Jack is Cooking Thanksgiving Dinner!

Well Hello Internet!

I have dug up all the old posts that pertain to Christmas  Thanksgiving Dinner, and i made so many things, that they've been pushed off the main page here.  so i decided to make one conglomerate posting with everything i made!

Heres what Rosie and I made (if you click on the links you will be taken to the individual post):

Gluten Free Croissants

Gluten Free Chipolata Sausages

Gluten Free Pancetta Chestnut Stuffing

Ginger-Garlic Brussel Sprouts with Leeks

Mashed Carrots and Swedes

Roast Potatoes

Roast Turkey

Glazed Ham

Turkey Gravy

Gluten Free Mini Key Lime Meringue Pies

and

the Leftover Sandwich

Enjoy, and Happy Christmas Thanksgiving! to Everybody!

Jack

Jack is Cooking Stuffing!

Well Hello Internet!

Another Huge part of any Christmas Thanksgiving! meal, or any meal involving turkey for that matter is the Stuffing.

Stuffing also contains a huge amount of Gluten, so my sister and I set out to make a gluten free stuffing.

We started with a recipe we saw on the food network, and then changed just about everything to make it far more delicious and far more Gluten Free.

Heres what you'll need:

3 cloves garlic

6 tablespoons butter

8 oz pancetta diced

2 large onions chopped

2 carrots peeled and chopped

2 tablespoons chopped Fresh Rosemary

1 large jar of roasted whole peeled chestnuts (coarsely chopped)

1 lb of crusty gluten free baguettes chopped up into little cubes(you can often find these in the frozen section of fancy-ish grocery stores.  but if you are gluten-free you probably know where to get these kinds of things.  Whole foods definitely has it, as do more and more stores these days)

1 cup of chicken/turkey broth

salt and pepper

2 large eggs beaten

First!

take 2 tablepoons of the butter and melt in a pan.  fry up the pancetta until its kinda crispy.

drain all the grease out and put into a bowl

Next,

take the rest of the butter and melt into a pan.  cook the onions, carrots, rosemary, and garlic together until the onions are tender.

stir in the chestnuts.

put everything in the bowl with the pancetta and stir until mixed.

add in the bread chunksand toss to coat.  add the broth until its nice and moist, season with salt and pepper, and then mix in the beaten eggs.

pour into a baking pan

If you are cooking a huge meal (as we were) it is advisable to do this the day before, and refrigerate until the next day when you are ready to cook.

so

next day!

put some of this stuffing inside the turkey!  yum yum

the rest of the stuffing cover with tinfoil and bake at 350 for 30 minutes  then remove the tinfoil and bake another 15 minutes

Heres a tip:  if you are cooking this stuffing as part of a larger meal, remember this takes only 45 minutes to cook, and the turkey takes like 4 hours or something.  so cook this at the end!

in my larger conglomerate post about Christmas  Thanksgiving! Dinner i will talk about the timing of everything!

mmmm mmmm delicious!

Jack is Cooking Turkey!

Well Hello Internet!

Today is thanksgiving so i am going to repost some of my older posts, that are extremely relevant to today!  About now you should definitely have started the turkey already, but in case you are having a last minute panic here are some great recipes!  These recipes originally were for christmas, so they may have a christmas theme, but i've tried to modify them a little bit

So the main event of the Christmas Thanksgiving! Dinner : Turkey!  well almost the main event, there is ham also.

But anyways, the Turkey!  this is actually pretty easy and almost impossible to screw up.

you can put whatever herbs and spices you want on it, but we had a heritage breed turkey, and honestly its so darn good that it doesn't need anything except butter and stuffing!

So we took the turkey, and i put some of the delicious pancetta chestnut stuffing and i stuffed it in both ends.  then i took a whole lot of butter and rubbed it all over the turkey.

so somebody might notice that my turkey might be upside down.  however, i think its right side up.  and thats  because the skin on the breast is delicious, and if its in the bottom of the pan it gets soggy.  this way it gets really nice and crispy.  so BREAST UP!

after you've covered it in butter, put maybe an inch of water in the pan.  this is important.  very very important!  its the key to moist turkey!  then put tin foil over the whole thing.  but try to have it not touch the turkey.  imagine almost a tent of tinfoil.   this will contain some of the steam from the water, but let some out too.

Then roast it at 350 for about 20 minutes per pound, or until the internal temperature reaches 175°.  for our turkey it took 4.5 hours.  when there is going to be about 45 minutes to an hour left cooking, REMOVE THE TINFOIL  this will allow the skin to get crispy!

  take it out and let it sit for another 30 minutes to an hour

 it will eventually get to 180°

then get your carving tools out and carve away!  Save the pan and the drippings to make Gravy

mmmm mmmm delicious