Everybody have a great Thanksgiving

[taipantoo]

Just wishing everybody a great and safe Thanksgiving day.

I got home from work around 11:30 last night to find that he wife had made the brine, corn bread, and Butter Tasting Grands.
So I took the turkey out of the fridge where it had been thawing since Friday.
I removed the giblets, neck, and trimmed off the extra skin & fat and set them to boil.
Then I washed the turkey and put it in the frier and covered it with water to measure how much oil I would need to fry it.
I added ice to the brine and put the turkey in when the pot began to sweat.
I suppose I could have used the giblet water to make the stuffing, but I didn't think of it until it was too late.
I chopped up the onions and the celery and went to bed.
I set the alarm for 5:00 to get up and turn the turkey over.

To be continued.....

[taipantoo]

Continued....

I got up about 7:30 to make some coffee and put the stuffing together.
(Thanks for the last minute dried to fresh herb conversion, Jeff - I know yesterday must have been very busy for you.)
At the last minute I decided to chop up the giblets and add them to the stuffing.
Well, it looks and smells like stuffing and it's cooking in my new crock pot as I write this.
It's time to get cleaned up and get my oil boiling.
I won't have time to write again today because I'll have to bring the turkey and stuffing to my Son's house and help him because he is cooking for 30 people.

[jeff]

Happy Thanks Giving. Yesterday busy for me? ha, I made a sweet potato pie on Tuesday night and ate Chinese last night =)
I'm heading to the parents where they're doing all the cooking.
I'd cook something other then a dessert but I know there will be more then enough already there.

Even skipped my crab ball idea since there's too much going on food wise already.

This a nice step to step story line of how the turkey made it to the table =)

[taipantoo]

Sorry for the delay.

The Oil took too long to heat up, about 15 minutes to get it to 100*, another 10 minutes to get it to 200*, and about 20 more to get it to 350*.
When I put the turkey in, the temperature of the oil dropped to just over 200* and I could not get it to rise past 260* for the first hour of cooking.
At the time I blamed it on a cold, rainy, windy day, but after an hour of cooking I picked up the propane tank and found it to be about empty.
I've never known a near empty tank to perform that badly, but I switched out the tanks and the temp went right up to 360* before I turned it down a little.
Anyways, I decided to cook it for the full 80 minutes (3 to 4 minutes per pound for a 19 lb. turkey is 60 to 80 minutes).
Then I made an error in judgement.
Instead of pulling it out and sticking a meat thermometer in it, I cooked it for another 20 minutes because i had the time.
It wasn't burnt, but it was definately well done.
The meat was flavored wonderfully and was a big hit at dinner.
The first thing to disappear was the skin.
Everybody just kept picking at it until dinner stated.

The stuffing I made from scratch was also very good and my new programable crock pot worked flawlessly.

I ate turkey, stuffing, dirty mashed potatos with sour cream and garlic, sweet potato pie, peas, corn, blue hubbord squash, carrot and turnip casarole, whole wheat buns made from scratch, cranbury sauce, and eggnog.
I was stuffed.
There was also a brocoli and cheese casarole, a bunch of other dishes that I could not identify by sight, and a ton of deserts.

I did take a couple of pictures while frying the turkey and will try to post them as soon as I put in my new 400 gig hard drive.
I currently have a 400 gig, an 80 gig, and 2 120 gigs as a single volume, and I have no space left to manuver on my system.
I have downloaded way to many movie torrents.

All in all, it was a great day.

[taipantoo]

Hmmm....

I hit the edit button to fix a typo, but the post quick reply button won't let me post because my message is too short, hence this message.

[taipantoo]

Originally Posted by taipantoo

Hmmm....

I hit the edit button to fix a typo, but the post quick reply button won't let me post because my message is too short, hence this message.

Not only that, but my typo isn't fixed.
It's probably just me.
I closed the store last night at 11:00PM and have to be back this morning at 6:00AM.
I just haven't had enough sleep.

[510dat]

Thanksgiving was successful for my family this year. It was small, just my parents, my brother and I. Dad cooked the turkey, mom made pumpkin pie and stuffing, my brother made some excellent garlic mashed potates, and I made butternut squash soup.

And then on Friday for some reason I decided that I needed to make meatloaf, which is very tasty, but was waaaaay more food than I had planned on.

Where is everybody, anyway? Still stuffed, I guess.

[jeff]

I went up to Canada for the weekend. Just got back.
=)~