Tag Archives: turkey

Thanksgiving Mazes! 🦃

Posted on by Standard 6

I was going to share some mazes for Thanksgiving, and I realized I have a bunch of them. I did some quick dirty coloring of some old ones. I am sharing new ones that will be in my second book, some from the first book, and I have some that are loosely related to fall or Thanksgiving dinner.

Please, use them to have some fun this holiday season! They could be placemats, an activity for those that aren’t cooking while they’re waiting for dinner or for company to arrive, or used as a game to see who finishes first. You could use them to make place cards too if you wanna get creative!

If you complete the mazes by printing them out & solving, or on your phone/tablet/PC with a drawing app, share it on you preferred social media platform & tag me! I’m @AiXeLsyD13 on pretty much all of ’em. (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Threads, BlueSky, TikTok, Tumblr, YouTube, etc.) I’d love to see a video of a race to complete the smaller easier ones… and I love to see solutions! I like to draw mazes, not so much solving them.

Mmm, Thanksgiving dinner. Stuffing is my favorite. I need to figure out how to do a stuffing maze.

You can solve these while listening to one of my Thanksgiving playlists on Amazon or Spotify, or while talking about what you’re thankful for! I love the reflection this time of year.

This year’s turkey maze:

Colorful turkey maze on a transparent background.
Black & white turkey maze from 2023 - quick phone scan.
2023 Turkey Maze - Colorful turkey on a green square background.
2023 Turkey Maze

Thanksgiving-ish themed mazes from the upcoming book:

Turkey Giblets Maze - Can you name all the giblets?
Corn Maze ... Maze. With a scarecrow!
Turkey Giblets Maze & Corn Maze …Maze – from my upcoming second book.

Newly (& quickly) colorized old Thanksgiving themed mazes:

A Slice of Pumpkin Pie Maze
Cornucopia Maze
Turkey on a platter maze,
Fall leaves maze - w/ fall colors.
Fresh takes on old Thanksgiving Mazes

Random older related mazes:

<shameless plug> The turkey from this year and the “giblets” maze are also available on some cool merchandise from my RedBubble and TeePublic shops too. Why not get a turkey maze T-shirt or an apron with the giblets maze? You can get both designs on hoodies, pet bandanas, stickers, magnets, coffee mugs, and even a damn shower curtain if so inclined. </shameless plug>

🦃 UPDATE! 🦃

After posting this, I found an OLD turkey maze of mine on Pinterest, so I downloaded & edited it a bit. So, here’s one more:

Cartoon Turkey Maze - Black & White
Cartoon Turkey Maze in Color
I guess I forgot about this one.


Hot Turkey Sandwich Dinner (Quick Style!) 🦃

Posted on by Standard 1

I love a good hot sandwich smothered in gravy, be it roast beef, meatloaf, or turkey. I was in the mood for a turkey one like you’d get at a diner, and being a week night after work, wanted to put it together pretty quickly as I hadn’t thought ahead to use the crock pot.


Putting it here, so if I want it again I’ll remember what I did right & want to try it again. I may have to double the recipe when the kids are home. This fed two of us & left enough for me for lunch.

The Turkey:

  • 2 Breast Cutlets
  • 1 can of Yuengling Traditional Lager (Or Straub Amber, or Shiner Bock, or Smithwick’s, or Killian’s Irish Red. Pick a good beer.)
  • ⅔ cup carrot chips. (Yup, cheated & bought those in a bag too.)
  • 1 Spanish Onion, peeled & quartered.
  • 2 tsp. of minced garlic from a jar like a lazy person.
  • A bunch of your preferred spices. (I used, cracked pepper, poultry seasoning, sage, thyme, onion powder, garlic powder, paprika, Mrs. Dash’s table blend, and a bit of Season All.)
  1. Pre-heat the oven to 350°
  2. Put the turkey cutlets in a roasting pan, & pour the beer over them. Again, get good beer. No one wants you to cook with Coors or Budweiser or Mic Ultra.
  3. Toss in the onion & carrot.
  4. Add all the spices. When you think it’s too much, keep going.
  5. Stick in your meat thermometer probe that reads temperature while cooking.
  6. Pit the lid on, put it in the oven.
  7. I set the timer for 50 minutes, but it was done in a half hour or so. Cook to 165° internal temp & let it rest. I got distracted & took it to 170° and no one died, so don’t worry if it’s not precise.

