Name three things

[dejolane]

Time to clean out the Refrigerator

a load of laundry

clean out the litter boxes  ( all I do )

 

[mservant]

A reasonably productive day at work, phone glued to ear and eyes glued to 2 laptops trying to make two completely different documents about the same thing in to one  .... 

Two loads of laundry done - which reminds me - I have to get the second one out of the machine and hung up..... 

 

Played with Mouse, throwing his biscuits, and chasing after DaBird (him, not me).  

 

 

[Winchester]

Finished the brine for the turkey....all I have to do is add the iced water tonight. 

Working on my second load of laundry now and will start cleaning this messy house after I finish my coffee

Baking, baking, baking! 

 

[AbbysMom]

So far -

Both stuffings made
mashed potatoes made
wild rice experiment made


Taking a very short break before I head back into the kitchen. The weather is so bad here today that I'm worried we are going to lose power. Thankfully all of the major things are cooked.

 

[Winchester]

Cornbread for the stuffing is baked and cubed

Pumpkin pies have cooled and are in the fridge

Pumpkin cheesecake is cooling now

Pumpkin crescent rolls are baking now (gee, do you think we have enough pumpkin foods?)

Cranberry relish is in the fridge (used my KA grinder for that...my KA has gotten a workout today)

Iced tea is made

Brine for the turkey is in the fridge

Just finished cleaning up the kitchen

Last load of laundry is drying

Oh and the kids have had breakfast, a second breakfast, a bit of a snack, and just now had lunch! They're finally back in bed on the warm electric blanket. I hope they stay there for awhile....I need a kitty break.

Must start to clean the house now.

I feel like I'm getting nowhere....fast!

Karen, good luck with your power. You have what we had yesterday. We didn't have all that wind and our snow switched over to rain by mid afternoon. Not doing much here today. But what snow we got hasn't gone away.

 

[mservant]

Hey Winchester, that's not fair!  Can I have some of your activity? 

I sat on the sofa and worked from home on my laptop.

I sat on the sofa and threw biscuits for Mouse.

I sat on the floor and played with Mouse. 

 

[dejolane]

Family Dollar for more litter

sweep

make list for store  ( I need more ice tea )

 

[stewball]

Bless you for that, Dejolane.....I've gone into Rick's church before to help with early in the morning dinner prep for their Thanksgiving dinner. And we usually roast a turkey for the dinner, too. We didn't this year as they had enough people to roast turkeys and they said they have enough people to help this year. That's rare; usually they're begging for volunteers. A lot of the younger people are starting to step up to help with serving dinner this year. We have noticed that,as the older people pass away, the younger people are finally starting to pick up the slack. I don't officially belong to Rick's church, but I do like to help out with things from time to time. I'll make cupcakes or cakes and cookies for the dinners and help roast turkeys or chickens, things like that. Rick's mom used to do that, too, but since she's gotten older, I started doing it for her. I guess we feel that the tradition should be continued and there should be somebody from our family helping out.

Get through the day today at work...not too much going on right now at my end; we don't get a lot of development plans once it gets really cold

Start working on things for dinner on Thursday (cranberry relish, make the turkey brine for Wednesday night...as cold as it is outside, I can put the kettle of brine outside on the back deck to cool down a bit before stashing it in the fridge)

Supernatural is on tonight, so I'll watch that before bed

You don't belong to be same church? Id that different religions or preferences? You and dejolane are good people. What's turkey brine?

 

[stewball]

So far -

Both stuffings made
mashed potatoes made
wild rice experiment made


Taking a very short break before I head back into the kitchen. The weather is so bad here today that I'm worried we are going to lose power. Thankfully all of the major things are cooked.

I have absolutely no idea what wild rice is :-(

 

[stewball]

Did a wash with sheets and stuff in the washing basket. Striped the bed and made it. Washed the 2 light covers I'm sleeping with and put them on. Lovely clean pretty sheets.
Wow
I did something today.
Oh and I made a chicken curry and rice.

 

[Winchester]

You don't belong to be same church? Id that different religions or preferences? You and dejolane are good people. What's turkey brine?

I don't belong to any church and I do not attend church at all. I'm not an atheist, probably more of an agnostic, I guess. Rick is a member of their family church and he attends semi-regularly, probably more so because his mom likes to go to church and he takes her as it's getting harder for her to get around. He doesn't mind church like I do and he takes an active part in his church....he ushers on Sundays, he was on the consistory, he was a deacon, he participates in the social gatherings, etc. I like to help out with their dinners and such (usually dinner prep or making cupcakes, cookies, etc. for events), but that's pretty much it. When they do their turkey and waffle dinners, I'll roast a turkey for them. For their Thanksgiving dinner, I'll help out with prep work. But I'm not a member, nor do I plan on joining. (I think that years ago, it used to bother them that I wasn't a member. Now, they need volunteers, so it doesn't matter as much as it used to.)

Some people brine their turkeys before roasting. They make the brine, then put the turkey in the brine over night or for several hours. Take it back out, rinse it off well, pat it dry, then continue with whatever they want to do....roast, smoke, grill, etc. 

