Make-Ahead Mashed Potatoes Makes 12 to 15 servings Prep time: 20 Mins oven cook time:40 Mins crockpot cook time: 3 hrs I made it in a Nestco Roaster to reheat Ingredients: 15 medium (5 lbs) potatoes, peeled and quartered 8 oz cream cheese, room temperature 1 cup sour cream 2 tsp onion powder Salt and freshly ground black peper to taste 2 egg whites, slightly beaten 4 tbsp butter 1/3 cup chopped chives (optional) Spray a large casserole dish or crock pot dish with veggie oil cooking spray. In a large pot of boiling water over medium-high heat, cook potatoes until tender; remove from heat and drain In the same cooking pan, mash potatos with potato masher until there are no lumps. Never use a blender Add cream cheese, sour cream, onion powder, salt, pepper, egg whites, and chopped chives Cook mashed potatoes slightly, cover and then refrigerate. You can make up to a week in advance. When ready to heat the potatoes: Take the prepared mashed potatoes out of refrigerator about 3 1/2 hrs before serving. Place in crockpot cover and cook on low heat for 3 hours stirring once or twice. I made them in a Nestco Roaster on 300 After potatoes are cooked (165o) stir and then add some additional dollops of butter just befor serving I made these for a VFW Post Dinner and everyone loved them. There were 40 people so I tripled the recipe. Linda

This year we'll have a homegrown Blue Slate turkey, pasture raised. We couldn't free range them because the neighbors' dogs spent their days circling the turkey enclosure. So, they got moved around and pastured, but couldn't roam about unconfined. They also got infectious sinusitis which required antibiotics, so they aren't even technically organic. (sigh) They were the most difficult "livestock" I've ever grown, they forget how to eat and starve to death, they are prone to various diseases and many farmers tell me they are "suicide, waiting to happen". They were also the dumbest creatures I've ever encountered, giving new meaning to "bird brain". One stuck his head through the fencing and couldn't figure out how to pull it back out. He wasn't caught, it wasn't tight, he just couldn't figure out how to pull his head back out. He was "stuck" until I rescued him. Anyway, I figure my 16 pound Blue Slate cost somewhere just shy of $40, and that doesn't include any time, labor, light bill for brooding or equipment, only the cost of the poults and their feed. They also take 20 to 24 weeks to raise to that size, where one of the Broad Breasted White "frankenbirds" can grow to 25 pounds in 18 weeks. That's why the heritage birds are more expensive. Here there are no free turkeys or even 59 cents per pound turkeys, at least not yet this year. The cheapest I've seen even the supermarket frozen birds was $2.19 a pound, so a 16 pounder (equivalent in size to my homeraised bird) would be a bit over $35.00 and about a pound of that would be salt and water. Um.....I mean "flavor enhancer". Yeah. Annie

Did all my shopping in one big swoop yesterday....said that if i forgot something, to bad, no one will starve for weeks here...i've been up for hours and having a nice calm prep, mostly chopping, dicing, bowls and bags of this-n-that, nice neat list. (celery gets three different sizes for four different things). Hate to later come back and chop celery...if i have extra, even better as it will go into soup or something friday. So today prepping; stuffing, potatoes, pie, cranberry sauce, roasted roots just cut and oil rubbed w/rosemary, not baked till tomorrow. New this year...i like to make something new for apps....edamame/baby pea humus for snacking, (made crackers last night) Fresh baby artichokes w/ crispy parm/panko crust in a leek cream. Now looking for the video how to peel these things easily....saw a good one a few months ago... Mr Sleeve was up early and made sure the kitchen was spotless, dishes put away, a quick mop of the floor, laundry in dryer... He likes to do all the chopping prep but weather here is awful and traffic might be also...i'm off work this week... Forgot dish washer soap, grr. I almost always have a back-up.

They got me twice. Turkey dinner on Wed evening, then turkey dinner again Thursday noon. Now turkey for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. How much would it cost to mail this bloody turkey to the starving children in Asia? ??