Cranberry, Apple, Sage & Rosemary Stuffing

Makes 12 to 16 servings

Ingredients

• 1 loaf unsliced French bread, cut into 3/4-inch cubes
• 1/4 cup butter
• 3 stalks celery, sliced
• 2 green apples, peeled and chopped
• 1 large onion, chopped
• 1 chicken bouillon cube diluted in 2 cups hot water
• 1 cup dried cranberries
• 1/4 cup maple-flavored syrup
• 2 tsp. dried sage
• 1 tsp. dried rosemary

Directions

Preheat oven to 400°F and spray a 13 x 9-inch baking dish with nonstick cooking spray. Place bread cubes on a baking sheet. Bake for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally, until toasted on the outside but still slightly soft inside. Place in a large bowl and set aside. Heat butter in a large skillet over medium heat. Add celery, apples and onion; cook, stirring frequently, for 10 minutes. Add to bowl with bread cubes and remaining ingredients, stirring until broth has been absorbed. Spoon into prepared baking dish and bake for 1 hour, tenting with foil if top browns too quickly.

How to Make the Perfect Thanksgiving Turkey

When it comes to finding directions on how to make the perfect Thanksgiving turkey, suddenly everyone you know becomes an expert. Your neighbor, your mail carrier, your hairdresser, your car repairman (even though he’s never cooked a turkey in his life) and last, but not least, your pest control man. Everyone has to put in their two cents worth on the subject. Well, I guess that means I’m in good company. Here are my instructions on how to cook the best Thanksgiving turkey you’ll ever eat.

Creating Perfect Flavor

I am going to let you in on a little secret. There is a method that the five star restaurants use to give their turkeys incredible flavor. What is it? It’s called flavor brining. Yep, that’s their secret. Historically, brining was done as a method of preserving. However, today it is used primarily as a vehicle to impart unbelievable flavor and moisture into a lean cut of meat.

Note: You should begin the brining process at a minimum of four days before you plan to cook your bird.

How to Brine Your Perfect Turkey

1. Purchase a 14 to 16 pound natural, young turkey. It should not be a self-basting or kosher turkey. These types of turkeys have a ton of added salt. Be careful to look at the ingredients on the turkey package and if it says it contains sodium or salt, keep looking for one without salt.

If your turkey is frozen, you will need to thaw it for at least two days before you begin the brining process. Remove the innards.

2. You will need a non-reactive, food-safe, 5-gallon plastic bucket large enough to fit your turkey with enough headroom for the brine to cover the turkey entirely by about one inch. Restaurant supply houses usually have these types of containers. You can also check with a local restaurant to see if they have a container like this that they are discarding. Be sure to clean it well with very hot soap and water before use.

3. To determine the amount of brine mixture you will need, put your turkey in the container and cover it with water. Remove the turkey and measure the remaining water. This is the amount you will need to make. Discard this water.

4. Place your thawed turkey (innards removed) neck cavity side up in the container and cover with it the brine (see recipe below). If you need to weigh your bird down, fill one or two large plastic zipper-type bag with ice and place them on top of the bird. This will also keep your bird at a cool temperature.

Refrigerate or place the bird in a cool place to brine for at least 12 hours or up to two days if desired. You can place the bird outside as long as the weather won’t cause it to freeze and the lid is secure against pests and animals.

If you are concerned about the bird being too salty, stop after the 12 hour period. It is better to err on the side of caution.

5. When the brining process is complete, rinse the bird well inside and out to remove the excess salt, then pat it dry with a paper towel. Air dry the bird over-night in the refrigerator to let the skin dry. This will help in the crisping of the skin as it roasts. Stuff your turkey as usual and roast according to the instructions below.

The Perfect Brine Recipe

You may need to double this recipe in order to have enough to cover your bird. Additional spices such as allspice berries, crushed thyme leaves, sprigs of rosemary, cinnamon sticks, and candied ginger may be added to this mixture to create your own unique flavor.

• Approximately 1 gallon of cold, no-salt vegetable stock or water.
• 1 cup of Diamond Crystal Kosher salt (if using Morton’s Kosher salt, use 3/4 cup)
• 1/2 cup of light brown sugar
• 1 tablespoon black peppercorns, crushed
• 7 fresh leaves sage, bruised
• 1 onion, sliced thinly
• 10 cloves of peeled, crushed garlic

Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, sage, onion and garlic in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve all the solids and then bring to a boil. Remove the brine immediately from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Pour the mixture over the turkey and refrigerate or keep in a cool place.

Roasting Your Perfect Turkey

The goal in cooking a turkey is to get your bird cooked and beautifully browned without drying out the breast. Here’s the problem: white meat cooks faster than dark meat. Traditionally, the bird is cooked breast-side up. This method causes the breast meat to cook quickly while the legs that are under the bird cook slowly. What you end up with is dried-out breast meat in order for the legs and thighs to be done properly.

