Still Giving Thanks and a Great Dinner

We could not have wished for the meal to have come out better than it did yesterday. Simply the tastiest, mostest awesomest Thanksgiving Dinner ever!

The Pumpkin Cream Cheese Custard Pie puffed while baking, then settled down into a dense rich and spicy filling... Beat 4 ounces (1/2 package) of cream cheese with the eggs and follow the regular recipe for the pie, and you'll never want it any other way.



Coals ready, turkey washed, salted and stuffed with a Granny Smith apple and 2 coarsely chopped onions that had been tossed with a bit of Cajun spice blend, it was placed between the 2 baskets of ready coals on a piece of foil... Breast Down!.. to let the juices collect in the breast. 320-350 degrees for 2 hours, then flipped over to brown the top skin....






About 2 hours later, and after a nice 2 mile hike, the bird was ready... the juices ran clear and the little button thingy popped up. The aroma was wonderful.










Fit for a Queen, the turkey is ready to carve for dinner... we both picked a bit during the cutting and were amazed by how tender and juicy the meat was.

The onions and apples were thrown, they do not taste good after being smoked with hickory, but they impart a great moist sweetness to the bird.

Happy Happy Joy Joy!




Simple side dishes to round out the meal, giblet dressing with onion, celery and water chestnuts, and traditional green bean casserole with cheese and water chestnuts. Oh yeah, our mouths were watering as we got everything ready.










Juicy white meat, and the dark thigh meat could almost be spread it was so tender, it was almost impossible to stop eating the smoked, grilled turkey...

A truly wonderful Thanksgiving celebration and meal, a great day and evening.

I had to be to work at 2:45 am for our 3 am opening...."Black Friday"... I got home about 1:30 this afternoon. Wave after wave of mostly happy shoppers looking for our "door buster" sale items, we had a ton of fun with them. I had a nice lunch of leftovers at 9:30 and tried not to think about the real time, still my internal clock was on the fritz. I can't imagine getting up at that hour to shop, but many hundreds of customers did. Wow, what a fun day!

Tonight will be more leftovers, I already had pie and ice cream when I got home, and relaxing to get back into the swing. This will be a great, fun weekend whatever we do!

Peace!