The Veggies:

  • Bundle of Broccoli
  • Carrots from that bag you already opened.
  • Chicken Bullion Cube.
  • You still have those spices out, right?
  1. Eyeball some water into the pot, ad the bullion & spices.
  2. Chop that broccoli up and compost the stems or make those little fried things that looks delicious.
  3. Put the broccoli & carrots in the steamer thing that goes on top of the pot.
  4. Boil it for… I dunno. Not long. I like my broccoli bright green & crunchy. Bonus with the carrots being cut like this, they cook quickly too.

The ‘Taters:

  • They’re from a box. Follow the directions… sort of. I bought the store brand.
  • Use more butter than they call for.
  • Put a chicken bullion cube in the water instead of salt.
  • instead of lowfat milk, use ½ whole milk and ½ buttermilk. Add sour cream if you’re into complete and total anarchy.

The Gravy:

  • 2 jars of turkey gravy
  • roasting pan drippings
  • A bit of those carrots & onions.
  1. Heat the gravy on medium-high.
  2. Add pan drippings to taste
  3. Chop up the carrots & onions pretty small, & add them too.
  4. Cook it on medium until it thickens back up.

The Sandwich:

  • Texas Toast (Why do they call it that? it wasn’t toasted.)
  • That turkey, sliced after it has rested a bit.
  • That gravy.
  1. Put the bread on the plate, with some mashed potatoes beside it.
  2. Put the turkey on top.
  3. Add some gravy on top of everything.
  4. Put another piece of bread on the top. (Unless you want an open-faced sandwich.)
  5. Slather more gravy on that.
  6. Drink a shot of gravy.

Don’t forget to eat your vegetables so it’s a healthy meal. This is a quick week night dinner that tastes like it cooked all day.

Things I might try next time…

  • Toast the Texas Toast, or grill it up like grilled cheese or a patty melt?
  • Bacon pieces in the gravy.
  • Bacon on the sandwich.

Have any suggestions, tips, tricks, or secrets?

If you were a lunch lady in the 80’s and know how to make/where to get that greenish-yellow glow-in-the-dark colored school cafeteria gravy, hit me up in the comments! I am super nostalgic for that,

Christmas Mazes 2022 ❄️🎅🎄🎁⛄✍️

Posted on by Standard Reply

I did some drawing, scanning with the HP app on the phone, and coloring with paint.NET this year. Please, if you print & solve or them on your phone, PC, or tablet… share the solution! You can share it here in the comments, or tag me on Instagram, Twitter, or whatever social media is popular nowadays. I generally try to grab @AiXeLsyD13 on all of them.

I have them in color, & in black & white.

Have a Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukkah, Have an Easy Fast for Yom Kippur, Happy Yule, Happy Solstice, Merry Yuletide, Ramadan Mubarak, Blessed Kwanzaa, Cathartic Festivus, or whatever holiday you celebrate!

Enjoy one of my Christmas Playlists to get you in the mood while you’re trying to solve these mazes, or share yours with me! Check out my other mazes if you’re ready for more! You can work on these while dinner is cooking, or tonight while youre trying to get to sleep & waiting for Santa!

I’ll be making my Decadent Cheesy Scalloped Potatoes tomorrow, but the White Trash ‘Taters would be just as good. Ham with gravy, green bean casserole, & brussels sprouts are also on the menu!

A bunch of mazes with no discernable common theme.

