Thanksgiving

So we're at my sister-in-law's house cooking away and I thought it would be fun to take a break and brag about our meal. Jamie, as always, is in charge of the turkey. This year we got an organic, free range bird from Westtown Meats on 202. He's basting it right now and it is soooo pretty. Brined since Wednesday morning in a solution flavored with orange juice, brown sugar, and onion, he massaged the bird with an herbed butter mixture which he stuffed under the skin along with orange slices and rosemary sprigs. It smells wonderful.

For appetizers, we have already consumed some rosemary spiced cashews, a chunk of raw milk manchego(from Wegmanns)with brown honey sauce on top, and three rounds of cranberry misto cosmos. All the recipes for these very yummy items came from the foodnetwork.com holiday section.

Our turkey will be accompanied by some pear and cranberry chutney (made by me - a family favorite), "not your mama's green bean casserole" (courtesy of Alton Brown, also via foodnetwork.com), artichoke and spinach stuffing, roasted tuber salad (another Jamie specialty), crunchy mashed potatoes, and homemade gravy. For desert there is a caramel apple pie, a pumpkin pie, and a apple crumble torte (also from Wegmann's). My sister-in-law is making the vanilla ice cream right now and the scent of fresh vanilla bean just penetrating over the turkey is divine. We also have mulled wine and hot cider to drink.

So I'm ready to chow down. Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'll recount the highlights of this meal in my next post.