Christmas, Unwrapped (and Turporken)

As I promised yesterday, here are the rest of our Christmas photos. We awoke to remnants of snow still on the ground, before it turned wet & windy. The weather outside was frightful, just not in the way you picture it in the traditional holiday sense!! We didn't let that dull our celebrations, and started the day off by unwrapping our presents here at home. Brutus didn't hesitate to jump right in!

For me?? Oh what could it be??

Bone stuffies - alright!!

Another one - awesome!!

Keep 'em coming, Mom!!

Stella, are you in there??

Woohoo - a snugga!! Just my size too :)

Pretty nice stash here! Better make sure I guard them all from Mason!!

(Note from mom: none of these stuffies have eyes!!)

Phew! All this unwrapping wore me out!

Many of you inquired about the Turporken I mentioned yesterday. Since you asked.....

When we started hosting part of Christmas at our house, we started having Turducken. It was something my husband had heard of via the NFL commentator John Madden (he awarded turducken to the players of the Thanksgiving Bowl winning team), but apparently has been in existence since the early 80s. Looks like a turkey form the outside, but it's already been deboned, and stuffed with a duck that is stuffed with a chicken. Interspersed between all those yummy layers is cornbread stuffing.

We served Turducken for several years, but the duck part had limited appeal (maybe people were weirded out by the fact that "turd" was how the name of the thing started?). Anyways, we switched to Turporken (pork instead of duck) and have never looked back. We order it was jalepeno stuffing, so it's got a nice extra kick. It comes vacuum-sealed & frozen, shipped in a cooler from Cajun Meats.com. We order it a few weeks in advance, and it arrives the week before Christmas.

After spending a few days thawing in the fridge...

All we do is baste it and throw it in the oven. Easy as that.

No messing around with dressing the bird or any unpleasantries! Baste it with butter every hour, and in no time you've got a fabulous holiday feast!!

I might look like turkey on the outside, but take a look at what's inside:

In case you want to see even closer (look at all that cornbread stuffing!!!)

It's super easy to carve as well, since there are no bones! Just slice it like a loaf of bread (an electric knife comes in handy here). The only problem is trying to tell the difference between the chicken and the pork parts!! There were leftovers (only because the bird was huge), so we're still picking away at the remnants. It might sound hokey, but there's nothing like a turporken!! We've never had anyone over who didn't love it. In fact the only one who wan't happy with it was Brutus, and that's only because he didn't get any!! Here's how he feels about that:

Geez. They humiliate me, and I don't even get any turporken!!