Hello Birdie: Thursday-Saturday

Thursday morning...Up with the rooster. Actually the rooster overslept and tried to make up for it by crowing like 25 times. YEA ALRIGHT WE CAN HEAR YOU.


So the corn bread is in the oven. I exchanged sugar for honey this time. 





Now I'm going to make the rub for the turkey and then he comes out of the bucket and again this is me entering enemy territories. I'm feeling like a special ops who's going rogue. 


TURKEY RUB


Put right in the blender: 


4 teaspoons chopped fresh rosemary
4 teaspoons thyme
4 teaspoons minced onion
4 teaspoons minced garlic
1/4 white wine
worcestershire sauce
2 teaspoons coarse kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 cup olive oil

I chilled it in the fridge until I was ready to go with a clean turkey and the stuffing. The turkey comes out of the brine and gets cleaned off. Use a lick-the-pot and a wooden spoon to get the rub under the skin. I  dumped the left over in the cavities, cause I have no idea how it's really done. Rosemary's trick is to soak a cheesecloth in melted butter and cover the bird.


ITALIAN SAUSAGE STUFFING

4 1/2 cups cubed white bread

1 lb Italian sausage meat

1 chopped onion

3/4 cup chopped celery 

2 tsp. dried sage leaves

1 tsp. dried rosemary leaves, minced or crumbled

1/2 tsp. dried thyme leaves

1 Granny Smith apple, cored and grated

1 cup dried cranberries

1/3 cup minced fresh parsley

3/4 cup turkey or chicken stock

1/4 cup melted butter

Toast the bread in the oven.
Fry the sausage, onion and celery. Add the sage, thyme and rosemary.
Put bread cubes and sausage mixture in a bowl and toss. Mix in grated apple, cranberries and parsley. Drizzle over melted butter and stock. 

The bird was in the oven for about 3 1/2 hours. After 1 hour there was not a single drip of liquid in the pan so I guess the brine really worked for sealing the pores. I dumped a whole bunch of turkey broth over the bird so there would be something to make gravy with in the end. I re-buttered the cheesecloth once and then left the cooking alone for the rest of the time. I did cover up the bird with tin foil to keep from burning around 2 1/2 hours. That was my only mistake, covering it a little too early, it could have used a little more color. But check it out, poking the drumstick you could tell how all the juices got sealed in there, there was a big bubble under the skin. Awesome, Operation Hello Birdie is complete.

The friends showed up at 12.30 and after the tour they jumped right into helping out in the kitchen. 

Lovisa helped with the gravy.

Elena made veggie sausage stuffing casserole and rum pecan yams.

Randy and James made mashed potatoes.

Craig helped by taking pictures and making room in the fridge by drinking beers.

We turned the living room into the dining room.

I decided to kick start christmas a little bit, very locally though on the mantle only. That's a Swedish advent candelabra. We put them in every window around christmas. And there is a little Lucia with candles in her hair. 

Dinner time in the living room with a man sized fire going. Randy, Lovisa, James, Craig and Elena. Coze factor 10.

After dinner we played Balderdash (Rappakalja)  and Craig has to get an honorable mention for his phony definition of the word GLABRESCENT. Which actually means "hairy when young, hairless when old". But Craig wrote "joyful upon the discovery of mushrooms". We also learned that in a town in Romania upon discovering a corpse, the police has two ask "are you dead?" three times. 

Then there was pie and more games and more wine.

Thanksgiving ended somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 am and it was a very successful one.

Friday-Saturday was French toast, mimosas, bloody marys and Working Girl. Visits by lovely neighbors, glögg and gingersnaps. Left over lunch and some sightseeing. Streets of Fire/naps. 

It's getting harder and harder to go back to the city. The christmas countdown has started. T minus 3 weeks. 

Things are going forward with the windows. Five more since last weekend. 

These are old news (living room) but I haven't shown them from the outside.

This is the south side and the window on the bottom left is new and the two top ones are these:

The lovely morning sun makes this room even greener. YIKES!

This is the east side of the green room.

And this is inside.


The bay window in the bedroom is next and there is a little more work to be done there than we thought. The foundation is slipping a little and Scott is going to have to jack it up to fit the windows in.