Yesterday I planned on blogging but with hosting Thanksgiving, cooking, baking and everything else I was exhausted by the time I could finally get on the computer. We ended up having a beautiful Thanksgiving. Everything went well. The brine worked out perfect, the turkey tasted great and was falling off of the bones by the time it was done. I have no complaints for the day.
My thanks for the day were for Joe's family. I pretty much only have my mom and she lives out of state so I rely completely on my husbands family. They are the best, we all get along so well, which can be tough when there are six siblings and always have a good time.
Now on to what I made for the day. First here's a pic of the turkey, they had a hard time pulling it out of the roaster, it was so juicy and tender it was falling apart.
The only other things that I made were my Merry cherry pie, It's a southern thing cornbread dressing, and my Orange you glad you tried it salad. That's another nice thing about big family is everyone brings something. Below are my recipes.
Merry Cherry Pie
Perfect everytime pie crust (recipe below)
2 14.5 oz cans tart cherries
1 cup sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/8 ts salt
2 tbs butter
1/4 ts almond extract
1/4 ts red food coloring
1 egg yolk
Preheat over 425 degrees.
Make perfect everytime pastry and refrigerate.
Drain cherries, reserving 1 cup juice.
In a saucepan combine sugar, flour and salt. Stir in cherry juice and bring to boil, stirring often. Reduce heat and simmer until mixture thickens, less than 5 minutes.
When mixture is thickened, add butter, almond extract, food coloring and cherries.
Cover and refrigerate.
On lightly floured surface, roll out half of the pastry into an 11 inch circle.
Put into 9 inch pie dish.
Poor cooled cherry filling into pie dish.
Roll other half of pastry into another 11 inch circle. With a knife cut your design in center of pastry circle.
When done designing, place pastry on top of cherry filling and lightly brush with egg yolk.
Bake 30 minutes and cool before serving.
Perfect Everytime Pie Crust
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 ts salt
3 tbs granulated white sugar
1/4 cup crisco
12 tbs butter, cold and cubed
1/4 to 1/2 cup ice water
In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, salt and sugar. Add the shortening and break it up with your hands as you coat it all up with the flour. Add the colf butter and work into the flour with a pastry cutter.
Work it quickly, so the butter doesn't get too soft. Work until mixture is crumbly.
Add the ice water, a little at a time, until the mixture comes together forming a dough.
Bring dough together into a ball.
Divide ball into half, flatten it slightly into a disk shape. Wrap it with saran wrap and chill in the fridge for 30 minutes.
On a floured surface roll each disk out into an 11 inch circle to make a 9 inch pie.
It's a Southern Thing Cornbread Dressing
One 8x8 batch baked cornbread, cooled
3 celery stalks, chopped
1 onion, chopped
3 hard boiled eggs, diced
1-1 1/2 cans chicken broth
salt and pepper
The night before or first thing in the morning bake you cornbread so that it will be completely cooled by the time you are going to make the dressing.
Preheat over to 350 degrees.
Sautee the chopped celery and onion in oil or butter until soft.
Salt and pepper to taste.
In a 9x13 baking dish break up the cornbread.
Add the celery, onion and diced egg to the cornbread.
Mix together with hands.
Pour chicken broth over cornbread mixture, you can make it as dry or moist as you like.
Season with salt and pepper.
Bake at 350 degrees for 45 minutes, if not brown enough on top, broil on low for 3-5 minutes.
Serve warm.
Orange You Glad You Tried It Salad
1 tub cool whip, thawed
1 small tub small curd cottage cheese
2 small cans manderin oranges, drained
1 box orange jello
In a large mixing bowl. Add thawed cool whip, 1/2 tub cottage cheese, maderin oranges and dry orange jello. Stir together, refrigerate until ready to serve.
If you haven't tried these dishes before I hope you try them out. These are some of my favorites from my childhood growing up in Atlanta. Hope you all have a great decorating/shopping weekend!
