Psst...

I don't like turkey.

There, I've said it. Every year I dread Thanksgiving, when someone is bound to shove an over-hyped piece of turkey meat at me and expect me to eat it. Add in the family's 'traditional' Stove Top brand stuffing mix, some canned cranberry sauce, and either brown and serve rolls or potato rolls and frankly I'm not very interested. In fact, I could quite easily say that Thanksgiving is one of the days of the year when I DON'T eat much. Really. Ok, I will eat dessert, but pretty much the entire meal would get poked at on my plate but not actually ingested.

This year it was just our own little nuclear family at the Thanksgiving table--just me, DH, DD, and DS. Given that two of the participants are under the age of 3, DH and I felt free to chart our own course for the meal. We bought a roasting chicken and tested out a Guy Fieri recipe which involved sticking half a can of beer up the bird's posterior, and various other forms of spicy abuse prior to roasting it in the oven. We bought Costco's rolls--the GOOD ones, to accompany the meal. DH made his own chicken gravy from the drippings, and it was so good DD was practically licking it off her plate. We cooked the corn in chicken stock...mmmmm good. We even deep fried Irish-style chips instead of mashed potatoes or potato croquettes. DH even made some stuffing from scratch, with just bread crumbs, onion, butter, and tiny bit of garlic. That was it. And it was GOOD. I actually ATE the stuffing. Who knew it could actually taste, well, good?? That roasted chicken was GORGEOUS. We loved every scrap of it. I completely ignored my frozen stash of apple pie in a bag (homemade goodness, but for another day) and created my own recipe for a fig tart using fresh figs, ricotta cheese, and coconut. YUM-MY!!

I am now planning how to have another roast chicken for Christmas dinner. My parents will be with us so I think they will be expecting a turkey, but I have developed a cunning plan. Dad passed on his old electric smoker to us when he bought his new super jazzy grill-cum-smoker. We have never used it. Dad and Mom both loved smoked turkey. Do you see where I'm going with this? Dad can "teach" DH how to use the smoker and cook a turkey breast to their satisfaction for Christmas dinner, which leaves the oven wide open for a glorious roast chicken. Yes, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas (dinner that is... ).