We had a few friends over for Thanksgiving this year and were lucky enough to split the cooking with them. One of my tasks was making the turkey. We had purchased a pair of 12 pound Diestel Turkeys through our local CSA and planned to use one of them for the dinner.
Looking around for ideas, I stumbled upon Mom’s Roast Turkey on SimplyRecipes and it seemed too easy to be that good. But that couldn’t have been farther from the truth. It ended up being some of the best turkey we’d every had. The veggies inside were fantastic, the bird was cooked perfectly, and the juices made for amazingly rich and delicious gravy.
2011 Thanksgiving Turkey
We used some lemon infused olive oil on the outside, along with some excellent French grey sea salt, fresh rosemary, and fresh oregano. Inside was some fresh lemon juice, organic carrots, celery, and onions.
I know that pictures really don’t do it justice, but let’s just say that we’ve been eating leftovers for days now and haven’t begun to get sick of them. 🙂
In addition to the turkey and gravy, we had some excellent stuffing, garlic mashed potatoes, mashed sweet potatoes with brown sugar, asparagus, and an amazing cranberry/apple/orange sauce.
Pictures are here: Thanksgiving 2011 on Picasa.
Jeremy Zawodny's blog 
Looks delicious. I can’t stress this enough, carving the turkey using what my wife & I call the “Bobby Flay method” (after the first time we’ve seen it done, on one of his TV shows) makes a huge difference. Essentially, take the breast off in one piece and then slice that. Here’s an excellent tutorial from the NY Times: http://nyti.ms/vgvsYm