This was the smallest Thanksgiving I’ve ever hosted and thusly the smallest turkey I’ve ever bought (13 lbs). It was also our first Thanksgiving in New York in five years – everything was different this year – thanks a lot COVID. In any case, we had a great meal with lots of great appetizers, side dishes and desserts. I’ll break the food up in stages here since there was so much. I was thankful to have my hubby, daughter, her boyfriend and my best friend for the day, we had a really awesome Thanksgiving despite 2020.

This year, because my kitchen is so small in NY, I decided to dry brine my turkey instead of a wet brine (I imagined a disaster of wet brine leaking all over the fridge) I actually think the dry brine was much, much better. The dry brine was simply fresh herbs (thyme, sage, dill, parsley, salt, pepper mixed with a bit of EVOO – which created a thick paste) I slid a knife just beneath the skin (careful to not pierce skin) and rubbed the mixture generously under the breast, legs and cavity nd over the top of the skin with whatever mixture was left. This sat in fridge UNCOVERED – you want the salt to do its magic and dry the skin out a bit before cooking. The next day I put some soft butter under the skin as well, stuffed turkey cavity with homemade potato bread stuffing (!!) and put a halved apple in the butt (to keep the turkey extra moist and delish). Right before putting the bird in the oven I massaged it with a little EVOO, salt and pepper and fresh thyme, then put aluminum foil around the wings to prevent burning. I also put some fresh cut onions, carrots and celery in the bottom of the pan with about 2 cups of cold water (this base will make your gravy when it’s all cooked). Beside the stuffing we made a side dish of roasted root vegetables (potato, sweet potato, butternut squash, beets, and onion) – tossed with fresh herbs and EVOO and then baked for about 45 minutes.