Thank heaven’s for the Internet, I had to cook Turkey Dinner for Christmas!

My mom decided that she wanted to do a full turkey dinner for Christmas, and I helped her prepare the meal.

I helped cooked the family dressing recipe the night before including cornbread from scratch for the Bock dressing (lots of cutting and mixing, and the trick was to have a very moist mix before baking). (Aside: We made a double recipe–they are going to be eating dressing for a very long time.)

On Christmas Day we cooked the Turkey. My mom prepped the turkey breast (it was a bird sans wings and legs) with salt, pepper and butter. We checked with the Interwebz for strategies for cooking (bake at 325 for the specified duration on the package until the internal temp reached 145-150 F, continuing at 400 to brown the turkey till internal temp reached 150-155 F, and then turning the oven off let it finish as the oven cooled till it reached an internal temp of 160-165. It would have been a bit easier if I flipped the bird around a few more times to get even cooking. One side cooked faster than the other, perhaps it had no stuffing, or the oven wasn’t cooking evenly.

On Christmas Day I also did mashed potatoes from scratch and gravy from the drippings. Here are the recipes I used:

• Lump-free Mashed Potatoes: The trick was to use scaled and warm milk. I also ended up adding some heavy cream to make it richer.
• How to make gravy: For this I substituted the starchy water I reserved from the potatoes (in lieu of corn starch) and Wondra flour for browning and thickening.

There was also asparagus, which I quickly zapped in the microwave. Heat the rolls, and try and get everything on the table while still warm.

Thankfully no pie was on the menu, so none needed to be baked!

Whew!

I guess I can now say I’ve made a full turkey dinner.