Happy Thanksgiving

It is Thanksgiving and I know I have a lot to be thankful for. I am thankful for my wonderful husband who has stood by my side for over five years. He gives me love, support and laughter. I love him with all my heart and he is still the first person I call when anything happens.

I am thankful for my family. My mom who has always been there for me and taught me a lot about living life to the fullest (even on a budget). I will always remember our vacations to Bluff, the swinging bridge... all good times. I am thankful for my dad and all the laughter and fun he has given me - I have a tendency to have drinks come out of my nose and tears out of my eyes from laughing so hard with him. There are some great memories - disneyland, seaworld (getting kicked out of), making mud pies in the ditch, snowman. I could go on about my family but I will just end with saying my life is very full of love and I am very lucky to have such great family.

I am thankful for my job. It may not be my dream job but it has brought so many great people into my life. I have some really close friends and even though things are a little scary in the business world thanks to the economy it is nice to have friends to talk things out with and share it with.

I am also thankful for changes. I used to hate changes because I love stability but I am learning to deal with changes better and rolling with the punches is a lot better then being stubborn and getting stale. I know the next year will bring even more changes for me as I start school again after 10 years of being out. But if my grandma can go back to school in her 40's and with 8 children then I can surely handle this.

So today I am off to spend time with loved ones and enjoy the day. I hope everyone takes time to reflect today on what they are thankful for and to spend time with ones they love.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

The Perfect Turkey Recipe

This is the famous turkey recipe at work. I have yet to try it but if you do let me know how it turns out.

The Perfect Turkey

Items needed: Morton’s Kosher salt, Brown Sugar, Low Sodium Chicken Broth, Cornstarch, Kitchen Bouquet (small bottle), Un-salted Butter, Foil, Pan release spray (Pam), Onion, Celery, Carrots, Fresh Thyme, Sage and Rosemary, Digital Thermometer with cord. ( This will be the best 20$ Investment you will make )

Notes and suggestions:
q Never stuff the Turkey! Prepare the stuffing in a separate casserole dish with Chicken Broth in place of water and bake. It is not safe and exposes the protein to extra unnecessary heat. The excess mass within the turkey(the stuffing) will add extra cooking time to the bird, exposing extra-unnecessary heat to the meat causing it to overcook needlessly.
q Make the brine two days before you plan to cook the turkey, so it will be nice and cold.
q The drippings will be too salty for gravy, so make separate gravy from stock. If you are Hell-bent on using the pan drippings, I will give you a ‘fix’ at the end of the instructions, for making gravy.
q Remember to remove all the ‘goodies’ inside the turkey, both cavities !
q An 18 lb turkey will feed approx. 12 people and if prepared by these directions, will take about 2&1/2 to 3 hours to cook.
q Important! Allow 30 minutes of ‘rest’ time in your dinner schedule, for the bird to sit before carving.
q No basting needed! The meat will not absorb the juice and it will only take longer to cook, from the heat loss every time you open the door.
Brine
q Mix 1gal + 1 qt of water with 8 oz of brown sugar and ½ lb( 8oz ) Morton’s Kosher salt. Stir to dissolve. You will have to stir this several times to completely dissolve the salt and sugar. Chill this mixture well!
q Place thawed turkey in a container large enough to be able to submerge it when the brine is added. Pour in enough brine to cover. Place in refrigerator for 12 to 24 hours.
q If turkey floats, place a gallon bag filled with water on top to keep it submerged. Don’t worry, if it won’t completely submerge, put as much brine as possible and just flip it over several times during the process.
To Cook
q Set oven temp to 500
q Place oven rack to its next to lowest setting in the oven.
q Rinse turkey well (we need to remove the excess brine)
q Rough chop 1 medium onion, 1 head of celery, and 1 or 2 carrots. Reserve.
q Make a sheath of foil (breast plate) to fit the breast of the turkey. Shiny side out. It should only cover the breast.
q Remove the foil and spray the inside of the foil with Pam and reserve the foil until later.
q Massage room temp butter into the skin of the turkey. 4 to 6 oz should do it. Really rub it in.
q Place the vegetables into the turkey (where you used to put the stuffing) add a few sprigs of rosemary, thyme and sage. All fresh please.
q Place the turkey into a roaster with a rack so the bird is elevated off the bottom of the pan.
q Place the turkey into the 500-degree oven, ( do not put the foil on until later in the recipe ) neck first and set a timer for 30 minutes.
q Remove the bird from the oven. The breast should have a nice golden color. (If not, return him to the oven for another 10 minutes)
q Place the foil breastplate on the turkey. Remember to spray the inside of the foil with Pam so it will not stick to the turkey and pull off that beautiful skin.
q Place the probe of the thermometer into the thickest part of the breast.
q Reduce the oven temperature to 350 and replace the now “armor plated turkey” back in the oven.
q Set the alarm (if the thermometer has one) for 161 Degrees. Make sure the thickest part of the breast is at this temp. (The dark meat will be at about 180)
q Remove the bird from the oven and cover completely with foil, making a tightly sealed pup tent over the bird. Place it in a warm place and let him rest for 30 minutes. This will finish the cooking and allow the juices to redistribute thru the protein.
q Your turkey is done !!

