Thanksgiving: The All Stars

Check out that turkey - 11 pounds of succulent perfection! I like to cook, and I do alright in the kitchen, but I'm always the first to critique my work, and there's almost always something to critique. But not with this turkey. It was perfectly cooked, perfectly brown, and perfectly juicy. My only complaint: it was almost too juicy when it came time to take the meat off.

The players:
1 11 pound turkey (with pop-up timer)
Sage Butter (1 stick of softened butter mixed with 3 tablespoons of chopped fresh sage)
1 yellow onion
Several cloves of garlic
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Chicken Stock

The technique:
Rinse and pat dry your bird, inside and out. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Loosen the skin around the breast (be careful not to break the skin) and stuff with sage butter. Season the cavity with salt and pepper. Cut onion into quarters and stuff the turkey with those and the garlic cloves. Rub the turkey with olive oil and season with salt and pepper. Place chicken stock in the bottom of your roasting pan, and roast for 2 1/2 hours or until the pop-up timer pops and a meat thermometer reads 165 degrees in the thigh.

The turkey was awesome and will make for even better Turkey Manhattans, turkey sandwiches, and turkey soup. But, my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal? The green beans. My Grandmother used to make these beans for every holiday and I've tried to carry on the tradition. I don't have her recipe, but I've gotten pretty close. They're my favorite and I love them even better the next day so I always make plenty.

The players:
3 pounds of fresh green beans, snapped
3-4 slices of bacon, chopped
1 cup of chopped sweet onion
Salt and Pepper
Beef broth

The technique:
Cook bacon in a large pot. When it starts to curl, add in the onions. Season liberally with salt and pepper, and cook over low until the onion is translucent. Add the green beans and toss with the bacon and onions. Pour beef broth into the pot until about a fourth of the beans are covered. Cover and cook on low for 2+ hours. Stir and season periodically. I don't know how to tell you when they're done, you'll just know. But, I can tell you to always err on the side of overcooked.

As of tomorrow, I will have made these green beans for three Thanksgiving meals. They never get old and all the snapping is definitely worth it! By the end of this Thanksgiving holiday, I will have hosted two dinners, cooked the entirety of one, and eaten at three. The good news? In a few weeks, we get to do it all over again! I can't wait for Christmas!

My other two cents...

There's something else about The Twilight Saga: New Moon, that I forgot to talk about in my last post. Because of it's success, we ladies might finally start getting some respect from Hollywood! I'm not sure how many of you have seen the numbers from New Moon's opening weekend, but it did really, really well! In fact, it's midnight showings were the highest in history, and it's opening weekend came in third just behind Dark Knight and Spider-Man 3.

If you think about Hollywood "blockbusters," they're almost always action flicks. Now, I like a good action movie just as much as the next girl, but let's face it, the movie industry definitely favors it's male audience. I have a few girlfriends that I go to the movies with on a regular basis, and we're always commenting on the lack of quality chick flicks.

Furthermore, maybe New Moon has shown filmakers that we ladies are not one dimensional and that we can fill theaters. Maybe we're looking for, and willing to spend money on, something more than romantic comedies. No matter what your opinion about The Twilight Saga, there is more to it than sappy lines and boys with their shirts off. It's an epic with action, fantasy, and romance. I don't know, but has there ever been another epic movie series targeted towards girls? Not that I know of.

When Twilight did better than expected in the theaters, Hollywood was surprised. They knew the books had a large following, but they underestimated the female audience's ability to pack out a theater. No one thought that a chick-centric movie could reach blockbuster proportions. But now that both movies have surpassed expectations, they know. As an audience, we are just as valuable as the guys that they tailor all their big movies to. And really, how many date nights have we ladies spent accompanying guys to action movies? I think it's time for our men to realize that that's a check about to be cashed. The Twilight Saga has hopefully started a trend, and soon we ladies (and our dates) will have lots of viable options at the theater. We'll no longer have to settle for movies like "Love Spelled Backwards is Still Love," and "Face Punch!" :-)

My Two Cents

So, you all know that I saw The Twilight Saga: New Moon this weekend, and you also know that I was super psyched. But, what's my "now that I've seen it" opinion? Well, blog, I'm so glad you asked, because I've had two days to think about it and I'm going to tell you.

First of all, a little of my Twilight history...I didn't watch the first movie until it came out on video. Until then, I knew very little about the series other than it had a crazy following and was some type of vampire love story (which I'm apparently in to.) I loved it, so I read the 2nd book to see what happened next (because I love spoilers.) I got hooked, and within about a week, had read all four. All this to say, I watched Twilight before ever reading the books, so I had nothing to compare it to. This time was different.

