What the heck is a Turducken?

It's snowing! Christmas is almost here...oh shoot, it's next week! Gotta shop, gotta think of what to make for Christmas eve dinner, gotta plan my sister date before she leaves, gotta clean the house, *pulling hair** I think I'm getting sick.....*faints*

So much to do but so little time....

I saw this in Pathmark, a cute Christmas tree butter sculpture:

Preparing for the big day.....I ordered a turducken a few days ago for our Christmas eve dinner. I can't wait to try it! I even had dreams about it! haha...yea, I'm a foodie dork!

Everyone's been asking me what the heck is a turducken? I've been telling people it's a mutated turkey that's big enough to eat a duck and a chicken, hence the name tur(key)-duck-(chick)hen. I love the name!

A turducken is a "novelty" dish that is basically a deboned turkey stuffed with a deboned duck which itself is stuffed with a deboned chicken. In between the meat there's stuffing, people usually use cornbread or sausage or whatever you fancy. The turducken I order is a 15lb stuffed with cornbread and pork rice dressing. It has a little bit of Cajun flavor! yum!

• I found an awesome video of how to make a turducken:

Most likely I will never attempt to make this! Props to my cousin Angela who made a miniature turducken by using just breast meat of the 3 meats. I wish I could've tasted it but by looking at the pictures it looked gorgeous and delicious! *drooling* so I told myself I had to order a turducken for Christmas!

• Step by Step instructions on how to make a turducken.

• Pics and food review by a blogger.

I'm kind of nervous about how this whole dish gonna come out. Since my oven isn't working my big sister offered to cook it (she lives in NJ) and bring it over to the house (Brooklyn).

My concerns:

1) I'm afraid the turducken won't arrive on time. I read some reviews of ruined holiday dinners because it didn't come on time. I pray that won't happen to us.
2) I'm afraid my sister won't remember to take pics of the whole process of preparing the turducken, you guys know what a food porn freak I am-okay that didn't sound right at all! ahha but you know what I mean....I don't want to spend all this money and not take pics of it! yea, I'm crazy...
3) I'm afraid the turducken may be under or over cooked....

under= salmonella

over= dry meat

4) I'm afraid when transporting the turducken from NJ--> BK (a 1 1/2 or 2+ hours drive) the turducken will get cold and the meat may turn rubbery, yucky.....

So check back and see if my Christmas eve dinner was a successful one or not *crossing fingers**....stay warm!

Mel's Thanksgiving '08: Part 3: The Tong's Thanksgiving Dinner

I usually like to plan my Thanksgiving diner menu a few weeks before hand, looking at recipes, trying to think of ways to change up my classic Thanksgiving dishes, grocery shopping for days (this year I went to supermarket 4 times just for this one dinner-I’m getting old I keep forgetting things), slaving over the oven and chopping all day and night. I love it! The best part is spending time w/ my family, eating food that we love and giving thanks...

Check out some of the food:

Let see the prepping of the dinner....

The 13lb turkey untouched and after marinating it. It's put into an oven bag to bake so it'll be very moist.

check out what ingredients we put on our turkey, this year we used mustard!

Cutting the potato into cubes for the potato salad:

Miki was up all night w/ me eating all the veggies! Miki likes healthy food!

Cutting three types of mushrooms: Shiitake, portobella, button mushroom for my mushroom pastry puff that I learned from Lilly's cooking session.

draining the can fruits and coconut gel over night for my jello dessert, i had to cut the jello in cubes (not shown here), it stained my hands!

cutting up the bread to make homemade stuffing from scratch! we stuffed it into the turket, it came out great!

Here's the finish products:

The turkey w/ stuffing! The skin got stuck onto the bag so it peeled off a bit when we were trying to open the bag. Stupid me I put honey on the skin in the beginning when I should've done that when the turkey was also done...

the stuffing inside, yummi...so much turkey flavor

More stuffing my big sister made, we had a stuffing throwdown ahhaha...

Shepard's pie by big sister:

Oxtail soup by my big bro

My mushroom pastry puff...I didn't leave it in the oven long enough to get the crust golden brown, next time...

My saute string beans and squash:

My potato and shrimp salad, the shrimp came out perfect, secret is shock them in cold water right after boiling:

Mash yams w/ marsmellows by big sis:

Stuff mushrooms by big bro, these were so good! So far, it's one of the best stuff mushrooms I've ever had! I have to get this recipe.

Pasta w/ sausage by big bro:

My butternut squash w/ thyme and sage-It taste great but I hate cutting them, I think this will be the last time I cook butternut squash!

My corn casserole:

Andy's Ribs:

Dessert wine I brought from the chocolate show:

My neice's cheese cake. It was creamy and tasted like the ones from cheesecake factory. I must get this recipe!

My version of the Flipino fruit salad:

We ate alot that night, after my dinner I had to go to Andy's family dinner but I couldn't eat anything. Now time to plan for my Christmas dinner....What should I make? Any recommendation?