Sunday, January 05, 2014

Christmas Turkeys Dinner

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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