Cooking christmas dinner thread

[killer_carlson]

Turkey washed, salted, pepered and lightly buttered. In the oven, 3 hours and a half to go. Going to go and turn it breast side down for an hour as per an internet site i saw.

Potatoes peeled. Two types of potatoes in the cupboard, therefore the pot. Nothing makes peling potatoes easier than tossing in some zydeco music in the ipod or cd player. Buckwheat zydeco is my preferred option.

Going to do peas, corn, and broccoli later. Thought i had mushrooms but someone appears to have eaten them too bad

No turnips, but had them recently where they had marshmellows on top and they were awesome.

Stovetop stuffing but would like to change it up a bit.

Gravy comes later. Potato and pea water makes great gravy. Broccoli and celery not so much.

Any good last second recipes?

[Mass_nerder]

Obviously too late for a turkey recipe, but we did a lemon thyme butter, made slits in the skin, and spread it under. We also stuffed the cavity with lemon, onion, garlic and thyme.
Super exited for the bird.
Nothing too fancy for the sides, but my girlfriend is doing a really tasty eggnog bread pudding for dessert.

[DownhillGoat]

Originally Posted by killer_carlson

Any good last second recipes?

- 1 part black cherry bourbon
- 1 part ice

[Minnie]

Killer_Carlson, you should make your own basic stuffing/dressing next time, instead of the Stove Top. It's very easy. How many are you cooking for? I am making for 5 and I made one large casserole dish full and one smaller casserole dish full - enough for some leftovers. I make mine ahead so that it's not competing for oven space and then just warm it up in the oven on low while we're carving the turkey.

For the 5 of us, I buy some bread cubes, a pound of butter (don't use margarine - use real butter), celery, mushrooms (sliced canned mushrooms or fresh), onions, a pound of bacon, some poultry seasoning and if you want, sesame seeds. If you use sliced canned mushrooms, drain the liquid into a mug or measuring cup and set aside. Do not discard.

Dump your bread cubes into a big mixing bowl - try and avoid dumping in any of the crumbs at the bottom - the stuff that is no longer formed - put that crumb dust into a ziploc baggie and toss it into your freezer - you can use it later for meat loaf or burgers or season it and use it to coat chicken.

Cut bacon into small pieces (works best if it's still slightly frozen), and scramble fry until golden brown; remove from pan to paper towel. Leave drippings in pan and saute diced celery, diced onion and sliced mushrooms in bacon drippings. While the celery etc is sauteing, melt a hunk of butter in a measuring cup, in the microwave; set aside. For the amount of stuffing I make, I probably melt down at least half a block of butter.

Put your oven onto broil, wrap a cookie sheet or small cake pan in aluminum foil, and sprinkle sesame seeds onto it. Just guesstimate about how much you feel you want to add.

Throw cookie sheet/cake pan into oven and brown the sesame seeds - watch carefully, they will burn quickly. You want them just nicely golden brown. When browned, sprinkle them over the bread cubes. Saute your veg mix slowly on a slightly lower heat, so you don't burn/brown it too much - plus it'll give you time to toast the sesame seeds and melt your butter.

Sprinkle your bread cubes with poultry seasoning. Again, I don't measure - I just sprinkle until it seems like a good amount - I'm fairly liberal with the seasoning. Salt and pepper to taste as well. Pour melted butter over bread cubes and mix very well. You want your bread cubes fairly moist, but not sopping wet and not dry. If it seems like a little more moisture is needed, this is when I use the juice from the canned mushrooms - or if I've decided to use fresh mushrooms, then I melt a little more butter - you could also use a bit of chicken stock too. Once it's well mixed and moistened, sprinkle with the toasted sesame seeds.

By this time, your sauteed veg are done - dump into bread cube mix - if there is still a lot of bacon drippings in the pan, strain the sauteed mixture before adding - you don't want the grease in there. Again, mix well and then dump the whole schmear into a casserole dish. Cook at about 325* for 45ish minutes. You can check at the 30 minute mark and thereafter, to see if it's done - should be a nice toasty slightly darker golden brown.

For our family of 5, I use about three 300 gr bags of bread cubes - Brownberry brand, I pick them up at Co-op. So if it's just you or you and a significant other/spouse, probably a bag, bag and a half of bread cubes would do for a meal and you'd have some leftovers for later. If it's just the two of you, I'd only use about a half a pound of bacon. I just add the amount really, of what I feel like. If you like a lot of bacon, use more - if not, use less. Same with the celery, mushroom and onion. We like a lot of onion so I usually dice up 3 good size onions. Some years I had the sesame seeds, some years I don't.

If you like turnip, I have a good recipe that uses cream cheese, that I'll pass on if you want it for use for another time. Yummah.


