Gobble, Gobble, Gobble

I realize it's a couple of days past Thanksgiving, but we just had our little family celebration this evening. We celebrated with Kurt's family on Thanksgiving day, but his family has a few non-traditional Thanksgiving food items. Not that that's bad at all, but for me, having grown up with turkey and stuffing, it just doesn't feel like a true Thanksgiving meal without those things. So since we've lived in Nebraska, we've had our own family "Thanksgiving" meal, complete with turkey and stuffing (and mashed potatoes, etc), a day or so after. Well, tonight was our big night - and we tried something new. And it was a HIT! Wowza!

But before I pass along our little secret, let me give you a quick background of our turkey baking. Our first two years here, I baked our turkey the "traditional" way, although even after following the directions, it still was more on the dry side. Fine, but dry. Then some time the following year we got a taste of turkey at our Kansas relatives - where they'd deep fried a turkey. And we were sold -- we had to get ourselves one of those deep fryers!! So last year we took a stab at frying a turkey ourselves. And it went very well - and the turkey tasted great. Also, in addition to the deep frying, we also brined our turkey. I had never heard of that growing up, but Kurt and I must have seen it on the food channel or something, so we did that last year - just with a basic salt water brine. And it made a big difference - with a VERY moist turkey. Now this year, we kept up the new tradition of brining then frying the turkey, but I splurged and bought a "fancy" brine mix that I'd heard about online. And hokey diner (Kurt's phrase there) - it was really quite amazing! Now those of you who know me well know that I'm not really an outspoken, gushing type of person, but holy cow, I really could go on about this silly turkey! I was standing at the stove mashing the potatoes while Kurt was carving the turkey. He handed over a little piece for me to try first, and I took it, and stopped and literally gushed out loud how good it was. Then he took a bite and just looked at me.... it was amazing! Sooooo flavorful. He immediately asked where I'd gotten the brine, thinking I'd gotten it at a local store and we could just go get some more for another time. But when I told him it was only available online (at this specific store that we don't have anywhere closeby), he was a little disappointed. But even so, we can still order it again. :) And I know we will! Seriously, this was the best turkey I think we've ever tasted. And the kids loved it, too. Especially Karis, who went on and on about turkey and gobbled down her seconds of it.

I had hoped to get a shot of Kurt outside doing the frying, but it was already getting dark and my poor camera has a malfunctioning flash, so I knew anything I took in the dark wouldn't show up. So I took a shot of him inside with the fried turkey (and Karis wanted to get in on it, too)...


And then a momento of our first taste of Williams-Sonoma Apple and Spices Turkey Brine...


You really do need to try this! Even if you don't fry your turkey, brine it with this stuff, then bake your bird.... and your taste buds will thank you. :)