The After Turkey Day Post

I cooked my Turkey this way.  Removed the backbone, flattened the bird.  My turkey was bow legged, with it's knees pointing out not in.  The 30 minutes at 425 really smoked up the oven. In the end this New York Times recipe was a FAIL.  The bird tasted "off" and no one at the table wanted to eat any after the first bite.  Could have been the olive oil.

But it was very pretty, the skin was crispy on top. Looked exactly like the picture at the top of this post--which is the NYT picture from their website.  But pale and wet on the underside.

Everything else was wonderful.  The pumpkin pie turned out to be spectacular.  The crust was flaky and tender.

We have been eating leftovers since then.  I stopped on the way home from work on Friday to pick up a half deli roasted turkey breast.  From now on--that's the only way we'll be eating Turkey. Live and learn.

I clicked on something in someone's blog post and got a 28 day NYT subscription.  Not to everything. Just some things.  For other more interesting stories--I would have to actually "subscribe".  I am enjoying having these free posts to read while I am having lunch at work. The free trial subscription should last until my last day at work.  For the season.  Then I have three months to decide if I want my "leaving" to be permanent.

I did my best to get the unripened green figs to soften (with a ripe banana under plastic) and made 3 pints of fig preserves today.  Before the football.  The preserves looked good (I usually run the figs, sugar and water mix thru the Vitamix once the sugar melts.  It's hot and dangerous to do this but other wise it's fig chunks and sugar.  Not that wonderful.  Once it goes thru the Vitamix it's brown and flecked with the no longer pink insides of the figs.  Looks exactly like the professional stuff we buy.

G likes fig preserves.  And I like having something to show for all the weeks and months of watering and fertilizing those two fig trees in pots.  I lost count of how many times the wind blew them over. I also lost count of how many days we moved the trees into and out of the garage when nights were colder than fig trees like.  Right now they are in the upstairs bedroom with the heat at 45 degrees and they have been pruned to short branches.  In the Spring I will pull them out of their pots and root prune them and give them the fertilizer they need.  And let them leaf out again.

Someday, when Maine (where I live) becomes a zone 6 growing environment--and with the way things are going--it might be next year--the fig trees will be planted in the ground.  Fend for themselves.  Wednesday, the 29th of November it's supposed to be 50 degrees and sunshine.  Right here in Maine.