Talking Turkey (and other treats)

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December is here! 

It comes every time this year, but it still surprises me.  I live in Florida, so I'm a shorts/flip-flop girl year round.  I hung clothes out in the sunshine just yesterday.   And scarfed down two fat, juicy navel oranges.  Snow shovels and mittens just aren't on my radar.

We have to manufacture Christmas down here.  A couple of things that help Floridans get in the mood are blinking house lights and blow-up yard displays.  One neighbor has a blow-up Santa holding a shot gun peering from a look-out tower.  A reindeer is cowering behind a bush.   That's how we do it in the South.

I learned a couple of tricks this Thanksgiving.  The first one, thanks to Trisha Yearwood, is how to roast a perfect bird (her method was in the Sunday paper.)  It's so easy - and nontraditional - you won't believe it.   I tweaked a few things, and, I'm telling ya', we are never having dry turkey again.  Here's the recipe; it's very short:

For a 12-pounder, stuff the cleaned bird with an apple, an onion, a stalk of celery, and an orange, all cut in chunks.  Place the bird breast side down in a roasting pan with a lid.  It will lean to one side - that's OK.  Add 2 cups of boiling water to the pan, and put the lid on.  Place the pan in a 500 degree oven for one hour.  After the hour, turn the oven off and go to bed.  Really.  

That's it.  In the morning, the turkey is done, still warm, and delicious.  No watching, or basting.  No turkey hogging the oven when you later need it for the sweet potatoes, stuffing, and whatever else you're baking. 

I cooked a 7-pound turkey breast this year, put the bird in about midnight, did not check it until 8 a.m.  The meat fell off the bone.  It was the most tender turkey we have ever had, fork tender.  No knives needed.

Placing the bird breast side down enables all the juices to drain into the bulk of the meat.  Covering the bird and adding water allows the meat to steam.  If you want the golden-skinned Norman Rockwell bird that you present at your holiday table, you might not care for this method, as the turkey skin stays soft and unbrowned. 

We didn't care.  The moist meat was worth it.  (I always slice the meat off the carcass for the table anyway.  If that's the method you use, you will love this.)  The flavorful water/juice remaining in the pan is the base for your gravy.   This method makes such good sense to me, I don't know why, for generations, women have been roasting turkeys breast side up with no fluid and no cover.  That's a recipe for dry meat. 

I discovered another trick while wondering how to use up leftover mashed potatoes and stuffing.  I came up with this.   

I stirred the potatoes and stuffing together, added some Parmesan cheese, and rolled the mixture into balls that fit nicely into a muffin tin.  I baked them for ten minutes until warmed though, then added a slice of cheese and some leftover spinach dip (Ranch dressing would be great too.) 

Viola!  A fancy, tasty new twist on "stuffed potatoes."   I guess you could throw the green bean casserole in there too.

Here's another thing I threw together.  

Our daughter makes the best whole wheat bread.  We usually have rolls, but this year, she was out when the dough was ready to shape.  I didn't want to spend time rolling balls, so I hastily made three uneven snakes and braided them together.  The misshapen log looked small and goofy on the cookie sheet, but it puffed up beautifully.   Sometimes I just get lucky. 

My last item is from Pinterest.  I saw these cutie-patooties and had to try them.

Keebler's Fudge Stripe cookies, peanut-butter cups, and frosting (canned or homemade.)  You just assemble them.  The cups are stuck to the cookies with a glob of frosting.  Tint the last of the frosting yellow, and pipe a "buckle" onto the front with a fine tip.   Miles Standish would be proud. 

I wanted to share a few holiday cooking discoveries, because in four weeks, we get to do it all again.   You might want an ugly, but succulent turkey, a stuffed potato muffin, or a bread braid.  The Ballpark aims to please.

Next....

Christmas!!!!

Excess Wasted & Excess Shared

I logged on to my email today, which I hadn't looked at for two days.  I had 76 messages.

About 40 of them were notices of new posts from blogs I read.  About 15 were sales notices.  The rest were spam comments on my blog.  My spam is growing. 

