Sunday Turkey

We purchase a five-dollar-turkey last week while grocery shopping at Vons — taking them up on a deal as long as we spent $25, which just isn't hard to do these days. It's been in the fridge defrosting and today was the day to cook the turkey. I am a big fan of Pioneer Woman and decided to try her method of cooking a turkey. She uses a brine for her turkey but I chose to skip that part. What I was more interested in was the actual roasting method. I stuffed my 14 1/2 pound hen, placed her in one of those disposable aluminum roasting pans, drizzled a bit of olive oil on her, covered her with two layers of foil carefully sealing the edges around the roasting pan. Then roasted her without looking at her again for 2 1/2 hours in a 275° oven. The foil was removed, a cube of softened butter was smeared all over the bird, the oven turned up to 375° and she cooked at that temperature until the meat thermometer reached 170° — basting every 30 minutes. It only took another 45 minutes

We love to watch the food channel and several of the chefs cook their turkeys using this slow, low-temperature, and it really works. I'll forever cook my turkeys this way . . . it was the juiciest, most tender turkey we've ever had!

Ken wanted to try a carving method that several top chefs also use. We've normally sliced the turkey breast holding the knife so that it cuts down the breast while it is still intact. After removing the legs, thighs, and wings— the "new" way is to cut the whole breast off the carcass, lay it flat on the cutting board, and slice it vertically — against the grain. According to Alton Brown the meat is more tender cut against the grain and tougher when cut with the grain. This is a great trick and looks nice on the serving platter.

The breast halves ready to slice vertically. We'll have enough turkey to enjoy the rest of the week. Plus a nice pot of soup will be on the stove soon, and that's one our favorite parts of roasting a turkey!

Life is good!

A first!

We enjoyed a wonderful Thanksgiving feast up at Simply Country Farm today. We were in for a real treat because until now I've only heard about folks frying a turkey and have never done one myself . . . well today we witnessed up close a personal that very thing.

The turkey had been injected with an herbal marinade and refrigerated for a few hours. Here Jen is drying both the inside cavity and the outer skin of the turkey so that it wouldn't spatter when lowered into the pot of hot oil. Notice how their yellow lab, Murray, is so hoping something would drop down to his level.

In the upper third of this shot you'll find Ken trying to stay warm down at the fire pit. The deep fryer contraption was set up on the hillside near the fence around the corral. We were all a bit jittery about this new procedure.

Very slowly the turkey is lowered down into the bubbling hot fat (peanut oil).

The fat boiled up over the turkey but then settled down to start the frying process.

After only 40 minutes it was time to shut the whole process down and pull out the fried turkey. We were excited to see how well it cooked.

It looked nice and browned.

Out it comes!

Jen had roasted a turkey "traditional style" so there were two birds on the buffet table. The sides included mashed potatoes and gravy, sweet potatoes, two kinds of stuffing (a traditional and another with habanero sausage), a wonderful string bean recipe that included bacon and pine nuts, rolls . . . appetizers were served a couple hours before dinner, and both pumpkin pie and apple pie served for dessert!

Life is good!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Scarlet Begonia

I've never met a Golden Retriever I didn't love, and Scarlett is no exception!

While visiting Jackie and Rick we were introduced to Scarlett Begonia, a three seven-month-old Golden Retriever, who lives in the rental next to the adobe house. Her owners both work so, needless to say, Jackie and Rick love playing with her and making sure she gets at least one good walk/run through the vineyard every day.

She loves to run through the vineyard, and she's good at running full speed back to you when called.

She waits patiently while Rick cracks walnuts, from their huge tree growing in the middle of the vineyard. Scarlett loves walnuts!

Life is good!

Healdsburg Fall Visit

Finally we got over to see Jackie and Rick. We missed our fall and spring visits last year due to my "health issues" and we're so glad to make it this year. We always have fun there no matter what we do, we just enjoy being together.

Jackie loves to shake up a great Martini to start off the evening!

She and I enjoyed sipping our drink while sitting out at the Sky Bar, watching the colorful view as the sun set.

Jackie and Rick planned a wonderful dinner of grilled swordfish flown in from Hawaii that morning, a scrumptious garlic broccoli, served along with a Caesar salad, and cooked beets picked fresh from the garden, and of course a nice red wine . . . yummo!

Does that not look delicious . . . and it was!

The next morning we took a walk in the vineyard. The harvest is done for the year and Jackie and Rick are getting ready for their trip to the Baja house for a much needed vacation.

The vineyard looks so pretty this time of year!

And don't the leaves from this persimmon tree just call out loud 
"It's fall!"

Life is good!

A Surprise Addition to Simply Country Farm

The other day Jen got a call from a friend to come and rescue her from an unwanted pig in their back yard. Apparently the pig is either wild or escaped from its home (we're assuming it's wild because it still had its tusks and they are quite sharp . . . and photos of the "lost pig" were posted in the neighborhood with no response). The friend knew Jen had farm animals and just assumed it must be hers. Jen and Karah tossed a large cat carrier and a couple of apples into the truck and drove over to pick up the pig. Now, there is no one in our family who has ever handled a pig before, but this kind of thought never seems to enter Jen's head . . . like, hey . . . it's just another farm animal. And to my amazement they were able to get the pig to easily enter the cat carrier and they brought the pig home, introduced it to their farm animals and that was that. 

Well . . . sort of! Apparently horses hate pigs, and so do goats. And, they soon found out, pigs like to dig themselves out of any confined area . . . and pigs are very clever when it comes to opening gates. And pigs can be very aggressive and down right mean spirited. So the horse and goats had to be switched to another pasture so the pig could take over their yard.

He looks innocent enough, but he's becoming a real problem with the other animals.

And he's very clever. The gate latch is a bit loose, but seems to keep all the other animals in fine. The pig figured out how to open it so Jen added some rope to secure it. As you can see this method challenges the pig a bit and soon the gate was opened once again.

So Ken lent his creative mind to help solve the problem by adding yet an additional rope to secure the gate. Notice the pig watching every move they make . . . I wonder what is going on in his brain . . . maybe something like "Yeah, right . . . you think that'll stop me?"

Soon the pig gave up and wandered about his new home.

One side note: after living quite happily at Simply Country Farm for a few days, the pig disappeared. Jen couldn't find it anywhere . . . a friend called her later in the morning and the pig had wandered off over a mile away into the friend's yard! However Mr. Piggie did come back to the farm right about dinner time . . . and sat before it's dish waiting for it to be filled!

Life in the country can be a challenge sometimes . . . but we love it!

Life is good!