Ideas on Making a Good Free Range Bird, (with some links to pies and soups thrown in)

Cheap Eat Challenge, Part 2: Watch as our family of 6 eats on less than $10/day.

Now that my trim is (cough) mostly painted, it has occurred to me that Thanksgiving is a mere 5 days away. Perhaps this occurred to you, say, 3 weeks ago. If so, I salute you. If not, you were perhaps among the masses of lunatics I saw on the road this morning. (Don't worry, lunacy is nothing to be ashamed of. And let's do lunch.)

I have, unintentionally, been preparing for this holiday by making this amazing pie and the acorn squash soup from earlier this week. Not weird enough for you, try some roasted parsnips or this parsnip soup. You should also make my sister's rolls because they will make you happy.

And I thought people could use a reminder about making a turkey, especially a free-range turkey, which might need some extra love in the form of a nice brine. Because free-range turkeys are not all shot up with a salt-water solution. That's part of the reason we buy them, yet it also means you could wind up with a dry bird if you don't know a few tricks of the trade.

So have a look here for all I know about turkeys and don't forget the brine.

Next week, look for a super simple, yet awesome cranberry sauce and a super simple yet awesome stuffing that can be made from scratch or using a boxed stuffing mix that is dolled up. (That is, of course, if I can find the small scraps of paper I wrote these recipes on last year. Because we all know the best way to keep a recipe you use only once a year is to scribble it on a small piece of paper and stuff it somewhere.) Super simple yet hopefully awesome is the theme this year (looney bin painting projects aside, of course). And if you're lucky you can look for some beautiful croissants and a great pumpkin pie and lots of cookies and maybe some much better pictures of my old favorites. Maybe.