Wednesday 25 December
As our reader will remember, we
didn't get to eat turkey this Thanksgiving, so we made up for it by getting an
18-pound whole bird at Busch's and a breast at Luken's.
The former brined for a couple of
days, according to the Joy of Cooking
recipe (minus sugar, plus peppercorns and bay leaves and berries from Moshav
Zafririm). Then it went into the smoker
with some cherrywood chips, and smoked about four hours, to perfection.
Holt then deboned the turkey
breast, stuffed it with our homegrown kale and collards, sautéed and flavored
with onion and garlic, and rolled it up.
It was meant to take about an hour and a half, and ended up closer to
three. Oh well, we'll know next time.
In the meantime, we filled up on
appetizers: the venison paté Holt made for his birthday, an assortment of cheeses
and crackers, and our own pickles of all sorts.
As the rolled turkey breast neared
doneness, we made cornbread dressing with sausage and sage; mashed up a potful of white potatoes; fried a ton of brussels
sprouts in olive oil and steamed them with lemon zest, lemon juice, and a little
wine; and prepared fresh cranberry relish, i.e. 12-16 oz. berries, two large
oranges (skin and all), and 1 cup sugar, whizzed together in the robot-coupe. Barbara had made cranberry chutney in advance, so it could ripen and mature by Christmas day.
And at about 7 PM, we laid the feast out
on the two big tables, and had at it.
The smoked turkey won for juiciness and flavor, though the piquancy of
the rolled breast was appreciated (especially by Garrett, who had the greens
without the turkey, and the potatoes without the butter and cream, and both
relishes which were vegan anyway).
JoDee had thought ahead and
prepared him a vegan apple pie, as well as a delicious non-vegan cherry pie; and Becky
had made two scrumptious pumpkin pies.
All went very well with Graeter's salted caramel and vanilla ice creams
(when Jenny was asked "are we going to Graeter's?" she replied
"That's not even a question.")
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