Thanksgiving

Hi, I'm Paula Deen, and I want you to join me in my kitchen today for a no sweat, scrumptious Thanksgiving feast from top to bottom

First, I want to take you on a turkey tour from buy-in to deep-fry-in, and then it's back to the stove to find out the secret to my success when it comes to making the quickest cornbread stuffing ever

and the gooiest, chewiest pumpkin gooey butter cake that this good old southern girl knows how to make

And last but not least, some shortcut cranberry-flavored tips that'll free you up to be a part of your party instead of a slave to it

So y'all throw on your apron, roll up your sleeves, and come on in

It's time to give thanks. I started cooking when I was 18 years old as a new bride

I'm very lucky because I came from a family of wonderful Southern cooks

And at 42 years old, I was faced with having to support myself and my two sons

So I turned to my first love, which is cooking. And so I started cooking for a living

I think food is such a big part of family. And I hope that y'all can watch me and learn to have fun with yours

while building wonderful memories around the food that you're preparing. I'm so excited, y'all. Thanksgiving is finally here

A holiday that I look so forward to because it's really all about food, family, and love and just being together

But before we can start this meal, I want to take y'all to a very, very special spot where I found the most handsome of birds

All right, guys

I'm here for my Thanksgiving turkey today. I think I know what I want. I think that I'm going to serve a deep-fried turkey

But I just want to know, you know what my options are. This is domestic turkey

This is the turkey you usually buy in the stores, butterball, big fat things

These we grow here, though, they're a lot different. They're younger. They're juicy

Special dying? A lot of meat. They're all outside running around. Free-range turkeys

Oh, yeah. Everything we grow here is free-range. Free-range, okay. Then you've got your wild turkeys

What's the difference between this wild turkey here and the domesticated turkey

More flavor. Which one? In the wild turkey. Less meat, but more flavor

Really? And unless you try one, you'll never know what you're missing in turkey flavor

How about if I just take the domesticated turkey? Good choice. You can't go wrong

That ought to feed your 15 people. and we're just going to have a wonderful, wonderful Thanksgiving

Thanks to y'all and your birds. Hey, Gertie

How you doing, baby? You've been waiting on me. I've got the best turkey

You're not going to believe how beautiful this bird is. You know, this time of year is just my favorite time of the year

I just love the pumpkins and the flowers, and there's just the smell of autumn in the air

And looking at these flowers and these pumpkins reminds me of something. At the end of the show today, I'm going to show you a quick little tip with the flowers and the pumpkins

Come on, Gertie. Let's go. Well, we've gotten our turkeys taken care of

They're all settled and waiting to be cooked. But before we get started with those, I'm going to go ahead and start on our dessert

which is called gooey butter cake. and you're going to love this recipe

It's so easy and simple to make, and once you taste it, you'll never, ever want pumpkin pie again

We're going to simply start with a yellow cake mix, and you can just use the brand of your choice

along with one stick of melted butter. And to that, we're going to add one egg

Now, you can't hardly get much simpler than that. And this is going to be our crust

And we're going to just beat this until all the cake is mixed and moist

Alright, we're ready now. So we're going to just ease that up and kind of spin that off of our beaters

As you can see, our crust to our gooey butter cake is very, very thick

That's why I normally just stick it in a mixer and get done with it. Now all we're going to do at this point is take our crust

and lay it into our greased prepared pan. And to make the spreading of my base a little easier

I'm just going to rub my hands in the pot that I had the butter in

and I'm just going to grease them up a little bit. You know, when I started making these wonderful little gooey's

I just used a very basic recipe of cake mix and eggs and cream cheese

But after a while I got bored making them that way So I got into the kitchen and I just played around and tested and I bet you at this point we probably make 50 different gooey butter cakes Now we gonna move to our cream cheese filling and I not even gonna

bother washing this mixer we can use it just like it is. You can make your gooey's

the morning of or the day before I really prefer a fresh gooey that was just out

of the oven the day of Thanksgiving and you don't even have to refrigerate these

which is even nicer. We're going to start with our cream cheese and our powdered sugar

And we're just going to beat these two things together until they're fluffy. It really is so

simple. And then we're going to slowly add another stick of butter. And remember, this is called

gooey butter cake. So we're going to add three eggs to the center. We're going to add about a

a teaspoon of vanilla flavoring. We're getting there. At this point now, we are at our original

gooey butter cake recipe. Now is when we're going to make our changes. Today, because

it's Thanksgiving, we're going to make pumpkin. And I'm using just a regular canned pumpkin

And we're going to just fold this into our cream cheese. And because this doesn't have

any of your flavorings, I'm going to add a little ground cinnamon and a little nutmeg. Now I go

lighter on the nutmeg than I do the cinnamon because it's really a potent seasoning. And so

at this point, this is when you change your flavorings. If you wanted to do blueberry or if

you wanted to do peanut butter, if you wanted to do cherry, peaches, whatever you want to do

