prep day

I'm not talking about a missionary prep day here, I'm talking about the day before Thanksgiving, prep day. I was inspired by the Pioneer Woman and by Patsy who had Thanksgiving early this year for her missionary and decided to brine our turkey this year. Ann had never cooked a turkey before and since she was the hostess this year, she was open to my ideas. :) So, I spent most of Wednesday at Ann's house which Ethan loved and experimented with the brining technique which I have to say went very well. Except, it took for-stinkin'-ever for the brine to cool enough to soak the turkey in it. Also, I did not read PW's blog until the night before so I missed out on the William Sonoma spices and brining bags, they don't have that kind of thing at Dick's Market. So, I looked on line and found a recipe for brine that I used, by the way, I LOVE recipezaar.com, if you've never tried it, you should, so good. The brining bag ended up being one of those XL Ziploc bags that advertise being able to hold sleeping bags and more...coincidentally, they also hold an 18 pound turkey with 1.5 gallons of brine. Who knew? While I was at Ann's house helping with Bob (we named the turkey after having spent so much time with him), Allie was here at our house with Apey making the famous chicken salad log that we love so much. Apey brought this recipe with her into our family and it's so good it quickly became a tradition. Apey was travelling to CA later that night so she helped Allie make them ahead of time and then brought her up to Ann's on her way home. Then, a special treat, Grandma came over to make a few pies and Allie was thrilled to cook with Grandma, she is an excellent teacher, Sammy loved it too. At the end of the day, Ann fed us dinner, Rich came over after work and grandma and grandpa stayed to eat too, it was a fun little "stretch" dinner to get ready for the big turkey day. I told Ann that I hate to eat and run but now I had to go home and prepare the things that I was supposed to bring to dinner. My favorite Thanksgiving dish is sweet potato casserole, oh my praline goodness, mmmm. The prailine part isn't featured in this picture, but you add it to the top and bake it all up, so good! I also made stuffed mushrooms, mmmm. This is the yummy sausage filling...I'm hungry for this food all over again! I took many pictures of the process because I have been inspired by pioneer woman and think that I may start my own wende the mom cooks blog so my kids can look up recipes when they're grown and see the action in pictures. What do you think? Thanksgiving's comin'! Yee-ha!