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December 2020 Holidays Links I Follow

Christmas Dinner

This is a photo of December 25th, 2020. It,s main feature is a 20 lb, orange brined turkey which brined for 36 hours in a brine that I learned from Chef Jeffery.

I also made a creamy coconut pie with the coconut poured over the top and with real whipped cream from the can for added texture and taste. You will find my coconut pie recipe in my recipe archives if you wish to.

A Christmas Dinner with an orange brined turkey along with my creamy coconut pie. Also fluffy mash potatoes with stuffing and cranberry sauce. And a fabulous homemade pumpkin pie. December 25th 2020.
My Christmas turkey with my creamy coconut pie. A friend stopped by with the mashed potatoes and stuffing with the cranberry sauce. She also bought her awesome homemade pumpkin pie along.

I do hope that each and every one of you had a little Christmas dinner with a loved one or friend. It was a nice day for me and my neighbor. We had a lovely dinner while listening to Christmas songs on my laptop from Youtube. We also had minute made pink lemonade for our beverage.

Afterwards, we split up the dinner for the 2 homes. Now I have got to can turkey by Sunday! But I wanted to give you the brining recipe that I used on the turkey. First I had to thaw him for 2 days and get the paper packages out of him

The only pan that I had big enough was the aluminum turkey pans. I had 2 together and a hard cookie pan under them for firmness.

I used 8 ornges cut into 1/4ths.

1/2c. salt

3/4th gallon of water (Jeffery used a gallon, but he had a bucket and a fridge for it to fit in). I did start with the gallon but had to dip a lot of it out so I could pick up the pan to refrigerate the bird for 12 hours on the back side of the bird.

Then take it out and flip the bird on to the breast side for the next 24 hours to brine in the refrigerator

Back to the brine recipe. You have your water and salt and oranges together.

Add in 5 bay leaves and 1 TBSP of rosemary and 1 TBSP of thyme.

Add in 1 TBSP of black pepper corns. Stir this and have the turkey in the pan and pour this over it.

In, the morning to cook the turkey, you use a soup ladle to dip out all the brine. Stuff the oranges in the cavity of the bird. I used the same pan to bake mine in or you can change pans.

I like to cook a stress-free turkey. So I got up at 6 am and turned the oven on to 330 degrees and just put the bird in the oven and went back to bed. I do not smear butter or dip broth over the turkey as it is cooking. I did leave the oven light on for the bird. And when it browned I tented the bird with foil so he would not burn. As I wanted to cook the bird for 5 hours which was 45 minutes over-time as I always do. It was juicy and really good.

So, thank you for visiting today, and do come back soon, as I post on Tue-Thur and Saturdays. Check my archives for more recipes if you wish to. And share away with your friends. is the link to Chef Jeffery.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCW7cBq7rpDRaM1-y2CT6L0A

Thank you again. Connie B. https://www.wisdomforpennies.com