Forgot to add this for the stuffing recipe!

2 1/2       tablespoons   paprika
2     tablespoons salt
2     tablespoons garlic powder
1     tablespoon black pepper
1     tablespoon onion powder
1     tablespoon dried oregano leaves
1     tablespoon dried leaf thyme

So what's cooking with you all today?

"Little people are very stuff-intensive."

You don't actually cook all this yumminess you post about do you?  Because, if so, I want dinner invitations.

"Have you no sense of decency, sir. At long last, have you left no sense of decency?" -- Boston Attorney Joseph Welch, taking down Sen. Joseph McCarthy.

Boy, that looks good!  I'm going to try to find a pot large enough to brine a turkey in.  Just wondering, the cola probably can't be diet, right?

one of the best and funniest food writers ever who has long campaigned to replace turkey with Spaghetti alla Carbonara as the traditional Thanksgiving meal:

Spaghetti alla Carbonara

Olive oil for frying

1/2 pound pancetta, sliced like bacon, then cut into small slivers
(bacon or prosciutto can be substituted).

3 eggs

1/2 cup half-and-half

1/4 pound butter

1 pound spaghetti, linguine, or fettucine

2/3 cup grated Romano cheese

freshly ground pepper

Heat a little olive oil in a skillet and fry the pancetta until the fat becomes transparent. Drain the pancetta on a paper towel. Beat the eggs and half-and-half together in a bowl. Melt the butter in a microwave. Cook the spaghetti in salted water, according to package directions. As soon as it is ready, drain into a colander and return it to the same pot. Add the butter, pancetta and eggs mixture, stirring constantly with wooden spoons so the eggs cook on the hot noodles. Add the Romano and pepper to taste. Serve immediately.

If I had my life to live over, I would do it all again, but this time I would be nastier -- Jeannette Rankin

Boy oh boy - hungry and it's just breakfast time!

Okay my turkey is very boring and very easy....caveat we are not terribly fond of Turkey - we find it dry. We buy them on sale, cook them, then use the meat for frozen meals, pot pies, and soups.

Sally's Pot Roasted Turkey

Thaw the bird...
Empty and rinse thoroughly
Place in large old fashioned blue roaster on a rack
Place about 1/2 inch of water in bottom
Rub the bird with sage and salt and pepper
Place 1/2 large onion cut into wedges inside the bird
Place 6-8 strips of smoked bacon across the top of the bird
Put in oven at 425 for 40 minutes uncovered - or until bacon is brown
Remove bacon - gnosh on it if you want or save for later in stuffing (we don't stuff our birds)
Put on Roaster lid - make sure there is still 1/2 inch of water in bottom of pan
Roast until close to falling of the bone - usually 20 minutes longer than the instructions say.

Remove from oven - cool until it can be handled easily
Make LOTS of gravy from the drippings

Strip the meat, place in containers with the gravy for easy dinners, make crusts and pot pies, or place some meat and bones aside to make soup stock. Freeze all when done.

Use the turkey as substitute in any recipe that calls for chicken. We also use a vacuum seal so the frozen meat lasts 3-6 months in our large freezer.

Hi, everyone, I am going with daughter this morning so I will check in when I get back to see how many diaries of FBC have been done by then.

Click here to step into the Village Blue2

Thought the cafe needed some music for the holiday mood.

If I had my life to live over, I would do it all again, but this time I would be nastier -- Jeannette Rankin

Did you guys see this diary yet?

Creepy.

"Little people are very stuff-intensive."

Lacking a big enough fridge, we put the turkey inside a garbage bag, poured the brine in the bag, then immersed the lot into a wastebasket of icewater on the outdoor porch for the cure.

We weighted it down so that it was fully immersed and didn't need turning. The pressure of the icewater outside the turkey bag reduced the amount of brine needed.


We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy.... --ML King, "Beyond Vietnam"

The bluejay was too smart for me to get a photo, but these guys below showed some appreciation for the oil sunflower seeds.

Click for larger photos

chickadee

goldfinches

msdownywoodpecker

nuthatch
 





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Now, this recipe requires left-over cornbread from the recipe found in the Veggie/Side Dishes mentioned above, so I won't repeat that.

Broth from chicken or make your own broth from any parts of the turkey you do not wish to cook and each (neck, etc.)
4 cups corn bread crumbs
2 cups light bread crumbs (white bread)
1/2 cup onions, chopped
1 cup celery, chopped
4 eggs, bigger the better
1 TBSP sage
Dash Black pepper

Mix bread crumbs together, add onion, celery, eggs, sage, and pepper. Add enough broth to make mixture light and "sloppy" but not thin & runny, stirring well. Oil skillet (ideally a well-seasoned large iron skillet), while pre-heating oven to 450 degrees. Pour stuffing mixture into skillet and bake about 30 minutes until brown around edges and done to suit your taste in the center. You can stuff the turkey with this, if you choose.

