An old picture: T helping with the car

Back in July I mentioned (link) T helping me replace a windshield wiper motor that I refused to pay a mechanic a ridiculous amount of money to do for us.  This was many years ago when we lived in New York.

I was going through some old computer files backing things up and happened across this picture.

I didn't even realize I had a picture of this.  It is amazing how much he has grown. 

Thanksgiving

Sorry for the gap but between work, more van break downs, and the new baby I haven't been able to keep up with the blog.

Let me start back up again by first talking about Thanksgiving this year.  V was busy with the babies and said she didn't want to fix a big dinner this year.  I told her not to worry about it and went to M to plan.  M was eager to be in charge so we made up a list of things to fix, prioritized it, and made a grocery list from that.

The day before we cleaned up the kitchen and set the turkey out to thaw.  Then Thanksgiving morning we were up before sunrise getting started.

Fixing cornbread for the stuffing. 

We set out the ingredients on the table to draw from while cooking.  (There is much more here than we used.  We buy the food in bulk at Costco where it is cheaper and store it until we use it again.)  

The prepared turkey ready to go in the oven. 

While the Turkey is cooking it is time to fix some deviled eggs. 

By then the rest of the family started waking up, so M showed the eggs to K.

We washed dishes as we went and once everything was cooking for a while there was time to mop the floor. 

Then it was time, after washing our hands, to mix up the stuffing. 

Finally the turkey was done!

And we set everything out on the table.

(We cheated with the pumpkin pie; I have made them from scratch before but we just bought one at the store to make things a bit easier.)

So we had turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, cranberry sauce, pumpkin pie, strawberry jello and canned peaches.  (We have a family tradition of pickled peaches for Thanksgiving, but canned peaches was the closest we could get this year.) 

Then everyone sat down to eat.

I was surprised at how good the turkey turned out.  We sort of made up an ad hoc recipe loosely based on other recipes.  At work earlier in the week I was talking to someone who came up with the idea for putting whole lemons inside the turkey.  I am writing down the recipe below so you can try it and so I don't forget.

11 lb turkey, thaw the day before.
Remove neck and giblets for gravy and stuffing.
Wash off the turkey and put it in a baking pan.
Preheat the oven to 350 F. 
Quarter a whole lemon and squeeze over the turkey then place pieces in the pan next to it. 
Put two whole lemons inside the turkey; they keep it moist while cooking and give a lemon flavor to the meat.
Chop up an onion, a potato, some celery, carrots, and oyster mushrooms and place them around the turkey.
Pour some chicken broth around the turkey.
Sprinkle some sea salt over the turkey. 
Sprinkle some spices, (savory, marjoram, thyme, sage, oregano, basil, rosemary) over the turkey.  (By the way, we have a rosemary plant growing outside and M picked fresh rosemary to use on the turkey.)
Cook for 1 hour at 350 F.  Then rub some butter and more spices over the turkey.
Cook for another hour at 350.  Rub some more butter and spices over the turkey.
Cook at 400 F for 30 minutes and it's ready to go.

The day after Thanksgiving we went back to the store and grabbed another turkey to put in the freezer because they were all on sale at a fraction of the cost.