuffing! I can put gravy on stuffing! Neither the turkey nor the gravy were salty at all; perhaps the saltiness was muted by the sugar and apple cider in the recipe.

I had also read several comments that a brined turkey would cook faster, but I didn’t find this to be true. The turkey went into the oven at 9:30am and the bag on the turkey said it should cook for four and a half to five hours, unstuffed. I ended up missing the 2:00 to 2:30 dinnertime that I was aiming for; we didn’t eat until sometime around four. And the pop-up indicator on the bird decided not to work, either, so I was cutting into the turkey as it cooked to see whether or not it was done. (I know, that’s what thermometers are for. I had one but all the words and numbers washed off after the first use which rendered it fairly useless. I need another one.)

 So, how about that homemade stuffing then, another first for me? Awesome, thank you. I cheated a bit, I used two boxes of Jiffy Cornbread mix instead of making my own from scratch. Jiffy has a slight sweetness to it that really worked well in this recipe. I also used dried minced onion flakes instead of chopped onion, and let me just say that one cup of those onion flakes is about 3/4ths of a cup too much. I ended up tossing the majority of the onions, though, because I was having trouble spooning the other ingredients out of the pan to mix in with the chopped, dried bread. Yay for saving the stuffing! I like that this recipe is not only beginner friendly but versatile, too, as it allows for adjusting the herbs and seasonings to suit personal taste. I’m sure you could easily substitute white wine for some of the broth and add or change the veggies without wreaking any havoc.

Next side dish, the classic Sweet Potato Casserole. I don’t recall having ever made them this way before, and I haven’t eaten them this way in a long time, either. This recipe made a really lovely, light, and fluffy dish, and that’s not counting the nom-nom-nommy toasted marshmallows on top. (Really, why is this a side dish? Why doesn’t anyone put it in a pie crust and call it dessert?) The hardest part of this one was getting the potatoes cut in order to boil and mash them; I got to a point where I wondered if El Fiance wasn’t better off chopping them up with an axe. (I think smaller potatoes would help in that area, duh.) I made the potatoes the night before Thanksgiving and got them set in a casserole pan so all I would have to do on Thursday would be to put the marshmallows on top and stick the pan in the oven. It worked out great!

Another side dish was Parmesan Roasted Cauliflower, a recipe that was in the comment section at Miss Zoot’s. El Fiance likes it but I’m still undecided. The recipe was written for only one serving and I had to manually convert it to ten servings, since the site didn’t have a serving adjuster thingy (please don’t break your brain trying to figure out my techno babble, I can find another way to explain it if need be, LOL) on it like other recipe sites do. It’s possible I got something wrong during the measurement conversions or didn’t count the number of teaspoons of something correctly as I was getting the ingredients together. Anyway, this didn’t quite have the flavor I was hoping for. I’ll give it another shot, though, because it has cheese in it, therefore it MUST be scrumptious! Next time I’ll just keep it to three or four servings, and maybe I’ll substitute pressed garlic cloves instead of garlic powder.

Next up, the Rosemary Rolls. These were GREAT, though I totally cheated on these, too. Instead of using the frozen dough, I bought rolls that were already done, King Hawaiian, I think, or something like that. Also, I chopped the rosemary smaller than the picture accompanying the recipe indicates. (Rosemary is one of those things that too much of is a bad thing.)  I put the rolls in a foil baking pan, brushed the melted butter on them, and sprinkled the rosemary and kosher (instead of the sea salt the recipe calls for) salt sparingly over the top. I probably could have put on a little more and it would have been fine. Popped them in the oven to bake, and they came out hot and fluffy, and crispy and flaky wherever the butter had traveled. These disappeared pretty quickly.

(Are you still here? Bless you for your patience, I have become Wordy McTalkypants lately. Thank you for bearing with me.)

FINALLY, the Key Lime Pie, the unconventional request. The recipe called for regular limes, but I actually found regular whole key limes in my grocery store so I went with those instead. Handy tip – if you ever juice your own key limes for any reason, cut the limes in half and put them in a garlic press to juice them. El Fiance made that suggestion to me AFTER I spent 45 minutes hand juicing about 20 key limes in order to get a half cup of juice…which might not have been so bad had I not had incredibly dry hands at the time OW BURNY STINGING ITCHY JUICE IN MY SKIN FNARRRRRGGGHHHH. So, yeah. That was helpful. Anyway. I had a bit of trouble with the crust; I originally made it as specified in the recipe but it just wouldn’t come together for me, and I think I overcompensated with a little too much butter. Anyway, out of all the food we ate, this pie was the first thing to disappear. I think it best to avoid using plain ole’ Cool Whip or the like on this pie, I think it’s a little too sweet and made the pie taste a bit like Fruit Loops Cereal, to me, but it was really good.

How was your holiday (if you celebrated)? What are you most looking forward to during the upcoming Winter Holidays (if you celebrate)?