Thanksgiving - Thankful Turkeys

Okay, let's get down to turkey. It's one of my favorite meats. I cook it more than just Thanksgiving because I can't wait that long to eat it. Usually it's a hot week in the summer and I blast the air so I can handle cooking in the kitchen. Throw in a few turkey roasts in between and frozen leftovers, and I make it through the year.

I've tried several methods over the years to cook. I was brought up on the turkey bag method. It produces a moist turkey. From all I've been learning about health/food/allergies/safety I'm not really comfortable to cook things in plastic. I've become more adventuresome over the years and have basted turkeys, applied herb butter under and on top of the skin (yum), cooked it upside down (resulted in very flat and compressed white meat), and sliding bacon under the skin.

This year I'm soaking the turkey in a brine (salt water solution) ahead of time, stuffing it with apples and aromatics, and cooking it with foil tent (removing at the end to brown). My SIL brines her turkeys and they are AMAZING so I'm giving it a whirl. I'll let you know how it turns out.

Tomorrow we kick off Thanksgiving week with a thankful jar. At each meal we'll put a note into the jar with something/someone we are thankful for. At the end of the week, we'll have a jar full to be grateful for. I've also planned out a theme to be thankful for each day - health/family, freedom, work, fun, faith/church, etc. I'm looking forward to the week ahead.