Perhaps the best part of T-Day leftovers are the excellent smoked turkey sandwiches which will occupy my lunch pail on Monday. Smoky turkey, commercial cranberry glop, and a little mayo. With a few Utz Ripple chips. Man, oh man.
Almost enough to make me look forward to going back to work. Not quite, though it makes me look forward to lunchtime in my shabby cubicle come Monday.
-k-
[stags]Eats, Work[/stags]
The turkey is in the smoker; an 11 pound specimen1 buttered, seasoned, and lightly stuffed with citrus, apple, and onion.2 The fowl is over a water pan, to which some wine and additional seasonings have been added. And the hickory chips and chunks are now working their magic.
It is a little windy for my liking today; it seems that I was always downwind from the smoke. Oh, well, it will turn out OK anyhow.
Now for some live booze testing, as we await the checking and reprovisioning of the water pan at 2PM or so.
-k-
[stags]Holiday, Thanksgiving, Eats[/stags]
Home from work, earlier than normal, but it still wasn’t like getting cut loose at 2 or 3 in the afternoon. Sipping a cold one, and soaking the hickory chunks for the turkey smoking extravaganza tomorrow. My little bride has cleaned the smoker, and lined the fire pan and water pan with foil. We just estimated that our smoking apparatus is around 30 years old; what it lacks in elegance has been more than repaid by all the good eats we’ve prepared in it.
Here is how we prepare our smoked beast.
-k-
[stags]Holiday, Thanksgiving, Eats[/stags]
And the drought gets dinged a little more. A nice, sometimes heavy, but a pretty soaking rain, too. Cold, wet, and a good night to be inside.
Needing the rain as we do, you’ll hear no complaints from me. My little bride, our faithful cat and I are in front of the teevee, warm, and awaiting the arrival of the Hunan Herndon guy.
Mmmmm … lemon chicken.
-k-
[stags]weather,eats[/stags]
From the ice cream gurus at Ben & Jerry’s, another flavor breakthrough: Cinnamon Buns. It’s described on the carton as
Caramel Ice Cream with Cinnamon Bun Dough & a Cinnamon Streusel Swirl.
Good to the last spoonful, too. Check it out at a supermarket near you.
-k-
[stags]Eats,IceCream,Ben&Jerry[/stags]
[tags]ben&Jerry’s[/tags]
I need to get to class early (around 7am or so) tomorrow. Having put a lab session totally sideways, I need to salvage that. I’ve been assured that if I get there early, I can complete the current lab, then backtrack, and repeat all the lab sessions by 10:30 AM. This is actually a good thing; nothing beats hands on. And I should have a good foundation for the final day on Thursday, which is almost totally lab work.
I just wish the class instructor was a late guy instead of an early bird. He does have command of the material, and one more thing I must respect: he has the keys to the classroom.
-k-
For the running of Saturday Night’s Dodge Avenger 500 from the grand old speedway in Darlington SC, we have:
#31-Jeff Burton, 795
#26-Jamie McMurray, 796
#20-Tony Stewart, 797
#40-David Stremme, 798
#8-Dale Earnhardt Jr, 799
H/T: Jayski, a living legend in NASCAR news. Cutting and pasting beats transposing stuff from the DirecTV guide.
-k-
Scott Chaffin, in a comment on this post, requested some tips on smoking turkeys. I’ve been reading Scott for several years, and I’ve seen his proficiency at smokin’ beeves, hogs, and all types of other protein. Visits to his site have left my mouth watering many a time; he often has pictures of the smoky bounty. So I’m flattered that he asked for tips from me. For whatever value I can add, here goes.
I suppose the smoking equipment you have dictates procedures as much as anything. I bought SWMBO a Brinkmann smoker before we were married, so that smoker has to be 30 years old if it’s a day. We talk about upgrading to another rig, but we haven’t. Then we remember all the good eats we’ve had from the old Brinkmann, and put off upgrading for another year. Anyhow, this smoker is a rolled steel one, with a charcoal and wood pan sitting at the bottom, a water pan right under the grille, and a rolled steel domed lid covering the whole thing. There is no provision to add more fuel or wood to our smoker, once the process starts. That’s its biggest downside.
We start with a 11-13 pound turkey. Preferably fresh. We’ve found over the years that fresh ones just take the smoke better. Frozen ones are good, and still just this side of heaven, but fresh ones are better. Make sure your frozen one is completely thawed, if you go that route.
The night before, soak your wood chips and chunks in water. We use hickory; I’d like to try mesquite, but SWMBO forbids it.