If you know anything about the series, you know that fans typically fall into two categories: Team Edward and Team Jacob. I am 100% loyal to Team Edward. Jacob never stood a chance in my opinion. That made reading New Moon difficult for me because Edward was gone for 80% of it. I knew that also meant that I probably wouldn't like this movie as well as Twilight, and I was right.

New Moon was very different than Twilight in a lot of ways. The style was different, the score was different, and even some of the acting felt different. I still loved it, of course, because it's a necessary part of the series, but Twilight remains my favorite. In this movie, I had to experience the disappointment of not seeing some of my favorite scenes from the book. Although, I did enjoy watching Bella's time spent with Jacob a lot more than I did reading it. I think because it was condensed, the impact of their relationship was more intense, and coming from an avid Team Edward member, that's saying something.

I recently read an article outlining 20 differences between the movie and book that turned out to be improvements, and I agree with most of them. But I'm also going to share the scenes I missed the most. In the book, Alice's return is your first link to Edward in almost 300 pages. Just like Bella, I was so relieved to see her. I loved that time spent with her, and especially the scene between Alice and Charlie where Alice learns the full extent of Bella's grief. Alice knowing means Edward will know, and that was comforting. I know they can't include every scene, but that was a must for me and I didn't feel like the movie even gave it an adequate substitute. I also didn't like how they completely skipped the trip back from Italy. I understand why, but I still didn't like it. In the book, I'd been waiting 300 pages for that reunion and even though it was only a few chapters, she did it justice. I felt like the movie hurried it along a little too much and it just wasn't as satisfying.

Overall, I really liked the movie. I definitely feel like it did a great job of making the case for Team Jacob, maybe better than I would have liked. New Moon is not Team Edward's book and they stayed true to that. Will I see it again? Probably, but not with the obsession that I watched Twilight. Am I looking forward to the third one just as much? YES! It's my favorite book of the series, and I can't wait to see it on the big screen!

Finally!

Well, today's the day you've been hearing me go on and on about for months now - we're going to see New Moon. I'm obviously excited to see the movie, but to be honest, I'm just as excited about our "date night" in general. We're going to catch a late matinee, have dinner, and then maybe do some shopping, aka, "stay out as late as possible." Is Jeff excited to see New Moon? No, he is not. But, he is looking forward to the date, and he knows I've endured plenty of "guy movies" for him, so he's game.

Speaking of date nights, we have a big Grandma weekend coming up in December. It's our yearly tradition to take a Friday off in December to do our Christmas shopping together, but this year we decided, "why not make it a whole weekend?" There's been talk of going out of town, but we haven't fully committed to that yet. Either way, the goal is to get all of our shopping done and enjoy the quality time, and sleeping in!

In the shorter term, Evan is most likely getting a swing set today. This is a purchase we've been debating ever since we moved in to our house. At some point, we decided we would only do it if we found the right one for the right price, which is actually our philosophy for most purchases. We don't want a large swing set, so we've been looking for the basic A-frame style. Mainly because we'd rather not mulch around it, if it can be avoided, and because we want to maintain the openness of our yard.

I've been looking on Craigslist for 2 years, but I was always looking in the Spring. A-frames are hard to find because most people have the larger styles, and then when I would find one, it was always gone by the time I called. I finally found one last week, and it's really cheap, not too old, and not that far away. Jeff and some friends are going to look at it this morning and if it works out, they'll be bringing it home and putting it up. It has three spots for swings, so we'll probably buy new swings and maybe a fun non-swing accessory. We're going to place it towards the back of the yard, in front of the tree line, so I'm hoping it blends in. Evan will love it, and hopefully it will be one more thing to occupy him when the weather gets warm and I have a new baby to take care of!

Christmas card teaser

In the midst of all the planning for Evan's third birthday, a very busy Fall, and being pregnant, I completely neglected to arrange Evan's yearly photo shoot. When I realized we didn't have a picture for this year's Christmas card, I asked my brother-in-law, Tim, to grace us with some impromptu photography at Evan's party. We didn't change clothes, (actually, I'm not sure I even looked in a mirror,) and it was almost dark outside, but somehow Tim managed to get a decent shot. Thanks, Tim!

This isn't the picture we'll be using for the card, although since I didn't look in a mirror, maybe it should be :-) But, it's a close preview. I guess now I have to dig up all of my addresses and get to it!

Baby's Heartbeat

I'm in my 12th week of pregnancy, which means that we got to hear the heartbeat today. Evan went with us, and he did really well. In the last week, we've started mentioning the baby to Evan, but haven't made any grand announcement. I think that's the way we'll continue to handle it until I get a lot further along.

Baby was being a tad evasive today, so it took the nurse a while to find the heartbeat. We were getting a little worried, but she did find it, and the heartbeat was strong, so things seem to be progressing well. I've included a video of the heartbeat, but you have to listen closely.