I knew this day was coming.  If you're on the web for any length of time, the garbage finds you.   So, I'm spending more time clicking the "mark as spam" tab, and deleting.   I hate it.   The time it takes, and just flinging all that trash into cyber-space.  It's so wasteful - a waste of words, a waste of time, a waste of energy.  Excess in a bad way.

On the flip side, the students at our daughter's high school donated food and money to 40 families this Thanksgiving week.   For the past couple weeks, they filled up laundry baskets with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy, green beans, and corn.  Some Spam even came in.  (It must be going around.)  Parents donated turkeys and apple pies.  And money.  $500 worth. 

40 families.  Full laundry baskets.  Whole turkeys, some frozen, some cooked.  Pies.  And cash.  Families got a Thanksgiving meal and some.   Nothing was wasted.   Excess in a good way. 

A parents' organization gave each teacher an apple pie.  30+ teachers and 30+ pies. 

Can you imagine?   This is our daughter's pie.  She teaches religion, so she has to share.  Thanks, honey!

Our daughter came home beaming because she was so proud of her students.  Very pleased they were so generous.  These young food donators are tomorrow's leaders, and it's important to her that they learn to contribute and not just consume.  Today's donation event was so successful, the school is going to try to start an ongoing food bank.  Giving and sharing and feeding at its best. 

Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday because of this very kind of thing.  Christmas can bring out the best in people too, but there's so much spending and wanting and getting and yes, greed, going on that it gets a bit tainted.  Even baby Jesus is kind of an afterthought.

So, here's to teenagers who fed the hungry this week, and to teachers who work hard to instill in kids the awareness that there are always people with less.

I'm also thankful for the web that enables me to share my thoughts about generous teens and impressive teachers.  Maybe one of those teens will grow up and invent a method of blasting Internet spam for good.

Here's hoping you have a wonderful, family-filled Thanksgiving with lots of laughter and delicious fare.   Be thankful for every bite.

     

Family - backwards and forward

October is gone, and Thanksgiving is next week.  I swear, I wake up and two weeks have passed.  My life feels busy, but when I get right down to it...what have I been doing? 

I have to think about it. 

Regular homemaker stuff.  Packing lunches and laundry.  Loading the dishwasher and then, unloading it.  Running to Walmart for band-aids and pillow cases and to Kohls for anything 30% off.  Eye doctor and foot doctor appointments.  Numerous trips to CVS for my folks' prescriptions. 

Watching the news about David Petraeus and his shenanigans.  Oh my.  Where will it all lead?

Laundry again. 

A weekend trip to Indiana for my dad's family reunion.  That was cool.  My dad will be 90 in May.  Here he is with his two remaining siblings (out of eight.) 

We partied in my cousin's "garage" of sorts that had a toasty wood-burning stove, and we ate non-stop for 48 hours.  Yummy things like grilled fillet Mignon and green bean/potato soup.  Various salads and homemade cookies. 

My cousin Jennifer welcomed a full house with warmth and and ice cream cake and a watchful eye for everyone's needs.  She and her husband live in a charming log cabin they built themselves filled with mementos and heirlooms and awesome quilts made by my Aunt Betty, above.

It was a cozy setting for catching up with family and taking walks in the brisk autumn air.   We don't get "brisk" air here in Florida, so I totally enjoyed the fall weather.  

We took fifteen shots of this picture, trying to get one that was not blurry, where people were open-eyed and looking at the same camera.  

Maybe next time.  Everybody's not even in this picture.  We couldn't get the dog to hold the camera, so everybody is not in anything.  

Dad was so happy to be surrounded by his family.  It exhausted him to make the trip, but he laughed all weekend.  It was a challenge traveling with a partially disabled senior citizen who has the heart of a rambunctious five-year old, but the laughs were worth the effort.  Life is short, even if you get 90 years. 

This is three generations of Hoosier blood - bookends Dad and Betty, cousin Jennifer, and our daughter relaxing on the cabin front porch, Andy Griffith style.   Priceless.

We came home with great memories, an Easter bunny M&M dispenser, some Halloween pumpkin figurines, and a gorgeous quilt that Betty made for Dad.  Hoosiers know how to party. 

Once home, we had a visit from my brother, the ex-clown, and his family.  He is expecting his second grandchild, so we snapped another priceless picture - four generations.

