My Eyes Were Bigger Than My Stomach Everyone's Stomachs

Sale Prices Yield Massive Over-Cooking...


Burp...

Going into the Holiday season, I swore that this year I'd take it easy and not cook an giant elaborate feast of appetizers, multiple meats, and a half dozen side dishes.

The idea sounded good at first, but then they put big turkeys on sale for $0.69 a pound before Thanksgiving and I couldn't resist grabbing a 14 pounder and shoving it in my freezer for future use.

I made it though Thanksgiving keeping my "minimalist cooking" pledge by accepting an invitation for lunch with my neighbors and their large family--only doing a couple of appetizers which only took a couple of hours to produce.

Then when we finally made our Christmas plans and I realized that there was an opportunity to cook Christmas Dinner and...while suffering for Alzheimer's...I offered to cook my NINE POUND turkey for Pat and Mom and I (remember it was 14, not 9 pounds.)

Further, in keeping with my pledge, the meal would consist of just the Turkey, dressing, and two sides with cranberry.

"Really simple."

SIMPLE, I promised myself.

And remembering the old saying "bird in hand (or freezer)...etc., etc.", I decided it didn't matter that a 14 pound bird will serve ten to twelve, so I just threw that sucker in the cooler and carted it to Lower Alabama.

By the way, the good news is that with a rock solid frozen 14 pound bird anchoring the proceeding in the Cooler we didn't need any ice over our day and one half journey south to support keeping cool itself and the beef tenderloin, fresh vegetables and other stuff we raided from our freezer and fridge.

That turkey was still hard as a rock when I cleaned out the cooler and then put it back into a couple of four gallons of brine solution.

So then after cooking a Fillet/Baked Potato dinner Wednesday night and fresh Pork and Chicken Tamale's with Salsa Verde for lunch yesterday...

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at 1:30 PM Thursday afternoon my assault on turkey, Sage Sausage Dressing, Broccoli/Cauliflower Casserole, and a Baked Mashed Potato dish ensued.

Turns out that the other thing I forgot (besides the size of the bird), was that most of my recipes had been developed to serve a dozen people (scaling toward 30 diners a couple of times in recent memory) so when the dust settled at 6 PM last night, besides being too tired to eat, I had what was probably the BIGGEST PILE OF FOOD ever set in front of three people in south eastern Alabama.

burp...

So just now, after a nap, I got through ripping the tin foil and saran wrap off the top and processing the left overs--read that carving the rest of the Turkey off of the bone--so now it's time to scan the cooking blogs for something to make besides "Turkey Sandwiches."

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In the mean time, If anyone has any good ideas, I'll let you have a couple of pounds of free bird....just stop by...

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Oh, and by the way, just in case I missed you "Merry Christmas"...