We're officially in Thanksgiving mode now!  In my last post, I gave you some ways to prepare for the holiday rush. If you're ahead of the game and ready for the craziness of next week, congrats! If you're reading this and realizing you have a week to get it together, don't worry just yet. You've got some decisions to make, and soon, but you're still in good shape if you approach it with a level head. You can start by downloading my digital cookbook, which has enough recipes to plan an entire menu from one source: The Kitchenista's 2016 Holiday Recipe Collection. As Ina would say, how easy is that?!

Love it or hate it, turkey's the main event on most menus. If you're responsible for cooking it this year, it's worth preparing accordingly or face the jokes at the table on Thursday. Your call. Luckily, I've got you covered on all things turkey, right here in this post.

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What kind of turkey should I buy?

Hopefully you've already placed any special orders with your butcher if your preference is cooking wild or heritage birds. If not, your decision will be based on what's available at your local grocery store, and that's perfectly fine. You may see organic or all-natural options, at a slightly higher price per pound. You may see fresh turkeys (not previously frozen), also for slightly higher price. I often do pay up for those options, because I've noticed a difference in the quality and taste of the meat, but I've also just worked with what I have and when the seasoning's on point nobody will care.

Here's the two things to look out for this week, that are more important than anything else:

• Frozen turkeys take 24 hours to thaw in the fridge for every 5 pounds of turkey. So don't buy a frozen turkey after this weekend. Just don't. You're setting yourself up for failure because there are so few ways to (safely) thaw it quickly, and still have time to brine it before cooking. 
• Turkey that has already been seasoned or injected with a saline solution should not be brined at home. Read labels. This is a huge flag if you planned to brine the turkey with your own seasoning blends. You'll effectively be doubling the amount of salt, ending up with something that's likely inedible. You can however, still season it with additional spices, just leave out the salt. 

What size turkey do I need?

• You'll want 1 pound of turkey per person, for average adult appetites. (If you buy a very small turkey, less than 15 pounds, you can increase this estimate by 1/4 lb to account for the higher bone to meat ratio.)
• To have ample leftovers, plan on about 1 1/2 pounds of turkey per person, up to 2 lbs. 
• I recommend cooking two smaller turkeys instead of cooking a gigantic turkey that will be more cumbersome to cook.

I'll never understand why folks who barely feel comfortable cooking chickens during the rest of the year gravitate towards the most gigantic turkey possible on Thanksgiving. In my experience, going with a bigger turkey to feed more people is not always the smart move. It will take longer to cook and be more difficult to maneuver using standard cookware and oven space. You're even more likely to end up overcooking parts of it waiting for the center to heat to a safe temperature. Two smaller birds can yield the same amount of meat, are easier to cook evenly, and will fit in standard roasting pans or cooked on heavy duty sheet pans. So think about whether you really need  that monstrous 22 pound turkey. Often the more reasonable thing to do is cook two 12-pound turkeys instead.

Once a turkey's backbone is removed in the spatchcocking process, it will lay flat. But it takes up more room to do so. As you can see here, this 13 lb bird almost didn't make it onto an 18 x 13 heavy duty baking sheet. It will shrink slightly during the cooking process, but you don't want to have so much overhang that it's dripping grease all over your oven.

This is especially true if you plan to spatchcock (butterfly) a turkey by removing the backbone, as it will take up more space once opened up like a book. I've found that a 18" x 13" heavy duty sheet pan (baker's half sheet) will accommodate up to a 12 pound turkey, spatchcocked (sometimes a little bigger, but not much.) Any larger than that and you'll have to deal with legs hanging off the sides of the pan. If you need more meat, you can easily fit two spatchcocked turkeys in the oven, on separate racks arranged near the the center of the oven. Just rotate the pans halfway through cooking time.

How do I safely prep a raw turkey?

Raw turkeys can be safely prepped on the same pan you will use to cook.

What's the best technique to cook a turkey?

The best way to cook a turkey for Thanksgiving is the method you're most comfortable taking. I've been spatchcocking, dry brining and roasting turkeys for the last several years, and haven't gone back to traditional methods unless I'm writing a recipe for work. If you've been cooking turkeys all your life a particular way and feel that it works for you, there's no reason why you have to try anything new on the big day. (I don't personally have any desire to learn how to deep fry a turkey myself, though I've enjoyed it when other people do!) But if there's something lacking with your results, maybe there's room to consider ways to incorporate all or part of a new method. There's many different paths to achieve perfectly seasoned meat, cooked to a proper temperature, with crispy skin. What matters is that you pay attention to things like internal temperature, use enough salt, give the bird time to absorb the salt, cook with an appropriate fat (one with a high smoke point), and make the flavors your own. Whether you decide to roast, grill, fry or braise the turkey for the big day, choose a recipe and method that speaks to your cooking style and comfort levels in the kitchen.