The ex-clown is on the left.  He's always wearing U of Maryland attire, even though their mascot is a lowly turtle.  His daughter, a PhD in English, is carrying baby Juliet, due just before Christmas.  We can't see Juliet directly, but we know she's in there.  

Thanksgiving is nine days away.   I'm grateful for so many things this year.  Seasoned parents that are still with us, and fresh babies that are on their way (a nephew's wife is pregnant as well.)  Teachers.  A car that runs.  Our local pie shop.  Russell Stover's dark chocolate raspberry creme Santas. 

Oh, and running water and sunny days, so I can keep up with the laundry. 

Election Day

Here's what I thought today when I went to vote this morning at 6:45 a.m.

1.  Wow, look at the line, I hope I'm done by 10:30.  (Sadly, I had a funeral to attend.)

2.  It's great to be standing in line with my daughter/teacher.  I don't think we've ever gone to vote together.

3.  This lady in front of us is so friendly.  We're hearing all about her son, the high school band member who plays the tuba.  His name is Caden.

4.  It's kind of chilly here in Florida, but I'm so grateful for beautiful weather, because we might be standing outside awhile.

5.  I hope the polls are open in NY and NJ.  It would be awful if, due to Sandy, people there were unable to vote.

6.  A lady who looks like a member of the Kardashian family just joined the line.

7.  The line is moving.  It's 7:10.

8.  Caden's mom remarks that if everyone would just fill out their sample ballot and bring it with them to vote, the process would go so much faster.  My daughter and I agree, because we brought our sample ballots too.   We're all feeling very pleased with ourselves. 

9.  The line is growing.  Sister Immaculata comes out of her office with two plastic lawn chairs for people who need to sit down.  It strikes me as amusingly odd that, for all the contention about God in the public square, our voting station is a church.  I love this.

10.  The movie The Secret Life of Bees comes to mind and how the character Rosaleen is beaten for walking into town to vote.  I think about this for awhile.  All the people who don't vote...all the people who think it doesn't make any difference...all the people who just don't care.   How did that happen?

11.  A couple guys in suits and ties join the line.  One has a coffee cup from Starbucks; one has a cup from 7-11.   

12.   We've moved up in the line enough to read the placards on easels that talk about voter fraud.  There is a map that outlines our voting district.  A quarter of an inch to the left, and we'd be in another precinct.

13.  A guy in a brown FedEx uniform gets in line.

14.  Caden's Mom tells us she doesn't care if she's late to work, she's going to vote, no matter how long it takes.   This makes my heart smile. 

15.  I notice a few walkers and canes in the line.  I love this. 

16.   A lady a few spots ahead of us calls to my daughter that they used to work together at the health food store.  My daughter says, yes, I remember, and they chat for a minute.

17.  We're just inside the building.  There are probably two dozen rickety, aluminum voting cubbies set up.  I pull out my driver's license.  The C-D sign-in line is the longest.  The U-Z sign-in station doesn't even have an attendant.  I'm assuming the S-T person slides over when necessary.

18.  Here we go - my daughter signs in, I sign in, and we disperse into open cubbies.  I fill out my ballot in three minutes.  Love that pre-completed ballot!

19.  I feed the four-page ballot into the machine that sucks the thing in to be counted later and receive my "I Voted" sticker.   It's now 7:45 am. 

20.  As I walk to my car, I'm happy to see the line is still long and growing.  Even if we don't completely like anybody who's running for anything, it's important to make the best informed choice and cast a ballot.  I'm so grateful I live in a country where this is a privilege.   When I was 20, I didn't appreciate it as much as I do now.

21.  I hope Florida does not hold up the results this year, like it did in 2000.  If there's a problem, I hope it's in another state.  Like North Dakota.  We never hear anything about North Dakota.  It needs some press coverage.

22.  I pray, regardless of who wins, both sides are willing to compromise a bit to get things done. 

23.  As contentious as America politics can be, I do not want to live in any other country.  Freedom is messy sometimes.

24.  To the Starbucks suit, the 7-11 suit, Caden's mom, the FedEx guy, the Kardashian chick, the health store colleague, the senior citizens, and especially Rosaleen - thanks for showing up.

Did you vote today?