Smoked Turkey

I almost always work Thanksgiving. This year is no exception. Instead of celebrating on Thursday, Nick and I host GF Thanksgiving on the next available day. Since we have this wonderful smoker, we thought we would start practicing our turkey cooking skills. For tonight's dinner, we had turkey, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.

We did not marinate the turkey overnight, as we decided this morning to fix a bird. We used the same rub as GF Thanksgiving 2008. Then we placed the turkey in the smoker and cooked it on medium-high for about 3 hours. I think we overcooked it just a bit. Next time we will cook it a bit differently. I am thinking about cooking it at a lower temperature with hourly basting, and making sure the meat thermometer is in it. (We forgot the thermometer this round.) We also did not stuff it with extra herbs or fruit. This may have helped the turkey to have more moisture in it's environment and for the drippings to be less fatty.

Making gravy GF is still a bit of a mystery. The gravy seems to turn out thicker. The rue just is not the same. I'll have to do some more research. I'd really appreciate anyone's comments. We saved some of the drippings to mess around with later on.

In the spirit of fall, I also made pumpkin bread. I guess what I really made was a loaf of pumpkin bread and 6 pumpkin break muffins. The recipe seemed a little odd to me, because of the seeds, but it is just great. My favorite part is the "crust." I needed 2 cups of flour, but only had about 1.75 of the Arrowhead Mills All-purpose baking flour. I topped off the last bit with GF Bisquick. The Bisquick might have helped the loaf to come out a bit smoother. I find that the Arrowhead Mills leaves a trace of grit or aftertaste or something. I also used 1/5 cans of Libby's pumpkin. The rest of the pumpkin will be re purposed for breakfast parfait. You should try out this easy recipe, complementary (again) of FootNetwork.com/Alton Brown. If Alton Brown happens to ever read this, I would like him to know I have a little crush on him. He's charismatic, smart, and cooks amazingly well. (Too bad it couldn't work out between us.) Oh, and for the record, this bread goes great with a cup of spiced mate tea. Mmmmm!

Pumpkin Bread
by Alton Brown

Cook Time: 1hr 15min Level: Easy Yield: 1 loaf or 1 1/2 dozen small muffins
Times: Prep: 20min Inactive Prep: --

Ingredients

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 3/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 large eggs
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3 cups shredded fresh pumpkin
• 1 cup toasted pumpkin seeds

Directions

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Sift the flour, cinnamon, baking soda, baking powder, and salt together.

In a separate bowl, mix the sugar, vegetable oil, eggs, and vanilla. Combine both mixtures and fold in the shredded pumpkin and pumpkin seeds. Once the ingredients are all incorporated pour into a non- stick 9 by 5 by 3-inch loaf pan. If your pan is not non- stick coat it with butter and flour.

Bake for 1 hour and 15 minutes. At this point a knife inserted into the middle of the loaf should come out clean. Cool for 15 minutes and turn out onto a cooling rack. Cool completely. For muffins temperature should also be 325 degrees F., but bake for 30 minutes.