Hello! It’s November, everyone is thinking Thanksgiving and, of course, who is hosting the big dinner and what am I making? That is the big question.
It can be quite stressful. I can tell you that I use to fret over Thanksgiving as my mother always did, too. Mother would work for days preparing our Thanksgiving Day dinner — pies, pies and more pies — she made at least 10 to 12 pies and they were all from scratch, down to the whipping cream. Now we have frozen rolls, pies and noodles and some are pretty good with some added touches.,
Last weekend I did a pre-Thanksgiving with some of the recipes I have shared with all of you. I made turkey, mashed potatoes, noodles, corn, apple cranberry slaw and pecan cake. I didn’t make any pies, but I will for the real Thanksgiving Day dinner.
I normally don’t do the turkey, my niece Brandy Roades does, and she makes a great turkey that is moist. Everyone always raves over it. I gave her the recipe that I always use for a no fail moist turkey — turkey, butter, and beer. Yes, you heard it right. LOL. I take a nice turkey, stick of butter smeared on top and pour a can of beer in the cavity of the turkey. The I cover it in foil with the oven preheated to 325 degrees.
I baked a 17-pound turkey for five hours and it was perfect. The last half hour I take the foil off to brown the top. So don’t worry about the turkey this year. And remember, the beer evaporates. You are not getting the alcohol, or you can use non-alcoholic beer.
When I was buying the beer for the turkey and I was in line at the grocery store, I said to the people in line with me, “This is not mine, it is for my turkey. Ha ha ha. They all laughed — at least I think they did.
Please send me your favorite Thanksgiving Day recipes so I can share with everyone. Send them to [email protected] or call me at 937-393-3456.
Have a great week!
Sharon Hughes is the advertising manager at The Times-Gazette. She is also a mother, grandmother and chef.
