Claiming Our Space

Friday, November 2, 2012

Thanksgiving Treats and Fall Fun Link Party

Welcome to the

Thanksgiving Treats and Fall Fun Link Party!

November is here and that means Thanksgiving is right around the corner so it is the perfect time to share all your delicious Thanksgiving dishes and decor, along with your fun Fall-themed treats and projects.

Help get us inspired!

Claiming Our Space has joined up with Love and Laundry, House on the Way, One Creative Mommy, Mamal Diane, Jane's Adventures in Dinner and 4 You With Love to bring you our own Thanksgiving Treats and Fall projects! Make sure to visit each of the hosts to see what they have created for the party after you have linked up your post.

I am sharing what I think is the best ever turkey recipe. This is my absolute "Go To" recipe when I am in charge of the turkey. I have made it three years in a row (for turkeys ranging from 10 to 26 pounds) and it hasn't gone wrong yet. Everyone raves at how moist the meat is and how brown and crunchy the skin is. The secret is the 30 minutes at 500 degrees - it seals in the juices. The only problem with 500 degrees is that if you don't have a clean oven, you WILL set off the smoke detectors. (Ask me how I know.) Plus, the repeated success of this recipe just reaffirms my crush on Alton Brown.

Alton Brown's Brined Turkey
Source: Alton Brown, also featured in Food Network Magazine

Ingredients
    1 (14 to 16 pound) thawed turkey

For the brine:
    1 cup kosher salt
    1/2 cup light brown sugar
    1 gallon vegetable stock
    1 tablespoon black peppercorns
    1 1/2 teaspoons allspice berries
    1 1/2 teaspoons chopped candied ginger
    1 gallon heavily iced water

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

In a large stockpot, combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger over medium-high heat, stirring to dissolve solids. Bring to a rolling boil. Remove brine from the heat and cool to room temperature. Note: This can be made in advance and refrigerated for a couple of days.
The night before you will cook the turkey:
Line a large bucket (we used a clean 5-gallon bucket from Home Depot) with a kitchen garbage bag.
Pour the brine, water and ice into the bag in the 5-gallon bucket.
Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine.Close the bag. If necessary, weigh down the bird with a plate and a large can of soup to ensure it is fully immersed. Refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining. We put our in the garage since it is chilly here in Michigan in November. Let brine overnight.
Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F. Note: Make sure your oven is clean since heating it to 500 degrees will make things smoke - a lot.
Remove the bird from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard brine.
Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan. Pat dry with paper towels.
Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Pour mixture into the turkey's cavity along with the rosemary and sage.
Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.
Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast. Place the turkey on the lowest level of the oven and roast at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes.
Reduce the temperature to 350 degrees F.
Roast the bird until it reaches 161 degrees.
A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting.
Once it reaches 161 degrees remove from oven and let it rest, loosely covered with foil for 15 minutes before carving.

Now that you have seem my go to turkey recipe, it is time for you to share your projects, crafts, recipes, whatever you have come up with that is Thanksgiving or Fall related via the linky tool below.

Your project will show up on all the host's blogs so you only need to link up once but, remember, all of us have different things we are sharing for the party. So make sure to visit Love and Laundry, House on the Way, One Creative Mommy, Mamal Diane, Jane's Adventures in Dinner, 4 You With Love and Claiming Our Space to check them all out.

The party will be up until Thursday, November 15 and then on Friday, November 16, each host will pick their favorite two link ups. So mark your calendar to check back to see if you were feature.

Just a few guidelines

1. We would be appreciate if you would follow all the hosts.

2. Link ups should be Thanksgiving or Fall related. (No shops or other link parties please)

3. Try to visit some of the other link ups and leave a comment. Everyone loves visitors!

3. You don't need to link back but we would appreciate it if you would display the button on your blog or in your post tolet your own readers know about the party.

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With that, it is time to party!!

Thursday, November 1, 2012

5 Years

D and I celebrated our 5th wedding anniversary last weekend. It is hard to believe that it has already been 5 (wonderful) years. We have had our challenges (3 moves, several job changes, and the usual, and not so usual, family challenges) but in the end, we have each other. And that is the way it is supposed to be, right?

Now, I hate to brag on D but I think he wins the "Sweetest Husband" award with this present. He took a photo of our wedding cake and sent it to the woman who owns our favorite local bakery.

Why? So she could create this - a replica of the top layer of our cake. It was even vanilla and chocolate swirl cake with raspberry mousse filling. Yum! He is just the sweetest man!

Once I was all warm and fuzzy on the inside from the cake, D then upped the ante by getting me fun toys for my camera. I am now the proud owner of a tripod, a monopod, a flexible tripod and, best of all, a remote shutter release. Woohoo!

I, on the other hand, haven't finished D's present and it still looks like this. (I promise I will work on it this weekend, sweetie!)

Now, how after all that, guess how we spent our actual anniversary day? Cleaning up our yard. Yup, nothing says "I love you!" like dragging at least 50 tarp-loads of leaves to the curb and straining muscles we didn't know we had while raking. We needed to get the leaves up because the tree people were coming on Monday.

Sadly, we needed to have three trees taken down because they were hollow on the inside. Why? Stupid Carpenter Ants. They are usually the culprit when trees come down in a high winds around here. So we are doing some preventive cutting.

Take a look at the bases of the three trees. Looks like we were right to take them down.

