We had thawed out the 24 pound turkey I had bought for $.67/lb. at Lowe’s before Thanksgiving yesterday. This morning Suzette cut in half and roasted a butternut squash in the oven. I chopped two stalks of celery and 1 onion for Suzette to use in her dressing, while she cut up the half loafed of whole wheat bread and Fano baguette. I then went to the garden and picked a handful of oregano and a handful of sage leaves that were not too frost bitten and chopped each up separately. The ½ cup of chopped sage went into the dressing. While Suzette added stirred eggs and water to the stuffing and mixed and stuffed the dressing into the turkey and put the giblets and neck into a pot of water on the stove at low heat to make a turkey stock, I diced ½ of the butternut squash, after de-seeding it, 2 sweet potatoes, 1 small onion, 2 shallots, the handful of de-stemmed oregano (about 1 cup), and about 1 lb. of Brussels sprouts that I had removed the tough ends from and had made criss-cross cuts into in the ends.
I put the ingredients into our large roasting pan and Suzette doused the vegetables with Olive oil and a bit of salt and pepper. I then covered the vegetables with aluminum foil and baked them in a 350 degree oven for 30 minutes covered and 30 minutes uncovered and the put the roasting pan into the fridge in the garage.
We then turned our attention to the turkey we trussed the neck and tail cavity to hold in the dressing and rubbed the flesh with about 4 oz. of butter, and put the bird into an oven bag with about 2 Tbsp. of flour. We then put the bag into the big blue roasting pan.
At noon I asked Luke if he wanted some noodle soup and when he said yes, I started a pot of water to which I added ½ tsp. of dehydrated dashi, a stalk of celery, diced, ¼ onion, the PPI pork and Bok Choy from last night, a large Tbsp. of red miso, about a Tbsp. of seaweed threads, three types of noodles and about 1 Tbsp. each of soy, fish sauce, and Chinese rice wine and a dash of sesame oil. I then added about 3 oz of diced tofu and chopped up two green onions. I fetched the Hoisin sauce and Shiracha and the bag of cilantro and we had a wonderful lunch of noodle soup.
At 1:00 I went to Ranch Market and bought limes ($.77/lb.), Latin Crema ($1.69/lb.), onions (3/lb. for $.99), 4 smoked pork chops at $3.49/lb., 4 sweet limes at $.99/lb.
I then went to Albertson's for milk, eggs, and a lb. of fresh Atlantic salmon at $5.99/lb..
When I got back home a little after 2:00 Eloy, garage repair man was leaving and I waved at hi and he gave me his estimate to fix the automatic garage doors.
At around 2:30 I put the turkey into a 350 degree oven on the lowest level of convection.
It was a clear and sunny afternoon but cold at around 40 degrees so I rode to Rio Bravo and back at 3:00. Soon after I returned home at 4:00 Suzette arrived and shortly after that Mario arrived to move stuff to the basement and out of the garage, so we can park cars in the garage again.
By 6:30 the turkey had achieved an internal temperature of 162 degrees, which we considered fully cooked . The guides said turkey should be cooked to an internal temperature of 165 degrees. We took the turkey out of the oven, because Melissa arrived at 6:20 and Luke shortly after her.
I poured Melissa a glass of Pinot Grigio and myself a glass of Sicilian Grillo. Melissa then recounted a fantastic story of how she spent her Autumn. Melissa writes for “Days of our Lives” and when she saw the BBC news segment on the disabled girl who was wheeled by her family from Kobani, Syria to Europe that we had seen on BBC World News, her heart was touched when the 16 year old girl in the wheel chair said she had learned English by watching “Days of Our Lives”. John Oliver did a long segment on Immigrants and Refugees in which he featured the BBC segment with Nadia. Melissa saw the John Oliver segment and noted that Nadia had said she was saddened when her two favorite characters died on the show. So Melissa found out where Nadia and her family had been settled in Germany, wrote a short segment that brought the two characters back to life, contacted the actors, one of whom was in retirement and living in Vancouver, and got them to act out Melissa’s script, in which they said coming back to life was not as difficult as coming from Syria to Germany. To make a long story shorter, Melissa and one of the show’s fans raised over $4,000 from the show’s fans on line and visited Nadia and her family in Germany and the fan club has helped Nadia and her family. Also, the segment Melissa wrote and produced has been seen on You Tube by over 8,000,000 people.
What an Autumn Melissa has had!
At 6:30 we opened the bag and the turkey was perfectly cooked with the meat falling off the bone and the breast meat tender. It could not have been more perfectly cooked and the dressing was moist and flavorful. Suzette removed the dressing to a serving dish and I sliced one thigh and three or four slices of breast from the steaming hot turkey.
I put the meat on a wooden cutting board and Suzette spooned some of the roasted vegetables into a serving bowl and heated them in the microwave. I put some of the cranberry sauce I made last week into a cut glass compote bowl and Suzette made a roux with 4 oz. of butter and 2 or 3 Tbsp. of flour and I fetched the turkey stock from the fridge and heated it on the stove and Suzette combined the roux and turkey stock to make a gravy while I minced the giblets and some neck meat to make giblet gravy. I poured glasses of Grillo, which had matured to a slightly bitter wine, with very strong character. Not exactly an elegant white wine but perfect for washing down the heavy flavors of roasted vegetables and dressing. I was glad it was our last bottle. Melissa did not seem to like it.
We discussed the psychological problems of her nephew a bit and many other topics. Luke made the best comment, “I wonder how people become psychologically unbalanced from a spiritual stand point?”
We said goodnight to Melissa at 9:00 after inviting her to ourChristmas Eve party.
For those of you who read this blog, we are having our Annual Christmas Eve open House this year and you are invited to drop in between 5:30 and whenever.
Bon Appetit
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