Alessandra getting the stuffing out of the turkey. I put it in cheesecloth to make removal easier. Pure genius. Wish I thought of it, but I think I stole the idea from Yahoo food.
Me making rolls. From scratch. With yeast and everything. ;-)
The beautiful bad boy all trussed up
The Perogi (Russian meat dumplings) that Alessandra made, with my beautiful finished rolls
Daddy making cappuccinos. He's the master. Mmmm and then we added Frangelico. MMMMM.
Me, Josh & Eric (Navy boys). The first time we cooked for Josh he said, "I need to marry me an Italian girl." So cute. He's our adopted little brother. He even takes out the trash when I ask! And Eric helped me a lot with the turkey, it was damn heavy with the roasting pan and everything.
Alessandra rocking out to my ghetto culo shaker music, making spinach dip.
Okay, so my parents opened a restaurant in Riverside a few months ago, called Trilussa. As a result, this year my mom announced that if my sister and I wanted Thanksgiving, we were going to have to do it ourselves. She’s too busy. Luckily for the fam we are culinary masterminds. We had 12 people over for the best Thanksgiving of their lives. I'm not exaggerating. I’m not just tooting my own horn. The only snafu of the evening was now Alessandra and I have to do Thanksgiving every year. Not exactly conductive to studying for finals, but the food was damn good. What did we make? Read on.
I put Alessandra on appetizer and mashed potato duty (her mashed potatoes are always amazing, this year they were garlic mashed Yukon Golds MMMM). She made homemade Perogi, which took FOREVER but were sooo good. I ate almost all the leftovers. They make a great breakfast actually! She also made low fat spinach dip, that actually tasted good. Then she made sautéed herbed shrimp. Everything was FABULOUS. She got all recipes from the new Joy of Cooking. Ever since I failed at the JOC's apple pie recipe I have been skeptical of it, but apparently the new edition is fab.
For the piece-de-resistance, I ordered a Williams-Sonoma organic free range 20 lb. turkey. It comes via FedEx! So cool! I brined it with my famous turkey brine recipe which I forced on my mom a couple of years ago (I am willing to share it). Since then it has become the family recipe. If you've never brined a turkey, you don't know what you're missing. It seems like soaking a turkey in a salty apple cider bath would make it taste weird and salty. But it doesn't. It just tastes like delicious tender goodness. Plus the fact that I ordered a fancy expensive turkey also helped with the tenderness and flavor factors.
For the stuffing, I found this great recipe for sausage apricot cornbread stuffing. I actually used Stove Top (and admitted it to everyone) and it was still amazing. I have no idea why. I guess Cooking Light just has the best recipes ever. ;-)
Then I made homemade rolls. I found this recipe last year. They turn out buttery and flaky, sort of like less-greasy croissants. You have to cut the dough and stack it to make little "fans." And I have a weakness for anything with poppy seeds. The very first thing I ever baked was a loaf of challah in 3rd grade. It wasn't very good, but ever since then I've had a fondness for baking bread. It smells really good, and kneading the dough is a positive non-destructive way of getting out aggression. I think bread making should be part of anger management programs.
Every year my Auntie Gay makes this sweet potato chestnut dish. It's sooooo good. So I requested that she bring it this year. It's got gobs of butter and brown sugar, but that's why it tastes so good. ;-) Auntie Gay also brought cranberry sauce from Bristol Farms, it had whole cranberries in it and was great, sweet and tart all at once. One year she made homemade cranberry sauce herself, but she said it was a pain. This was much better than the stuff in a can (obviously).
For dessert, I made my famous homemade apple pie. I have been perfecting the recipe for 10 years, and finally succeeded last year. I have always been a dessert maker. I think it's because my mom never bought junk food when we were kids. If I wanted a cookie I had to make it my damn self. Luckily, I was able to replicate my success this year. ;-) The key is in prepping it in a food processor and refrigerating it overnight. Auntie Gay brought pumpkin pie which I did not try because I hate pumpkin pie. To top off the evening, Daddy made cappuccinos for everybody with sambuca, grappa, or frangelico. Guess which I picked? ;-) Of course Daddy made sure we were well stocked with delicious wines, Amarone, La Roncaia Eclisse, some super tuscan I have since forgotten the name of, and Taurasi Villa Raiano.