So what is the answer you ask? Roast your turkey breast side down. Now before you brand me a heretic and have me burned at the stake, hear me out. Yes, this is not how your mother or grandmother did it but I am telling you, once you try this method you will never go back to cooking your turkey breast-side up again.

Why do it this way? Because when the breast meat is on the bottom, not only is it protected and cooks a little slower but all the juices that are in the turkey drain down into the breast making it moist, tender and juicy. Unless you have your heart set on a Norman Rockwell presentation at your Thanksgiving table, this is the best position in which to cook your bird. It may not look as pretty as the other, but who carves their turkey at the table anyway? We never do.

The last tip to the perfect turkey is to put your bird in the oven and leave it there until it is done. Calculate the amount of time that it will take to cook your bird, then put it in the oven and don’t peek until the timer goes off. No basting is necessary. You don’t need to baste if you cook the turkey breast-side down.

Roast your turkey at 325 degrees F. A 14 to 18 pound, unstuffed turkey will take approximately 3 3/4 hours to 4 1/2 hours.

For an unstuffed turkey, place the meat thermometer in the thickest part of the thigh, taking care that it does not touch any bone. Roast the turkey until the meat thermometer reaches 180 degrees F.

For a stuffed turkey, use a meat thermometer to check the temperature of the dressing. The center of the dressing inside the bird (or in a separate baking dish) must reach a temperature of 165 degrees F. for food safety.

After removing the turkey from the oven and before carving, allow the turkey to rest at least 20 minutes so that the juices settle within the meat, which will provide the meat with even more flavor and tenderness and will also make carving much easier.

Bon Appetite!

© 2002 – 2009 Blair Massey

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include the entire following resource information at the end of the article and make the link back to our site live:

Christian Lifestyle expert Blair Massey is devoted to helping Christian women around the world get their home, family and life organized. To get your home organized and start living the amazing life you were created by God to enjoy, sign up for her FREE newsletter now at www.christian-homemaking.com

Do You Have Homemaker’s Heartburn?

by Blair Massey

We all have our “off” days. It goes something like this: You wake up late and you just can’t seem to get motivated to do anything. Simple tasks like doing the dishes seem too big to tackle, and you don’t even want to think about that mountain of laundry calling your name from the laundry room. The kids wear you down and you wish you could escape to someplace quiet. Instead of having a heart that burns to be a great homemaker, you feel more like your heart has a case of homemaker’s heartburn. If this is where you’re at, it’s time for some refueling and refocusing.

Christ or Man?

Ephesians 6:7 “Serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not men…”

It’s very easy to become discouraged about your homemaking tasks when you focus on your family as the motivation for what you do. When they make messes, destroy things, postpone progress and cause pandemonium, it is easy to become discouraged and even resentful. But when you focus on Christ as the one you are serving, it puts a whole new perspective on things. Then when you look at the day’s tasks you see them as serving Christ, not man. It is the Lord who has given you your role as the manager of your home and it is Christ who you are serving when you serve your family. That’s an assignment you can sink your teeth into!

Rested or Burdened

Matthew 11:28-30 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (NIV)

Whenever I feel weary and in need of rest it always helps to give my burdens to Jesus. When I pray for strength He gives an ample supply. When I pray for patience He sustains me. When I need rest He provides it, whether it is through a change of plans or a change of attitude. Life can beat you down but Jesus is there to refuel you when you need it. Take Him up on His offer. You’ll find the rest that you need in Him.

Busy or Buried

Titus 2:4-5 “Then they can train the younger women to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled and pure, to be busy at home, to be kind, and to be subject to their husbands, so that no one will malign the word of God.” (NIV)

Often the cause of my discouragement is the mismanagement of my time. I spend way too much time doing things that I really should do after I have my housework completed. Then wonder why I am so buried.

Take a step back and ask yourself if a lack of proper time management is causing housework buildup for you. If the answer is yes, then you need to get busy with your homekeeping. It may seem awkward at first, but if you get your work done when you should, you will have plenty of time to do the things you like to do.

As I always say, “Do what you are supposed to do, when you are supposed to do it and you will be victorious every time.”

We all have times when we fall short of the mark. To get back on track make sure that you focus on Christ, find rest in Him and get busy with your homekeeping. Then your homemaker’s heartburn will be transformed into a flame that burns brightly, lighting up your home with the love of Christ.

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include the entire following resource information at the end of the article and make the link back to our site live:

© 2002 – 2009 Blair Massey

Christian Lifestyle expert Blair Massey is devoted to helping Christian women around the world get their home, family and life organized. To get your home organized and start living the amazing life you were created by God to enjoy, sign up for her FREE newsletter now at www.christian-homemaking.com

How to Clean and Organize Your Garage

by Blair Massey

The garage is a great place to put things that just don’t belong in the house. It’s the place to store bicycles, gardening supplies, tools, sports equipment, the kiddie pool, the lawn mower and of course the car.

