Thanksgiving 2011

So my mom has become sort of a traveling gnome these days.  She plans these elaborate trips, it's beginning to feel like every years now, with all her lady friends to quite exotic destinations.  This year it was Turkey and Sri Lanka with a short jaunt to Vietnam.  She often goes in the fall and this year she happened to be gone during Thanksgiving.  With her gone, my siblings and I were sort of at a loss of what to do.  In the end, everyone else decided to take a trip too.  Triple F and Running Man went to South America and Smooth Obturator and Triple T went to Bora Bora.  By the time I thought of going back home to spend Thanksgiving with Dumpling Man's family, plane tickets were through the roof.  So that left Dumpling Man and me, alone, in rainy Portland for Thanksgiving.  Luckily, Zhu Zhu Hamster was also in town and she brought along her friend, Little Pet.  So I took this opportunity to attempt my first Thanksgiving dinner for 4.  I didn't make all the usual things I normally eat with my family.  The only thing I really missed out on was the Oyster and Shrimp Stuffing which I have been eating with my family for as long as I could remember.  Dumpling Man very much dislikes my family's stuffing so I tried to do a more normal one this year.  All the recipes I used this year came from trusty foodtv.com.

Brined Herb-Crusted Chicken 
I adapted this recipe for a 4.5lb chicken instead of the intended 12-14lb turkey.  First of all I don't like turkey all that much.  And second of all, how can 4 people eat all that turkey?  The recipe also called for brining for 2-3 days and drying it out for another day.  Uh, who has all that time?  I brined it for 1 day and dried it out for 4 hours.  I figured, smaller bird, shorter prep time?

The recipe also called for cooking the turkey at 17 minutes per pound.  I did some cross referencing and went with the timing suggested by the roasted chicken recipe in Ad Hoc At Home.  It's a darn good thing I did that, otherwise the turkey would have ended up dry as a bone.  

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4th of July

Obviously this is a month delayed, but I took the pictures so I might as well blog about them =)

I think it is now an established H.o.P. tradition to celebrate the 4th of July at Smooth Obturator and Triple T's pad by the beach since you can see multiple fireworks shows from the neighboring cities.  I think last year we did steak, but this year my brother wanted to do ribs and bbq chicken.

The rubs were prepped with a dry rub and then smoked for a couple hours on the grill.

They came out quite tender, smokey, and delicious.
 

The chicken was very well prepared since they soaked in brine for a full night before being rubbed in two different dry rubs, one home made and one store bought.  I actually preferred the store bought one, but I can't remember why.  Either way, it was the brining that made all the difference.  The meat was just sooooo darn juicy!  You think just throwing some dark meat on the grill is the key to good bbq chicken, but now I know the secret!  BRINE BRINE BRINE!

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Christmas Dinner 2010

The H.o.P. usually celebrates the holidays pretty casually.  Some meat, potatoes, greens, and of course, a fruit tart.  Things are changing as the years go by.  Not only is our family growing, but we are all growing up and somehow meat, potatoes, and a salad just doesn't satisfy our palates these days.  In addition, we had some new guests this year: Triple T's brother, Quadruple T (Terror from Toronto and Taiwan Too), and Running Man's whole family.  Smooth Obturator and Triple T finally finished remodeling their pimp pad, including a pretty awesome kitchen.  So it's was only natural that we would eventually take all our culinary experiences and apply them for a new take on a family tradition of Christmas dinner.

Smooth Obturator was proudly showing off his new wine fridge.  He broke out a bottle of Silver Oak for us to enjoy with the evenings meal.  I'm really learning to appreciate good wine these days.

Appetizers black olives, smoked gouda cheese spread, wasabi cashews, multigrain crackers
I was too busy cooking to really enjoy these light appetizers, but the wasabi cashews are my new favorite snack.

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