Greendriver
is Blowin Smoke!
We always have between 35 to 45 or more of our family at our house on Thanksgiving and yesterday it was 34. The wife did real good this year with letting everyone know that they had to bring TWO covered dishes (we have done this for years with only a couple out of the whole bunch and us doing the rest). Nobody’s tater salad or dressing comes close to ours so we always fix those two plus the meat (no brag just fact, as the Real McCoy turned cowboy use to say). I usually can’t resist throwing in some new dish but managed to this time and I think Sue did a couple of coconut cream pies. The covered dishes from our crowd were outstanding and I was pleasantly surprised at how good they really were and they ranged from your standard casseroles and desserts to a “Grape, Brocoli Casserole", and an outstanding “Pumpkin Cream Chesse / Praline Pecan Pie”. Our neighbor hesitantly asked Sue a couple of weeks ago if we would smoke her spiral sliced ham and Sue in turn replied, “oh, you mean your not going to have turkey too?” and I have reminded her several times since how to respond to that kind of request in the proper way. She had heard me say many times that I much preferred to purchase the meat if I am going to cook for someone but didn’t think about that might not be true for turkeys and smoked spiral sliced ham so she picked up those for our neighbor and I had to prep the turkey too. Next time they will get full instructions on preparing the bird and bringing it to me to place in the cooker when mine goes in. In the pics ours is a 19 lb Tom along with the 8 lb breast and theirs is the smaller whole one weighing about 14 lbs (I don’t know because after reminding Sue those first few times about how to respond to the neighbors request – she volunteered to prep theirs and didn’t take time to even look at the weight). We did a buttermilk brine / marinade on the birds and they must have been good cause even with the extra breast I had hoped to have left for sammiches all was gone except for a few scrapes. Getting back to the dressing, we always double our recipe and never have any of that leftover, so the pic shows mixing it up in a turkey roaster which works real good given it’s shape and size. We use 22 cups of bread (two pans of cornbread, a pan of biscuits, and some herb dressing mix) 2 cups onions, 2 cups celery, 10 or 12 cups of broth, and about 7 lg eggs along with the seasonings and we really go heavy on the sage, black pepper. What we have learned to do is taste for the right amount of seasoning before adding the eggs and we always hit it just right, or Sue does as shes the taste tester since my taste buds is usually on hold at the time if you know what I mean. Anyways on account of the eggs this dressing turns out where you can cut it and serve it out of the pan with a spatula and we have a few coverts from those that were always use to the spoonable kind. Wish I had took more pics but the birds were late coming off the cooker and we already had guest arrive, but the turkey was the best looking one I have ever done and it was because I spritzed it and butter basted it about five times and I think that cooled it off each time preventing it from getting too dark on me.
