Two For 66

Saturday, November 26, 2011

Thanksgiving 2011 - Preparation

We had a great Thanksgiving this year. I took Wednesday off to prepare the turkey. Based on my experiment in September my cooking plan went like this

Tuesday night: prepare the brine; cool overnight
Wednesday morning: put turkey in brine
Wednesday afternoon: prepare the drip pan gravy; make cornbread for stuffing; oil the new cutting board; move furniture
Wednesday night: remove turkey from brine and put in fridge over night to dry out.
Thursday: cook the bird; reduce the drippings and make the gravy

The brining and other prep went much better this time compared to September. I used an Alton Brown recipe for the brine instead of the Amazing Ribs recipe which called for 7 cups of salt (insane). Plus the gravy just wasn't that tasty. I think next year I'm going to just get a Butterball and cook it in the smoker just like I would in the oven.

Pictures and descriptions of the preparation.

Tuesday night

Brine ingredients

Brine ready for cooling in the refrigerator overnight

Wednesday
I use a 5 gallon insulated drink cooler for the brine. This is like football teams use on the sidelines. It's great; the temp stays below 32 for hours. I weight the turkey down with a milk jug filled with ice. It takes a long time to break ice cubes down to a size that will fit through the opening. There's got to be an easier way.

Turkey in the brine. Weighted down by a milk jug of frozen water.

Pan drippings setup

Simmer the vegetables and aromatics with the turkey neck

Cool overnight. I'll microwave it Thursday before putting it in the roasting pan

My new cutting board! I treated it with mineral oil

Corn bread mixings

The cornbread; just short of burned. This will be turned into dressing for the turkey

Add some thyme and sage to olive oil overnight before rubbing.

Turkey out of the brine and drying out a bit in the refrigerator. You can see I tore the skin a bit trying to loosen it for the wet rub underneat

Thursday

Wet rub and aromatics

Smoke for 45 minutes then cook at 340 until the breast registers 160*

Onto the smoker. On a rack over a roasting pan holding the gravy

Set the tables

After 45 minute sof smoke; add some aluminum foil to legs and wings for protection

An hour later remove the foil

Leave the lid closed a few hours. If you're lookin' you ain't cookin'

All done!

I was ridiculously pleased with my carving this year. I sliced the breast differently; take it all off then cut sideways.

Carve

Ready

Sunday, October 30, 2011

Halfway to Winter

Halloween marks the midpoint between autumn and winter. In the past week it has definitely turned more towards winter as many of the leaves are down. Two weeks ago I captured these trees with all the leaves still on the limbs.

No bright blue skies today; the rains are coming in

But it's a schizophrenic time. There are still flowers in bloom. I guess that's what makes Halloween so interesting; not fall but not winter either.

With Halloween tomorrow I hoped to get a few shots of Jack 'O Lanterns on today's walk.

Not sure what this is supposed to be

I couldn't figure out what this was until I downloaded the picture to my computer

Crazy scary!

Interesting: painted, not carved

A classic

Here's my punkin; I've got to figure out what to do with it.

As usual my craftsmanship doesn't match my vision. I wanted a big clown mouth and my theory on Jack 'O Laterns is that that the bigger openings the better. I think I made the mouth too big; I wish the candle wasn't so visible. Maybe pumpkin is not my media.
Carla did a nice job on getting the crazy sideways looking guy.

Wednesday, October 26, 2011

A picture from my new camera

Was playing with my new camera and wanted to get a picture that would grab the foreground and leave the background dark. Here's what I came up with.

One of the drop lights over our island

and another one with a bit longer exposure time (1/60 second v. 1/80) f stop 2; focal length 5.2

I was happy I could not pick up the late evening light in the windows behind the light.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

Minestrone Soup

At the Volks March today we donated a few cans of soup for the local food pantry. So soup was on our minds and it seemed a little Minestrone was called for. The recipe came in a recent Cook's Illustrated magazine. Two things intrigued me about the recipe. First was the use of white beans. I've been meaning to use some white beans in a recipe and this seemed perfect. Second was the fact that you simmer a hunk of parmesan cheese rind with the beans for about an hour.

Here's the line up.

Lots of good vegetables.

Mise én place

Render the fat out of the prosciutto

Add the onions, carrots, celery, & zuchinni

After the tough vegetables soften for about 8 or 10 minutes we add the cabbage, red pepper flakes, garlic, and a bit o' salt.

Add the cabbage

Problem: We want firm vegetables in the soup but we need to boil those beans for almost an hour.
Solution: Reserve the vegetables for later use

Set aside the vegetables for a bit

Beans go on an aggressive simmer for 45 minutes.

Add the vegetables back in for 15 minutes

Add some chopped basil

Dinner is served

Dinner!

I think this is a winner! Perfect for a fall day.

Sherwood Merry Walkers Volks Walk

My work has a "Healthy Steps" program where you get points for various activities. I get most of my points from swimming and yoga, but you need to have a few public activities in order to get full credit (meaning cash rewards at the end of the year and reductions in health insurance premiums).

I found the Sherwood Merry Walkers website through work and the 10K walk through Sherwood during the fall colors looked like it might be fun. So this morning we headed down Roy Rogers Road to the Sherwood YMCA which was the starting point

I just got a new camera this week: Canon Powershot S100; today would be a good time to see how it works. It's got a lot of options; it will take me a while to get used to them all.