After several years of being encouraged by my friends and husband to start a blog, I finally decided to take the plunge and God gave me just the situation to write about today.
Our Christmas morning started like most others in our history….kids waking up,
getting excited to find the wise men and baby Jesus and then handing out the
presents to open. This is the first time
in about 6 years that we were able to put the presents under the tree ahead of
time without fear of our youngest spoiling the surprises with some early
opening. Hubby and I decided to play a
little trick on the kids though. We
mislabeled all of the gifts and had a cheat sheet for getting them to their
proper receivers. In our home, each of
us gets three gifts since Jesus got three gifts, so this took a little planning
since there is a predetermined amount.
Instead of our usual youngest to oldest order, we let the kids try a
game of paper, rock, and scissors to determine who went first in opening a
gift. Lala one the game and started to
open her gift from Jesus (traditionally things you need like socks, underwear,
clothing and hygiene items). As she gets
the paper about half way off of the box I said, “Wait….whose name is on that
label?” After double checking that it is in fact hers, she continues to open a
little further before I “recognize” the box and say, “Wait….that’s not yours. It’s
Red’s present.” Surprisingly Lala plays
along and gladly hands the gift over and trades with her older sister, assuming
that gift is her gift. Again she starts
happily unwrapping the gift and is halfway done when I say, “Wait. What name is on THAT present?” She confirms it is her sister’s name and then
goes back to opening it. Again, I “recognize”
the box and say, “Does that label have a puppy dog sticker on it?” She confirms my suspicion and I let her know
that the gift is in fact her younger sister’s present. In an out of character moment, she happily
switches boxes again….mentioning that she wondered about the cat label on Nanae’s
box. As she’s opening what is REALLY her
present this time, Red cracks the code!
Apparently she had spied the cheat sheet my hubby insisted we make
(since he was so sure I’d forget which one went to which kid) and used the clues
of the puppy and cat labels to figure it out.
We all had a laugh and Hubby and I were excited to pull one over on the kids.
We enjoyed our breakfast of homemade orange cinnamon rolls and then went out to deliver some baked goods to the local sheriff’s department and fire station. This task took a little more forethought since we are surrounded by volunteer fire departments. We decided to go to the nearest town, which happens to house our sheriff’s department as well, and deliver our goods. Surprise, surprise! In a community this small, or could it be that we’re still not used to living in the Bible Belt, but the sheriff’s department was CLOSED! I’ve never heard of such a thing….but then again, I did most of my growing up in the city or at least a suburban area. We went next door to the Detention Center figuring it had to be open…and we were just as appreciative that they were keeping tabs on the bad guys. After a few buzzers and a perplexed worker, we managed to deliver a package of baked goods (although a signed card probably would have made a better impression). She asked who they were from and it suddenly dawned on me that maybe not everyone is as appreciative of the workers as we were. Hubby and I figured the nicely decorated cookies, thumbprint cookies with homemade jam, and candy and nuts probably got dumped in the trash as a safety measure. Note to self: Next year enclose all gifts for community workers with signed card…maybe even address. Sadly, we also found out that the fire department for the “larger city” was also run by volunteers and likely closed so we were back at ground zero in our effort to show our love and appreciation until we passed Walmart. Not what you’re thinking because even Walmart is closed on Christmas in a town like this, but Waffle House isn’t. Anyway, I digress….my observant hubby notices a city police car parked on the sidewalk by the door. YES! Mission salvaged. As I walked to the car, he rolled down the window and had a rather curious expression on his face. With what was probably too many words and too much information, I explained that we were trying to show our appreciation for those who work on holidays year round to protect us and were glad to stumble upon him after realizing most departments were closed. I even asked if he needed me to sign something or give him our names so he felt safer eating the cookies. LOL….I have many moments when I think AFTER I speak. Anyway…I hope he enjoyed the goods and didn’t throw them away thinking they were from a bunch of loons. At least I know our lovely mail lady enjoyed her cookies as she ate one while we discussed life. Lesson learned.
I learned another lesson today…..and it involved our Christmas turkey. While we were given a lovely ham from my grandparents and another lovely ham from my hubby’s work, I truly love turkey…as does my family. This year’s Thanksgiving had a seafood take which was pretty darn neat, especially since we don’t eat crab very often (seriously…this was the third time in my life I’d eaten crab!), so I still had that craving for some mammoth poultry that takes hours and hours to cook and leaves loads of glorious leftovers for sandwiches and to create alternative meals from as well as great bones to make stock. I managed to score THE LAST TURKEY at a local grocery store and spent the last week thawing it and planning my menu. I was stoked! I had done the prep work of making my mashed potatoes and dinner rolls yesterday, so I was already a step ahead of the game when I woke up this morning. While I lacked the energy to brine the big bird last night, I knew it’d be juicy and succulent anyway…after all, it’s a Butterball! I chopped my herbs, peeled and chunked my onions, carrots and celery to go along with my peeled garlic in the cavity and I have my oven ready to go…..blazing hot at 500 degrees. Several years ago, I learned a trick from Alton Brown on the Food Network about putting the bird in feet first for the first 30 minutes at 500 with a triangle of foil over the breast meat, then removing said foil and dropping the temp to the standard 350. It leaves the skin so brown and crispy and really seals in all those juices. I’ve used this method successfully for the past eight years or so. I occasionally check the bird for temperature to gauge the timing of starting my side dishes. When my trusty meat thermometer read 145 in the breast and 150 in the thigh, I started my side dishes and at 160 in the breast and 180 in the thigh I pulled my beautifully browned bird from the oven to rest while the sides cooked in the oven. After 30 minutes, my sides were done and it was time to carve my bird. I was just making the beginning slices to get the large breast cut away from the bone so it could be carved easier (again…a trick learned from some respectable chef on Food Network). As I remove the meat to a plate I notice pink. On top of that, I notice that there is a little extra something remaining in the cavity after I had pulled out my veggies. No… I didn’t make a rookie mistake of leaving the bag of “inards” inside the bird. I am a nice pet parent and simmer those parts along with the neck for my furbabies. But somehow I failed to notice that whoever had scraping detail failed to get all of the intestines out of my bird. YUK! I had already flipped this bird to move it from pan to carving board, and all the juices had run all over my beautifully browned bird. On top of that, what was obviously an undercooked bird had “rested” for half an hour prior to carving. Now might be a great time to mention that I’ve never cooked a bird over 15 pounds before and this beast weighed in at a mammoth 21 pounds. Even though the thighs were completely cooked to the 180, apparently I had not pushed the thermometer in deep enough on the breast meat. DOH! I’m not an amateur cook here. I love cooking; I do it pretty much every day; I watch cooking on TV and collect recipes as a hobby. I was thinking that I was glad this wasn’t a year that we had company because this was EMBARRASSING.
Great post - couldn't stop reading til end. Sign of good writing.
ReplyDeleteGood luck with this ... And with future turkey baking ;-)