Since I was gone most of dessert day, I have to add Flossie's pecan pie recipe.  (Say it like a native where the trees grow! In true Southern style, that's spoken Puh KAHN. . )

World's Best Pecan Pie

1 really good unbaked pie crust in 9" glass pie plate
2 large eggs
1 cup white sugar
1 cup white (clear) Karo syrup
1 stick butter or margarine
1/2 tsp. vanilla
1 cup or more pecan halves

Beat eggs well. Melt butter or margarine carefully without burning it, set aside to cool just a bit. Mix sugar and syrup together thoroughly, add eggs and stir until completely mixed. Add vanilla and mix well. Arrange pecan halves one layer deep on bottom and sides of pie crust. Pour filling over pecans, and wait a bit until pecans rise to surface. If some pecans do not rise, fill in with more pecans, being sure to dip them below the surface so they are covered with the filling even as they sit on top of the pie. Bake at 300 degrees for a very long time - usually an hour or more. At about an hour, check with a wooden spoon, to see if the filling bounces when  you press on it lightly. When the filling no longer bounces, remove the pie. (Or if the edges appear to be burning, remove the pie!) If your oven runs hot, as some newer electric models do, bake at 275 degrees.

Cool only as long as you want too. Delicious hot with ice cream; or warm; cool; or stone cold, anytime! Double the recipe, you will need more than one.

When I was a kid, we had this radio show we always listened to in the mornings, getting up and ready for school. That station is all-talk now (and airs Limbaugh, argh), but back then, a lot of people in the DC metro area always woke up to Hardin & Weaver. They were funny old guys, veterans of radio who'd been on-the-air partners for something like twenty years, very laid back and old-fashioned. I never heard them say anything mean about anybody. Weaver did voices -- he had a number of characters who'd make appearances, including a blowhard Senator (who had a deep, gravely voice like Senator Dirkson), a little old lady, and others.

One of their traditions was that every year, they'd talk about their special recipe for popcorn stuffing. The idea was that you'd put the raw popcorn in the bird, and put the bird in the oven... and of course, this never came out exactly as they planned. They'd talk about having to file a Environmental Impact Statement before using the recipe; about making sure one's home owner's policy was up to date first; about how many cups of popcorn for how many pounds of turkey multiplied by square footage of the house, minus the ages of all dinner guests... Every time they started talking about it, you listened carefully, because you never knew just what they'd come up with next. Occasionally they'd even have people phone in with their own experiences with the notorious recipe, and put those people on the air.

We still talk about doing the popcorn stuffing every year when my family gets together. Hopefully this year, as in other years, we will ultimately opt for the less volitile combination of onion, celery and breadcrumbs...

Keith Olbermann speaks for me.

I have Harry Potter Hangover.  [yawn]  I hate spoilers so all I will say is:  you MUST go see Goblet of Fire.  It was FANTASTIC, by far [yawn] the best of the series.  I am going to have a rough time staying awake at work since I only got a couple hours of sl...zzzzzzzzzzzzz


We are condemned to kill time, thus we die bit by bit - Octavio Paz / Latino Político

I had to pour several buckets of hot water over my outlet for the sump pump as the outlet was frozen solid. Too much hose curled around the yard... ice had backed right up to house,not enough gravity to the situation, I guess.

But I got lucky, as the most amazing thing, the pump still works, so I suppose I saved $120 there, whooopppee!!!

Only trouble now is my empty belly and all this food talk. Time to rectify that situation. Go spend some of my savings?

Nonviolent Action information available here

I brine mine using rosemary, celery, cut up onion, a clove of garlic, and peppercorns in my brine.  

I'm going to give y'all my very best T-giving recipe.  It  takes a litte extra work than conventional pecan pie recipes, but I know you will be thanking me for it:

Texan By Injection Pecan Pie

1 - 9" unbaked pie crust fitted into a 9" deep dish pie plate (preferably a clear glass one)

2-3 cups freshly shelled pecans

Put the nuts into the pie crust.  Set aside in fridge.

1 cup light corn syrup
1/2 cup dark brown sugar
1/2 stick real butter
1/2 tsp salt
2 tablespoons flour

Cook the above to a rolling boil.  After butter melts, boil another 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly.

Let cool to room temperature.  (You can put the pot into an ice bath and stir the syrup until cooled)

Add
1 teaspoon real vanilla
3 beaten eggs

Pour the mixture into the pie shell with the nuts.

Bake at 375 degrees on the bottom shelf of your oven for 20 minutes.  Lower temperature to 325 degrees and bake another 20-30 minutes.  The top may crack, but that's OK, it will disappear as the pie cools.

