Juicy

I just love leftovers from Thanksgiving! Today I had a turkey sandwich on whole wheat for breakfast. I almost drooled the Homer Simpson donut noise...it was that good!

I snacked on some dark meat around four in the afternoon, and enjoyed a reheated turkey dinner with a new batch of braised brussels sprouts for dinner. (Thanks Sister K!) Even after sitting in a Ziploc bag for 24 hours in the garage refrigerator, the breast meat was so juicy...not to mention yummy!

Perfect Turkey Hints:
Here's the trick I use to insure a succulent turkey breast every time I roast a bird...it's all about orientation...I owe it all to Fine Cooking Magazine. I lifted the tip from one of their email newsletters in 2008. Save the link for Juicy Roast Turkey, bookmark it, you'll never roast a whole turkey any other way ever again!

Here's the secret: Roast the turkey upside down for the first hour in the oven! That's all there is to it! I know it sounds a little daunting turning a hot slippery turkey over after it's been roasting for an hour in a 325°F oven, but it's a snap...oven mitts on each hand with a wad of paper towels, and it's over and done in under 20 seconds!

I learned a new trick when turning yesterday's bird. I don't stuff the bird, I make my Cornbread and Italian Sausage Stuffing on the stovetop and finish it in the oven, so I just grabbed the bird by the body cavity and with a lift and a twist of the wrist, it was breast side up for the duration!

Here's another tip to insure a great roast turkey...buy a decent bird to begin with! I swear by Sonora's Diestel Turkey Ranch. I've never bought another turkey since the first Diestel I tried. I get mine at Lunardi's Market in Walnut Creek. Safeway has 'em too. I buy a fresh one, not frozen. They taste like turkey!

Stuffing Recipe Hints:
I prefer to use mild sausage, but I fatten up the pinch of crushed red chilies.
I prefer red and yellow bell peppers to red and green...the stuffing is much brighter without the unripe (green) bells. (I don't taste 'em later if they aren't in there either)
If you make the cornbread from the linked recipe, halve the salt.
I use white spelt flour instead of white wheat flour in the cornbread...originally because the Siskyou Wing of the family thought they had a problem with wheat gluten. When it turned out they were A-OK with the gluten, I kept using the spelt for it's extra nutty flavor.

After all was said and done, I managed not to succumb to the Turkey Coma...in fact I was still goin' strong when the 11 O'clock News came on. I watched KCRA3's newscast, and they had some footage from Sugar Bowl of holiday skiers sliding down the slopes. Except for the overcast and the flat light, it looked for all the world like late-April snow...I mean slush! The reporter doing the story said it was more springlike than holiday weather...that was one juicy looking trail!

Don't think I wasn't paying attention! I looked at the remote sensors, I didn't see enough cold temps to make snow going back for a week at least, and the last blast of cold-enough temps was accompanied by very high winds.

Looking ahead, the forecast isn't promising...I even looked at Sacramento's AFD (maybe the Chamber of Commerce-Style forecast might feature a glimmer of hope!) Reno's AFD concured, a Blocking Ridge builds in and temps trend up, up, up for the next week. Oh, and the inversion layer stays.

That's a lot of juicy afternoons on the horizon...maybe the NWS forecasters will have time to answer a phonecall and chat about the forecast models and haw the help fine tune them going forward...

A man's gotta have a dream...