Today I am still stuffed from all the turkey and side dishes we ate yesterday. I spent the entire day in the kitchen cooking a big traditional Thanksgiving dinner with all the side dishes. Everything turned out great except for the homemade yeast rolls. I had made the dough from scratch for the rolls Wednesday night and set them aside to rise, but it was so cold out with this awful winter weather and so drafty in my old kitchen that the dough did not rise and I had to toss them out. That was disappointing, but there was plenty of other food and no one seemed to miss the hot rolls.
My turkey was perfect and one of the biggest ones that I’ve ever cooked. It barely fit into the Reynolds cooking bag, which is what I swear by. The cooking bag keeps the turkey moist and keeps all the juices inside the bag so you have plenty to make gravy. And another trick that I learned is to put the turkey in the bag upside down. Everyone likes to roast their turkey with the breast side up, but that is what drains the juices down and away from the breast meat. If you put the turkey in the oven with the breast down, all the juices run into the breast meat and it is just oozing with delicious juices when you carve it and serve it at the table.