Stress over Thanksgiving Meal? No Thanks. Here's How We Stay Sane.

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday.

There are no gifts to buy. There are no long, drawn-out shopping "seasons." There is no annoying music played over and over at the supermarket until you want to stab yourself in the ears with your car keys. It's just  and then enjoying it with them. What could be more joyful?

My best childhood memories of Thanksgiving are of the women and older girls in the kitchen stirring this and tasting that while the children watched parades and the guys watched football. A stereotype? Maybe, but we still do it that way as well.

Of course, it helps that I love to cook, especially for others. As far as I'm concerned, the more the merrier—and we are going to have a few extras this year, friends of my kids who for one reason or another can't have the holiday at home.

I also have an excellent helper in  as much as I do and has helped out for such a long time that the two of us are like a well-oiled machine on Thanksgiving.

We also keep it fairly simple, even though we do make a lot of dishes. We make a list, we have a schedule, and we don't really worry too much about whether things turn out or not. We assume they will, and if they don't, oh well, there's plenty of other stuff to eat.

The only item that has to be as close to perfect as possible is the turkey, so that's our focus. We also drag Thanksgiving out for the entire day, making a light lunch of fun appetizers around noon, then serving the main meal at 5-ish. Yes, we actually do extra cooking. That's how much we love Thanksgiving.

Here are things we don't do:

• Buy organic, fresh, free-range, hand-fed turkeys. Frozen tastes just as good and doesn’t require juggling your schedule to figure out when to pick it up. Just allow up to a week for thawing a big bird.

• Brine our turkey. It's a hassle and makes the gravy too salty.

• Overcook our turkey by getting up at 6 a.m. to cook it. Put it in with enough time to cook plus 30 to 45 minutes to cool before carving. Work your other dishes around that schedule.

• Worry that our turkey will be dry. Around this time of year there are many hysterical news features about how to keep your turkey from turning out dry. Turkey is not dry if it's cooked properly, I don't care what size it is. Not sure why that seems to be such an issue. I can honestly say the only "dry" turkey I've ever eaten was at an in-laws' house, and that was because she put the turkey in the oven at 6 a.m. for a 2 p.m. dinner time. Don't do that.

Most of our menu consists of very traditional foods—many that were on the menu when I was a child. My stuffing recipe is an original that I developed years ago because I could never find one I liked (and my husband can't eat sage), but my sweet potato casserole recipe is my .

Having said that, we are definitely not afraid to add something new to our menu, although the howls from the kids when we try to subtract something can probably be heard in Turkey, the country. Our most recent addition is this incredibly fabulous glaze recipe that my daughter tried for the first time a couple of years ago when she made a pre-Thanksgiving turkey dinner for her boyfriend's dorm mates. She came home raving about it and insisted we try it.

I was skeptical. I was afraid it would ruin the gravy, but I was wrong. It makes a beautiful turkey that looks like it should be on the cover of a magazine, and the gravy is so delicious it's hard to resist just drinking it from the gravy boat.

Good gravy, good food and good friends? With all that, I'd be happy to do Thanksgiving every day.

Recipe:  Roast Turkey with Cranberry Orange Glaze

The glaze recipe is courtesy of Butterball.  The cooking of the turkey is the way I do it, a combination of methods that I find results in a wonderfully moist turkey. We flip even the largest of birds, using a couple of clean, folded towels and my oldest son, who is always up to the heavy task.

Ingredients:

• 3/4 cup orange marmalade (the chunky kind)
• 3/4 cup frozen cranberry juice concentrate, thawed
• 3 tablespoons maple syrup
• 1 1/2 tablespoons balsamic vinegar
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

Combine marmalade, cranberry juice concentrate, maple syrup, vinegar and salt in small heavy saucepan. Bring to boil on medium heat, stirring frequently. Reduce heat to low. Cook, uncovered, stirring frequently 12 to 15 minutes, or until glaze is reduced to about one cup.

Brush turkey generously with glaze prior to cooking.  Continue to brush with glaze every 30 minutes to 1 hour while cooking.                              

TURKEY (figure about 20 minutes per pound): Preheat oven to 350. 

Remove giblets and wingtips from turkey; set aside to make broth.

Wash turkey inside and out; dry with paper towels. Salt and pepper cavity. Place V-rack in roasting pan and, in bottom of pan, scatter two onions (diced), two carrots (diced) and one celery stalk (diced). Pour in one cup of water.

Place turkey BREAST SIDE DOWN on rack in roasting pan. Brush turkey with glaze.  Put in oven.

Cook for one hour (basting after 30 minutes), then flip it over and add one cup water to the pan.

Continue to cook, basting every 30 minutes to an hour, until thigh temperature reads 160. Add ½ cup to 1 cup water or broth as needed to keep veggies moist.

When the turkey has cooked, set on a platter to cool and strain the juices, discarding the vegetables and keeping the juices for gravy. 

What's your tried-and-true trick for a moist turkey?