A Very Carlin Thanksgiving Pt. 1

I just can't believe November is ending already. What a month; never a slow moment! December may bring more of the same...we'll see how much blogging I get done. Lots to do in the next couple of weeks!

Our family was very excited for Thanksgiving this year; my sister Jocelyn decided to bring her whole family down to visit us...including her husband Paul. On the Barrett side, Nathan's oldest brother Ryan also came to visit, along with his wife Judy and their son Cameron. They didn't spend Thanksgiving Day with us because they were busy golfing, but we got to spend some time with them later in the weekend. I'll have some pictures of them in the next blog post.

We've been in Arizona for nine and a half years now, and this is the first time Paul Carlin has ever come to visit us! Jocelyn also brought her four cute kids: Abigail, who just turned twelve and just entered the Young Women's program at church (that makes Jocelyn and myself feel pretty old!); Elaine, who will soon be ten years old; Simon, six years old and the only male Nash-related grandchild (so far); and the newest member of the family, baby Laura (who was actually 14 months old at this visit, but that's a baby compared to the rest of them!). It was our first time meeting Laura, and I was very happy to see her. She has such big beautiful blue eyes and she keeps them wide open so as to take everything in.

The Carlins also brought a four-legged member of their family...their neurotic yet lovable mutt Zorro. As you can imagine, having a dog staying in our house made our kids much more excited than having other human beings staying in our house. Celeste and Aurora, in particular, were completely obsessed with Zorro (or "Zorry," as Aurora charmingly called him). They followed him everywhere--upstairs, downstairs, inside, outside. They offered him food and water at every possible opportunity. They talked to him, petted him, and generally showered him with affection.

At first, Zorro repaid my girls' love and affection by throwing up in one of our bedrooms and pooping on our stairs. Sigh. Poor guy; all the change was too much for him. As a result of his accidents, I kept him outside for all of Thanksgiving day. I guess I am not ready to be a dog owner, because I was not in a mood to be forgiving. Of course, I also had a lot of other things to worry about on Thanksgiving morning...

...like cooking!! Since Jocelyn and family arrived late Wednesday evening, I did all the pies by myself. We had four pies: the "usuals" (pumpkin, apple, and mixed berry), plus one other flavor. I got a lot of requests for cherry this year, so I grudgingly complied. I say "grudgingly" because last time I made a cherry pie, it bubbled over and permanently stained one of my stainless-steel baking sheets. Well, guess what? This time, the cherry pie bubbled over again, and this time the bubbly stuff burned right through my oven liner and spattered all over the floor of my oven. Tough stuff! As if to add insult to injury, I got two cherry pits in one bite of this pie! Perhaps cherry pies attack when they can smell fear... Anyway, everyone else enjoyed the cherry pie, so I am happy that they're happy. Besides, I was too busy greedily devouring the pumpkin pie to worry about the cherry too much!

I didn't take "before" pictures of my big turkey this year, since I prepared it pretty much the same way I did last year--I'm a sucker for tradition. However, tradition aside, I did try something slightly different this year...I cooked a second turkey, with a very different flavor!

I'd had a smallish (10 pound) turkey in my freezer for almost a year now; I knew it wasn't big enough to feed a large family, but I had a different recipe I wanted to try. And since my generous sister gifted us with a lovely new roasting pan, I decided to take the plunge and roast an additional turkey Thanksgiving night!

This turkey was scrubbed off, but not doused in butter and sage. Instead, we created a fancy, garlicky-lemony-zesty marinade (it also included half a can of frozen orange juice!). Here's what the marinade looked like:

To add to the lemony flavor, we stuffed the turkey with several halved lemons.

Then, we put the turkey in a bag and poured the marinade inside with it. We made sure to massage the turkey and re-coat it with the marinade several times throughout the day...the rest of the time it stayed in our fridge while we cooked everything else.


Speaking of everything else...here's our spread!!

I realize the effect was ruined somewhat by leaving the box of aluminum foil in the picture...oops! :) We had my favorite green bean casserole; a cheesy zucchini casserole; rolls; cranberry sauce; orange tapioca salad; sweet potato souffle; mashed potatoes; loads of gravy; and not one, but two types of stuffing. The bread stuffing was inside the bird, of course; however, we also made a sausage-filled cornbread stuffing that was cooked inside a pumpkin!

Sooo delicious! *drooool*


Our large turkey also turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself:

Everything was great! The adults ate everything in sight...and the kids mostly ate rolls. Oh well...someday they will come to appreciate the joy of Thanksgiving food. I ate heartily, then promptly fell into a Turkey Coma(TM) for a couple of hours.  After finally rousing myself (to the sound of kids running throughout the house), I decided to put the next turkey into the roaster.

I sadly didn't get a picture of the final result...but it tasted very different from your typical Thanksgiving turkey! The flesh was very tender from the marinade, and had a bright, almost sweet citrusy aftertaste. We really enjoyed it, and feasted upon its leftovers throughout the week.

As for the non-cooks (aka Nathan, Paul, and all the kiddos): they had some fun too. They spent much of the morning at the playground, and crashed by watching movies most of the afternoon. Right before we sat down to eat, Lorelai had an unexpected milestone: one of her two front teeth finally fell out!

I was so glad it had finally fallen out...it seems like her teeth have been loose forever, but nothing had changed for months! I have been calling her my "jack o' lantern daughter," because of her suddenly holey grin (she lost one of her bottom teeth the week before). It makes her look so grown-up.

That evening, the whole family gathered together and watched The Avengers--most of the Carlins hadn't seen it, and they all gave it an enthusiastic thumbs up! We went to bed tired but very satisfied with our busy day. I'll talk about the rest of the Carlin's visit next time around.