The Day Before the Day Before Thanksgiving or How to Cook a Perfect Turkey in 3 Hours or Less

It is the day before the day before Thanksgiving. This is the time that we start brining our turkey. If you have not had a brined turkey yet, what a great year to start the tradition.

We have made it our tradition to wait until at least Thanksgiving Day to listen to Christmas music, and then we we become Christmas music superfans.

Three staples for the Rail's Thanksgiving:

Rail-Good Eats Turkey (as in Alton Brown, but the brine is not from him)

1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey

For the Brine:

• 2 quarts apple juice
• 1 pound brown sugar
• 1 cup kosher salt
• 3 oranges, quartered
• 4 ounces fresh ginger, thinly sliced
• 15 whole cloves
• 6 bay leaves
• 6 large cloves garlic, crushed

For the aromatics:

• 1 red apple, sliced
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 cup water
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 6 leaves sage
• Canola oil

DIRECTIONS

Day 1:
In a large saucepan over high heat, bring the apple juice, brown sugar, and salt to a boil, stirring to dissolve the sugar and salt. Cook for 1 minute, remove from the heat, and skim off the foam. Allow the mixture to cool to room temperature.

In a 5-gallon plastic bucket or other container large enough to easily hold the turkey, combine 3 quarts of water, the oranges, ginger, cloves, bay leaves, and garlic. Add the apple juice mixture and stir.

Remove and discard the fat from the turkey cavity. Reserve the neck and giblets for another use. Rinse the turkey inside and out, drain, place thawed turkey in the brine, turkey breast side down, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area (like a basement). If necessary, top with a heavy weight to make sure it is completely immersed. Turn turkey over once, half way through brining. Refrigerate for 24 hours.

Day 2:
A few minutes before roasting, heat oven to 500 degrees. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes.

Remove bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.

Place bird on roasting rack inside wide, low pan and pat dry with paper towels. Add steeped aromatics to cavity along with rosemary and sage. Tuck back wings and coat whole bird liberally with canola (or other neutral) oil.

Roast on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F. for 30 minutes. Remove from oven and cover breast with double layer of aluminum foil, insert probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and return to oven, reducing temperature to 350 degrees F. Set thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let turkey rest, loosely covered for 15 minutes before carving.

Rail-Mama Stamberg-NPR Cranberry Relish (been making this for ten years....it is amazing....I love, love, love it)

• 2 cups whole raw cranberries, washed
• Pomegrante seeds (new we are trying this year)
• 1 small onion
• 3/4 cup sour cream (we have tried yogurt to cut out on the fat....do not try that...it gets watery and watered down...sour cream is worth the extra 8 minutes on the elliptical)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons horseradish from a jar (red is a bit milder than white)

Grind the raw berries, seeds, and onion together (do not puree).

Add everything else and mix.

Put in a plastic container and freeze.

Early Thanksgiving morning, move it from freezer to refrigerator compartment to thaw. (It should still have some little icy slivers left.)

The relish will be thick, creamy, and shocking pink (think Pepto-Bismo pink, but you will looooooove this)

"Loves me some" Aunt Liza Rolls

With commentary by Candice

In one mixing bowl combine:

• 2 1/2 cups hot water (not too hot, you should be able to put a baby in)
• 2 tablespoons yeast (she used the quick kind)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/3 cup oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 tsp salt (unbeknownst to me this kills the sugar feeding yeast)
• No more than 6 1/2 cups of flour (begin with 3 cups, mix, and add until the dough pulls away from the sides.)

Cover and let rise until double. Punch down and form into rolls, placing on cookie sheet an inch apart.

Let rise for about 15 minutes or desired size.

Bake 400 degrees for 12-15 minutes.

Any other recipes to share? Post them on my facebook page! And if we ain't friends yet, well we should be!