Thanksgiving Gravy

My favorite gravy... I make this every year! We fry our turkey so we never have drippings left over from roasting so I make the gravy about a week to 2 weeks ahead of time. I made the gravy today (although I usually try to make it a lot earlier!) and it is now sitting in the fridge overnight waiting for the fat to rise so that I can scrape it off tomorrow. Then it will go in the freezer until Tuesday. I'll then transfer to the fridge to thaw and warm up on Thanksgiving! I try to do most of the "work" ahead of time although I usually end up running around crazy on Thanksgiving!

I LOVE Thanksgiving. It's my favorite holiday and I always host it at my house. Even though it usually is a huge task and sometimes a hassle, I am so content while cooking for Thanksgiving. No matter what goes wrong - I just love putting this big meal together. Of course, I usually crash the day after (hence why I have NEVER gone shopping on Black Friday). This year we well have 13 people (last year was 20 but my cousin is heading up to NY this year for the holiday). It's a full day of eating. We start off by having a family breakfast of Overnight Blueberry French Toast... then it's appetizers mid afternoon followed by a huge feast and then dessert. Yum!!

Without further ado, the recipe I use for Gravy:

MAKE AHEAD TURKEY GRAVY

Ingredients:

• 4 turkey wings (about 3 to 4 lb)
• 2 medium onions, peeled and quartered
• 8 cups chicken broth
• 3/4 cup chopped carrots
• 1/2 tsp dried thyme
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 2 Tbsp stick butter
• 1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper

PREPARATION

1. Heat oven to 400°F. Have ready a large roasting pan, 5- to 6-qt pot and 3-qt saucepan.


2. Put wings in a single layer in roasting pan; scatter onions on top. Roast 11/4 hours or until wings are browned.


3. Put wings and onions in pot. Add 1 cup water to roasting pan and stir to scrape up any brown bits on bottom. Add to pot. Add 6 cups broth (refrigerate remaining 2 cups), the carrots and thyme. Bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer, uncovered, 11/2 hours.


4. Remove wings. When cool, pull off skin and meat. Discard skin; save meat for another use.


5. Strain broth into saucepan, pressing vegetables to extract as much liquid as possible. Discard vegetables; skim fat off broth. (If time permits, refrigerate over-night so fat that rises to the top solidifies and can be easily removed.)


6. Whisk flour into the remaining 2 cups broth until thoroughly blended and smooth.


7. Bring broth in the saucepan to a gentle boil. Whisk in flour mixture and boil 4 to 5 minutes to thicken gravy and remove floury taste. Stir in butter and pepper.


Planning Tip: Freeze in an airtight container up to 1 month. Refrigerate 2 days to thaw. Reheat in saucepan, whisking often (see Note).

(Recipe and Photo taken from womensday.com)

P.S. Many of you left comments on my facebook profile instead of on here (although there were a lot of people that looked at the blog and just didn't comment! That's ok though - it's nice to know there are people out there in Blog world that are nice enough just to see what I needed help with!!). I started what I am going to do with the door today and hopefully it will be secured tomorrow. As soon as it is I will post photos! Thanks for all of your help!