The holidays always mean nice roasts for dinner – turkey and roast beef are traditional, but we’ve also done lamb and small hens too. For the last few years I’ve used a digital meat thermometer to get perfect “doneness” of the roasts. These eletronic probes are put into the meat before cooking and then stay in there while the meat cooks. Alarms are set for when it reaches the temperature you want, and most have a guide for different types of meat and levels of doneness (e.g. rare or medium-rare).

They’re not that expensive, running $30-50 and the fancier ones have two temperature readings, internal (the meat) and external (the oven). Useful when you’re not sure if your oven thermometer is accurate.