Friendsgiving is something I always look forward to every year, but I was especially excited this year because it would be the first one I ever did with my college friends. The past two years I have always done one when I get home for Thanksgiving break with my home friends but this year was special because I got to share it with my closest friends from UNH.
We are a pretty big friend group, 11 of us in total, so we all had to make sure we were cooking enough for everyone. I volunteered to make stuffing, my favorite dish in the world and my boyfriend volunteered to make the most important part, the turkey. This of course meant I was making the turkey with him as well because he doesn’t have a kitchen where he lives on campus. So we went to the market on Tuesday to gather all the ingredients and materials we needed to make stuffing and turkey. I went in thinking that we were going to be making box stuffing and just tossing the turkey in the oven for a few hours, but I was completely wrong. He insisted we make homemade stuffing and that we brine the turkey before cooking it (which I had no idea what that meant). We bought all the materials and ingredients for $70 (which I thought wasn’t bad at all considering how much stuff we bought) and heading back to my apartment.
We then thawed out the turkey overnight and after fully figuring out what brining was, decided we would start the brining the next morning. To brine the turkey, we had to fill a massive container up with cold water and add our brine mix (which we bought premade at Market Basket) and then submerged the turkey in it and put the lid on the container. We ran into a problem after this because the turkey needed to be kept in a cold place while brining, and our fridge was way too small so we had to figure something out. We finally decided to use the weather at the time, that was around 40 degrees, to our advantage and keep the turkey outside. I was originally a bit skeptical about this because I was worried people would try and open it or take it but it ended up working out perfectly. We found a very secluded place and because the container had a very secure lid on it, we didn’t have to worry about rain or leaves or anything like that getting into the container.
By the time it was done brining, it was already Thursday (the day of friendsgiving) so we had to get cooking. Because it was a 15 pound turkey, it needed around 4 hours so my boyfriend prepped the turkey for me (took all the giblets out and rinsed it off because I was too grossed out to do so) because he needed me to put the turkey in at 3:30 as he would be in class at that time. While he went to class I attempted to make the homemade stuffing which is actually really simple to do looking back at it now, but it made me super stressed out because I didn’t understand the directions and he was in class and couldn’t help me. After I got over my small freak out and just attempted to make it work, I got it and it was as easy as can be. All you had to do was cube 3 loaves of white bread (we needed three for the amount of people we were cooking for) and leave it on a cooking sheet, then chop a whole onion and two containers of celery. After that, you melt a stick of butter and add the onion and celery to it and cook them until they turn yellow. Once they’re yellow, add the bread in and mix, then add some chicken broth if you like moist stuffing (which I do) and spices of your choosing (I did thyme, sage, salt and pepper). Then you cook it for 45 minutes and it’s ready to be eaten! The stress paid off because that was the best stuffing I have ever had!!
The rest of the day was easy, we just had to keep basting the turkey and keeping an eye on it. Once it was finally done, it looked and tasted like the best Thanksgiving turkey I have ever had.
We ended up getting to our friend’s apartment at around 8:30 (which was only 30 minutes late which is very impressive for me!!). The second we walked in everything smelled so amazing. Everything was homemade and delicious. We had turkey, stuffing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, asparagus, broccoli, brussels sprouts, mac and cheese, buffalo chicken dip, a charcuterie board, rolls (which were the only thing that wasn’t homemade but they were from texas Roadhouse so they were absolutely amazing), cranberry sauce and gravy. We had plenty of food and I can’t express enough how amazing it was. One of our friends who works as a bartender even made a specialty drink for the night for us, and it was dangerously delicious. It was Captain Morgan, Vanilla Vodka, Caramel Vodka and apple cider with a caramel and sugar rim. That night was such a perfect night and everyone had so much fun enjoying each others company, and being thankful that we all have each other as such good friends.
I think celebrating Thanksgiving with friends, whether you have a big friend group or small group, is very important because it really proves how lucky you are to be surrounded but people who care about you and are just as thankful for you as you are for them. I can confidently say this was by far my favorite friendsgiving I have ever had and I wouldn’t trade my friends here for the world.