Keep Your Holiday Travels Green This Year

(Image courtesy of epSos.de)

The Holidays are the perfect time to make the trek home to see family members, friends and loved ones that you haven’t seen in awhile. But, for many of us, this can involve quite a bit of travel. Though conventional modes of transportation are not always earth-friendly, with a little bit of planning, your holiday travel plans can be earth conscious.

Being kind to the earth doesn't have to stop you from getting to your loved ones this year. This article from apartmenttherapy.com offers a few tips to keep your holiday travel a little greener this year. Keep reading to learn more.

Pack light: avoid checked luggage, back pain and added expense at the baggage counter. If flying for the holiday, you'll probably be bringing gifts. With only one bag, you have a couple of green options to appease those expecting gifts: purchase tiny gifts or purchase them locally once you get there. Additionally, the reduced weight will lower fuel consumption in whatever vehicle it happens to be you're traveling in. Onebag.com offers useful suggestions on how to pack lightly.

Turn off everything: When you leave your home, unplug your TV, computer, and anything that might require a phantom load so your home isn't expending unnecessary energy. Also, lower your thermostat but do keep it above 60 to prevent your pipes from freezing. Additionally, it could be wise to turn off your main water line "just in case." Mine has sprung a leak twice this year so this is something that I'm sure to do next time I travel.

Carpool if possible: it seems like college students have this down. Because many college students lack cars, they seek out friends from nearby hometowns, load up and travel together. If only we could be so accommodating as we grow older. See if other family members or friends might be traveling nearby and could offer a ride.

Take public transportation: even if it's only to the airport. Sure, it'd be great if we could all take the train to grandma's, but even cutting down on one taxi by carpooling or taking a bus to the airport can reduce emissions.

Bring your own snacks: Avoid overpriced meals that aren't produced in environmentally-conscious ways by bringing your own food on your trip. You make the choices at your local grocery store on what you want to eat and it's better for everyone.

Video conference: if you do decide to stay home, you can still connect with friends and family via Skype or other online video calling applications. You phone in for business meetings, so why not do the same for family and friends?

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How To Cook The Perfect Turkey

(Image courtesy of theBlackBrian)

Thanksgiving is just around the corner and that means families all over will be preparing and sharing a turkey dinner. Many families have a traditional routine that they use to cook and serve their bird, but if you’re hosting the event for the first time, it may be cause for some extra stress.

If you’re not sure the best method to cook and serve a turkey look no further. This article from thekitchn.com walks you through how to prepare the perfect Thanksgiving dinner. Keep reading to put your mind at ease before the big day.

This method will work with any turkey: big or small, brined or not, free-range or otherwise. Cooking times will vary, but the basic technique will be the same. For reference, the turkey in the photos was a pre-brined 16-pound turkey from Williams-Sonoma.

Thawing the Turkey

Be sure to let your turkey completely thaw before cooking. If it was frozen through when you bought it, the turkey will thaw within a few days in the fridge, approximately 24 hours for every five pounds of turkey. For quicker thawing, place the turkey in a cold water bath and change the water every 30 minutes until it's thawed.

Brining a Turkey

One thing we're not talking about here is brining the turkey. This method has become popular over the last few years and involves immersing the turkey in a salt water solution for a day or so before cooking. The end result of this process is moist, perfectly seasoned turkey meat. We've had great results with brining and heartily endorse it. For a full explanation, check out this post:

• Quick Tip: How to Brine Meat

Ready? Let's cook some turkey.

How to Roast a Turkey
What You Need

Ingredients

• 1 turkey, any size
  
• 2 cups broth or water
  
• Melted unsalted butter (optional, for basting)

Equipment

• Roasting pan (or alternative)
  
• Roasting rack (or something to lift the turkey off the pan)
  
• Turkey baster or spoon

Instructions

1. Prepare the Turkey for Roasting - About an hour before roasting, take the turkey out of the fridge. Remove any packaging and the bag of giblets (check in the body cavity and in the neck cavity). Set the turkey breast-side up on the roasting rack and let it sit. This takes the chill off the meat, which helps the meat cook faster and more evenly, and it dries out the skin, which promotes browning and crisping.

