We tackled the turkey!

And no, that's not a dirty euphemism. We actually made a turkey dinner! We found a turkey for 10 bucks right before thanksgiving so it was too good of a deal to pass up. Unfortunately now we need to make room in the freezer for Christmas baking so the turkey had to go.
We used the Chef at Home method so we brined the heck out of it. She sat in out camp cooler, on the deck, soaking in sugar and salt for over 12 hours. Mike was worried that someone would steal it so I had to promise to buy him a new cooler is this occurred. Who the hell would steal a brining turkey? I wasn't concerned. We cooked the turkey for about 3 hours but she probably only needed only 2 and a half. Even still, it wasn't dry at all!

mmm turkey...

The sides were garlic mashed potatoes, honeyed carrots, cranberry sauce and stuffing.
For the cranberry sauce I used cranberries, apple juice, brown sugar and lime jest. I probably should have tasted it more bc it ended up being a little bitter. Oh well.

For the stuffing we used this recipe
http://www.realsimple.com/food-recipes/browse-all-recipes/sausage-apple-stuffing-00100000068272/index.html
The flavours were really nice but the texture could use some work. It was way too mushy even though I cut the liquid down by a third.
All in all it was a success. Even the gravy turned out great for a first timer! And unlike our usual Sunday suppers, we timed things properly! Normally we eat each dish in succession over the course of a few hours bc the timing is so off and we are starving... Embarrassing....