At 325 degrees, you'll want to cook your turkey for about 15 minutes per pound. RELATED LINKS VIDEO: Turkey Tips

Being able to experiment with new recipes and techniques is part of the fun of cooking at home, and it's usually not a big deal if the results aren't exactly what we expected. But Thanksgiving dinner comes around just once a year, and the chef of the house can feel a lot of pressure to make that bird come out of the oven absolutely perfect. Luckily, cooking a delicious turkey for your Thanksgiving table is simply a matter of knowing a few numbers and a couple of helpful hints.

As Food Director at Family Circle Magazine, Peggy Katalinich oversees a staff of food writers and recipe developers who create and test hundreds of recipes each year. She has edited three cookbooks for Family Circle and is the author of Foods of Long Island, a collection of regional recipes. In 1997, Katalinich was named food editor of the year by the James Beard Foundation. Here she offers guidelines for cooking your Thanksgiving turkey:

• A fresh bird. Every year, Katalinich does her Thanksgiving shopping at the last minute, so she usually ends up buying a fresh bird in order to eliminate the thawing time. You might want to choose a fresh turkey just for the taste.

• The oven setting. The experts recommend setting your over to 325 degrees Fahrenheit. After much experimentation of her own, Katalinich had discovered that the experts are exactly right.

• Cooking time. At 325 degrees, you should cook your turkey for about 15 minutes per pound.

• Perfect temperatures. But the only way to be sure of when the turkey is cooked to perfection is to use an instant-read thermometer. According to Katalinich, the key temperatures to remember are 165F for the stuffing, 170F in the breast, and 180F in the thigh. As soon as your thermometer gives you these readings, it's time to take the bird out of the oven.

• Make a tent. When you first put the raw bird in the oven, tent it with a sheet of aluminum foil to protect the breast. After about an hour of cooking, you can remove the foil tent so that the skin can start to get nice and brown.

• Enjoy the holiday. Of course, the most important thing to remember, even if something goes wrong in the kitchen, is that Thanksgiving is a time to have fun, connect with family members, and give some thought to everything you have to be thankful for. Then again, a fantastic meal never hurts, so go out and pick a great bird!

The Food Network: Thanksgiving Guide
www.foodnetwork.com/holidays/thanksgivingindex/0,5534,,00.html

National Turkey Federation: Holiday Cooking Tips
www.turkeyfed.org/consumer/thanks.html