In poking around my photos, I finally found a few photos from Thanksgiving. Not many, and there are certain recipes (most of them) that we forgot to photograph. And it’s really a shame in the case of the apple-molasses pie, because that thing looked…

Well…

They called it the “Demon Pie”. So, yeah. Maybe it’s a good thing there’s no photographic evidence of it.

Anyway! On to the photos, with just a little bit of commentary for you as well.

I was astounded when I found my turkey’s neck had been left on. I actually wasn’t quite sure what to do at first. I didn’t want to try to roast it with the turkey, as I thought that might make it gross, but what the heck?

I eventually decided to just hack it off with my cleaver & freeze it for future stock making. But now I’m curious how processors get it so neatly off. As you’ll see in my other photos, it left kind of a weird knob at the end of my turkey.

And, yes, I look at that photo and giggle every time.

Bill and I got up very early to make some of the things for Thanksgiving. My “to-do” list included rolls and pies. Bill, being the bread expert of the family, was tasked with making the rolls.

As I mentioned in the last Thanksgiving post, we made Pioneer Woman’s No Knead Rolls. We meant to make a half batch, but got so wrapped up in following recipes & cooking that we accidentally made a full batch. Yes, that recipe calls for NINE (9) cups of flour.

Yes, nine cups of flour rises dramatically if you let it. Also, it makes enough rolls to feed anyone you might possibly consider feeding. Even me. Probably even my dad. I bet, if you made the whole recipe, you could feed me, my dad AND my sister, with a few leftover. And we all eat rolls like they’re going to be made illegal tomorrow.

This is pretty obvious, I think. The pie, it has just come out of the oven. The turkey, it is about to go in. Things will be wonderful soon.

While the turkey was roasting, Bill assembled the rolls. Yes, that’s still the roll dough. It’s incredibly wet & amorphous. It’s difficult to work with. Bill, using techniques he learned from “Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day”, spent a bunch of time adding flour just to the top of the dough to reduce the stickiness enough to handle the dough. Then he spent a bunch of time worrying that the little dough balls wouldn’t merge together in glorious roll fashion.

He didn’t have to worry about that. They did. They were glorious. They were so glorious I forgot to take a photo. I was blinded by their rolly glory.

And, here’s the masterpiece. Once again, it was beautiful. Once again, it was done WAY too early. My friend Jarrod, combined with some folks from some other place on the internet, have led me to believe it’s that the brining makes it cook far faster than expected. Jared said it’ll take like half the time. Next year, I’m planning for this.

I’m not sure if the first photo was taken as I was finishing up carving the bird, or after everyone had stuffed themselves silly & so was the first step in breaking down the bird.

In either case, we stuffed ourselves. Then, while Bill washed up and our friends taught themselves a new dance step, I started breaking down the carcass. I wanted to get the meat separated for eating later, and the bones ready to make a turkey stock. This involved a cleaver and a huge mess, so it’s probably my favorite part of any given Thanksgiving day.