2. Heat the Oven to 450°F - Position an oven rack in the bottom third of your oven. If you brined your turkey, as we did, no need to do anything now. If your turkey is straight out of the package, rub it with some salt and pepper before putting it in the oven. We recommend leaving your turkey un-stuffed and un-trussed, both because it's easier and because the turkey will cook more evenly.

Optional Extras - Rub your turkey with butter or oil for a richer flavor and browner skin, rub minced herbs or ground spices into (or beneath) the skin for more flavor, place a few halved lemons or garlic cloves inside the cavity of the turkey.

3. Roast the Turkey - Pour two cups of broth or water into the roasting pan. Place the turkey in the oven and turn down the heat to 350°F. We're going for a breast-side up approach here. Some recipes advocate starting the turkey breast-side down to shield the breast meat, but the idea of flipping a hot, sputtering turkey is not our idea of a good time. Instead, we like to shield the breast meat with foil toward the end of cooking if it starts getting too browned.

4. Cooking Time - The rule of thumb for cooking a turkey is 13 minutes per pound. So our 16-pound turkey should have taken about 3 1/2 hours to cook. However, some factors like brining the bird, cooking with an empty (un-stuffed) cavity, and leaving the legs un-trussed will contribute to much faster cooking. Plan on the 13-minute-per-pound rule, but start checking the temperature of your turkey about halfway through the scheduled cooking time to gauge how fast it's cooking.

5. Baste the Turkey - Every 45 minutes, remove the turkey from the oven, close the oven door (don't let that heat out!), and baste the turkey all over. To baste, tilt the pan and use a turkey baster or spoon to scoop up the liquids and drizzle them on top of the turkey. Basting with pan juices cools the surface of the turkey and slows down cooking, which in turn keeps the breast meat cooking at close to the same rate as the legs and thighs.

Optional Extra - In the last 45 minutes or so of cooking, baste the turkey with melted butter or oil. This helps crisp up the skin and turn it a beautiful deep golden brown.

5. Check the Temperature - To make sure that turkey is fully cooked through and through, we like to check its temperature in three places: the breast, the outer thigh, and the inside thigh (see photos above). In every case, the meat should be at least 165°F. If any place is under that temperature, put the turkey back in the oven for another 20 minutes. Shield the breast meat with foil if needed to keep it from overcooking.

6. Rest the Turkey - Grab one side of the roasting rack with an oven mitt and tilt the turkey so liquids inside the cavity run out into the pan. (These juices are used to make the gravy.)

Then, lift the whole turkey (still on the rack) and transfer it to a cutting board. Tent the turkey with aluminum foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This gives time for the meat to firm up and the juices to be re-absorbed into the muscle tissue, making the turkey easier to slice and taste juicier.

7. Carve the Turkey - Carve the turkey the same way you would carve a chicken(click that link to see a video of the entire process of carving a chicken): Remove the wings first, then the thighs, then the breast meat. Once you have the meat off, you can separate the thighs into thighs and drumsticks and carve the breast meat into individual slices.

That's all there is to it! Roasting a turkey is really just like roasting a large chicken. The same methods and ideas apply. Even if you don't get fancy with spices or special basting liquids, your turkey will still turn out browned, moist, and flavorful.

One final note! Once you've sat down at the table, don't forget about the turkey back on the counter. The leftover meat needs to be refrigerated within two hours of cooking, after which the risk of something nasty taking up residence starts to increase exponentially. Be safe, kids!

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Tired Of The Turkey?

(Image courtesy of jdolenga)

Every year, people across the United States prepare to cook and share a Thanksgiving meal with family and friends. The traditional meal usually involves turkey, mashed potatoes stuffing and other great dishes, but wouldn’t it be nice for a change? Preparing a different, more eclectic meal for Thanksgiving this year may be a pleasant surprise for many families that feel the old Thanksgiving routine has gotten a bit stale.

Gathering friends together and giving thanks doesn’t have to just be about the turkey. This article from apartmentguide.com suggests some really great ways to reinvent your Thanksgiving feast this year. Keep reading for a few ideas to give your guests a Thanksgiving that they will never forget!

Set a diverse buffet

One of the main reasons people stray from traditional Thanksgiving traditions is to satisfy the dietary needs of a everyone at the table. If your guest list includes vegetarians, vegans or gluten-free friends – or foodies! — you can still create a delicious dinner that suits all of their tastes. The key is to provide options.

