Wow, it has been a while, a whole year!
Two holiday items, first my famous gift salsa and next brining a pre-basted turkey.
In the past I prepared the salsa in a food processor requiring several batches. Sloppy but it works. I have been doing it this way for many years. Last year I purchased the food grinder and citrus juicer attachments for my KitchenAid stand mixer. Seven limes through the juicer. Six large bell peppers, six large Jalapenos and two sweet onions through the food grinder using the large die. Mix it all up using the flat mixer blade. The plan was for a continuous feed process, success. Excellent texture and finished product. Fifteen pints of gifted goodness.
We typically receive a gifted turkey from the store. Most of the turkeys that are not special ordered are pre-basted like Butter Ball Turkeys. This Spartan Young Turkey was pre-basted with a broth solution. Most brining recipes say not to brine a pre-basted turkey. I have wanted to try my luck with a brined turkey many times over the past few years. Always thwarted by the "don't brine a basted bird" rule. This year my research yielded a brining recipe from Buttter Ball, which greatly reduces the salt in the brine to allow for the pre-baste.
Marilyn was dreading eating this turkey as she barely tolerates turkey anytime. It turns out it was the best Turkey that we can remember.
We cook our turkeys un-stuffed but do add things like apples or celery stalks in big pieces in the cavity for moisture.
I mixed the dry brine ingredients with a quart of water and boiled just that, added seven quarts of cold water to my bucket and then added the hot "ingredient" water to the bucket and let it chill in the garage all day. The brine time was ten hours for our turkey so later that night the turkey was added to the now super cold brine, placed back in the garage and checked in the morning to insure that it hadn't frozen. It worked out perfectly.
