Stuffed like a Turkey

Wow- what a weekend! It was fun and relaxing and I love four and 1/2 days of downtime.

Wednesday Steve got off work early so we hit Walmart to do some Christmas shopping. We have some very poor areas of our stake so as a stake (collection of wards) they collect toys/clothes/ect for families that may not have them for Christmas. Our ward was asked to collect toys/clothes for 3-4 year old girls. Well- that's easy to pick since that's the ages of 1/2 our kids. I wanted to have the girls pick stuff out to sort of teach them about charity at Christmas time- but I didn't want to take all four girls to the toy section of Walmart by myself. So I dragged Steve and we went and did that.

Thursday morning we got up and I started cooking pies. Now there are several essentials to Thanksgiving in my family. One of them is pies. Lots and lots of pies. Steve doesn't get it. Not many people do. But it's a time of year when you can make your 15 favorite pies and not feel (too) gluttonous. So I made 2 pumpkin, lemon meringue, key lime (don't try that recipe in the Betty Crocker cookbook- really not that good), banana cream and chocolate cream. My friend emily made a cheesecake. She doesn't understand the pie thing either.

My friend Emily and her family came over for Thanksgiving as well as my sister Barbara who is currently going to school at Dixie State College in Utah. So we spent the time cooking together in the kitchen while the kids played upstairs.

Another important part of Thanksgiving are the mashed potatoes. They have to have some skin- and of course have to be real. No imitations. That was my Dad's favorite part of was mashed potatoes and gravy.

Then the turkey. I actually had some. Now this might not seem like such a big deal to the rest of you- but I've not eaten turkey in about 14 years. It gives me a major migraine and lots of pain in my back, neck and legs. But I decided to try some this year and was okay on Thanksgiving day. But I shouldn't have had leftovers. Last night I went to bed with a killer migrane and pain everywhere. It was gone by this morning though.

I brined (let it soak in a salt water solution) the turkey overnight and added brown sugar, honey and red pepper flakes to the brine. Then I rubbed it down with butter, brown sugar and sprinkled it with more red pepper before roasting it in a roaster oven breast side down. It doesn't come out with that brown crispy skin- but it comes out so moist and juicy and actually tastes good. Also in about 2 1/2 hours and my oven is free! Best $30 I've ever spent.

So Thanksgiving was good. We chatted and played some games after dinner and then the four adults (Barbara had left by then) cleaned the kitchen spotless in about 20 minutes. Woot!

Friday morning we got the girls up and took our car out in the Nevada Desert. We just drove straight up behind our house and went exploring. We stopped and had a picnic and let the girls explore and they loved it. Then Steve let them all drive a little (and there are reasons why kids don't drive- they're too easily distracted!)

When we came home I grabbed a couple bags and we dropped the girls off at Emily's house (thanks Emily and Scott!) and Steve and I headed up to Mesquite. The fun part was that Steve didn't know we were going. But we spent Friday/Saturday up there and stayed in a hotel, got massages, went to dinner, saw the new Bond movie (good except for the obnoxious kids behind us) did some Christmas shopping for our kids and test drove a mustang!

All in all it was a very good weekend. Too bad that Steve has to go back to work tomorrow and Ashley starts back to school tomorrow and we're back to the daily grind...