Thanksgiving Feast!

Hey yall! At a loss for Thanksgiving? Never fear - these are both of our favorite feast recipes for this food-laden day. We'd like to remind all yall the purpose of the holiday. It's easy to lose it in all the early Christmas promotion. We know we have a LOT to be thankful for this year... yall take a minute out and thank whatever god(s) or fate guide your life for the good things that happened to you too! And don't forget to spend the day with your family - however you define what family is - and if you're alone, invite your friends over who are also at loose ends, even if all you do is a pot luck or pizza. You'll have more fun and the fellowship is priceless.

The Main Event - The Turkey

Reb says it's best if you cook the turkey upside down until the final hour, then flip it over, open the foil, and brown it. The rest of this is my recipe except for the cleaning, tucking and sewing - that's Reb's.

Ingredients:

  • Any turkey
  • Olive oil
  • Minced garlic
  • Salt
  • Pepper
  • Cranberry juice
  • Stuffing (recipe below) OR
  • Apples, carrots, celery, raisins and onions, sliced thin (or any similar combination - add nuts if you like)
  • You don't eat this but you'll need it - foil, lacing hooks (made of steel wire, they are about 5 inches long and have a sharp pointed L bend on the end) and good, clean white cotton string. Do NOT use monofilament (fishing line) - it melts!

Preparation:

  • Thaw turkey if frozen. Be sure to thaw it in refrigeration, so allow a couple of days.
  • Make stuffing or chopped vegetables as outlined below. Set aside.
  • Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (moderate oven).
  • Now, get yourself so you don't have to touch anything but the bird. Raw poultry is dangerous and you don't want to spread any germs around. Get all your ingredients assembled before you get the bird outta the fridge.
  • Get the bird out and unwrap it, reading all instructions on the packaging.
  • Reach way in the bird's butt and pull out the neck, bag of giblets, and any other loose paperwork, instructions, stray ex-girlfriends - whatever you find in there loose.
  • Stick the giblets on the stove in a cup of boiling water to cook. When done, chop well and feed them to the cat or add to the stuffing - whichever you prefer. We feed them to Fatkitty - he likes em more than we do. Do NOT put raw giblets into stuffing. ALWAYS cook them first.
  • Wrap the neck up in a ziplock bag and put back in the fridge. You must cook this within a day - but it's great base for turkey soup. If you aren't a soupmaker, toss it in with the giblets while they cook and feed the meat to your dawg - being SURE you are not feeding him or her any bones.
  • Wash turkey INSIDE AND OUT, drain well, and perch in roaster pan. Make sure your pan is VERY sturdy - so many of those aluminum ones collapse when you try to lift them, and I'd hate to see you splashed with hot grease!

Seasoning and Cooking

Rub turkey very well with a good olive oil and minced garlic, salt, and pepper to taste (don't taste it tho - it's RAW).

Stuff with stuffing OR sliced apples, carrots, celery, raisins and onions (sliced thin and combined together) in both neck and tailend cavities very lightly - don't overstuff or you'll have an exploding turkey. Be VERY careful not to contaminate the extra stuffing with a raw-meat contaminated spoon. It's best to pour small amounts of stuffing into a separate bowl and stuff from that one.

Refrigerate leftover stuffing to reheat at serving time.

Tuck the neck back in the neck hole.

Tuck the wings underneath like you hold your hands to be the "Masked Avenger" (sort of dislocated and backwards).

Sew up the bird's backside. You can get little hooks that make it easier in the grocery - just spear it with the hooks and lace the string between them like you are lacing up football pants. Flip the tail back over the sewing. The tail by the way is real fatty, but some think it's the best part!

Tie it's lil ole feet together over the butt. Trim any loose string.

Pour cranberry juice over it until one inch rests in the pan.

Cook according to directions on bird - upside down - for all but an hour of it, and covered completely in foil across the top. Most birds need 20 minutes at 350 degrees per pound of bird, but READ THE BIRD'S OWN DIRECTIONS.

After you stick it in the oven, wash your hands, cooking utensils and containers, counters, and oven door handle with a good antibacterial soap. This is a VERY important step! Don't cook anything else til you've done this.

In the last hour, flip the bird over and peel back foil. Baste every 15 minutes until done.

You can tell it's done if the leg pulls away easily with no blood or dark pink/red meat showing near the bone - or if that handy dandy little red temperature popup thing they put in most birds today has popped up. By the way, you can get one of those turkey tester popup things at the grocery if your bird doesn't come with one. Just stab it into the breast meat before you stick it in the oven.

When done, baste just before serving so it's nicely brown and glistening. Transfer to serving plate, garnish, and impress your friends and family with a beautiful, moist bird!

Stuffin'

This is a good, basic, down-home southern stuffing from my experience.

Ingredients:

  • 4 cups of your favorite cornbread, broken up into small pieces. Best if a slight bit dry, but NOT stale.
  • 1 1/2 cups chopped celery
  • 1/2 cup chopped onions
  • 1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon sage
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • Fresh ground black pepper to taste
  • 2 tablespoons Worchestershire Sauce
  • 1 tablespoon Dijon Mustard
  • 1 tablespoon lemon juice
  • 1 can condensed cream of mushroom soup (not mixed with milk or water)
  • One stick butter, melted (only needed if not cooking stuffing in bird)

Mix ingredients - add water if needed to moisten.

Stuff into bird as outlined above and cook with bird, or

Bake in a deep baking dish for 1 1/2 hours. You may have to add a melted stick of butter to moisten it if you aren't cooking it in the bird.

