This year we spent Thanksgiving at home and I cooked my very first turkey! I gathered advice from several sources, then proceeded along. I'd gotten a brined turkey and assumed they were salty only to discover that they aren't at all. Also, I was afraid to cook it too long, so I followed Alton Brown's directions to cook it until the internal temp was 165. I might have liked it better had I given it another 1/2hour-hour cooking time, so that plus the fact that it needed salt, not too bad for my first time.

I actually had fun with all the cooking. I made: garlic mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, crescent rolls, stuffing, cranberry/dried cherry relish, and a funny mashed sweet potato thing with marshmellows on top. For dessert I did a pecan pie, per my husband's request, and pumpkin muffins for the girls, both topped with whipped cream. All of it was so tasty, if I do say so myself.


What I will remember about this Thanksgiving is how pleasant a day I had cooking for our little family, and how nice it was to sit down together and eat at the end of the day.