Sometimes, though, the garage becomes a dumping ground for things we don’t know what to do with. We tend to stash things there thinking that we will eventually find a home for them later. Unfortunately, unless the garage is properly organized, once something ends up there it tends to stay there, never to be seen again.

In some cases there is so much stuff in the garage that we have to park our car on the street. If this is how your garage looks, it’s time to grab a broom and follow these steps to cleaning and organizing your garage.

Supplies: 2 or 3 large kitchen trash bags, 4 or 5 large sturdy boxes and a broom.

STEPS

1. Remove everything that is on the floor (including the car).

2. Sweep out the garage. Don’t forget to clean any cob webs from the windows.

3. Next, sort through everything. As you go through each item, decide if you need to throw it away, put it in another location, give it away or store it.

If it is broken, worn out, used up or useless, toss it in a garbage bag. Discard any old paint, pesticides, and fertilizers. Call your local disposal company or county for locations that take paint and other toxic materials.

If it is an item to be given away, mark one of the boxes “Give Away” and put the item in that box. One way to decide whether you need to keep something is to ask yourself if you used it at least once last year. If you didn’t, give it to a charity or someone who can use it. Don’t be sentimental. Only keep what you are really going to use. Of course you should keep items that are rarely used if they are for an emergency, such as jumper cables or if they are used once a year as with tree pruners and artificial Christmas trees.

If you have items that you would like to sell, mark a box “Sell” and put the items in that box. I want to caution you that unless you are really going to follow through with having a garage sale or selling these items online, you might want to just donate them. Many people have good intentions when they save things for a garage sale, however most people never get around to doing what it takes to have a sale. Don’t hang onto things you that you might sell “someday”. That someday will probably never come. Be generous and bless those that can use your unwanted items by giving them away.

If you have items that will go back into the house or borrowed items that need to be returned, mark one of the boxes “Return” and the other “House”, then put the items into one of these boxes. You can drop them off when you are done with this organizing project.

Put all the items you want to keep in a separate area of the garage. If you are storing items to be reused at a later date such as baby clothes, then you might want to consider relocating them to an indoor location that is dry and pest free.

When you are finished with this step, put the “give away” items in your car and take them to the nearest donation center. Put the “return” items in your car and return them.

Take the “house” items into the house and find a place for them. Don’t put the box in a closet or room thinking that you will get to it sometime. You know that won’t happen. Find homes for each item now. If you can’t find a home for something, you may want to donate it or give it away.

Put the garbage bags in the trash can and take toxic material to the proper disposal facility.

4. Getting Organized.

This is the step where you put back everything you are keeping. The only difference is that this time you will be organizing your garage into the following functional stations. These stations are groupings of related items.

Gardening and Paint

Make sure that children do not have access to weed killers, pesticides and other toxic chemicals locking them up or storing them up high.

Store small gardening tools on peg boards.

Store potting soil in a five-gallon plastic bucket with a lid.

Store pots, grouped by size on shelves.

Fill a large plastic garbage can 1/3 full with sand mixed with one quart of clean car oil. Place the metal end of your shovel, hoe and pitch fork in this container. The oil will keep them from rusting. Keep a wire brush nearby for cleaning off stubborn dirt.

Secure the lids to paint cans then store them upside down to prevent the paint from drying out. Clearly label them with the room where the paint was used, the color name and a dab of the paint color.

Tools

Hang up as many tools as possible on a peg board. The more you get off the floor the more room you will have.

If you have a work bench but not enough space to hold tools, consider mounting your tools on a peg board just above your work bench. You can also install a shelf above your work bench to hold drills, and other small equipment. To store very small items, try nailing the lids to jars under a shelf and then screw the jars into the lids. These make great places to store nails, screws, nut, bolts, washers, tacks, and staples.

Wall mounted paper towel holders are a great way to store rolls of tape. Just place your tape on a dowel and put the dowel into the holder.

Place car care items and miscellaneous items on shelves in clearly labeled boxes or bins.

Equipment

This area is where you store your lawn mower, weed trimmer, hand tiller and other pieces of equipment. Use peg boards with heavy duty hooks and bike racks to hang smaller equipment and ladders.

Sports

Store skis, golf clubs, and other tall pieces of equipment in a tall plastic trash container or hang horizontally on the wall.

Put balls in a mesh bag and hang on the wall.

Cleaning and organizing the garage takes time and effort but the rewards are great. Once you are done, you will have a space that is functional and easy to maintain. Best of all you will be able to open your garage door with pride. No more feeling embarrassed when the neighbors walk by!

WANT TO USE THIS ARTICLE IN YOUR EZINE OR WEB SITE? You can, as long as you include the entire following resource information at the end of the article and make the link back to our site live:

© 2002 – 2009 Blair Massey

Christian Lifestyle expert Blair Massey is devoted to helping Christian women around the world organize and manage their home, family and life. If you’re tired of struggling to keep up at home, Blair will show you how to unlock your God-given organizing ability so that you can start living the amazing life that God created you to enjoy! To learn how, sign up for her FREE newsletter now at www.christian-homemaking.com