Use a probe thermometer to track the turkey's internal temperature changes without having to constantly open the oven door, allowing precious heat to escape.

Recipes to consider:

• Duck Fat Roasted Turkey. Featured in my holiday recipe collection, the turkey is spatchcocked, dry brined with poultry seasoning, and rubbed down with a citrus & herb compound butter plus duck fat. It's little bit of advanced prep work, but the cooking process is fairly quick as it roasts at a high temp. The turkey can be prepped and cooked on a heavy duty sheet pan fitted with a metal rack. Don't skimp on the homemade gravy using its drippings. This is the turkey that will change your mind about turkey. Recommended for turkeys up to 12 pounds, so plan on two birds if feeding a large crowd.

• Smoked Turkey. This recipe is also in my holiday recipe collection. One of the best ways to free up oven space is to cook your turkey outdoors. It's also a good compromise if you want to spatchcock a larger bird, as you'll have more room to spread it out on the grill than on a pan in the oven. You won't be able to save drippings easily, so be sure to take the time to make stock for gravy in advance. I'd suggest adding some smoked turkey wings or necks (store bought) to reinforce those flavors! 

• Cajun Butter Turkey: A new recipe this year, available on my Instagram feed in partnership with Giant Food. For the simplest roast turkey that still delivers on flavor, work with a bold spice blend, Kosher salt, and clarified butter. The recipe includes instructions for preparing the clarified butter yourself, but you may also be able to find "ghee" at your grocery store, which can be used instead. Salting the bird the day before is still the key to the meat being seasoned all the way through, so be sure to plan at least for an overnight dry brine. As it cooks, rely on a probe thermometer to be sure you're hitting safe temperatures without overcooking the meat. This recipe was written for whole turkeys, so if you want to cook a larger bird you'll be all set. If you want to spatchcock a smaller bird, adapt this recipe using the technique presented in my holiday ebook. 

Alternatives to cooking a whole turkey:

• Smothered Turkey Wings: You'll find this recipe right here on my blog! I think this is a smart option for dark meat lovers, because it also makes its own gravy. This is also a good addition to consider if you need extra meat for your crowd, but feel a second whole turkey would go to waste.

Roasting all turkey thighs is one way to achieve traditional Thanksgiving flavors if you don't care for white meat.

• Roast separate turkey parts on a sheet pan:  Perhaps you want a mix of dark and white meat but in different proportions than what's naturally attached to whole bird. Maybe you just want to serve thighs, or all breast meat. Maybe you need to feed extra people at the last minute and already bought your turkey. Or, and no shame here, the thought of having to carve a whole cooked turkey freaks you out. Separate parts is an awesome solution, and super easy. You'll still want to dry brine a day ahead if possible (though you can get away with a few hours if you pat the skin dry really well.)  For recipes, adapt the Duck Fat Roasted Turkey recipe from my holiday collection, or the Cajun Butter Turkey, above. Use duck fat or clarified butter for crispy skin, but the cooking process is almost identical. A roasting pan or heavy duty sheet pan will work best, and you can still include diced veggies at the bottom to enhance your drippings. Just allow an inch or two between parts to give everything room to brown and crisp on all sides. Make sure you check the temperature of all parts using an instant read meat thermometer, and pull the breasts out early when they hit the 155°F - 160°F range, letting dark meat continue cooking to at least 170°F. Temperatures will rise another 5° or so while resting the meat.

• Pulled turkey. If you're taking a totally different route for Thanksgiving (or a fun Friendsgiving meal), braised turkey thighs make a great filling for things like tacos, enchiladas and sandwiches. Get the recipe for Chile and Beer Braised Turkey here on the blog.

Help! How do I fix my turkey disaster?

• The breasts are cooked all the way through, but the thighs need much more time to hit 170°F. If you don't want overcooked white meat, you've gotta get the breast away from the heat source. Remove the turkey from the oven and use a chef's knife to carefully carve away the legs and thighs, leaving the breast intact. Set the cooked turkey breast on a clean cutting board or plate to rest, and return the dark meat to the oven. (If you've spatchcocked the turkey, this is even easier to do. Use poultry shears or a chef's knife to cut between the thigh and breast on each side, detaching the breast and wings from the legs.)
• You started carving the turkey and realized parts of it are undercooked. Continue carving the turkey into sections to separate the breasts, wings, thighs and legs. Return the parts to the oven and finish cooking until your instant read thermometer registers them all at proper temps; you can pull out any parts that cook faster. Treat your cutting board as if it was contaminated; be sure to wash it thoroughly before returning the cooked turkey parts back to finish carving.
• My thermometer reads that the turkey is cooked through, but it's still pink inside or red near the bones. Don't panic. Sometimes, turkey really is just that color, especially parts of the dark meat. It can also happen as a result of overcooking, or because the turkey was smoked. The color of the meat or juices are not reliable indicators that poultry is cooked, so use your thermometer to know for sure.
• The breasts or wings are browning faster than the rest of the turkey. Tent the breasts loosely with aluminum foil as the turkey continues cooking. Wings and/or wingtips can also be draped or wrapped with foil to prevent burning. You may also want to lower the oven temperature slightly.