But as I told you, this pumpkin is just perfect for Thanksgiving. And look how wonderful. I'll see

you getting your pumpkin-y color now. So all we do now at this point is pour it onto our crust

In about 45 minutes, we're going to have the most wonderful pumpkin dessert you've ever put

in your mouth. And we're ready to go into the oven. Our cooking time is up now on our gooey

butter cakes and they should be ready and they are they look just perfect now normally I would

let these cool for about 20 or 30 minutes but I can't stand it I'm gonna go ahead and cut them

now because I want y'all to see them I'm gonna just slice this and I love to eat and I can't eat a

real big piece so cut them to suit your preference and these down here a little bit bigger so we'll

give this in to the men and I tell y'all before I put them on the platter I don't think anybody

you'll know if I just sneak one real quick like. So I've just got to taste it because it's been a

while since I've had the pumpkin. But look, look, look at that beautiful, beautiful, warm, gooey

pumpkin. And I always top mine with a little fresh sweetened whipped cream. And if you like

when you go to serve it, you can also just sprinkle it with a little cinnamon. Just dust your plate

I don't think anybody will notice if one little tiny piece is missing

It really is Thanksgiving. Stay tuned because we're going to make the most wonderful southern cornbread stuffing you ever put in your mouth

One of the best parts of our Thanksgiving meal today is going to be our Southern Cornbread Dressing

And I've got my stock pot going here, and it's filled with the giblets from our turkey

and good, fatty, rich pieces of the chicken, like the back and the wing

And I've got this going, and it's smelling and looking so good, but just to make sure that it's good and rich

I'm going to add a little granulated chicken bouillon, but it's looking and smelling wonderful

And I'm going to add a little bit of pepper and a little bit of salt

Now, if you use very much of your chicken bouillon, you'll just want to be careful with your salt

because it is just almost nothing but pure salt itself. And while that's cooking

we're going to put together our actual cornbread. I'm going to start by chopping a little celery

and always use the green leafy part to your celery. It's so pretty flowing throughout your dressing

And we're going to saute this in a stick of butter, always a stick of butter, two if you need it

You know, I always love cooking Thanksgiving. I'll never forget the very first one that I cooked

I was 23 years old, and it was 1970, and I found myself without a mother to cook my meal for me

So I was responsible for doing that And I never forget the day before Thanksgiving I stayed on the phone all day long with my Aunt Peggy She helped me through my whole entire meal I never

forget Uncle George saying, damn it, get off the phone with her. I'm not going to get my

meal. Now we're just going to let this kind of saute. We don't want to brown it. On that

sauteing, we're going to move on to actually putting the bread part of our dressing together

and I've got my dried out toast. This is just plain old white bread

and I'm just going to crumble it up. This is a fun dish to make

You can work out all your frustrations if you have any. And then we're going to add a sleeve of saltine crackers

and these saltines just give your dressing such a nice little punch

This is a trick that my grandmother Paul taught me. Now this is just a simple cornbread recipe here

And we're just going to crumble that up in there. And you can see our celery and our onions are coming along nicely

And while those are going, we're going to go ahead and beat up our eggs because our eggs are going to make our dressing bind together

And it's going to fluff it up and just make it so light and delicious

All right, we're ready here, I think, with our celery and our onions. So we're going to just dump this into our bowl

When you start doing this, make sure you have a nice large bowl because before you know it

you've added all your ingredients in there. Your ingredients go from here to here very quickly

So as you can see, I've kind of misjudged my pot size

So I'm just going to mix this up and pour it into a larger pot

I hate to give up this beautiful bowl. It's one of my favorites, but we'll have to pull it out and use it another time

Now we've got plenty of room because we're going to be adding a good bit of that wonderful, rich stock now

Just fill this dressing straight from the stock pot. All right, we're going to stop now and stir this

It's almost time for this baby to go in the oven. That's almost perfect right there

And now I'm going to add just a little sage, and then we're going to put a little poultry seasoning

just to make sure it's got enough kick, and a little bit more black pepper

I really, really like pepper in my dressing. And last but not least, a very important ingredient, and that's our eggs

If you're going to make this up ahead of time, be very, very careful

because this is one of those dishes that can, if it's not refrigerated properly, it can really sour on you

So we're ready to go ahead and transfer this now into our casserole dish

Doesn't that look so, so good? All right, this is ready to go into the oven

Look, perfect southern cornbread dressing. I think I'm going to sneak a taste out of here

and I'm actually going to go from kind of underneath so nobody will know that the cook's been in it

Aunt Peggy, you'd be proud. And y'all hang around because the best part of the meal is coming up