Posted on by Standard Reply

I’ve had some minor yet nagging health issues lately, and mazes help me sort of zone out or meditate. I posted them on Instagram, & my account for just mazes. I thought I would collect & post them here as mazes seem to me something that brings page hits to the blog.

Check some out. Try to solve, post, & tag me on social media. Print & use a pencil like it’s 1999, or do it right on your screen like it’s the year 2000!

Amps, man. Chase the tone!

Guitar Amplifier Maze - black & white, pen & ink.
Avocado maze
candle maze
Avocado & candle mazes.

Just shapes:

Roasted Turkey Maze
Cornucopia Maze
Butternut Squash Maze
Thanksgiving Food Mazes

The kids requested these ones:

Banana Maze (Color)
Pig & Apple Maze (Color)
Banana Maze (Black & White)
Pig & Apple Maze (Black & White)

🌽Maize Maze, 🦃Turkey Maze, & 🙁August is Falling Maze ✍️

Posted on by Standard 1

I can’t stop. Ha. I’ve been in a maze mood apparently. Someone complete some of these damn things! Here they are from Instagram.

Mike Duke requested a maize maze.

Thanksgiving is my favorite.

Have you heard about August is Falling? See the Gloom O’ Lantern.

Collage of recent mazes.

Smokin’ Spare Ribs 🍖 (3·2·1 Style)

Posted on by Standard Reply

So, recently I got a smoker attachment for my Char-Griller grill as a gift for Father’s Day. I tried it out today and the results we fantastic. I hit up the Google machine and some non-BBQ-ing Facebook groups for advice, tips, & tricks. (I imagine that they are as intense as guitar groups and I am just not ready yet.) I kept getting advice on the 3-2-1 method of smoking ribs. There are many variations of that technique. I think it went well. I tracked my progress with the #AiXeLsyDBBQ hashtag. Maybe I’ll do some more next time.

The quick and dirty of this method is…

  1. Get your coals to 225°-ish. (I used a chimney to avoid lighter fluid and it was awesome.) I added some wood chunks in the chimney, and on top once I spread on the coals. I did not soak the wood, but I may next time. Control the temp with your vents. Open a bit warms it up, closed cools it off… all because of airflow.
  2. Remove the silverskin, and put a nice rub on the ribs. I used one from the section of Walmart by all the grilling stuff.
  3. Put the ribs in the grill part if you have an attachment, or not on the heat for 3 hours.
  4. Pull the ribs out, wrap in heavy duty grilling foil, add some apple cider, apple juice, vinegar, pop, or whatever. I added some Straub. Unfortunately I made 2 racks and used the whole bottle, so I drank one myself.
  5. Put them in for 2 hours, smoking really isn’t necessary at this point if your wanna save your chunks or chips.
  6. Pull them out and unwrap them. I should have saved the drippings for the barbecue sauce on the side, but I did not. Shame on me. Do that.
  7. Sauce those ribs up. Liberally. Like, and obscene amount.
  8. Put them back on for 1 hour. (3-2-1… get it? Guys! They said the thing!)
  9. Always check with a thermometer for done-ness. They should be pretty damn done at this point, arguably overdone.
  10. EAT.

I know fall-off-the-bone isn’t competition style. A bone did pull right out of one rack, but the meat was in tact, not falling completely apart. I know the foil wrapping bit is then steaming not smoking… but, rules are made to be broken and a healthy dose of anarchy warms my little punk rock heart.

I would definitely do the ribs like this again. I may try a homemade sauce. This was pretty basic store-brand stuff from Shop ‘n Save with some dry mustard, brown sugar, garlic powder, onion powder, and black pepper, and Straub American Amber Lager. I may try different chips, or a smoker box, or to soak the wood. I even read some people eschew charcoal in favor of all wood once the fire is going.

I also threw on some baked potatoes, turkey legs, grilled veggies, and sauce on the attached burner.

Can’t wait to try out a turkey, pork loin, brisket, and whatever else I haven’t thought of. Mac n’ cheese? Jalapeño poppers? Meatloaf? Bacon?

