Turkey Madness, Cute Doggies and Kitty, and Art Project
Hodge-podge of crap today, peeps. First, I have been craving the turkey my aunt made for Thanksgiving since ... well, Thanksgiving. So I decided to make it. It did not turn out quite as well as my aunt's. Still okay, but not the awesomeness I was desiring. Second, my kids are adorable. Fawn over them!
My aunt used a brine w/ a lot of awesome ingredients, from the Pioneer Woman website. Recipe and instructions here. A note on the salt. Mine was a bit salty. I think this was more to do w/ the turkey I bought (gasp, NOT from Whole Foods this time, damn my thin wallet!), but be very careful in cleaning off the turkey after you take it out of the brine. You're supposed to let it soak in cold water for 15 minutes, and I did, but you can never be too careful!
My ingredients, and everything a-boilin' in my big-ass stock pot.
Okay, so this recipe took about 28 hours to make, from start to finish. Obviously, about 24 of those hours, the turkey was sitting in the fridge. And it was also cooking. But I was anticipating it, smelling the brine, all weekend. And salivating! BUT MAJOR WOE, MY PEEPS!!! Do not trust the turkey roasting websites! Check it all the damn time! According to the chart, the turkey I had, due to its weight and stuffing-free-ness, should have taken four hours. I looked in every now and then, and at the THREE HOUR mark, the damn stick thingy was sticking out! It was waaaaay fucking done! I have no idea how long it had been sitting there, done. Somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours, this thing got done. So instead of juicy awesomeness, it was a tad on the dry side. Not much, b/c the brine did its fucking job, but still. I was SADFACE!!
Turkey in the brining bag. I had to put the bag in the stock pot afterwards, though, b/c it wasn't fitting in my fridge any other way. And the finished product. A little too done, in my opinion.
So that was sad news. Thankfully I have two doggies and a kitty to help me get over my sadness. And they are the cutest, yes? Yes.
My girls: Willow and Piper. Willow is tiny, but likes to take up as much of the couch as possible. W/ her furry tummy! And Piper is all adorable, cuddled up in the Princess Bed.
Two Milo pics for the price of one! Grumpy Milo is silly. Sweet Milo is cuddly.
And third! I started an art project. I will post pics of the finished product when I'm done. So what I'm doing is making, not a collage, precisely. They'll go along a beam in my living room (and I asked M for permission!). I'm taking all the postcards I've received over the years and putting them up. I thought it might look kind of dorm room-y, but eh. We'll see. I have 81 and 39 of these puppies are from my brother. He's big in written correspondence. And dude has sent me cards from California, Canada, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Dubai, Australia, Brazil, Ghana and more. He gets around! Looking through these, I found two postcards from just my dad. My mother always signs things "mom and dad" but these two are just from him, from New Orleans (my dad also did Katrina clean-up) and Colorado (his brother is suffering from brain cancer there). And I just got such a warm fuzzy feeling to see his handwriting. I kind of love this project!
My aunt used a brine w/ a lot of awesome ingredients, from the Pioneer Woman website. Recipe and instructions here. A note on the salt. Mine was a bit salty. I think this was more to do w/ the turkey I bought (gasp, NOT from Whole Foods this time, damn my thin wallet!), but be very careful in cleaning off the turkey after you take it out of the brine. You're supposed to let it soak in cold water for 15 minutes, and I did, but you can never be too careful!
My ingredients, and everything a-boilin' in my big-ass stock pot.
Okay, so this recipe took about 28 hours to make, from start to finish. Obviously, about 24 of those hours, the turkey was sitting in the fridge. And it was also cooking. But I was anticipating it, smelling the brine, all weekend. And salivating! BUT MAJOR WOE, MY PEEPS!!! Do not trust the turkey roasting websites! Check it all the damn time! According to the chart, the turkey I had, due to its weight and stuffing-free-ness, should have taken four hours. I looked in every now and then, and at the THREE HOUR mark, the damn stick thingy was sticking out! It was waaaaay fucking done! I have no idea how long it had been sitting there, done. Somewhere between 2.5 and 3 hours, this thing got done. So instead of juicy awesomeness, it was a tad on the dry side. Not much, b/c the brine did its fucking job, but still. I was SADFACE!!
Turkey in the brining bag. I had to put the bag in the stock pot afterwards, though, b/c it wasn't fitting in my fridge any other way. And the finished product. A little too done, in my opinion.
So that was sad news. Thankfully I have two doggies and a kitty to help me get over my sadness. And they are the cutest, yes? Yes.
My girls: Willow and Piper. Willow is tiny, but likes to take up as much of the couch as possible. W/ her furry tummy! And Piper is all adorable, cuddled up in the Princess Bed.
Two Milo pics for the price of one! Grumpy Milo is silly. Sweet Milo is cuddly.
And third! I started an art project. I will post pics of the finished product when I'm done. So what I'm doing is making, not a collage, precisely. They'll go along a beam in my living room (and I asked M for permission!). I'm taking all the postcards I've received over the years and putting them up. I thought it might look kind of dorm room-y, but eh. We'll see. I have 81 and 39 of these puppies are from my brother. He's big in written correspondence. And dude has sent me cards from California, Canada, Qatar, Kuwait, Jordan, Dubai, Australia, Brazil, Ghana and more. He gets around! Looking through these, I found two postcards from just my dad. My mother always signs things "mom and dad" but these two are just from him, from New Orleans (my dad also did Katrina clean-up) and Colorado (his brother is suffering from brain cancer there). And I just got such a warm fuzzy feeling to see his handwriting. I kind of love this project!