Deep fried turkey. At last, I'm fixing to spend a little time now with our guest

of Honor, Mr. Tom Turkey. We're going to start with a clean bird. Now he's been washed and

cleaned and we've removed all the giblets. And don't forget to check the neck. I never

will forget one of my friends fixed their first Thanksgiving meal and she was so proud

of her turkey. It was so beautiful. Took it to the table, went to slice it and out came

all these raw giblets in a paper bag. And we've teased her unmercifully about that

So make sure you watch for the giblets. Now we're just going to oil him down

and then we're going to cover him in salt, black pepper, and garlic powder

And you can do this part actually early in the day and let him sit around and be soaking up all those seasonings

Then we're going to turn him over and give him a very, very nice back rub

Get him ready for that wonderful hot peanut oil. How you like that massage, Mr. Turkey

We're going to get him good back here in his backside. And now we're going to finish up with just a rotisserie chicken

And this has got your paprika and some more spices in it. And this is going to give him that nice brown color

And just rub him good all over, under his arm. We use peanut oil at the restaurant

We don't fry anything and anything else but peanut oil. And I tell you, it's a little bit more expensive than your regular oils

but it gives things a flavor that you wouldn't believe. We've got him rubbed down good now

The last spot we going is inside He gonna come out so beautiful and brown And if you never had fried turkey before I just can tell you how wonderful it is It like having one great big piece of fried

chicken and that skin gets brown and crisp and succulent. And when you cut into your bird

all the juices are trapped inside from that crispy skin and they just come rolling out and you'll

You're just going to be so pleased with your Thanksgiving meal. All right, we're going to pick this baby up, and we're going to just drop him into our basket

Once you've fried a turkey, you're going to find it to be so much easier and so much better than an oven turkey

Your oven turkeys can have a tendency to dry out on you, plus they take longer, and you can't get any more simpler than this

We're going to cook this turkey for three minutes a pound. We have a 13-pound turkey

That's 39 minutes. And always, no matter what size turkey you've got

always add an extra five minutes after you've completed your three minutes a pound

And you can see he's down there sealing himself up in that hot peanut oil

and he's just going to be so good if you're not going to believe it

In just 44 short minutes, we've got the most delectable-looking turkey you've ever seen

He's brown to perfection. his skin is already starting to crisp up now that we've taken him out of the oil

And we'll let him sit there for a few minutes and let the oil drain out of him good. Then we're going to take him out and put him on a platter, and it's going to be time to eat

So when we come back, I'm going to have a couple of more quick Thanksgiving tips for you

and then I'm calling my family to dinner. Doesn't our table look beautiful today

Just before I call my family in, I've got a few last things to do. And one of these things that I want to share with you is a very, very easy cranberry sauce

that looks like you've gone to a lot of trouble and actually hadn't. I'm going to use just a whole, berry, jelly cranberry sauce

And now I'm adding just mandarin oranges. And then I'm going to toss in some nuts

Now, I like walnuts, but you can use pecans or almonds, any of your favorite nuts

But the bonus on this cranberry sauce is it tastes as good as it looks

And I'll show you another trick that I did today. My table was so full that I didn't have room for a big arrangement

So I took some little bitty pumpkins and trimmed the bottoms so that they would sit flat

And I went out into my garden, and I just picked a few wildflowers

And all you have to do is stick your flours in there, and you've got instant flour arrangements

And the last tip I want to share with you today when frying your turkeys, a great way to measure how much oil you're going to need is by placing your turkey into your deep fryer

and covering him with water. Then lift your turkey out, and the line that the water's at lets you know how much oil you're going to need

It's very important that you have enough, and it's also very important that you don't have too much

because too much could really cause a grease fire. Look how beautiful this turkey turned out

I can't hardly wait for my family to eat it. I'm going to start carving it

And look at that gorgeous leg. And if my children came to the table and couldn't find a leg

they would be real mad with me. So I'm not going to cut him

I'm just going to disjoint him and put him on the platter

and maybe taste him a little bit. It's so wonderful. I can't hardly wait for y'all to try the fried turkey

And I'm going to take him like this, and then I'm going to slice him just like this

And he's so moist, and he's still so warm. When you try it, you're not going to believe

how easy and simple but delicious this turkey is. Usually white meat can be dry, but not on the fried turkey

You can see the moistness of the white meat. He's so scrumptious

Just look at everything I've got on our table. I've got our cornbread stuffing and our fancy green beans

pumpkin gooey butter cakes for dessert, tangy cranberry sauce, and delicious mashed potatoes

But more important, the guest of honor, this fabulous fried turkey. You know, I've had such a wonderful time with y'all today

I appreciate you joining me for my Thanksgiving dinner. And until next time, America, best dishes from my Thanksgiving table to yours