Reb's Gravy

Ingredients:

  • Drippings from turkey. Skim off most the fat. Keep the little bits of meat and crunchy stuff. Be sure you don't have any bones.
  • Giblets (cooked and chopped) if you like that sort of thing.
  • Flour as needed.
  • Heavy cream as needed.

Pour the drippings into a sauce pan and put the heat on medium (not boiling). If you don't like any lumps, strain the bits of meat and crunchy stuff out and puree, then return to the drippings.

Mix the flour by the tablespoon full with water, to make a paste (a "rue")

SLOWLY mix the rue a teaspoon at a time into the pan drippings, using a whisk to be sure there are no lumps.

Keep doing that until it's a bit too thick.

SLOWLY pour in heavy cream, a tablespoon at a time, until it's the perfect thickness. Stir continually.

Add cooked giblets if you like them. A trick is to puree them so they don't make the gravy lumpy.

Change heat to low and keep warm until serving time.

Sweet Potato Casserole

This one will make ya wanna kiss yer mama!

Ingredients:

  • 4 large sweet potatos
  • 1 tablespoon cinnamon
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 1/2 cup orange juice
  • Flaked coconut
  • Miniature marshmallows

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Wash, bake for 45 min to an hour, skin and mash the potatos.

Mix in all other ingredients.

Spread evenly in a large baking dish. Top with flaked coconut and miniature marshmallows.

Bake until topping is a nice deep brown.

Reb's Not a Cook Green Bean Casserole

Ingredients:

  • Two frozen packages of French cut green beans
  • One can condensed cream of celery soup, not mixed with milk or water
  • One can French Fried potato sticks
  • 1/4 cup Parmesan cheese

Preheat the oven at 375 degrees F.

Pour beans in casserole dish.

Pour soup over beans.

Pour French Fries and cheese over top.

Bake until topping is brown.

Reb's Easy Cranberry Jelly Fluff

Ingredients:

  • One can cranberry jelly
  • One small container "cool whip"
  • One package cream cheese

Mix jelly with cream cheese and cool whip.

Pour into jello mold.

Chill overnight.

Unmold and serve.

Reb's Rolls

Ingredients:

  • One package dry yeast
  • 3-4 cups flour
  • One stick butter, melted and cooled but not congealed
  • One cup milk or buttermilk (I prefer buttermilk)
  • Teaspoon salt
  • One egg, scrambled raw

Pour milk, two tablespoons of the butter, and salt into a small sauce pan. Heat on high until it scalds but does not brown. You'll be able to smell the scald and see it coat the pan sides. Immediately remove from the heat. If you are using buttermilk it will separate and look gross but don't let that bother you. Stir well and set aside to cool.

Warm up a little juice cup with hot water.

Dump out hot water. Pour in two tablespoons warm water (just warm to touch). Sprinkle yeast on top of water and shake a little until it is all wet. Set aside 10 minutes.

After the 10 minutes, the yeast should be an even grey/brown soup and the milk should be cool enough that if you stick your finger in it you won't pull it away with a yelp, but it still feels warm.

Mix yeast, milk mixture, and the egg together.

Pour about 2 cups flour in a bowl and make a dent in the middle.

Pour wet mixture into that dent and stir well until mixed.

If it's still very sticky or batter like, keep adding flour a little at a time until dough pulls away from sides of bowl and you can touch it without too much sticking to you (some still will).

Rub some butter on your hands and counter top (be sure counter is very clean).

Dump batter onto countertop. I use a plastic cutting board that I set aside for just this purpose instead of the counter. If you do that, be SURE you NEVER cut meat on that cutting board!

Gently fold and re-fold, kneading it, until it becomes elastic and shapes easily into a big ball.

Pour the rest of the butter into an oversized warm buttered bowl. Put ball of dough into it and roll it around until evenly coated. Cover gently with a clean dishtowel.

Put into the warmest part of your house, where there are NO cold drafts.

Ignore it about 2-4 hours.

Clean up your mess.

Check on it - if the dough has doubled in size you are ready for the next step.

If dough has doubled, pour it back out onto a freshly buttered countertop or cutting board. Again butter your hands too.

Very gently punch it down and knead/fold it together lightly - only do this about 5 minutes.

Put it back in the bowl and pour a little cooled melted butter over the top. Cover again with dish towel. Return it to the rising place.

Ignore it about 30 min - 1 hour.

Clean up your mess.

Check on it - if it's doubled again, it's ready for the final steps.

If dough has doubled, pour it back out onto a freshly buttered countertop or cutting board. Be VERY careful NOT to squash it. Keep it as fluffy as you can.

Gently use a sharp knife and cut it into handful sized lumps. Put the lumps into buttered large muffin tins. Don't shape them or anything - keep them as fluffy as you can.

Paint each lump with a bit of warm melted butter and cover muffin pans with dishcloth and return them to the rising place.

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F.

Clean up your mess.

After dough has rested 15-30 minutes, remove from rising place and put in oven.

Bake 15-25 minutes (check at 15 to see if brown) until golden brown.

Remove from oven, butter tops, and remove immediately from muffin tins. Wrap in CLEAN (Not the same you rose the dough under - that has raw egg on it) dish towels or cloth napkins and keep warm until served.

These freeze VERY well if wrapped tightly in foil.

Serve good old iced tea, wine if you can drink it, juice, or coffee for beverage. Cider is nice too! For dessert, Buy it! Or make your guests bring it and the salad. You've done enough for one day. Or, reflect through some of my previous recipes for ideas. Or write Reb - she's the baker of the house!

My previous weeks recipes: Down Home, Hillbilly, Veggie, Chicken BWWAAKK, Hoe Down BBQ! and Reader's Recipes!

See ya! JADE