Family Food Fight

I've been elected to cook this year for Thanksgiving. In the last few days I've run around like a chicken (or turkey in this case) with my head cut off trying to make sure I have everything. My family is coming over and they're all bringing a dish to pass which has been coordinated with my menu so we don't have four dishes of stuffed squash.

Cooking the turkey still scares me. I've made dry birds in the past. Last year we had a Turducken which turned out great, but I missed the classic turkey. So this year I'm trying the bird again. I've got some new ideas to try - like brining the bird (soaking overnight in a salt water bath with seasonings) and I started thawing the turkey last Friday so I know it won't be frozen on Thursday when I start cooking it.  Now that I've got all of my recipes in line, I realized that I need to figure out how long I should cook the bird for. Then I got an e-mail newsletter from Better Homes and Gardens that has an interactive roasting guide! You plug in the info and it gives you the time you need to thaw, cook and let the turkey set for your meal.

Timing a dinner is always one of the hard parts of the meal. I'm hoping this year the roasting guide will help me get the timing exactly right!

Here's the link to the Interactive Roasting Guide: http://www.bhg.com/bhg/file.jsp?item=/marketing/splashPages/Thanksgiving/07/bhg_splashpage_roastinguide 

Have a great Thanksgiving!