Oh yes, we are also having homegrown potatoes from our winter storage, but mine this year are Kennebec and Pontiac, LOL. I did grow the blue potatoes last year and we mashed some, they kind of became a lovely lavender, which did look a bit unappetizing when covered with the turkey gravy and looked even odder when the leftovers were used for shepherd's pie! Mother's raspberry pie will contain the raspberries that I picked, a cupful at a time, and froze so I would have enough, and the cornbread stuffing will use some of my dehydrated leeks and our homemade Italian sausage. We'll also be having deviled eggs with eggs from my hens and peach cobbler with peaches from last year's harvest, the final bag left in the freezer. I also grew those purple carrots and you're right, they aren't purple all the way through, they're orange in the middle, but if I can them, they're all dark. Zombie Carrots, the grandkids call them. Happy Thanksgiving. Annie

A repost. I will be using my grandmother's Theodore Haviland NY "Pink Spray" china. The menu is: Turkey and oyster dressing (9x13 pan) with giblet gravy English Peas Sweet potato casserole (no marshmallows) Fresh berry cranberry sauce Rolls Five cup salad Pumpkin pie with whipped cream I will probably have to add canned green beans and canned corn for the youngest two grandchildren. This a request from them. No extra seasoning and no frozen or fresh allowed, LOL. Seasoned, injected, wet brine, or dry brine not wanted. Also no grilled, smoked, or fried turkey. The grilled, smoked, and fried is okay in the summer, but not for Thanksgiving or Christmas. Anything with added salt is not wanted at anytime. My husband is very sensitive to salt and does not like it (I don't like that much salt either). Yes, it will be cooked in a covered roaster to 165* and allowed to rest. It will be carved before getting to the table. The mess will be in the garage frig before anyone gets here and saved for turkey stock. I am not knocking anyone else's way of doing their bird (unlike someone on here), but this is the way we like it. We have lots of juicy turkey. Plenty for leftovers and enough to freeze for all the other turkey dishes we like.

Glad you got the girl anyway! I spent my early teens from 11-16 in a small country hotel with a little restaurant where we had a roasted turkey every Sunday. When I was about 12, my mother (who was the cook and pretty well everything else) decided it was time for me to take over doing the Sunday cooking. Well, my first turkey wouldn't exactly grace the pages of any home magazine :-) I had some idea that I should start it roasting breast down to keep it juicy then flip it halfway through cooking to brown the breast. That went about as well as you might imagine. Trying to flip a 20lb turkey with two meat forks was...challenging. By the time I got that sucker over it looked like the victim of an unusually gruesome axe murder. Of course the gravy wouldn't thicken, the potatoes for the mash were slow to cook, as were the veggies. Everyone ordered turkey that lunchtime. I was a wreck, to match the turkey. The next week, having reviewed what went wrong, I cooked a picture perfect roast turkey meal. It looked gorgeous! Unfortunately most of our customers must have been there the previous Sunday, as very few people ordered the turkey :-(

Artemis_Ma, that sounds like the stuffing I make now that was my Mom's recipe. Here's my recipe: My Stuffing (or Dressing depending on your frame of mind) Growing up, our family always used to stuff the turkey. Thus, it was stuffing. However with all the concern about bacteria and under cooking, I started cooking it in a casserole dish. Thus, it is no longer stuffing, but dressing. Ingredients 16 cups of assorted mild flavored stale bread 1 onion, chopped fine 3 stalks of celery, chopped fine 1-16 oz tube of sausage (I like Jimmy Dean regular or sage) 2-4 cups chicken broth 6 oz sliced fresh button mushrooms 6 tablespoons butter Poultry seasoning (parsley, sage, rosemary, thyme, salt and pepper) Whenever I have ends of loaves of bread, or we don’t finish a loaf of bread, I’ll put them in a freezer bag and throw them in the freezer until I’m ready to make stuffing. You want to use mild breads (any white bread, hamburger or hot dog rolls, whole wheat, multi grain, sour dough, Italian, French, etc, work well. Breads that have a strong flavor like rye bread, pumpernickel, garlic bread, etc, will overwhelm the flavor of the stuffing. Don’t use these.) Toast bread in the toaster until golden brown. Tear bread into bite size pieces and put into a large bowl. In a large skillet, cook the sausage until no longer pink. Do not drain. Put sausage (grease and all) into bread bowl and crumb sausage. In the same skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Sauté onion until translucent. Add to bread and sausage (do not drain). In the same skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Sauté slice mushrooms until tender (until they start to sweat). Add to bread and sausage (do not drain). In the same skillet, melt 2 tablespoons of butter. Sauté celery until tender. Add to bread and sausage (do not drain). Heat the chicken broth (start with 2 cups) until boiling and pour over the bread and sausage mixture. Add two heaping tablespoons of poultry seasoning. Mix everything with your hands. The mixture should be moist but not soggy. If the mixture is still dry add a little more chicken broth. If stuffing the bird, stuff the bird and cook according to roasting directions for the bird. If making dressing, place the stuffing in a greased casserole dish (or two. I use two smaller casserole dishes. A 13x9 baking dish can usually accommodate it.) Bake covered at 350 degrees F for 1 hour.