What do you do in the smoker? What are your go to foods? Got any tips & tricks worth sharing? Do you click the tongs twice or three times? Before, during, or after?

Any excuse to drink beer and play with fire all day is a good excuse to me. Plus, the family was awed by my hereto unknown skills with smoked meats.

What music are you playing while you’re grilling or smoking?

This is the full adventure as told via Instagram:

Those Other Stuffed Peppers

Posted on by Standard 2

So, tonight for dinner I made a new (to me) one.  The wife has made it several times and it’s always a hit with the kids.  I think her original recipe was entitled Santa Fe Stuffed Peppers.  This takes out a bit of the spice and she’s not a huge fan of black beans (which I would have included).  Everything here came from Aldi, except the slices of white American cheese.  We just had that on hand, and no shredded cheese.  It worked well.

Our 3 year old daughter wolfed down about a pepper and a half worth of filling, skipping the outer pepper for some reason.  (She would possibly eat it all, or just the reverse tomorrow.)  She said that we should have it every night for dinner.  I noted that she really likes these, and her mom’s homemade Manwich-like sloppy joes, and that we should start a food truck that specializes in ground meat and call it “Ground Around Town.”  She said we have to paint it pink.  I asked if she wanted to cook or wash dishes.  She chose cooking.

Out of all the stuff you think kids might be picky about, they gobble this up.  (3 yo & 18mo).  I like these better than the more traditional meatball w/ rice stuffed in a green pepper & covered in spaghetti sauce or tomato soup.  For some reason, I can dig the rice & ground meat mixed… but I do not like rice in meatballs.  The red, yellow, & orange peppers are very sweet too.  I like them more than the green ones.  Also, if you mention that you like your peppers stuffed with sausage, you can just close this tab and move on.

These were really easy to make…

All I did was…

Cook the rice & set it aside.  I used the liquid from the can of tomatoes & a beef bullion cube in the water.

Cut the tops off of the peppers, pull out seeds & weird white stuff off of the inside.  (Bethany parboils them first, I didn’t.  I liked them a bit crunchier.)

Brown the ground beef, season to taste.  I added onion powder, garlic powder, & seasoned-salt.  (We have also used ground turkey for this.  It’s delicious.)

Mix the fire-roasted diced tomatoes into the ground meat after draining the fat off.

Mix the rice & beef/tomatoes together.

Put the peppers in a glass baking dish.  Pack the peppers with the tasty rice & beef goodness.  Two didn’t stand up well on their own, so I made little foil stands.

I cooked them in a preheated oven at 375° for 20 minutes, then added the slices of cheese for 5 minutes.

Like I said, Bethany parboils the peppers so they’re a bit softer, so she cooks it at 325° for 20-25 minutes.

Next time, if I make this, I may cook the rice in tomato paste or other tomato flavoring, and add the black beans.  Not sure what the kids would think.  Maybe a little bit of heat would be nice too?  This reminds me of Spanish rice in a pepper.

 

 

Do you make anything similar?  Do you do stuffed peppers a different way?  Do you stuff acorn squash like this?  Do you do different seasonings?  Make ’em meatless?  (Toasted garbanzo beans & black beans might be really good in this!)  Let me know in the comments!

Hamburgers vs. Meatballs vs. Meatloaf?

Posted on by Standard 13

This thought came to mind while making hamburgers for the holiday.  I remembered the commercials for ranch burgers & I had a packet of the ranch dressing mix, so I looked up their recipe.  It contained breadcrumbs.  I always thought breadcrumbs belong in meatballs or meatloaf, but not hamburgers.  Then there’s egg.  I put it in meatloaf but not in meatballs or hamburger.  They’re all almost the exact same thing… but then they’re all completely different.

I generally always throw them all together without a recipe.  They’re easy to do that way.  I guess everyone has their own way to do things.  I make them all the same sometimes, but sometimes I add something different for fun.