I'm a big Alton Brown fan and so I always do a Good Eats Roast Turkey.....been doing my turkey this way now for years. The brine is vegetable broth, candied ginger, allspice berries, peppercorns, and kosher salt stirred together, brought to a boil, then cooled down and chilled. Then we mix it with iced water and cover the turkey with the mixture in a food-safe bucket. I roast the turkey at 500 degrees for 30 minutes to get the breast brown, then put it in our electric roaster for 3-4 hours at 350 degrees.

I don't stuff our turkeys anymore....I used to, but stopped years ago. Now I make our stuffing in the crock pot with turkey or chicken broth. The turkey cavity gets stuffed with quartered onions and apples and a cinnamon stick that's all microwaved together for about 5 minutes.

Wild rice is actually a grain, harvested from grasses. It's more nutritious than white rice and it has a wonderful nutty flavor. We eat quite a bit of wild rice. I have a recipe for a wonderful wild rice salad with grapes that I make from time to time. But most of the time, I serve it in place of regular rice. When we were in Minnesota several years, ago, my friend sent us home with several bags of their native wild rice....it was delicious.

Oh, my three things:

Make dinner for today

Go through my Black Friday emails and the newspaper ads tonight after everybody leaves

And that might be pretty much it!

 

[stewball]

What a marvellous reply this is. I don't go to synagogue anymore. I sort of lost religion when I came here which is ridiculous. Most people find it here especially if they are in Jerusalem.
Can that brining be done with a chicken

 

[mservant]

Wow, thanks for asking that question Stewball!  I was happily assuming brine was salt water and I was wondering why so many people would soak their turkeys in salt water!  Winchester, that 'broth' sounds lovely, and I'm now wondering if I remember my SiL talking about doing something like that the last couple of Christmases when she's catered for everyone.  I must start to pay more attention, I so rarely cook for other people these days.  You put me to shame with all your creations!

Today I should:

Strip the bed and wash the sheets.

Wash the dishes that are starting to over flow from the sink.

Put away the large pile of clean laundry that is covering the chest of drawers in my bedroom. 

 

[stewball]

Great minds think alike. I also thought that brine water was salt. Maybe that's a British thing.
Going to make a very rich mushroom Alfredo with tons of cream and cheese.
May bake a cake but don't hold your breathes!
Got the family coming tonight. Must be polite and calm.

 

[Winchester]

To be fair, brine does have a lot of salt.....my recipe uses one full cup of kosher salt. 

My mother did brining, although she didn't call it that. She would store her whole chicken or turkey in the fridge for several hours in a salt-water brine. She said it was to get all of the blood and such out of the poultry.

And yes, you can brine chicken; I do all the time. You don't have to brine a whole bird either, you can brine pieces. I often brine chicken breasts. You can brine pork, too. I will brine those great big, thick pork chops before grilling them.

I brine chicken wings before I grill them....although I guess they're really dry-brined as they're not immersed in any liquid right away; I don't know if that's really considered dry-brining or not, to be honest. I use a mixture of several kinds of paprika, lemon pepper, and kosher salt  and sprinkle that over the wings and let them sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then I make the wing sauce and save two cups of the sauce for grilling. I dump the wings in the rest of the sauce to marinate for about four hours in the fridge before grilling.

I hope that makes sense....sometimes I'll try to explain something and end up getting everybody confused!

Stewball, enjoy your family; and enjoy that cake!

 

[stewball]

To be fair, brine does have a lot of salt.....my recipe uses one full cup of kosher salt. 

My mother did brining, although she didn't call it that. She would store her whole chicken or turkey in the fridge for several hours in a salt-water brine. She said it was to get all of the blood and such out of the poultry.

And yes, you can brine chicken; I do all the time. You don't have to brine a whole bird either, you can brine pieces. I often brine chicken breasts. You can brine pork, too. I will brine those great big, thick pork chops before grilling them.

I brine chicken wings before I grill them....although I guess they're really dry-brined as they're not immersed in any liquid right away; I don't know if that's really considered dry-brining or not, to be honest. I use a mixture of several kinds of paprika, lemon pepper, and kosher salt  and sprinkle that over the wings and let them sit in the fridge for a couple of hours. Then I make the wing sauce and save two cups of the sauce for grilling. I dump the wings in the rest of the sauce to marinate for about four hours in the fridge before grilling.

I hope that makes sense....sometimes I'll try to explain something and end up getting everybody confused!

Stewball, enjoy your family; and enjoy that cake!

Your mother doing it to get the blood out is what koshering is all about plus the way the animal is dealt with :'(
A lot of salt is used to take all the salt out.

 

[stewball]

I baked a cake yoohoo arms waving in the air. An orange chiffon which was eaten in five minutes.
Cooked pasta - such a lot of work ;-)
And made mushroom Alfredo sauce. Yum

 

[Winchester]

Orange chiffon is so good!

Our grocery store had pineapples on sale for .99 so I picked up a couple and want to dehydrate them today.

Time to decorate the Christmas tree in the living room

I need to sit down this afternoon and figure out my list of cookies to bake this year

 

[mservant]

Hoovered the apartment.

Did a mini food shop and got so easy meals for during the week

My usual Sunday voluntary session at the charitiy shop - got to sort out 'stuff' some of the time today rather than have to concentrate out in the shop.  

 

[stewball]

Nothing.