How to serve your Thanksgiving turkey like a Kitchenista:

It's that time of year again! I'm one of those people who look forward to the holidays for the food alone. For passionate home cooks, Thanksgiving especially is our time to shine. But I want all of my readers to feel excited and ready to go this Thanksgiving, even those of you who are still finding your confidence in the kitchen. You already know I've got you covered on the recipes - and if you didn't, it's time to run and grab a copy of The Kitchenista Diaries Holiday Recipe Collection! (Scroll to the bottom of this post for a special promotion on that.) Beyond the recipes, there's still plenty to discuss about how to achieve your holiday cooking goals, whether you're aiming to be better organized this year, execute your recipes more efficiently, or branch out to try new dishes. For the next few weeks, I'll be posting all of that advice as part of my Thanksgiving Prep Guide, to teach you how to do just that. Starting with today's post, we're going to get into all of the many ways you can take advantage of the extra time in the beginning of the month, before things get too crazy!

Sometimes it's hard to believe that only six years ago, my idea of planning for Thanksgiving consisted of jotting down a grocery list the day before. As a lifelong procrastinator, I remained fairly committed to winging my holiday dinners, without much consequence. Then something unexpected happened as I gained experience cooking professionally in other people's homes and at events, where I have no choice but to manage my time more effectively. I learned to value the advantages of getting a head start on prep. My menus benefited from the extra time to research (and even practice) new recipes. My grocery budgets were easier to manage and adhere to when I established them from the beginning, and I didn't have to compromise on ingredients that I'd waited too long to source. As the big day approaches, I feel much more cool, calm and collected than I did in the past - while remaining realistic about the healthy dose of stress that's still sure to follow. Long story short, I managed to get out of my own way.


Last Thanksgiving, despite having the busiest work schedule I'd had in years, I pulled off what I consider to be my best holiday dinner yet. What stood out to me more than nailing my recipes, was how much easier the day went and how much more I'd been able to accomplish by myself. Of course it was still a long day, and exhausted isn't even the word to describe how I felt crossing the finish line. But it's exhilarating to see proof of my progress as a home cook, and Thanksgiving has been an awesome benchmark in that way. This year will be my first professional Thanksgiving gig, more than forty people! Raven and I are traveling up to Detroit to spend the week with my client and his family, who I love dearly and couldn't be more excited to plan their special day. Rest assured I am definitely taking all of my own advice this year to stay organized!

Thanksgiving 2017 at our house!

As I write this post, we're 23 days out from Thanksgiving, or slightly more than three weeks. This is the ideal time to start planning, if you haven't already. Ready to commit to being prepared for the big day this year? Here are some ways you can take advantage of the weeks prior to Thanksgiving to get a head start on prep:


3 to 4 weeks before Thanksgiving (or earlier):

• Set your budget.
• Create the guest list and send invitations or reminders out.
• Order your turkey (and/or other roasts) if you planned to source anything special, like heritage birds. Always check with your butcher/purveyor in case of early deadlines.
• Brainstorm menu ideas, inclusive of any special dietary restrictions to consider for guests.
• Brainstorm tablescapes and decor, if needed.
• If you can, test or practice dishes as needed, perhaps cutting down the recipes to smaller serving sizes. Holiday potlucks may offer opportunities to try out new dishes that you're hoping to add to your menu this year. Roasting a chicken is a great way to experiment with dry brines for the turkey and get your spatchcocking routine down. 

2 to 3 weeks before Thanksgiving:

• Determine the final guest count. If you're hosting a formal (plated) dinner, this needs to be a pretty accurate number. If you're planning on buffet style for a larger group, you'll have much more wiggle room to adjust for a few extra mouths to feed, or cancellations.
• Finalize your menu.
• Settle on a tablescape, if decor is part of your plan.
• Start shopping for cookware, dinnerware and decorative items, and/or borrow these items to make sure you have everything you'll need.

This post is in partnership with KitchenAid.®

It’s probably no secret by now that I love any excuse to whip up some fancy appetizers! Between work and personal life, there’s plenty of opportunities to entertain at home in the summer and the weather gives a great excuse to take meals outdoors. I like to use ingredients in my menus that offer my guests something unexpected or an upgrade from what we all typically eat day to day. The new KitchenAid® Metal Food Grinder attachment for my stand mixer provided me with just the inspiration I needed to transform today’s star ingredient, duck!