This is the big oak tree. At one point there were carpenter ants and then it appears that some bees took up residence. Awesome. (yes, that last bit was written in sarcasm font if you couldn't tell.) This one was closest to the house.

Here's the big Maple. Did you know that tree stumps were supposed to be U-shaped? We didn't think that was quite right so this one needed to come down too. The positive on taking this tree down is that I now have the perfect spot for some hydrangea bushes. (Yay!!)

Finally, we have the Choke Cherry. This one was so rotted. There was actually dirt and grubs in one of the hollowed out limbs. Ick! The tree guys were totally surprised it hadn't come down on it's own. Good thing it didn't, it would a have hit the neighbor's house for sure.

We will have lots of wood for the fireplace this winter!

Don't forget to stop by tomorrow for the Thanksgiving Treats & Fall Fun link party!

Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Willow Wednesday

Happy Halloween!

Instead of candy Mom is giving me carrots for a treat since horses LOVE carrots!

Tuesday, October 30, 2012

Tout It Tuesday - #30

Happy Tuesday! I survived my very early morning last week and the seminar went off without a hitch. Wahoo! It was such a relief and totally worth getting up at 5:15 am. OK, maybe all the coffee helped too. :-D

This past weekend was full of fun and excitement. It was our 5th anniversary and we celebrated by trying out a new Japanese steakhouse that just opened. We sat at one of their hibachi tables and it was a lot of fun. We sat with Dave and Stephanie and Dave and Sue and Sue and Brian. I had never had the hibachi experience so I thought it was pretty darn cool. Check out the onion volcano.

Nothing like a little fire to lead right into this week's Features.

Backyard Chicken Keeping shared information on keeping chickens at home. I would love to have chickens but our township doesn't allow it and Willow would probably try to eat them.

Happiest Mom on the Blog showed how to make a virtually fat-free apple cake. This looks delish and I love that it is good for you.

The Crafty Blog Stalker created the cutest headbands with googly eyes. How cute are both the headbands and her girls?

Finally, Janine from sugarkissed.net created these gorgeous Birthday Sprinkle Cake Cookies. These are so beautiful and I wish I had the talent to duplicate these but alas, I don't think that will happen.

Make sure to grab the featured button!

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This week's Fan Fav is from With A Blast. Linda shared two great gift ideas.
Vanilla Sugar & BBQ Spice Rub.
Either of these, or both, would be great additions to a holiday gift basket.
(and the little scoops are so cute!)

Make sure to grab the Fan Fav button

I can't wait to see what people will be share this week and know that I will be inspired by everyone's projects and recipes.

Just a few rules/guidelines.

1. I would love it if you would follow through GFC or Bloglovin'. It would be great if you would also follow us on Twitter and Pinterest.

2. Please do not link shops or link parties that are not related to a project, photo or recipe challenge. Everything else is accepted.

3. Linking to Claiming Our Space isn't required but I would appreciate it if you would grab my button and either display it with the post you are linking up or under your list of parties.

4. Don't forget to click on the "like" button on your favorite project or recipe so I know which one should be the week's Fan Fav.

5. Please try to visit at least two posts for each link you submit and leave a comment.
Comments make everyone happy!

If you linked up to the Fall Fun & Howling Halloween party, don't forget to check to see which link ups all the hosts selected to Feature. It may be your project, recipe or post.

Finally, don't forget to mark your calendar for Friday, November 2. That is the date for the next themed linky party "Thanksgiving Treats & Fall Fun. It will be the perfect place to get ideas for your Thanksgiving dinner!

With all that out of the way, let's Tout It!

Friday, October 26, 2012

Check It Out!

My Remington-inspired horse makeover was featured on Better After! So exciting!!

Make sure you add Better After to your RSS feed since Lindsey's site is a great place to get inspired. She showcased before and afters from all over the web.

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Willow Wednesday

Mom covers up my nose when she tucks me in to bed at night. I hate it when my snout gets cold.

Monday, October 22, 2012

Tout It Tuesday - #29

Happy Tuesday!

OK, it is actually Monday night but since I have to help put on a seminar for work beginning early early early tomorrow (I have to get up at 5:30 am to get there on time. This is hard since I am not a morning person) I decided to get the party started early.

After the excitement of last weekend, we stayed in this weekend and just hung out. It was pretty darn nice. We played with Willow, did a little yard work, caught up on laundry. Pretty boring stuff. Sometimes one just needs a weekend to recharge! So we took advantage. Hope you all get to have a recharge weekend soon!

We have 4 great features this week.

First up, Paula from Living a Blessed Life shares a delicious sounding DIY Sugar Pumpkin Scrub. I think this is a great item to go in a holiday gift basket! Or to share with overnight guests.

Sarah from Alderberry Hill shared a way to make single serve apple pies. I so need to find one of these amazing little gadgets.

Heidi at One Creative Mommy shared how to make terra cotta pumpkin pots. I think these would be great hostess gifts or teacher gifts.

Finally, Paula from Call me PMc tempted us with a recipe for corn and potato chowder. This looks like the perfect soup for a cool Fall day. I love that it looks quick and easy.

Make sure to grab the featured button!

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This week's Fan Fav comes from Lilacs & Longhorns.

She shows us how she organized her laundry room and made it look fabulous. I am jealous since my laundry room is a cement walled dungeon in the basement. OK, it isn't a real dungeon but it sure feels like one.