Tip: Deep Fried Turkey

We like to fry our Thanksgiving turkey. (When I say "we", I mean "Mr. LT" there.) It's quick (under an hour), and the turkey comes out juicy, but not the least bit oily. In previous years, we've always used peanut oil to fry the turkey, but this year, when mr. LT went to Costco, the big 5-gallon container of peanut oil was $50!! I'm cheap, the economy sucks, and no way were we paying that much.



Mr. LT needed to go to the Sportsman's Warehouse yesterday, and found that they carry cottonseed oil, which has a similar high smoke point to peanut oil. The cottonseed oil was $19 - so he bought it.



After consulting with Mr. LT, I just learned that the container of cottonseed oil was only 3.5 gallons, so we need to check to make sure that will be enough to cover the bird. In any case, even if we have to buy a second container of cottonseed oil, we'll still be ahead. Lesson: don't assume there aren't better deals available than at the warehouse stores.



One thing I do need to figure out is a reliable method for straining the used oil. We've tried several different ways of doing this in the past, and really, it's just been one big FAIL after another. Off to google!

Christmas Cookie Exchange?

Anyone else up for doing a Bend-area based Christmas cookie exchange? Basically, everyone makes several dozen of one kind of cookies, then the group gets together and everyone goes home with a variety of cookies, without having to make several different types of cookies themselves. How many varieties everyone gets depends upon how many folks participate.

I'd love to do this if others are interested. Comments, baby!

Easter

I'm late posting these... but we had a great Easter, and the Easter Bunny was kind enough to visit and hide some eggs for Zippy. The bad news was that the Easter Bunny was apparently unable to find the Easter baskets that are still in a box somewhere in the garage. I expected more from him.

Thanksgiving

This was our first Thanksgiving ever without extended family around. It was weird that we didn't have anyone else's time table to adjust to - we just did what we wanted when we wanted. We missed all of the family, but had a nice day nonetheless.

I spent the day cooking - prep work on the turkey at 8, had it in the oven by 9. Zippy spent her day watching and helping me cook - she loves to be in the kitchen, and had a lot of fun helping me measure, pour, and stir the various side dishes we made. She's a whiz kid in the kitchen, and it amazes me how much she really does help.

We made our traditional side dishes -- hominy casserole, dressing, green bean casserole, mashed potatoes, and sweet potatoes. I'd made a chocolate pecan pie the night before, and should have made the pumpkin pie at the same time, but didn't, and then the oven was full and busy all day yesterday, and at the wrong temperature for baking a pie... The crust was ready, but by the time I could have put it together, Zippy had eaten a fair amount of the crust I'd pre-baked. So no pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving this year - I'll make one soon, though.

After dinner, Burger kindly kept Zippy at home and Mr. LT and I went to a friend's house to mingle for a few hours.

All in all, we had quite a satisfactory Thanksgiving, and were most thankful for getting to spend the day together. I hope all of you also had a wonderful holiday.