ZOMG - A Post Not About Gwen!

I know this is primarily a cute baby blog, but I figure I need to put something else up once in a while.  In this case, I threw a little shindig this past weekend for the sole purpose of consuming massive proportions of meat.  Two years ago, some friends and I made a turbaconducken.  I decided that two years was entirely too long to go without another such monstrosity, so here we go. 

WARNING: This post is not for the easily squeamish or for the vegetarians out there.  You have been warned.

We didn't take anywhere near as many pictures this time around.  The overall procedure is about the same as last time, so look here for details.  The primary differences are listed here:

Less bacon: Believe it or not, there really was too much bacon last time, so this time we used less than 3 pounds.  However, I had bought extra, so during the assembly on Saturday we fried up a pound and ate it by itself.  Because while there may be too much bacon in a single dish, there really isn't such a thing as too much bacon overall.

We used the top three packs of bacon on the birds - 2ish pounds of an apple-wood smoked that the butcher recommended, plus a pound of different apple-wood smoked.  They imparted a very nice flavor to the creation.  The 2 pounds underneath were eaten and the leftovers frozen for later enjoyment.

Making a Brine:  The major problem with the bird last time is that the turkey breast, being so close to the surface, dried out pretty badly.  By using this brine, we were able to help reduce that problem a bit (see here for an explanation of the chemistry involved).  I don't think it succeeded as well as I'd hoped, but it did certainly add a whole buncha tasty goodness to the process.

I read a useful tip somewhere - by using the large turkey roasting bags, you can brine the bird in a safer and more sanitary fashion by keeping it in the meat drawer of your refrigerator. I never could convince myself to use a 5-gallon bucket and some ice instead...

Side view, pre-ice.

The brine ready to head into the fridge.

All safe for a 9 hour soak!

Todd and Jason did most of the assembling again this time.  Here's the final product before wrapping it up with twine:

Wrapping the outside with bacon

Entering the oven on Sunday morning.  I have a vastly better oven this time around, and it definitely showed in the final product.

Hot out of the oven

Nowhere near the fat that I had to take out the last time.

After the savages demolished yonder beastie

Jessica posted some more pictures of the event.  Since I was covered up to the elbows in the fats of assorted animals, I didn't get any pics of the initial cutting.  I've stolen these ones from her:

Tastiest.  Drumstick.  Ever.

The bacon has made me mad, MAD I tell you!

And now, it is time for the random pics:

My latest creation: Noggachino!
Yes, those are raw eggs.  Yes, they are tasty.  Nom nom nom.

Nolan and Gwen

One of the more ... interesting ... appetizer trays I've seen.

Epic knife work.  Really, Todd was just wanting to make sure that if we chewed up the countertops it'd be my fault.  Todd is a very smart guy.

Extracting the bird from the pan.  Pre-cooking, the strings were so tight we couldn't weave much bacon underneath them, now look at the amount of slack.

Wes and Gwen.  They always seem to get along so well.

This is a strip of bacon.  On top of an M&M cookie.  Not my idea.  Sure does look a bit like nigiri though...

 
I don't have many pictures of the event itself, and I'm really, really tired, so I'm just posting the few I have with Gwen.  Since this is "her" blog, after all.