We couldn't agree on what to have this year for Thanksgiving so we are having a Vegetarian Meatloaf (called a Nutloaf) and instead of a ham or a turkey, we have decided on a TurDucKen!  A turkey stuffed with a duck, then stuffed with a Chicken.  THEN stuffed with dressing.  We do not make our dressing outside of the turkey, that is ridiculous.  I really wonder where THAT stupid idea came from.  If you wash, dry and salt the inside of the bird (no matter what kind of bird) everything will be fine.  I have never understood the problem.  It's like any other food, you have to be careful how you handle it and how you prepare it.  Birds must be either fresh kill or fully thawed in order to be accurately measured for internal temperature.

A few years ago we made the turkey stuffed with a goose and then a chicken.  It was marvelous.  Geese are full of lovely fat and add so much to the dressing.  Depending on what the geese have been eating, it depends on the flavor of the juices that come from baking him!  If he's been surviving on fish, they taste fishy (yuk) but if they've been eating grains and grasses only, they taste fresh and nice.  I have always loved goose and I also used to love to go goose hunting with my husband.  We used to fish and hunt together and it was wonderful "together" time.

My grandparents used to raise geese and turkeys and chickens and guinea hens on their "farm" but mainly we were a Hereford breeder bull/beef ranch.  So I got used to collecting eggs (gramma had one really mean chicken who pecked at my arms every time I collected eggs, so she kept a non-stop supply of bandaids on hand!!!  It didn't hurt but it did bleed all over the place.  She did not wash her eggs that way we could keep them on the counter inside the house.  There was never enough room in her icebox for eggs, she always had too much other good stuff in there!!!    I hated turned silage piles (the mice were as big as cats) but that was my job so I did it no matter what.  I was so glad when my grampa found me a pair of wellies that finally fit me!  No more mice crawling up my knee socks....


I'm pretty sure I posted a recipe here somewhere for a vegetarian nutloaf, but I'll do a search and try to find it and then post the link here.  I have it  because I used to go with a guy who was raised 7th Day Adventist and they did not eat animal products.  But whenever he came to town to date me we always had hamburgers at the local drive-in.  We ate ketsup and mustard and pickles and lettuce and all the other good stuff on them, too!

I'm also still looking for the DeMac franchise to see if I could start a business here in my town selling pizza burgers.  Gawd those things were the BEST.  Now that place is entirely gone from existence in my hometown, how sad.  They did a booming business, I can't imagine why one of their kids didn't take over the business and keep it going.  Ah well, memories..........