Sunday after Thanksgiving...

Howdy All,
Hope you all had a wonderful holiday. Ours turned out to be quite nice. The weather was spectacular and most unusual for the PAC-NWet. We had lovely sunshine most of the time, clear nights with lots of frost, and we're all safe and warm inside.

We invited GMom's former next door neighbor over for dinner on Thanksgiving. Here's a picture of the table. It's been so long since I've Entertained that I see I forgot which side the napkins go on. :-)




We cooked a turkey although Gooserock and I generally don't eat anything that has feet or comes from a footed critter. (It's a cholesterol thing) GMom eats everything and loves it all. Ms GMomNeighbor also can eat anything and everything. GR (Gooserock) has been eating small portions of deli turkey occasionally also. So a turkey seemed like a great idea. I knew I could find something to eat if only all the to-go-withs.

GR, who is the chief chef here, decided to brine the turkey. So he started with a recipe recommended on D-Kos which was an Alton Brown recipe and altered it to suit himself. GR's brine was 1 cup ea of salt, brown sugar, lemon juice plus ginger and garlic to 1 gallon of water. This was for a 12 pound turkey.

We washed the turkey, removed and discarded (option: save them for the gravy) the giblets. We added aromatics (per Alton Brown) consisting of an onion halved and quartered, an apple cored, several sticks of cinnamon, allspice berries (I used ground because I didn't have any whole allspice), celery to the cavity of the turkey along with salt and pepper first.

We put the turkey into a new garbage bag and poured in the brine and tightly closed the top, squishing out all the air possible. We then put it into a 5 gallon bucket of ice water. This sat out on the deck for 24 hours. We've been having heavy frost everynight so it was plenty cool out there.

Also according to Chef Brown, we allowed 2.5 hours to cook. First 1/2 hour at 500 degrees then 1 1/2 hours at 350 degrees for an unstuffed turkey. Adding the celery and the onion and the apple along with the spices sort of filled the cavity and it was then a stuffed turkey. We planned on eating at 4:00. The turkey finally reached 160 degrees on the instant thermometer at 6:00 and after it was out of the oven for about 10 minutes the popper in the breat popped. We were ready.

Here is the chef with his creation:


And a closer look at Turkey Lurkey:


Since GR can't eat wheat, I made the stuffing with rice instead of bread and added lots of sage and celery and onion sauteed in olive oil, salt and pepper. I also sauteed mushrooms for a topping. It sounded like a good idea but it's too far from trad stuffing for my taste.

My coup de grace was this:


Fresh brussel sprouts cut in half and quick sauteed in olive oil to get some nice browning on them, add chopped onion and garlic and saute them in the same pan with the brussels, add a can of diced tomatoes on top (don't stir), and finally put a few glops of pesto on top of the tomatoes. Cover and let heat through in the skillet. It was a new recipe but it worked really well.

I also always make cranberry relish:
Two bags of fresh cranberries, washing and sorted, discarding any soft ones.
Chop them in a food processor.
Add one apple cut into small pieces.
Add a large can of crushed pineapple drained, and two cans of mandarine oranges drained and chopped.
Add some white sugar....about 1/2-3/4 c. (I never measure)
Stir together.
Make some cranberry jello (large box). Use the juice from the pineapple and oranges for some of the cold liquid in the jello. Pour this over the cranberry mixture and put into a suitable bowl and refigerate overnight.

I was going to also cook an acorn squash but there was too much food already. GMom's neighbor brought a spinach salad and a relish plate with asparagus, some cheese and crackers and a bottle of wine. With all that we didn't mind the extra two hours wait for the turkey to get done. Heh!

So, it all turned out to be really nice. GR and GMom and GMomNeighbor enjoyed it all. Even I sampled the forbidden fruit of the turkey. Far and away the best, juiciest and most flavorful white meat turkey I've ever eaten. Of course it was the first turkey I'd eaten in nearly 3 years so I might not be the best judge. Not a bad bit of cooking for a "vegan + finned fish" person. And of course the left-overs are still being enjoyed.