If you want something a little different for your Thanksgiving this year, this roast turkey with herbs and wine is a great way to go. Using this method, you can cook a 12-pound turkey from start to finish in under an hour!

Fastest Way to Cook a Turkey

This recipe lets you skip carving at the table and speed up the roasting process. By cutting the turkey into parts before cooking, you get a faster and easier way to make a great roasted turkey.

This method produces an unbelievably moist turkey, full of flavor from fresh herbs and wine. Best of all,  I especially love being able to serve the turkey within minutes from the oven without waiting for it to be carved.

I served this turkey to a friend who was visiting years ago and she went crazy for it. This is now her favorite way to cook a turkey and I can’t recommend it highly enough.

While we’re on the subject of turkey, if you’re lucky enough to have leftover turkey, this Creamy Turkey Noodle Soup is comfort food at its best. It’s a down-home combination of leftover turkey meat, carrots, celery, and hearty egg noodles that’ll keep you warm on a cold winter night and perk you up when you’re feeling under the weather.

Turkey Seasoning

This herb roasted turkey recipe uses two different varieties of wine to bring out the best in the roast turkey. White wine is added right to the roasting pan, then marsala wine is mixed with the juices along with cranberry sauce or jam to drizzle on top of the finished turkey.

The herbs for turkey are simple and easy to find fresh in most groce

Classic Pumpkin Pie

Oh, pumpkin pie, oh pumpkin pie, thy flavor is so lovely… Who needs the Christmas tree song when we could be singing about pie? In fact, I’m pretty sure a song about pie would not only be awesome but certainly the most delicious song ever.

Our classic pumpkin pie totally made from scratch, from the best pie crust recipe ever to a pumpkin filling that is perfectly spiced and creamy, it is a must-make every Thanksgiving.

I know we have some haters out there (haters gonna hate, hate, hate. Thank you Taylor Swift.) I can’t even understand the hate, but it’s fine. It exists. I believe that every blog should share their favorite classic recipes and this one is one of my favorites. Well this, and Mom’s Lemon Meringue Pie. 

Thanksgiving For Me Growing Up

Thanksgiving has always been one of my favorite holidays. As a kid we always celebrated with more people than even fit into a house. Seriously, I remember going to my grandpa’s house in Le Grande, Oregon and all of the cousins, aunts and uncles would pile into the house, set up tables and chairs in every nook and cranny and still some of us kids would end up parking it on the floor somewhere because there just wasn’t enough room for so many people.

If we didn’t travel then we would have as much family at our house in Vancouver, Washington as possible and then Dad would make sure that everyone at church had a place to go and often we would end up with a few extra families that had nowhere to go. It was awesome! The cousins ran around playing, everyone was snacking and finally we had a prayer and “dinner” which usually happened mid afternoon so it wasn’t dinner at all.

Then we would clean up (always paper products as dishes for that many people would have been insane), the ladies and kids would do fun Christmas crafts, the men would sleep or watch football and then pie for all!

And my favorite part? Well, the pie of course, but I actually loved the next day even more. We would be lazy and watch movies all day, snacking on leftovers and making turkey sandwiches on rolls. I love those sandwiches more than the actual dinner!

Thanksgiving at Our House Now

Most importantly it had been a time to be together, no matter who we were. Everyone always had a place to go, which I’ll be honest has been a little hard living where we live. Most people have lived here their whole lives and have so much family that they make their own plans and stick closely with their fam. If you aren’t from here and aren’t going anywhere it kind of feels lonely now. It’s not the holiday I grew up with, but it has taught me that I must be like Dad, always reach out and see if anyone else is alone instead of only focusing on my family. But, we do have pie, and pie makes everything ok.

Ingredients for Pumpkin Pie

You’ll want to start by making my favorite pie crust recipe or Mom’s failproof magic crust. It makes a double crust, so you’ll only need half the dough for this pumpkin pie.

This is a delicious, healthy, and EASY side dish- perfect for Thanksgiving and the holiday season. If you’re looking for a no-fail side dish, this is the one. It’s gluten-free, Paleo, high in nutrients, and tastes amazing.

Hi friends! How’s the day going? Hope you’re having a wonderful morning. Yesterday was a whirlwind of fun: Anne and I filmed 3 of the Winter Shape-up videos with Grant. It was so great to catch up with Anne, and also see Grant again. He’s the mastermind behind many of my YouTube videos and also Soli Beat. We cranked through pure strength, strength + HIIT, + warmup video for the challenge. I’m so excited!!

