Like I mentioned before, our Christmas was very laid back this year. We had no family, guests, college kids or foreign students this year. Though, I kept asking myself, if I should have invited somebody who needed a family, I followed my instincts and went ahead with plans to have just a family christmas, even canceling a lady moving to Redding, who was supposed to stay with us. I am glad I did because it ended up that Duane was on call and Christmas ended up lazy and chilled out. We needed just each other.
Dinner did not turn out to be our huge feast as I had planned. Instead we had Turkey Sandwiches and Deviled Eggs, Roasted sweet potatoes, Punch, A Yule log and a Cheesecake.
The Turkey almost didn't happen either!
I bought the Turkey about 4 days before needing to Brine it, so as it was frozen, I put it in a bowl and told one of my older boys to put it in the refrigerator in the garage. I ALMOST ALWAYS CHECK BEHIND THEM TO MAKE SURE THAT WHAT I HAVE TOLD THEM GOT DONE. But... not this time. So, when I sent my son to go get the turkey on Christmas Eve so I could brine it, Guess what??? It was frozen rock solid! They had put it in the freezer! Anybody knows you cannot thaw a turkey fast! No microwave can do what needed to be done! Needless to say, I reacted in an ungodly manner but recoverd my composure, prayed a prayer, asked my son to forgive me and then I did what every mother in a crisis does... I hit google, unfortunately I came back totally discouraged that cooking my turkey by Christmas Day was hopeless!
I did find one place that suggested you could go ahead and cook it but it would take a very long time to bake. I wasn't sure about that.
I finally made the executive decision to go ahead and brine the turkey frozen after watching a video where the trusted food network host mentioned you could leave your turkey overnight unrefrigerated because it was in the salt water,( I put in extra salt, to be safe!) lol!
Christmas Day arrived and I checked on my turkey and to my delight, it was thawing!... and the water was still cold! I wrestled the neck and insides out of the frozen middle while my Bassett hound Boudreau continued to bark nonstop because he wanted some turkey! I continued to prepare it to bake. In the end it did have to bake a little longer but thanks to some tricks by Alton Brown on Food network, I saved the breast from being dried out!
By this time, I had decided I did not want to cook a big meal and the kids were very happy with what we had.
I make one of these every year and this year with the expertise of my friend Liz, I made a Gluten free one! This may not be fat free, but it is gluten free and made from from fresh cream, butter and good dark chocolate
Believe it or not this cheesescake requested by Graham is lowfat. I made it with lowfat cream cheese and fatfree greek yogurt. Now that I think of it, I probably should have not drizzled the melted ganache on top!
Can you tell three of my kids got Kindles? and went download happy!
there was actually another page and then some!
