A Whole Lotta Love

Yes, that's the 19-pound turkey, and all of that for six adults and one child (despite our gracious invitations to a number of friends, who obviously did not know what they would be missing).  The crazy (and frankly, amazing) thing is that the turkey only took three hours to cook.  I know - you're wondering, "How can that be?"  But I followed an Alice Waters's recipe that starts the turkey, which should be at room temperature when it goes in (ours was close-ish), at a high temperature (400 degrees) for the first part.  In fact, I probably could've taken it out even a little earlier if I'd bothered to put the thermometer in right away (thought it was going to take five hours).

The ladyfriend made an amazing stuffing that in addition to the traditional bread had polenta, prosciutto, and mushrooms in it, and my friend "chef" made chicken liver pate, mushroom soup, carrots, and braised red cabbage.  Her son, four and a half years old, also wanted to contribute so he made "mustard bread," which essentially was mustard on bread in little half-sandwich sizes.  For dessert we had the traditional favourites - pumpkin pie (made by yours truly) and apple pie (specialty of the ladyfriend).

And what about the leftovers, you ask...

Well, of course we sent our guests home with their own leftovers to enjoy, but we've been making good use of the rest of the turkey (which is still a lot of turkey).  Saturday morning we had a turkey hash for breakfast; Saturday night we made a curried turkey and rice casserole; this morning we had stuffing with turkey pancakes (holy cow!) with eggs; and today I'm making my favourite post-Thanksgiving dish:  turkey barley soup from The New Basics.  This recipe alone is worth making a turkey.

There will still be more turkey left over, but our friend, Mona, told me that it freezes well in a little stock or broth, which will probably be in my future, but maybe after I have a turkey sandwich first...