We're doing turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, baby peas, whisky glazed carrots, and steamed asparagus, a small green salad, cranberry jelly, rolls, pickles (sweet and dill), black olives and we're having a chocolate wafer dessert.

[killer_carlson]

Totally forgot the stuffing. Turkey cooked much faster than i thought it would. Well under 20 minutes per pound, but internal temp showed it hit 184 in multiple spots. Had to forego stufing.

That looks like a great recipe and ill try it next time.

[CaptainCrunch]

We used to inject the turkey with a mixture of beer and honey.

[nwflamesfan]

Making my mouth water. Jealous over her Killer

[DownhillGoat]

Brined the turkey in an apple cider brine this year. Wow was that fantastic. I even made my own cranberry sauce. Never buying the canned stuff again. So simple and so much better.

[Caged Great]

I had a fun day cooking.

Made short bread cookies, peanut butter cookies, christmas turkey, cranberry sauce and some other things.

Everything turned out perfectly. So full.

[psyang]

I second brining the turkey. It makes the turkey taste great even without gravy, and the meat comes out a lot more tender and juicy, not to mention the skin was fantastic (a real guilty pleasure). It was relatively simple to do, too. Find a brine recipe (we used this one this year, mainly because we trust Alex, and because we had all of the ingredients in house. We placed our turkey in one of those extra-large ziploc bags with the brine overnight in our garage. This is the second year we've done a brine, and I don't think we'll go back.

[PeteLFan]

Originally Posted by kunkstyle

Brined the turkey in an apple cider brine this year. Wow was that fantastic. I even made my own cranberry sauce. Never buying the canned stuff again. So simple and so much better.

You need a coaster, you're ruining a very nice table

[redforever]

I brined my turkey as well. I put 1 gallon of chicken broth, a small handful of peppercorns, 1/2 cup brown sugar, 1 cup coarse pickling salt, 6 cloves smashed garlic, 1 Tbsp dehydrated onion, 3 good sized sprigs each of rosemary, thyme,sage, and parsley, and a couple of bay leaves in a large stock pot and brought it to a boil. Then I let it cool to room temperature.

I bought a really nice fresh tureky from Sunterra, removed the neck and giblets, and rinsed it welll. Then I put the turkey in an extra large freezer bag and put the turkey, inside the bag, inside a large rectangular roasting pan.

Once the ingredients in the stock pot had cooled down, I added it to the bag with the turkey, along with 8 cups of cold water and 8 cups of ice cubes. I tied the bag shut and started brining the turkey (in the fridge), breast side down. After 8 hours, I rotated the turkey and let it brine, breast side up for another 8 hours. I rotated the turkey one more time and finished brining it, breast side down, for another 8 hours.

I removed the turkey from the bag and discarded the brine. I rinsed the turkey well and dried it off, inside and outside, with paper towels.

Then I mixed about 1/3 cup butter (room temperature) with 2 to 3 Tbsp finely chopped fresh sage and stuffed and rubbed that under the skin of the breast of the turkey. I also rubbed some butter all over the outside of the bird. At that point, I roasted it. It took about 4 hours in total for a 19 pound bird.

I made dressing but never stuffed or cooked it in the bird. I always make a lot of extra dressing and cook it in a couple of slow cookers.

[Alberta_Beef]

I found a recipe for a "German Turkey" and made that. It worked out quite well. Instead of stuffing with breadcrumbs as my family traditionally does, you stuff it with fruit and vegetables and cook in an oven bag breast side down.

It was incredibly juicy, it was my first attempt at a turkey dinner and it turned out awesome.

I also made honey roasted carrots (very simple and delicious), broccoli and cheese, stuffing (as a casserole) and garlic mashed potatoes.

The family and gf were very impressed.

[InglewoodFan]

Did two turkeys this year, one brined and roasted. The other deep-fried. Both were ~15 lb free range fresh birds.

Simple salt/sugar/spices brine over night, then dry it really good. Left it uncovered in the fridge for a few hours to get it really dry on the skin. Mixed up some butter, garlic, rosemary, parsley, salt & pepper and stuffed lots of that under the skin. Rubbed the rest all over the bird.

Deep fried bird was simply washed and dried well, water is the enemy with 14 L of boiling oil. 50 min or so at 350F and it was done. Skin was amazing. It was about -18C out and the propane burner kept the oil hot no problem. Was worried I wouldn't be able to get enough heat into it, froze my ass off keeping an eye on it. It was my first try at deep frying and I can't wait to do it again. You need to be a bit careful from a fire safety point of view but the results are excellent.

Both birds were ridiculously juicy. We had 17 for dinner and no one really had a preference, both were delish.

All the other usual trimmings (potatoes, veggies, and GF's delectable stuffing roasted in a pan). One other highlight was homemade cranberries, cooked down with a whole bottle of pinot. Soooo goooood.