Friendsgiving
Happy Monday Friends!
This past weekend was exhausting yet so fun! Friday night we had our last district football game and locked down district champs!! Playoffs start this Friday!
Saturday, Todd and I hosted Friendsgiving at our place for the first time ever. I decided to make the turkey (I have never even helped to make one so I was so nervous! It actually turned out great and I put the recipe down below). My best friend from high school and her fiance came from College Station and spent the day with me, they helped me cook and get everything set up. My freshman year college roommate came in from Austin, and our closest friends from college that live in the same city came! Everyone brought a side dish. We had so much food; turkey, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, mac and cheese casserole, green bean casserole, dressing, grape salad, and dessert!
Funny enough, Todd and I were doing the turkey, corn, and a dessert! I didn't realize until the day after that I completely forgot to put the corn out..haha! So I guess we have a lot of extra corn for the two of us..Whoops!
I used a very easy recipe for the turkey! It was a beginners way to cook turkey and I found it on Youtube. I changed a couple things but here is how I did it:
What you will need:
15 pound turkey (was plenty for 9 people)
2 carrots sliced up
1 onion
1 stick of celery
Sage leaves
Rosemary leaves
Salt
Pepper
Garlic salt
About a cup of butter
Basting brush
A dish to put the turkey in while in the oven
Cooking thermometer
butcher string
Directions:
1. Make sure the entire turkey is thawed and remove the neck and giblets from the inside.
2. Rinse the turkey with cold water (inside and out)
3. Pat dry with paper towels
4. Cut up the onion, carrot, and celery and place in bottom of baking dish
5. Put the turkey inside the baking dish, on top of the onion, carrots, and celery
6. Mix some salt, pepper, and garlic salt in a bowl (this is your seasoning) and sprinkle some inside the turkey
7. Put about 3 tablespoons of butter in a pan on the stove at medium temperature
8. Once the butter is melted and has golden a bit, put in some sage and rosemary leaves (you only need a couple leaves of each)
9. Leave the leaves in for 60 seconds and stir them around in the butter - this makes an easy herb butter
10. After the 60 seconds is up, take the leaves out of the butter and put them inside of the turkey
11. Use the butcher string to tie the legs together at the bottom
12. Use your basting brush to paint the herb butter all over the turkey (make sure the turkey is inside the baking dish)
13. Once you have covered the surface of your turkey with the herb butter, sprinkle the seasoning you made in step 6 all over the surface of the turkey (you can turn the turkey over and do it all over both sides. I only did it on the stop and sides of my turkey)
14. Cover the turkey with foil - doing this allows the moisture to stay in
15. Preheat oven to 325 degrees
16. Put the turkey in the oven (rule of thumb is 15 minutes per pound or until inside is around 170-180 degrees
17. When you only have about an hour or so left for the turkey to cook, take the foil off of the turkey, and add a little more herb butter to the turkey and let finish cooking
18. Take the turkey out of the oven and let cool about 30 minutes before cutting into it
This looks like a lot of steps but it is so easy! I have never even seen a turkey being cooked and the turkey was good and juicy and a total hit at our Friendsgiving!
Todd and I plan to host Friendsgiving every year, and this year we all had such a good time!
I totally recommend doing a Friendsgiving before actual Thanksgiving, you can even test run some recipes for Thanksgiving during that time. It was so nice to have a big group of friends come together and eat and celebrate what Thanksgiving is all about!
xo,
Taylor