Seafood is a great alternative to turkey, and some vegetarians are open to eating fish. Prepare a tasty Thanksgiving salmon with cranberry sauce or autumn spice scallops. For a truly vegetarian Thanksgiving, shoot for scrumptious veggie entreeslike butternut squash baked risotto or a mushroom tart. Preparing pumpkin pie can be bewildering when you are crafting a gluten-free Thanksgiving dinner menu, but there’s always gluten-free pumpkin cheesecake with a gingersnap crust to save the day!

Don’t let special diets intimidate you. Have fun experimenting with your dinner menu and create a new tradition that’s both healthy and yummy.

Plan a faraway feast

As Thanksgiving is an American holiday that celebrates our first settlers, an obvious way to mix things up this year is to give your Thanksgiving dinner menu an international twist. A Greek lamb roast, Italian turkey sausage lasagna or Indian shrimp vindaloo is guaranteed to spice up the flavor of your feast.

Take your Thanksgiving dinner on the road with a visit to a local restaurant. International restaurants are often open on Thanksgiving Day, so keep your kitchen clean and drive your family to the neighborhood Chinese, Indian or Korean spot. Plus, eating out means you don’t have to cook Thanksgiving in a small kitchen!

Or you can go big with your holiday vacation plans and travel farther afield for a real non-traditional Thanksgiving out of the country. Viking River Cruises offers spectacular European holiday excursions that feature fabulous meals and seasonal market shopping.

Give thanks without the focus on food

Some of us dread Thanksgiving because we are watching our weight or trying to stay healthy. Grandma’s decadent turkey dinner is simply too tempting! Removing the food focus from Thanksgiving is a great alternative. After all, there are fun ways to savor the spirit of the holiday without destroying your diet.

If the temptation truly is too great, you might skip the family meal, but offer to host a post-dinner game night at your house. That way you can still see your loved ones and share what you are grateful for over a game of Scrabble instead of stuffing. Other healthy options include planning an afternoon walk in the park or meeting everyone for an evening movie.

Think outside of the box of stuffing this year and plan a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal that will make this holiday unexpected and memorable.

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Fall Back Into Winter

(Image courtesy of bigpresh)

It’s official- fall is finally here. The days are getting shorter, the air is getting crisper and now that Halloween is over, it won’t be long until we start hearing Christmas carols wafting through the air. This weekend, we take another step down the road toward winter with Daylight Savings Time. Along with setting our clocks back an hour, there are a few important winter preparation tasks we need to remember before it gets to be too late.

This article from apartmentguide.com walks us through some seasonal prepration items we don’t want to forget as we settle into fall. Keep reading for a quick refresher on how to prepare for winter.

1. Set the clocks back an hour.

Obviously, this is the most important thing you have to do, or else you’ll be an hour early for everything. However, you don’t have to worry about it if you live in Hawaii, American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, or most of Arizona – these places don’t observe Daylight Saving Time.

Fun fact: Indiana used to be divided on the DST issue – half the state would observe it, the other half would not. But since 2006, the entire state has changed the clocks twice a year, just like most of the country.

2. Replace the batteries in your smoke alarm and carbon monoxide detector.

When you change the clocks, the National Fire Protection Association recommends you also take precautions to guard your safety in case of a fire or carbon monoxide leak. These devices can save your life, so you want to make sure your batteries are functioning properly.

3. Make a few energy-efficiency improvements.

The end of Daylight Saving Time means winter isn’t far away, so take on a few DIY projects to keep your apartment cozy during the cold months without running up your energy bills. After all, Daylight Saving Time was invented to save energy!

• Cover your windows with insulating curtains that keep cold drafts out.
• Wrap your water heater in an insulated jacket so water stays warmer with less energy.
• Replace the weather stripping under your exterior doors and windows.

4. Make an emergency kit for your apartment.

Snowstorms and other inclement weather in the wintertime can lead to power outages, and sometimes they last a while. Make sure you have everything you’ll need if you’re stuck inside with no power: Blankets, bottled water, flashlights, extra batteries, candles, and a good book.

5. Take care of yourself!

Even though it’s just one hour, a time shift can confuse your body. Those who are susceptible to erratic sleep patterns should be extra careful to give themselves enough time to rest.

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