10 pound turkey
1 gallon water
1 cup salt
1/4 cup butter
1/4 cup fresh sage, chopped
1 clove garlic, crushed
1 cup water
salt and pepper

1. Bring water to a boil in a large pot, then add the salt. Boil for a few more minutes to completely dissolve the salt, then remove from the heat and cool completely.
2. Cover turkey completely with the salt-water solution and refrigerate overnight. Make additional brine if necessary.
3. Preheat oven to 450 degrees.
4. Remove turkey from the brine and rinse completely, inside and out, until no trace of salt is left on the meat or skin.
5. Combine butter, sage and garlic and season with a bit of salt and pepper.
6. Gently massage the butter under the skin of the turkey breast, then rub the skin with the remaining butter.
7. Fill the turkey cavity with Turkey Stuffing and place on a roasting rack inside a roasting pan.
8. Pour about a cup of water into the roasting pan, being careful that the water level does not touch the meat. Roast in the oven until the skin starts to crisp up brown, about 30 minutes.
9. Remove the turkey from the oven and decrease the temperature to 325 degrees. Cover the turkey breast well with tinfoil and return to the oven.
10. Roast turkey until a meat thermometer can be inserted into the breast and read 165 degrees, about 20 minutes per pound. Allow meat at least 20 minutes to rest before carving.
11. To make gravy, simply add a roux (equal parts butter and flour cooked together) or slurry (cornstarch and water solution) to the pan drippings and cook until thickened.

Makes 24 servings

1/2 cup butter
2 stalks celery, chopped
1 large onion, chopped
1 loaf day old whole wheat bread, cubed
3/4 cup chicken broth
8 sage leaves, chopped
4 sprigs thyme, chopped
1 cup fresh parsley, chopped
salt and pepper

1. Melt butter in a skillet over medium heat. Add the celery and onion and sauté until tender.
2. Meanwhile, combine chicken broth, sage, thyme and parsley.
3. Mix the butter, celery, onion and chicken broth mixture with the bread crumbs, trying to coat them evenly.
4. Season the stuffing to taste with salt and pepper and roast inside a Turkey or in a 350 degree oven until browned.

Makes 8 servings

1 medium acorn squash
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons brown sugar
1 sprig thyme
salt and pepper

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Roast squash whole on a roasting pan until tender, about an hour.
3. Remove from the oven and allow to cool to the touch. Slice in half and scoop out seeds.
4. Spoon 1 tablespoon of butter and brown sugar into each cavity, along with a few thyme leaves and a pinch of salt and pepper.
5. Spoon butter over squash as it melts. Slice into smaller portions if desired and serve.

Makes 4 servings

3-1/2 cups fresh cranberries
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 cup water
1 tablespoon lemon juice

1. Combine cranberries, sugar, brown sugar, water and lemon juice in a sauce pan over medium-high heat and bring to a boil.
2. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook, stirring occasionally, until thickened. Serve hot or cold.

Makes 8 servings

6 medium potatoes, peeled and quartered
3 tablespoons butter
1/4 cup warmed cream
salt and pepper
water

1. Place potatoes in a pot with enough water to cover and bring to a boil over high heat. Cover, reduce heat and continue cooking until easily pierced with a fork, about 20 minutes.
2. Drain potatoes, return to the pot and mash with a fork or hand masher.
3. Stir in butter and season with salt and pepper to taste.
4. Gradually stir in cream until it the potatoes have a creamy consistency. Serve immediately.

Makes 6 servings

This is Thanksgiving weekend for us Canucks. Technically Thanksgiving is tomorrow, but it seems reasonable to celebrate on Sunday and sit back and enjoy the holiday Monday, so I cooked my Thanksgiving dinner for tonight. Unfortunately, it's just Shannon and myself for dinner, so we've got a 10 pound turkey to split between the two of us, not to mention the sides. I can only imagine for how long we'll be eating leftovers after this. Ugh.

I'm not all that experienced with cooking whole birds, but I have yet to totally screw one up and have been able to offer advice to others on numerous occasions, so I figured I'd try something a little bit "fancier" this year. I decided to brine my turkey in a simple salt water solution. This proved to be quite difficult because not only do I not have a proper roasting pan here, but I really don't have anything large enough to accommodate an entire turkey. I placed the whole bird into a soup pot and rotated it once overnight, which was fine.

My only complaint with the Roast Turkey with Sage Butter was that I didn't do a very good job of crisping the skin before lowering the heat. Other than that, it turned out very well. Shannon said it was the juiciest turkey that she's ever had. Compared to even the turkey I made at Easter I thought it was much better. The gravy that I made with the drippings was much better as well, but that is perhaps due to the fact that it was predominantly sage butter (a lot of fat) and therefore made a delicious accompaniment to my Creamy Mashed Potatoes.

My Turkey Stuffing is inappropriately named, since it was not stuffed in a turkey at all, but baked separately in a dish. Since I tend to prefer stuffing a little crispy on top, this caters more to my liking. Of course, the flavor and basic ingredients for any stuffing is pretty much the same, so no matter how you actually cook it, you can still use the same recipe.

Squashes are in season now and I adore eating them. However, I'm not really sure of any particularly unique ways of cooking them, so I just went with a simple Harvest Acorn Squash with a bit of brown sugar and herbs. It was good, but because of its bulk it sort of became the neglected dish on the plate and did not make for good leftovers, since we don't have a microwave. I don't think broccoli is a lackluster vegetable at all, which is why I rarely bother dressing it up. Just a quick steam and a bit of salt makes a nice addition to any plate.

Finally, you can't have turkey dinner without Cranberry Sauce, which, of course, I made myself. I tend to like it a little tart to try and offset all the saltiness that's typically in a Thanksgiving meal. I don't know how anyone can actually prefer canned cranberry sauce, especially considering how easy it is to make! Boil berries with sugar until they become sauce, and then you have deliciousness.

For dessert I picked up a pumpkin pie at the Au Pain Dore (which I would not normally plug specifically, but I have an appreciation of the play on words). I went looking for stale bread and they had samples of pie, and I got hooked. It was expensive, but incredibly delicious. In the center was a little logo that kind of felt like plastic. At the end I said to Shannon, "I wonder if I can eat this?" and it turns out it was chocolate. She said I was the only person she knew that would just assume that a logo should actually be an edible garnish. Great chocolate, too!