The smoking process takes 8-9 hours, so on on the day of the Great Smoke, take your beautifully thawed bird, and wash it inside and out. Pat dry. Then, SWMBO will butter the bird, inside and out, and season with a little salt, black pepper, oregano, sage, parsley, rosemary, thyme, and some powdered garlic. Quarter an onion or two, and break up 3 or 4 stalks of celery, and put these loosely in the cavity. You can quarter an apple or an orange for the cavity as well. Don’t pack the cavity too tightly. We also slip a little onion and celery into the neck hole. We’ve never brined our turkey, though some coworkers brine theirs, and report good results. Take the neck and giblets out, and make stock with them. The pan drippings will be way too rich for gravy.
Into the water pan, add some water, wine (red or white, we usually have red), salt, black pepper, parsley, sage, oregano, thyme, rosemary, powdered garlic.
Get the charcoal pan completely full of charcoal, soak with the Kingsford lighter, and fire up. The trick here, with our equipment, is to get the charcoal lit up slowly so it won’t go out for 8 hours or so, and yet lit strongly enough so the soaked wood won’t kill the fire. When the coals are ready, drain the water from the chips and wood chunks, and distribute them evenly over the coals. I usually put on a good layer of wood chips, then 8 – 12 chunks, depending on size. By and large, the more chunks you can use, the better. They last longer, and produce a better smoke. Working quickly, put the water pan in place, followed by the grille, and the buttered bird, breast up. Cover with the dome, and retire with your beverage of choice. After about 4 hours, remove the dome, and have a look see. If you need more water, pour some in; we’ve even been known to baptize the bird during this procedure. Recover with the dome, and wait another 4 hours.
At the end of 8 hours, your coals and wood are pretty well spent. Uncover the bird and check; the leg should move easily in the joint. We usually finish up with a little oven time, an hour or 45 minutes at about 325o, and check with a meat thermometer.
After that, carve, serve with side dishes of choice, and dig in. And if you want an outstanding sammich later (and who wouldn’t), check here.
I just made myself hungry.
-k-
Technorati Tags: brinkmann
In what can only be described as an embarrassment to the passenger, and as a source of potential new threats to the TSA, an American Airlines jet was forced to land in Nashville, because of an episode of “passenger flatulence”.
According to the article:
An American Airlines flight was forced to make an emergency landing Monday morning after a passenger lit a match to disguise the scent of flatulence, authorities said.
In the never-ending struggle to keep the skies safe, the DHS announced that in addition to gathering your SSN, Driver’s License Number, DOB, credit card data, mortgage payment, and names of your firstborn, they will now be asking what you had for lunch, prior to your boarding the aircraft.
What a country.
-k-
I’ve always reported vital statistics about my rental cars here on this old blog, but I’ve never before had an image of any car. Well, with this last trip, things have changed; we rented a Buick Lucerne CXS, which turns out to be the top-of-the-line Lucerne.
The life-to-date fuel economy increased from 21.7 MPG to 23.3; a noticeable, though not earth-shattering increase. As it turns out, this ol’ Buick had a 4.6L NorthStar V8. I noticed it had plenty of punch motor-wise, but compared to a Saturn, a lot of cars do.
There was also an electronic doo-dad that tracked LTD Average speed; with road driving, that went from 45.3 MPH to 55.3 MPH.
And talk creature comforts; I’d previously decided that heated leather seats perfectly symbolized America’s decline into excesses reminiscent of the Roman Empire. This car had them, SWMBO used them; she has a bad back, and finds it tedious at best and uncomfortable at worst to sit for any extended period. The butt-and-back warmers helped her to endure being confined in the passenger seat. It even had a heated steering wheel; I tried that out, just to say I had.
Having never experienced a dual-zone front air conditioning system, I’d have to label that a winner. SWMBO likes it significantly cooler than I; the dual-zone made it possible for us to maintain our preferred degree of warmth.
Then, there were the side rear-view mirrors, which automatically tilted down when the car was put into reverse, as well as the totally glare-free inside rear view, which made rolling across chunks of Tennessee at night tolerable.
There are doubtless features we totally missed, not knowing which buttons to push and all.
Why don’t I buy one? At a base MSRP of $35,440, it’s simply above my vehicular purchase threshold. I’ve lived in cheaper houses than that; don’t laugh, I come from humble roots, and am proud of that. However, when our travel plans call for long distances via car, I’m renting another one just like this one.
-k-
The picture was lifted via screen-capture from the Buick website. If any humorless GM/Buick tightasses object; then: