All-Star Thanksgiving: Roast Turkey Parts Instead Of The Whole Bird

Every year on Thanksgiving Day, the same scene plays out on countless American dinner tables.

You score with the holiday bird’s thigh meat (so moist and juicy) but its breast, most unfortunately, is a dry and stringy epic fail. Thank goodness for gravy.

Or maybe it’s the reverse. The breast meat carves into tender, magical slices, but the thighs and drumsticks, which your dark meat-loving family members always fight over, are overly pink and rubbery to the touch. Everyone has to wait while you pop the pieces back into the oven for additional roasting. 

For a dish that seems like it should be so easy, a properly cooked Thanksgiving turkey actually requires some fussing over, what with the white meat always cooking faster than the dark meat, no matter how carefully you tent it when the breast hits 150 degrees on an instant-read thermometer. No wonder so many of us count hassle-free sides like stuffing and candied sweet potatoes among our favorite holiday dishes. 

It doesn’t have to be so.

Break the bird down into parts to be cooked individually, or buy your turkey legs and a breast separately from the get-go, and you solve the problem. White and dark cook on their own terms, and as a result, no one gets stuck with over- or under-cooked poultry.

There are other reasons it makes sense to cook a turkey in parts instead of an entire bird during the holidays.

Maybe you’re cooking for just a couple of guests instead of a crowd, or your family likes the delicate breast meat so much more than dark, or you’re tired of having to decide who gets the prized legs. (Sometimes there’s just one to divvy up: in my house, my father always gets first dibs.)

Perhaps you hate the way a 15-pound turkey takes up so much room in the oven, making it difficult to cook more than one or two side dishes at the same time.

Or maybe you simply want to spend more time socializing and less time hunched over a hot oven taking the bird’s temperature. A whole turkey can take upwards of three or more hours to roast (longer if it’s stuffed). Braised drumsticks only take about 90 minutes, while a whole breast only needs about two hours. Plus, turkey parts generally don’t require a whole lot of knife skills to slice the meat off the bone.

While finding turkey legs could be a challenge (I found mine at Wholey’s; frozen turkey legs are sold at Strip District Meats in the Strip District), most larger grocery stores sell frozen turkey breasts year-round. As we get closer to Thanksgiving, you’ll also be able to find fresh turkey at such specialty shops as DJ’s Butcher Block in Bloomfield, and Marty’s Market in the Strip District, as well as from poultry farmers such as Pounds’ Turkey Farm in Leechburg and Serenity Hill Farms in Cheswick.

How to proceed? You can roast the turkey parts in the same pan at 350 degrees, after rubbing them with butter, salt, pepper and herbs (add the turkey legs after the breast has been in the oven for 30 minutes). Or give them more personal attention and a bit more style with recipes such as the Maple Syrup-Mustard Glazed Turkey Breast or Cider-Braised Turkey Legs. Either one would be a tasty and stress-free addition to your Thanksgiving table.

Source: post-gazette.com

Apple, Samsung Suffer As Tablets Register Worst Quarter So Far

The tablet market is pretty much packing up. Soon after the IDC report that showed a 12.6 per cent year over year decline a Canalys report puts the figure at 20 per cent. In fact, Canalys says the worldwide PC market experienced its fourth consecutive quarter of negative growth, with shipments declining 14% to 114.2 million units. Canalys counts tablets in the PC segment.

“The market struggled in Q3 as vendors continued to grapple with the impact of currency headwinds, excess channel inventory and product transitions driven by Microsoft and Intel. With the exception of North America, all regions experienced double-digit annual shipment declines, including EMEA that fell almost 18%,” the Canalys report said.

However, the positive news came from the two-in-one PC category which grew 77 per cent year-on-year and global notebook shipments increased 12 per cent sequentially, as the market gears up for the holiday season. “Although this indicates a better end to 2015, vendors must resist the temptation to build inventory in Q4. Consumer demand will be muted by Microsoft’s Windows 10 upgrade program and tablet vendors will be eager to present holiday shoppers with attractive bargains,” the report forewarned.

Apple, meanwhile, continued to lead the tablet market even as iPad shipments slipped 20 per cent, falling below 10 million units for the first time since Q2 2011 to 9.9 million units. Samsung posted a similar year-on-year shipment decline as it continues to occupy second place with 7.9 million units. Lenovo’s tablet shipments increased by around 2% to 3.1 million units, putting it at number three.


Source: indianexpress.com

Spectacular Images of Mars From India’s Most-Ambitious Space Mission

Next month, India’s mission to Mars is expected to complete a year in orbit around the red planet and its photo album so far is out of this world.

The spacecraft, named Mangalyaan, Hindi for Mars craft, has already completed more than 100 orbits since it arrived at the planet on Sept. 24, 2014.

At a cost of $74 million, the Indian Space Research Organization’s mission to Mars was the cheapest of recent missions to Mars mounted by other space agencies.

The satellite is healthy and continues to “glean data,” Debiprasad Karnik, a spokesman for ISRO, said Friday.

Apart from a few days in June when it lost touch with Earth after moving behind the Sun in a phenomenon called “solar conjuncture,” Mangalyaan has remained in contact and been sending photographs taken by the Mars Color Camera back to scientists in India.
Take a look at the most spectacular ones below.

The photo above, taken in July, is of the Ophir Chasma, part of what the National Aeronautics and Space Administration describes as the largest canyon system in the solar system, known as the Valles Marineris.

NASA calls the geographical feature the Grand Canyon of Mars. At a length of more than 1,800 miles, it is almost 3.5 times the length of the Grand Canyon in Arizona. The walls of the chasma, that is described by the International Astronomical Union as “an elongate steepsided depression,” are multi-layered, the floor too contains large deposits of layered materials.

Source: blogs.wsj.com

Molly Shattuck, the Former Oldest Cheerleader in the NFL, Sobs as She Gets 48 Weekends in Jail for Raping 15-Year-Old Boy

Molly Shattuck, formerly the oldest cheerleader in the NFL, was sentenced to 48 weekends in jail on Friday for raping a 15-year-old boy.

The ex-Baltimore Ravens cheerleader, 48, burst into tears as the judge announced her sentence, according to NBC News. She then promised to make amends.
"I will spend the rest of my life making this right," she said.
In June, Shattuck pleaded guilty to one count of fourth-degree rape in the Sussex County Superior Court in Georgetown, Delaware.
Her relationship with the boy allegedly began online in May 2014. Shattuck eventually invited the victim, along with her children and some of their friends, to a vacation home in Delaware over the Labor Day weekend.
The boy later told police she gave him alcohol and performed oral sex.
On Friday, the victim's mother and father asked the judge to sentence Shattuck to more than just probation.
"Any adult who rapes a child deserves to be in prison," the boy's mother said in court, according to USA Today. "Please hold her accountable."
Shattuck will spend every other weekend in jail for the next two years.

Source: people.com

California governor signs strict school vaccine legislation

Brown, a Democrat, issued a signing statement just one day after lawmakers sent him the bill to strike California's personal belief exemption for immunizations, a move that requires nearly all public schoolchildren to be vaccinated. The bill takes effect next year.

"The science is clear that vaccines dramatically protect children against a number of infectious and dangerous diseases," Brown wrote. "While it's true that no medical intervention is without risk, the evidence shows that immunization powerfully benefits and protects the community."

California joins Mississippi and West Virginia as the only states with such strict requirements.
Democratic Sens. Richard Pan of Sacramento and Ben Allen of Santa Monica introduced the measure after the outbreak at the theme park in December infected over 100 people in the U.S. and Mexico.

The bill likely would be successful in increasing immunization rates and stopping the spread of disease, pediatric doctors said Monday after the state Senate sent the legislation to the governor.

Medical exemptions would still be granted to children with serious health issues. The measure applies to public and private schools, as well as day care facilities.

The bill has seen heated opposition from parents who have come by the thousand to protest at the Capitol in recent weeks. The topic has drawn such acidic debate that the authors have been added under extra security and a recall effort has been launched against at least two lawmakers who supported the proposal.
Opponents assert that the state is eliminating informed consent and trampling on parental rights. Similar legislation was dropped in Oregon earlier this year because opposition was so fierce.

Despite fervent pushback, the bill passed both the California Legislature with bipartisan support.
Brown said he was able to support the measure because the authors agreed to make it easier to obtain medical exemptions. SB277 was amended to allow doctors to use a family's medical history as an evaluating factor.

The authors also agreed to establish a grandfather clause, allowing students who currently claim a personal belief exemption to maintain it until their next vaccine checkpoint. Checkpoints occur in kindergarten and seventh grade.



Source:  newsday.com