Is it too early for a Thanksgiving Bloopers thread?

[Jazzmatazz49]

I made the Good Eats turkey. Maybe my cheap thermometer doesn't work, but the turkey wasn't done when the thermometer read 161 degrees. The brining worked great, after cooking the turkey another 35 minutes it was fine. The only other problem was my poor eyesight. I mistakenly bought half and half instead of heavy cream, and it didn't whip very well. At all.

But our Thanksgiving dinner was enjoyed by all. Now maybe I can relax and be a guest at the other Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday!

[Little Bit]

I'm glad your bloopers were fairly minor, in the scheme of things.

At our house, the big upright freezer decided to die today. Now that I've mopped up the water, and gotten everything salvageable into the refrigerator or the other freezer, I can see that this was an almost-Thanksgiving blooper.

Closer to the day, there wouldn't have been any extra room in the kitchen side-by-side to hold all that meat. Whew.

[tholbrook]

I did Thanksgiving Round 1 yesterday with some family who won't be here for Thanksgiving. Since DH always requests a non-traditional dessert, I was making the Classic Lemon Tart from Cooks Illustrated for the first time, and getting ready to bake the crust (still without the filling). Apparently there is a reason the instructions say to put a baking sheet under the removable-bottom tart pan. Sure enough, I went to put it in the oven and punched the bottom piece out. The dough went "splat" right on the hot oven door :eek:.

I wasn't too upset - I already had CL's Coconut Triple Layer Cake cooling on racks and I still had the lemon curd from the tart. So the lemon tart will be for Thanksgiving Round 3 this next weekend - if it makes it until then (I forsee the temptation of putting the lemon curd over ice cream all week).

All-in-all, all the dishes went over well. Hopefully Rounds 2 and 3 don't see any major bloopers.

[krhm]

We also did Thanksgiving Round One yesterday for DH's family; mine will celebrate on Thursday. I brined my first turkey, using just the basic salt-water recipe, and DH did not like it. He said the turkey was "too wet." Unfortunately, the stuffing was a little too wet as well, although I followed the directions exactly. ???

On the upside, the stuffing tasted great and everything else was wonderful! And I made my first lump-free gravy!

[Middydd]

I read somewhere that it keeps your turkey breast moister to start it roasting breast side down. Then you're supposed to flip it halfway through the cooking time.

We went out and when we came back it registered done on my thermometer. But I had forgotten to turn it over.

The breast skin was all pale and mooshy looking, not browned at all. So we stuck it under the broiler for about ten minutes, it kind of browned up but still wasn't crispy.

It *was" really moist, though. And nobody really noticed how unattractive it looked.