It wasn't a real exciting weekend, but I feel like we "saw miles and miles of Texas, gonna live here 'til I die". (name that song) I took Thursday and Friday off, just to get a break from the crazies at work. Well, and Thursday was my birthday. Aaannnd we had to get a new water heater installed.
So I figured I may as well cook the turkey early! I brined it the night before. I have had good luck with this brine I loosely based on one by Martha Stewart where she adds a cup of bourbon and orange peels to the brine. It turns out soooo good!
The next morning I got up early, threw the turkey into the oven, went to Dunkin' and bought some goodies, then barracaded myself in my craft room/office until lunch time. At which time the plumbers were done {I'm pretty sure the aroma was driving he and his helper crazy} and we headed to Pok-e-Jo's for some BBQ.
When we got home, we carved the bird, put it into foil containers in the freezer, separated out the fat and drippings and froze them, then put the carcass and the odds and ends of celery, carrot, and herbs into a crockpot and let it go all night. I also made a pie to take to my mother's house, and a full pan of dressing for the freezer. We went to Chi'lantro for a quick meal to go and Netflixed it for the evening.
The next day, I strained out the crockpot of bones and now have some wonderful soup stock in the freezer! We headed to Brenham, stopping to pick up some smoked pork for sammies on the way. We helped my mother run a couple of errands and do some odds and ends chores. {there always seems to be a long list of things we need to do there, just not enough time to do it all!} On the way home, we stopped at Rohan for some mead and wine. After another couple left, we were the only ones there.
The tasting room is small but cozy and the tasting room lady was really nice. We ended up getting a growler refill of the Orange Spice mead and a couple of Christmas gifts.
And I enjoyed a Tempranillo!
The next morning {what day is it...?} we headed to the Hill Country with a stop in Liberty Hill to eat at Hobo Junction Cafe. The breakfast was HUGE but we figured we would skip lunch. {And it turned out that we were happy we ate a hearty breakfast}
We stopped at Highlands to check on it. Yep, its still there...
I took a little walkabout in my practical trekking shoes and made a note of some deer tracks. The weather was gorgeous!
Then we headed over to Marble Falls to meet up with the owners of Fiesta Winery so I could write a piece about their new-ish tasting room. And we followed that up by visiting our friends at Save The World. {I wrote both articles Sunday morning so you may be able to see them on the Texas Wine Lover website sometime in the future
On the way home we popped into Bent Oak to admire Audreys' mad decorating skillz and enjoy a relaxing glass of wine. I don't know why we don't stop in there more often. Its such a cozy spot - smells great, has friendly people, serves delightful wine. We headed home to meet up with...THE GIRL! Yay! We enjoyed some chicken tacos for dinner and hit the hay early.
Sunday morning, I wrote those articles early then we headed over to Westcave Cellars to pick up our December shipment. We will not be able to attend the pick-up party, so we made our own party. They had live music and it was beautiful weather.
We picked up some gyros from a food trailer along the way. We must have been starving - we inhaled them. So good! We will definitely stop there again the future.
Teddy enjoyed some breezes and some down time, too.
We got a bottle of wine signed by one of the owners as a Christmas gift to Hubby's boss, admired the sleeping vines a bit, then headed home to eat crockpot soup. And once again we all hit the hay early. It was a fun weekend and I finally felt rested and ready to tackle the week ahead. Can you believe tomorrow is Thanksgiving and we are less than one month away from Christmas? Crazy!
Gina
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