One of my birthday gifts from David was this book. I had heard of the ratios behind cooking “standards” before in other cookbooks; when I heard about this book, it immediately went onto my wish list.
It is a fantastic book…something that will allow me to do more experimentation. One of the sections in the book talked about brines. As much as Bri and I enjoy watching Food Network, I’d heard of brining turkeys before, but wondered it would or could be done with chicken. This book answered the question and also gave me a GREAT brine recipe for chicken which I used on the chickens I roasted today.
I don’t think I will ever cook poultry again without brining it first! What a difference it made…juicy and moist throughout, especially the breast meat, and the skin was really pretty!
I wondered if I could still use the drippings for gravy. After some research on the web, last night, I found several articles that said if you did want to make gravy to rinse the bird thoroughly before roasting, which I did.
The drippings made a very rich gravy, that looked more like beef gravy than chicken. It was so flavorful and definitely did not need any additional seasoning.
I also wanted to try Brussels Sprouts this year. I’m not much on cooked cabbage so I never Brussels Sprouts never appealed to me. I couldn’t find any fresh sprouts so I decided to substitute fresh broccoli in the recipe and man, it was good…different, but just yummy. So much so that when I found myself hungry again a mere 6 hours after our Thanksgiving Feast it was the broccoli that I went for…LOL!
My brother-in-law Kenny was here for dinner and he seemed to really enjoy the dinner and was hoping for another non-traditional Holiday meal again in the future…hint, hint. He had me laughing.
Who would have thought that taking on Thanksgiving dinner for my family would give me such joy?? Certainly not me! I have to give the new kitchen all the credit in that department, I guess.
With that I want to close with blessings to all my wonderful friends and family whom I love so much…Life is SO much BETTER having you as a part of it. Same can be said for my puppies who bring me nothing but joy and laughter on a daily basis…Life is good!
Filed under: Holidays
