Thanksgiving Turkey Dinner

Happy Thanksgiving to all !!

Normally we spend Thanksgiving day with my wife's family but of course with the year going the way it has, this Thanksgiving was just the Mrs and me. I usually prepare a small turkey sometime over the Thanksgiving weekend.

Pared down menu, just turkey and the fixings, but of course somewhere sourdough something will be included. :wink:

The starter was looking plenty active a few days ago and I felt an obligation to do something different with it....



I decided to add sourdough dinner rolls to the menu -







I thawed a turkey that I'd bought some months ago, not realizing it was a half turkey. Kind of a surprise but it saved me the effort of spatchcocking it. Perfect for the two of us however.

Dry brined -



Seasoned with Oakridge and herb butter beneath the skin -



and out onto the Goldens' with some sweet potatoes -



Coming along nicely -



Meanwhile, another side featuring sourdough was Sourdough Bread w/ Sausage, Dried Cranberry and Mushroom dressing. I cubed and dried some sourdough bread I baked last week which worked out perfectly. Placed in the Lodge CI skillet and getting some smoke on the Weber -





Thanks to Chef Tom of atbbq.com for the inspiration on this one. The recent video was timely.

Turkey's done -



Thanksgiving table is set. Turkey, Dressing, Homemade Cranberry Sauce, Sourdough Dinner Rolls, Sweet Potatoes, Roasted Turnip, Homemade Gravy.



My plate -







For dessert, an Apple Pie made with Sourdough Pie crust I've been making from the weekly discards when feeding the starter -



A fairly easy day of cooking as some of the sides were prepped yesterday. The turkey was moist, the skin was pretty crisp due to the dry brine and leaving it uncovered in the fridge for 24 hours.

The one good thing about this cook is it was only a half turkey so I don't need to come up with ideas for leftovers over the next few days.

I may enter one of these pics into the Thanksgiving throwdown.

As always, thanks for reading through to the end of this post and a Happy Thanksgiving to all the USA brethren from Mrs lunchman and me.

Regards,
-lunchman

jzadski said:

What a perfect Thanksgiving meal. Sourdough dressing :-D

Click to expand...

As a stuffing lover, this was really the star of the show. Dried out sourdough, some dried Italian bread. Crumbled Italian sausage, celery, onion, garlic. I had a few mushrooms available so tossed those in as well, along with the dried cranberries. Add some chicken stock and two eggs and it was ready to go. I even had Sage on hand together with its friends Parsley, Rosemary and Thyme. :wink:

In past years I've used packaged stuffing together with stale bread. Not any longer. This was almost as simple to prepare and far better.

This had a nice crust on top and at the edges of the pan, the interior was still moist. Making this in cast iron on the grill will be the only way I prepare this from now on.

I might give a cornbread variation a try.