You can use 2 pie crusts in 2 shallow 8" pie plates, 2 cups pecans in each, and divide the syrup-egg mixture between the two, baking for only 20 minutes at the last baking.  This will give you candy in a crust, not the traditional chess pie.

To make Derby Pie, add 3/4  cup tiny chocolate chips to the original recipe with the pecans, and 1/4 cup bourbon with the vanilla.  What could be easier?  I call that North American Cup Derby Pie, in honor of Louisville gallantly putting on a fantastic fencing tournament nearly every year.

An FBC diary dedicated to bush? lol

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This diary is too tasty to read at work with yucky-packed-work-lunch! These all sound so good. My stomach is growling.

I don't have my recipes right now but I can hopefully add them later (right CG? And I've still got to post the bread ones ... yikes!)

How's everyone today?

Here's a photo I don't think I've posted yet,

Rosebud, taken 8.13.2005 (Best viewed large!)


parvum opus

Can't forget that.

Cranberry Relish with Jalapenos

4 c. cranberries, frozen then coarsely chopped in food processor
4 t. fresh ginger, grated
2 large jalapeno peppers, seeded and chopped fine
1/2 c. chopped red onion
4 T. lime juice
2 oranges, sectioned and chopped
1 stalk celery, finely chopped
1 c. granulated sugar

Grate ginger into a bowl and add cranberries. Combine remaining ingredients and let sit overnight to several days.

When I first took this to family gatherings, some of my relatives were a little hesitant to try it - jalapenos!???

But it is awesome. Now on my most-requested recipe list. From Martha Stewart, of all people. Who knew that someone from Connecticut could use jalapenos so well?

We are all different, but all in the same boat. --Alice

If you have a wheat allergy like David does, but still love the flavor of old-fashioned sage dressing, here's an idea that works pretty well.

This stuffing does not go in the bird.  You can make it anytime as it reheats well.

RICE: Make a batch of rice of any kind. I'd use a mixture of basmati, wild, red or whatever.

SPICES:  salt, pepper, sage in amounts you like.  I like lots of sage.

ONION and CELERY:  chop and sautee in olive oil till slightly soft.

MIX it all together.  It'll taste ALMOST like old-fashioned stuffing.

ENJOY

"It does not require many words to speak the truth." ...Chief Joseph, Nez Perce

I'm back!  With a fine new fiberoptic internet connection, I might add...Now to catch up on 4'ing everyone!

"Little people are very stuff-intensive."

Here's the best recipe for mashed potatoes that you've ever eaten -- guaranteed!

5 lbs. Yukon Gold potatoes
8 oz. cream cheese (large package)
1 stick of butter
1 cup of sour cream
salt & pepper
1/2 cup chives or scallions

Peel and dice potatoes, boil until soft.  Drain, mash & add ingredients.  Can be prepared in advance and reheated @350 for 45 minutes.

We only dare to eat them once a year, and they are always the first of the leftovers to disappear!!

Finally got the spouse off the computer -- it's gonna be a loooong two+ weeks vacation around here with only one computer...

Got an early call from my gyn's office -- he was ill today, so my test got rescheduled to Tuesday morning. Fine with me... :) more time for reading.

Going out to order our new bed this afternoon, then probably hit Fresh Choice for dinner if the one we're thinking of going to has reopened (after remodeling). Tonight and tomorrow will be devoted to cleaning, with a possible break to watch the Big Game (Stanford vs. Cal).

Well, need to go get dressed...back later...

I'm gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised People all over this world are getting organized -- Wilco

First dibs!!!

Just cleared off the sofa...move aside it's nap time after all the yummy food!

but I like hard talkin'

Eat 4 Today: Just today I'm not going to take seconds & not eating between meals

Puget4 spent the morning wrestling with an obstinate craftshop assembly, mastering it at last only for us to discover that the main part had a fatal flaw so she'll have to repeat it all after her lunchtime snooze.

Meanwhile I bundled up Florida Mom for a run to our country convenience store where we enjoyed the scene above. The grass here will stay green all winter as will the confier trees and some other kinds of trees.

We are called to speak for the weak, for the voiceless, for victims of our nation and for those it calls enemy.... --ML King, "Beyond Vietnam"

SE View at Sunset

The white specks on the horizon are cooperative grain elevators in two small cities about 25 miles as the crow flies

SE View at Sunrise

What looks like smoke on the horizon is steam from American Crystal sugar beet plant about 30 miles SE, same crow.

Should I open up a B&B for BTrs?

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looks more like a BBC report from the British commons.  

see CSPAN don't know if this is live or repeat, break now as they vote on whether to strike the words of the recently elected R-b**ch from Ohio.

Nonviolent Action information available here