Happy Thanksgiving!

Our turkey breast this year.

So much has happened this year.  We have a lot to be thankful for this year.  I was handed the opportunity to work for a wonderful company which has greatly impacted our plans for the farm with our spice blends.  Though we plan to produce products of a different nature, it has been an amazing experience to create secret blends for major chain restaurants as well as the company's own Hispanic spice blends. 

Four month old Zelda.

We adopted our beagle Zelda.  She is very very different from our beagle Lox, she has been amazing at helping us all with our loss of Lox.

We finally sold our home in Philadelphia earlier in the year.  

We found farm land in Arizona.

We were able to have a mini vacation hiking through the Petrified Forest and Painted Desert.  I came through my two surgeries successfully and finally learned why I have been sick for the past few years.  I have felt better then I have in a very long time.  We just found and purchased our farm's truck, pictures coming soon.  The best part of all, we just found out that we will have even more help out with the farm next year then we previously thought.  Thank you everyone for your needed support, it's the one thing we are most thankful for.  We hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving!

How to make our roasted turkey breast:

It's been hard scaling down a big Thanksgiving feast down to 3 people with barely any leftovers.  But we did it.  The key being giving up a full bird and buying just a turkey breast.

Turkey Basting Sauce

Ingredients:

3/4 cup chicken broth

1/4 cup white wine

3 tbsp lemon juice

1/2 tsp dried basil

1/2 tsp dried thyme

1/8 tsp pepper

Preheat the oven to 350.  First we start by thawing the turkey breast.  Rinse it off in the sink to remove excess blood.  I place it in a small roasting pan on top of a rack, to keep the turkey off the bottom of the pan.  The one I have is designed for cooking in a convection microwave.  The dimensions are 9x6.  I then add 4 baby carrots and half of a stalk of celery around the edges of the pan.  It adds some flavor and keeps the turkey from touching the edges of the pan, which could possibly burn it or dry it out.

Next I mix all of the basting sauce ingredients together and pour over the turkey breast.  Just before baking I brush the turkey breast with two tablespoons of melted butter.  Bake for 2 1/2 hours, basting ever hour.  After 2 hours cover with aluminum foil for the last half hour to prevent burning or drying out.

 let it rest for 20 minutes before slicing.  Don't forget to remove the netting, before you slice it up.  Of course enjoy it with your favorite Thanksgiving sides.

We paired this with an unconventional wine.

It's a cranberry infused agave wine we found while exploring the hatch valley area of New Mexico.  It has a sweet ice wine like flavor along with suttle tart cranberry.

Not what we say about our blessings, but how we use them, is the true measure of our thanksgiving.

- W. T. Purkiser