Gravy
q If you insist on making gravy from the drippings, add 1 cup of water, 1 cup of low sodium chicken broth and thicken with cornstarch slurry. Add a little of the Kitchen Bouquet for color. You can even boil the giblets and mince them up to add to the gravy for texture…

Enjoy and Happy Holidays
Chef Dave Del Rio

Top Chef

Top chef is a reality show on Bravo and now in its fifth season. It just started last week and I am excited to say that one of the contestants used to work for Roy's Las Vegas. (One of the stores that I do the books for!) His name is Gene or Eugene and he was a sous chef and long time employee of Roy's. I am excited to see how well he does. He got high marks on the first challenge and I think he has potential for making it in the final three. GO GENE!

Just another day

I know I haven't said much lately. I don't want to rant about how the economy sucks so I just chose to say nothing much. I, like most Americans, get to learn how to survive with no raise but rising costs of health and dental insurance. Good thing I am a whiz at budgets and how to take a few pennies here and apply them to another place.

Where have we cut?
1. Eating out- it is sad but Bruce and I used to eat out 3 times a week. Now we are down to once and it has to be in a certain price point.
2. Cell phones - we have a land line and internet at home so we don't need unlimited calling and internet on our phones.
3. Cable boxes - although I have refused at this point to give up the dvr, we did get rid of showtime and our box in our bedroom.
4. Groceries - I have started shopping the sales again. I love buy 1 get 1 free deals. Coupons are my best new friend.
5. Toilet paper - it takes planning but buying your toilet paper at costco is so much cheaper then buying it at the grocery store.

Hope that this helps everyone else that is out there struggling of where to start cutting. It hurts but it hurts a lot less then bankruptcy.

Gratitude

Today I am grateful that I have a job. Granted the economy may have hit the restaurant industry hard and financially things have been cut but there have been no huge layoffs and for that I am grateful.

What Obama is doing that I like

I think it is very exciting that Obama is going to have a CTO - Chief Technology Officer. Technology has become a very important part of our world so it is important to utilize it to your best advantage. If you would like to read more and see who his choices are click here. One of the choices is Bill Gates - isn't he retired? I can only imagine how this new position in the white house will help or hurt but I do find it exciting. Oh and so does Bruce as he is the one that brought this to my attention.

Since I don't live in Utah, I am not up on the drilling for oil close to our National Parks, but I love Arches and would really like to protect them if possible. It sounds like Obama wants to stop the drilling as well or at least look into protecting my Arches.

Also Antigua is naming their highest peak after Obama.... I don't remember a mountain being named after George W Bush. I think that is a pretty high honor and I really hope that our relationship with other countries grows. We are in this world together and we can have a much better world if we work together and stop fighting. That I know is true.

78 and sunny

How could I not comment on how beautiful our weather is today! I just came back from a walk. It was gorgeous. I love living in Florida.

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Every year for Halloween, my work goes crazy with decorations and invites every one's children to come trick or treating. This year they did a contest with the winners getting money to do a group event. They are into building team spirit. At first our row was going to do Candyland but in walking around the week before Halloween, we found someone else was already doing that. So at the last minute we changed our minds and did Charley and the chocolate factory. We did chocolate falls with the river running down our aisle and incorporated different aspects from both the old and new movies into our aisle.

The chocolate falls and rivers is brown felt (cheap material). For our falls, we added tulle for more dimension, fake snow for foam and brown balloons for the bubbles at the bottom. The green along the edges is green paper.

Since this is a place of work for our TV we used an extra computer to complete our Wonka vision.

For the golden egg room, of course an Easter egg spray painted gold and gold wrapping paper with some pictures completed the look.

For our lollipops we found these paper plates that already had the circles on them. Lucky us! We also made mushrooms. The stems were a flower vase and the top was a plastic mixing bowl covered in tissue paper upside down. For our lickable wall paper, we found candy wrapping paper and simply taped candy onto the wall still in the wrapper in case a child took it. We also had a tree that we hung bubble gum on. I know we did so many more things. It turned out great and the kids loved it. We won second place so all the hard work was worth it.

Oh and of course we had a Willy Wonka and Oompa Loompas! We also won for best group costumes so overall we rocked Outback!