After filming, Anne and I headed over to Fig Tree to grab lunch. I always get scared-stoked to tell visitors about Liberty Station and all it has to offer. “So it has the best coffee shop, a hot yoga studio, a Trader Joe’s, market, brewery, juice bar, basically everything you could wish for.”

I almost always get the portobello mushroom sandwich, but then I saw breakfast on the menu and that happened immediately.

With kombucha:

Anne and I enjoyed lunch (it was so good!) and chatted about all things life and blogging. We hobbled out of there because after filming workouts + sitting for a while, the soreness started to kick in. #buckleup

Last night, one of the worst things that could have happened during Spin happened. (When I got home, I told the Pilot that THE WORST THING HAPPENED while I was teaching and he thought I peed during class so no. Apparently, it was not the worst thing that could happen haha.)

I had to connect to Bluetooth for the music, and once I finally got it connected, I went to start my playlist, and… nothing. It was a blank white screen. I p

Paula Deen’s Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake

Paula Deen’s Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake is a yellow cake crust topped with a creamy pumpkin layer and the most popular pumpkin dessert at our Thanksgiving table.

This is the very first recipe I had ever made from the Food Network. Paula Deen inspired something in Cade and I and that is the only reason this blog exists.

Cade’s from the South and as super poor newlyweds we didn’t have much entertainment that didn’t cost money and since cable was free in our apartment we would watch Paula cook up delicious foods and I got to learn about Cade’s Southern side.

It was so fun to surprise him with classic southern dishes like, Fried Chicken, Southern Macaroni and Cheese, Perfect Pecan Pie and Tomato Basil Pie. But then we saw a few pumpkin recipes using pumpkin puree like, pumpkin cake, pumpkin gooey butter cake and other pumpkin dessert recipes.

We just knew Thanksgiving was going to be extra special.

Our First Thanksgiving Home as Newlyweds

Cade and I had been married for just shy of a year and we had gone home to Washington for the holidays. It felt so special to finally be a married couple enjoying the time with family. We had been thinking up pumpkin ideas for weeks.

I can’t remember why I was making pumpkin recipes, it must have been that we decided to not do pumpkin pie or something but either way this gooey butter cake ended up being what I chose and my whole family has been hooked on Paula Deen’s Gooey Butter Cake recipe ever since.

Now, I’ve waited this whole time, choosing to not post any Food Network recipes because I totally get how hard those chefs work, but after almost 12 years I decided that:

• it’s one of our favorites
• it’s already all over the web
• you want to know the recipes that people are obsessed with so you can make it a family favorite too!

What Ingredients for Pumpkin Gooey Butter Cake Crust

• Egg
• Butter
• Cake Mix

Start off by making the crust with the above in

This is beyond any doubt the BEST ham I have ever tasted – and the secret is all in the 3 ingredient ham glaze. (The ham recipe I’m sharing today is so completely worthy of hyperbole; I’ve given up attempting to write this post without it.)

You know how sometimes you make something that’s so good that even after you’re done with dinner you find yourself snacking on little bites as you put it away later? That was this ham for me the first time I made it.

It is tender and juicy, covered in a slightly crisp, sweet, tangy glaze that makes every mouthful tastier than the last. 

The balsamic dijon glaze is a fantastic compliment to the ham. Just a few ingredients and almost no real effort gets you an extraordinarily impressive meal that’s as suited for special occasions as it is for an everyday dinner.

3 Ingredient Ham Glaze

Because the glaze requires only three ingredients, for years, I’ve recommended using the best quality ingredients you can manage. I’ve gone so far as to use a high-quality aged balsamic whenever I have it on hand.

Guess what I’ve learned? It absolutely does not matter which balsamic vinegar you use to make this ham glaze. As long as the balsamic tastes good on its own, it will work fine.

Last Thanksgiving when I was roasting a ham, I was out of my fancy balsamic, so I grabbed the store-brand that I use for salad dressings. I’m happy to tell you that the ham turned out every bit as good as any of the glazes I’ve made using pricier vinegar.

For the dijon, just choose one with plenty of tang and flavor. It doesn’t need to be the most expensive dijon on the shelf but it should be tasty all on its own. You definitely do not want to substitute basic yellow deli mustard here.

You can use either light or dark brown sugar in the glaze. A darker brown sugar will yield a bit more of a molas