I’m just wondering how other people do things?

I’d love some feedback in the comments below.  I’ll share how I generally do things.  These aren’t really recipes, and I don’t measure much, but this is typically what goes in each:

Hamburgers

Meatballs

  • Ground Beef (Sometimes Turkey)
  • Crushed Croutons (Whatever we have for the salad if we’re having one, or a nice mix of spices or whatever.)
  • Parmesan/Romano “shake” cheese
  • Kraft Roasted Red Pepper Italian Dressing (It spices them well, keeps them nice & moist!)
  • Black Pepper

Meatloaf

  • Ground Beef
  • Egg
  • Bread or crushed crackers.  (I like the bread ripped up more than the crackers.)
  • A1, Ketchup, Mustard, or BBQ sauce… or a combo of all of them.
  • Season All
  • Black Pepper

(Click here for a crazy meatloaf recipe.)

Of course sometimes I add garlic, or onion powder, or something crazy.  That’s the fun if it though, isn’t it?  So, what goes in your meatballs, hamburgers, or meatloaf?

Raw Ground beef

Raw Ground beef (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Related Articles

New BBQ Joints?

Posted on by Standard 7

Pittsbugh BBQ Co. - Brisket Sandwich

Good BBQ helps to grow healthy sideburns.

Well, you probably know I like barbecue.  I’m a big fan, and I’m always willing to try out new places.  Well, new places that don’t have shrimp or other deathfish on the menu.  I’ve scoped out the web sites three places I haven’t tried… perhaps they’re rather new?  Can anyone tell me if they’ve been to any of these places & what they think?  (Or if they have any stuff on site that’s not listed on the online menu?)

Perhaps, like movie nights, I can organize a Pittsburgh (& surrounding area) BBQ tour?  Would anyone be interested?

I’d like to check out the following BBQ restaurants…

Of course we’d have to hit my favorites… Brentwood Express Rowdy BBQ, Pittsburgh Barbecue Co., & Clem’s Cafe!

Were else are the deathfish-free BBQ joints in in & around the ‘Burgh?

A wing tour has been suggested, but 95% of the places that fry wings also fry deathfish, so I’ll stick with Gooski’s.

Related Articles

Turkey Noodle Soup

Posted on by Standard 6

So, I made some really easy turkey noodle soup yesterday.  It turned out to be pretty delicious, and I lucked out because a lot of the ingredients were on sale.

Turkey Noodle Soup!

My cell phone takes absolutely terrible photos, but trust me... this was delicious.

In the morning, I popped 2 turkey breast cutlets into the crock pot, piled on top of chopped baby-cut carrots & celery.  I added some a cup of water with a chicken bullion cube… and piled on some spices; Poultry Seasoning, Season All, black pepper, garlic, sage, and parsley.  I should have probably added an onion, but I forgot.

8 hours later, I boiled some wide noodles in 2 cans of turkey broth, 2 cans of vegetable broth, and 2 cans of low sodium chicken broth.  When the noodles were cooked, I chopped up the turkey boobs, and dumped the contents from the crock pot into the boiling pot of noodles for the soup… I added a little more water, another bullion cube, and simmered for a while.

Result?  Rather effortless yet delicious soup.

I found myself wondering if the broth & noodles would have cooked well in the crock pot.  Will noodles cook well without the boiling & just the saturation?  Would they eventually fall apart if over-cooked?

I’ve also done something similar with a rotisserie chicken… I’ll sauté the carrots, celery, & maybe garlic & onion with some butter in the soup pot, then add chicken and/or vegetable broth, boil the noodles, & add chicken.

How do you make chicken or turkey noodle soup?

How do you make your other favorite kinds of soup?

Have any secret ingredients? 

I generally put in cayenne or something else hot… but I’ve been told to cool it with the spices for a while thanks to G.E.R.D. lately.  Sometimes I add beer to soups… just because I can.  I dunno if it’d go well in chicken or turkey noodle though?

Related articles