A year ago Matt and I had our first thanksgiving as a married couple in our apartment. It was also the first year either of us had tried to cook our own turkey (though we had both assisted someone else doing so before). We followed the recipe of a chef he admires greatly, Thomas Keller. It lead to a great meal and a funny story involving a mishap with the turkey.
Since this was our first Thanksgiving making a turkey we wanted it to be special. I often have a “Go big or go home” mentality, so even though I knew this would be a complicated choice, I loved the idea from the second I found it. Matt liked the idea, yet was a little skeptical of how we’d pull it off as it had to brine for 24 hours.
We first tried to brine in two garbage bags. At one point we were checking on the turkey and the turkey fell out of the bags onto me, brine and all. It was funny then and remains a funny story to this day.
We made the brine again and put the turkey in a cooler and finished the brining process without incident. Then, deciding we were up to the challenge, Matt decided to make his famous Guinness Stew.
I was so glad we had made so much effort to make the brine twice as the skin came out perfectly. Even the vegetables were great with the turkey drippings making them more flavorable.
Soon it was time to have our great feast set up in our dining room.
It was definitely one of the best meals I’ve ever had, in large part as we made it ourselves.
One thing we did not make was the cake. The cake we bought was beautiful and a perfect dessert for us. I greatly enjoyed our first major holiday meal together as husband and wife.
~ Danielle
Over 40 First Time Mom 