Paula Deen - Get Cookin'

Hey y'all, my wonderful Aunt Peg joined me in the kitchen to cook our final dish before the holiday.  If you hadn't guessed, it's the big one!  Literally.  It’s Turkey! 

There are so many ways to cook a turkey, from roasting to braising to grilling, boiling, broiling and barbecuing!  We chose to do a Southern-style favorite: deep-frying!  We use a Butterball Indoor Electric Turkey Fryer, which is a good solution if you live in cold weather and can't fry your turkey outside. 

Deep-frying a turkey is an incredibly fast way too cook, keeps the turkey very moist and full of flavor,  and the clean up is very easy.  However, it can be incredibly dangerous.  Every year you hear stories of deep-fried turkeys blowing up, so please, if you decide to cook your Thanksgiving turkey this way, BE CAREFUL!

Thanksgiving is a week away.  Over this week we’ll be talking about turkey.  Hope y’all are excited.  Remember, we're asking you to send in your dishes AFTER you cook your Thanksgiving dinner.  That way you can have a family member or friend take pictures and video of you preparing your Thanksgiving meal and then send it in to Get Cookin' for the activity challenges!  We will announce the winners of each of the dishes, after the holiday.  So don't forget to have someone take pictures and video of your brilliant work!

Now, if you want to send it your dishes every week like usual, we welcome you do that, and we'll still post them on the Community Dishes blog.  You can submit for each week's theme starting that week and lasting up until the Wednesday before Thanksgiving.  There will be eight winners this month, two from each of the Thanksgiving dishes.  Each winner will get a signed copy of my book 'Paula Deen Celebrates', which has recipes for every holiday of the year, from Thanksgiving to Elvis's birthday!

Love and Best Dishes,

Paula

Hey y'all!  I am so happy to have my son Jamie back in the kitchen with me.  Cooking for the holidays is so much more fun when you have your family around.  We've been making Mashed Potatoes together for years and years, and are proud to show you how we do it in our house.

Jamie and I take you through everything step by step.  From keeping the skins on, to draining the water and doing the mashing, and of course, to adding lots and lots of butter!  We even tell you the secret ingredient that makes our mashed potatoes so good.  But you'll have to watch the video to find out what it is! ;)

Don't forget that we're asking everyone to submit their pictures and videos over the Thanksgiving weekend and we'll announce the winners the next week.

Love and Best Dishes,

Paula

Hey y'all!

We're back after a few weeks off with another super fun game of Monday Mad Libs.  We're picking two winners this week, and the prize is my Sweet Potato Biscuits mix.

Here is this week's story, and as always, don't forget to keep it PG! ;)

"I had all my Thanksgiving dishes prepared.  The ___________, the ___________ and the _______________, but something just didn't seem right.  Something was missing.  Of course, I forgot the mashed potatoes.  Luckily I had __________ potatoes in the fridge, and _________ and _____________ to use in the dish.  I feverishly whipped up the dish and it came out of the oven moments before dinner.  We sat down for our meal, said our thanks and dug in.  And thankfully, everyone thought the mashed potatoes were _______________!"

Copy and paste your Mad Lib in the comments below.  Your deadline is tomorrow, Tuesday the 17th at 8pm EST.  Good luck!

Love and Best Dishes,

Paula