Thursday, November 25, 2010

Our Kosher Thanksgiving

This Thanksgiving I decided to be adventurous and eat turkey. I think it's been about 2 years or so since I have tasted one. My mom and I went on a hunt to find a turkey for this event. While at Trader Joe's we found a Kosher turkey. This was exactly what I wanted. You know the turkey had followed good dietary laws, was killed correctly, prepared well, and didn't have anything added to it but salt. It's interesting to google how a kosher turkey is prepared.

Through this, we talked about ways we could prepare this. My mom was telling me about how her mom would cook a turkey in a paper bag. We looked up different recipes on how to do this, and found one that sounded good. Here is what we did:
 First thing is to butter the turkey. I can't handle butter right now. I thought about using ghee, but didn't have any. We used Olive Oil instead. It worked out well.
 Then you place the turkey in a paper bag. We placed the bag in our lasagna pan as well, to catch all the drippings, and keep it more secure.
 Online they said to staple, tape or sew the bag closed. We chose to staple it.


 It's all ready to go in the oven :) We had read many different temperatures to bake it. One was cook it at 500 for the 1st hour, 400 the 2nd hour, then 300 the 3rd hour. We may try this next time. This time we did it 325 degrees.
 After it is cooked, we slit the bag open, and checked the temperature
 It looked and smelled wonderful!!!
 Here's the kosher turkey out of the bag. It had a wonderful taste. We enjoyed the simple meal we prepared. I also made almond flour biscuits, and quinoa. My mom said some gravy using the pan drippings, and mixing some almond flour and water together. The whole meal was most enjoyed, and every bite was  savored.
After, other family members came over, and they had dessert, opened up Christmas ornaments, then played a few rounds of Chicken Foot, in honor of my Grandpa Black's birthday.

Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Happy Birthday!!!

This year, my Grandpa's birthday and Thanksgiving fall on the same day (I always thought he was lucky to have a birthday on a holiday - once in awhile). It would be 90 years ago today he was born in this world. He is an amazing person, who always had a story to share, a deck of cards or dominoes to play, the ability to make ANYTHING grow (oh the questions I would ask now), could build anything, fix anything, hike anywhere, take an ATC up any mountain (with a lot of grandkids hanging on the back) and could always seem to find a way to make me laugh. I still remember watching him turn on his record player doing the hokey pokey about 10 years ago. I thought I had one of the coolest grandpa's around :)


Happy Birthday Grandpa!!!


Saturday, November 6, 2010

Easter Eggs

Have you ever heard of Easter Eggs in the DVDs? I was just told about them at my recent staff meeting (yeah we talk about EVERYTHING!). But they are hidden random things you can do during your DVD specials. I was told Pixar has some really funny ones.

Here is a link to one site that let's you know where to find some random things on your Disney DVDs.

Also, with the newest DVD Toy Story 3 out, here is a link to some of the random things and meanings you will find throughout the movie.