Between you and me, I have a habit of buying whole ducks with every intention of learning how to roast one, but then I get a more interesting idea and break the duck down into separate parts. Today was no exception! With a new food grinder to play with, burgers naturally came to mind. That was the idea anyway; the results ended up reminding me more of duck flavored breakfast sausage! Truthfully, I had no idea what to expect on the first round. I’d never worked with ground duck before and most of the recipes I found online were made with the breasts only. I wanted something much fattier without adding pork like some people recommended. Instead, I incorporated the thighs as well as lots of skin and fat. (For this reason, it was much more economical to buy a whole duck instead of separate parts.) This recipe was a guessing game going in, but I think it’s cool to just enjoy the process of figuring out something new in the kitchen. I’ve been doing a ton of recipe development work lately, and I’m finding it to be a breath of fresh air to let my creativity run free. Every now and then I even take breaks from photographing the finished dishes, because the goal most days is just to experiment.


Plus, the KitchenAid® Metal Food Grinder Attachment was incredibly easy to use, which made experimenting more fun. Most of the time for this recipe is in prepping the duck meat, chilling in between steps, and then cooking the patties. The chilling step is key for meat prep and you can pre-chill the attachment to help, which also means you get a clean grind. The actual grinding process took a few minutes and both setup and cleanup was a breeze. Storage is built into the box for all of the parts, which is also a blessing.



Listen, I try a ton of new kitchen appliances throughout the year and some are so complicated to figure out that they steal my joy a little bit! That was not the case at all today, so I can confidently say I’ll be coming up with new ways to incorporate the food grinder into my recipes. Besides meat, it will also grind ingredients like veggies, cheese, and breadcrumbs, which means I can get creative with it and control what goes into my food.

The recipe for the duck sliders I came up with today is below. If you can’t get your hands on duck, or just want to stretch your duck meat a bit, you could incorporate some turkey or chicken thighs into the mix. It’s yours for the making!






Ingredients, to make the duck sausage:

2 lbs fresh duck parts, mix of thighs and breasts
1 1/2 tsp Kosher salt
1 tbsp finely chopped fresh sage
1 tsp finely chopped fresh thyme leaves
1 tsp cracked black pepper
1/2 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp crushed red peppers
1/2 cup ice cold water

Ingredients, to assemble the sliders:

This is an update to the scrambled eggs recipe posted to my blog back in 2014. Scrambled eggs are still a staple in this house and one of Raven's frequent requests when she's home for breakfast. For those of y'all who know her personality, when she's ready to eat something, she needed it yesterday! For this reason, I skip all the extra ingredients nowadays.  During times that I gave up dairy I really didn't miss the cream in my eggs, so I save that for special occasions only. Besides, you get plenty of (necessary) fat from the butter. My technique is essentially the same, just without cream, cheese, or herbs added. This is ridiculously easy and doesn't require any kind of prep or measuring.

The same tips still apply from the older version. Major keys for scrambled eggs:

• Don't overwork your eggs when whisking, you're just looking for them to be blended without streaks left. Wait until they're cooked to season with salt.
• Use the best quality eggs and butter that you can, since that's all you'll be tasting. It's worth seeking out farm fresh eggs and European style butter if you'd really like to impress somebody for breakfast!
• Scrambled eggs need lots of fat. There's no getting around that. If you can't have butter, most other healthy fats will do. Coconut oil or duck fat are great options. Avocado oil and olive oil also work, preferably a milder flavor that won't overpower the eggs.
• Control your heat, and be especially mindful when using an electric stove top versus gas. I'll explain more about that below.
• Use a good quality nonstick skillet, one that won't get scraped up or chip over time. I'm a fan of Calphalon's ceramic pans or any of their nonstick hard-anodized pans (affiliate links.) An 8" skillet will work for up to about 8 eggs, or move up to a 10" skillet for larger family sized portions.
• A silicone spatula is the easiest tool to use for cooking the eggs, because it's flexible, non-stick, and will hug the sides of the skillet.

Once the eggs are mostly set, turn off the burner and let the residual heat finish cooking them off gently. If you have an electric stove, you may want to take the skillet off the burner completely. Electric stoves take longer to cool down (and heat up) than gas, so you'd run the risk of the eggs overcooking even though you turned the heat off.


Finish with a few grinds of cracked black pepper. Optionally, fold in a final pat of butter. For people who like to eat a firmer scrambled egg, the extra butter helps to keep things creamy. (I like a softer set sometimes, so if I'm cooking for myself, I take them off the heat and transfer to my plate while they're still slightly wet.)