I made it to the new market location and had to wander around to find the butcher. Luckily, I found Christine and she had my turkey all ready for me. Fortunately, it seemed on the small side and fit into my "granny roller grocery cart". Off we went through all the people starting to arrive for Christmas market. Strasbourg has about 400 thousand residents and during the next 4 weeks it will host over 6 MILLION visitors….color me happy.
I got to the apartment and "weighed" my turkey….yep, the old fashioned way. I step on the scale to get my body weight….I cannot eat anything for the next 4 years based on that number, then do it again holding the turkey and do the math. My "baby" bird weighs in at just under 9 lbs and DOES fit into my "easy bake oven". (Thanks for that visual Scott Swan)
I have only cooked a turkey once. I am trying to go "all out" here, so decided to try to brine my turkey. Did I mention that I first had to do some "de-feathering"? Butterball, where are you???
I start to assemble the brine. It called for 2 gallons of water, 3 cups of apple juice, 3 orange peels, 1 1/2 cups of salt, 2 cups of brown sugar and various other spices. The only thing that I had that could hold all that liquid was the turkey roasting pan. Doesn't it look beautiful?
I had to bring it to a boil and then allow it to cool, completely. Turn on the stove top and guess what??? My turkey roaster does NOT have a metallic bottom and my induction stove top won't heat it!!! So, I had to use my stock pot and transfer liquid back and forth until the whole darn batch was at a "boil". SO many words were floating through my head…..none came out. Sorry Lord!
After the batch had boiled I then had to try to fit it into my mini-fridge….not happening. What is a girl to do?? Well, THIS girl covered it tightly with aluminum foil and stuck it outside my window in our gutter to cool. Not easy, by the way. The stinking thing was heavy and only had about 2 inches of clear space before it would slosh over the side.
A quick trip to the grocery to pick up some fresh parsley for the stuffing and some more crème entière (heavy cream) to make fresh whipped cream for the pumpkin pie and my other Thanksgiving favorite, sweet potatoes. Did you know that they are a fruit? Neither did I. However, in the French grocery that's where you have to find them while doing the "self check-out". I had tried 3 different times to go through the vegetable "légumes" screen and under the potato "pomme de terre" section it only gave me white and red potatoes. Someone smart must watch the self check out area because every time I tried to use one of those two codes it gave me an error message (in French).
Now, at the American grocery store, the NEXT person in line stays back a reasonable distance until one of the stations is vacated. At the FRENCH grocery store they stand nearly against you and you can feel their breath moving your hair. Needless to say, that didn't make this a joyous experience. Finally the employee in charge of the "self-checkout" had mercy on me and came over. She tried to explain to me that I had to "wait to put my vegetables on the scanner" until after I had selected the "no bar code" button.
I wanted to say, Lady, I may be an American, but I'm not STUPID. Good thing for her that my French is not that good yet. I was able to tell her that I couldn't find the "sweet potato" code. Where did she go to find it?? Under the FRUIT screen. Yep, there they were, big as life. I actually had a moment where I thought maybe I was crazy and that sweet potatoes WERE a fruit. Believe me, when I got home I googled it. Sweet potatoes are a VEGETABLE…..except in France.
Once I was back the brine was cooled and I was ready to get the 16 hours of brining started. I had picked up some "baking bags" at the beginning of the week. That's what I figured would work for the "brining bag". The Pioneer Woman suggested placing the bird in a bowl to keep it stable. I'm ALL for stability. I got my bird inside the bag, put the bag inside my bowl and started to pour the brine inside the bag. I was about 3/4 of the way to the top and noticed that the bowl was filling with liquid. SHOOT! The bag must've had a leak!!
What should I do? Let the bowl fill up and overflow?? No way. My roasting pan was on the counter next to the bowl and so I decided to lift the bird (in the bag) out of the bowl and put it into the roasting pan, then I could get a new bag and start over. Well, that was a really bad idea. As soon as I lifted the bag high enough to "clear the liquid level" in the bowl the bag completely ripped apart. It dropped my 9 lb baby bird and nearly 2 gallons of the brine back into the bowl….well sort of. It dropped the TURKEY back into the bowl. The two gallons of liquid exploded all over the countertop and started spreading out onto the stove top and sink and FLOOR!!! Oh, yeah, it had also managed to not only drench my clothes, but actually wound up in my hair.
Yep, that looks like a disaster, doesn't it? My socks were soaking wet and I wasn't exactly sure where to start….I decided that I would have to salvage as much of the brine as I could (I wasn't going through step 1 again!) and managed to clean up the counter top as I sloshed around in my bare feet across a tile floor that was filled with an apple juice/brown sugar syrup. It had seep under the baseboard of the sink….not to mention drain down the dishwasher, the oven and into the drawers. 45 minutes later and I was ready to start again. This time I DOUBLE BAGGED the stinkin' bird. There was a leak the second time also, but quite frankly I didn't give a rip.
Now I was ready to prepare the corn bread for my stuffing. It's a "skillet corn bread" that starts on the stove top and finishes in the oven. The stove top section was finished and guess wouldn't fit into the easy bake oven? Yep, my skillet!! I managed to rig it so that I could force the oven door to close….no one needs a level corn bread for stuffing, do they?
Did I mention that while in the middle of theses fiascos that my dear sweet mother tried to FaceTime me….sorry Mom, if I touch electronics while standing in liquid I might fry, and my daughter called to tell me that my car battery was so dead that they couldn't use the jumper cables to start it, oh yeah, that happened.
I took a quick shower to get the "sticky" off and get dry clothes on and then started the pie. I love pumpkin pie. No one else does, but who cares? If I'm doing the cooking, then by golly my favorites are gonna be on the dinner table. Was just about to pour the pie filling into my pie crust and I decided to take a little taste….oops, somewhere in the middle of all that chaos I had forgotten to add the sugar. Disaster averted. Praise the Lord!!
David called to say that he would be home in about 15 minutes. (That was just as I was putting my newly sugared pumpkin pie in the oven) Apparently, I didn't sound overly joyed to hear that…or at least that was his take based on the tone of my voice. After he arrived home, as I shouted….DONT GO INTO THE KITCHEN!! and then explained what my afternoon was like he said, "let's go out for dinner". I love that man!!
Wishing you all a less chaotic Thanksgiving day. I pray that you are surrounded by your loved ones. Let's face it, the meal is secondary, it's the people that God has placed in your life that makes the day THANKSgiving. Praising the Lord and my Saviour Jesus Christ for all of the many blessings bestowed upon me and my family.
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