Thanksgiving Dinner for 1

What is Thanksgiving? Is it a Holiday that has turned into a tradition to eat certain foods and celebrate with family while watching football or whatever families do when they get together? What if you don't have family to spend this big Turkey dinner with? What do you do then? Do you do without the great meal and sit at home alone with a tv dinner? Hell NO!.. My mom passed away last April and even though we never had the turkey dinner tradition, my mom was European so she didn't do Thanksgiving Dinners but we would have a chicken and potato dinner or something simple like that and just stay home on the holiday. But now that she is gone and I don't have to spend time with my brother and don't really have any other relatives to spend Thanksgiving with, so I decided to just make a Thanksgiving Dinner for myself. Turkey Dinner for 1. Since I didn't grow up with the tradition of making a turkey it's been a challenge of mine to make a great tasting Turkey. Since it was only going to be for me I decided to just buy a large Turkey Breast on the bone. You still get the flavour of the skin and the bone but you don't end up cooking it a whole day and with left overs for weeks.

I took the turkey breast and put butter mixed with ground sage and bay leaf and stuffed it under the skin to flavour it while cooking. I added a bit of paprika for color and roasted it with a red onion, carrot, and a cut in half head of garlic.

I took the turkey out of the oven and let it rest and when it was cooled down I cut the breast off the bone and cut it in slices. First dinner was a turkey sandwich. I did it backwards because I prepped the turkey first so that I could then make the gravy and make turkey stock from the leftover bones.

I also made cranberry sauce in advance using frozen cranberries but added a little orange zest, orange juice and some brandy and a little bit of ginger for a kick. A lot better than the stuff in the can and really easy to make.

Then I roasted up some sweet potatoes and let them cool and scooped them out into a bowl and put that in the fridge for later.

I made as much as I could in advance, even making a batch of nectarine crisp to use up some nectarines.

I went to the farmers market and picked up some fresh peas and had to shuck some peas today to add a little green to the plate.

I decided to have my turkey dinner for lunch so that I could just go into a turkey coma and watch tv and clean up later instead of leaving everything for dinner and being too tired to clean up the kitchen.

So today I made up a batch of stuffing using some stale baguettes... didn't come out as great as planned so this is a recipe I need to perfect still.

I then cooked the peas and placed some marshmallows on top of the mashed sweet potato and put that and the stuffing in the oven with the tin foil wrapped sliced turkey.

I heated up the gravy and just let everything cook up... and then it was done about 30-40 minutes later. Turkey Dinner for 1 Including:

Fresh Peas
Sweet potato with marshmallows

Turkey with stuffing and cranberry sauce

Nectarine crisp for dessert waiting.

If you want Thanksgiving turkey dinner don't wait around for an invitation to possibly come just make it for yourself and enjoy every bite. Oh I did get an invite but it came at 3pm after I had already eaten my delicious turkey lunch. Being an afterthought or last minute invite isn't as good as deciding that you are number 1 and making it just for you because you can.

It's ok to spend Thanksgiving alone... eat what you want, eat it when you want it and you don't have to spend it with people you don't like.

Enjoy your Solo turkey dinner and just think of the meals you don't have to cook from scratch for a few days afterwards.

Happy Thanksgiving to all the people that don't have friends and family to spend it with.