Turducken? No Turducken.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone... I’d been considering writing up a gimmicky monster a la Turducken of some kind. That is to say, a monster within a monster (literally) but I’m drawing a blank. The movie “Alien” keeps coming to mind. If I could come up with something, I’m sure at least Claude would appreciate it.

We’re not actually cooking a turkey this year. Somehow, it has fallen upon myself to be head chef this time, and with my admittedly weak cooking abilities, I have opted out of the large bird in the oven thing in favor of two small birds in the oven. I’ll be cooking cornish game hens. Not only that though, as my wife is a huge fan of this holiday as well as of various cooking shows (Top Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, Iron Chef, Good Eats, and more), I feel compelled to cook her my own version of Turducken. She asked me at one point if I actually intended to place a half handful amount of stuffing into these tiny birds, to which I surprised myself by replying “Oh there’ll be stuffing, but you’ll just have to wait and see what it is” quite smartly, or rather stupidly, as I’d no idea what I’d put in there at the time I said that. Now that a day has passed, I’ve taken stock of our provisions and defrosted what will be the meat contents of the game hen stuffing - and it’s breakfast link sausages folks! ...What, no good? Well, she said she liked them the last time I made breakfast for us, and it’s all I have that will fit in these poor little bastards.

Suggestions are welcome. Cook the links first and then cram them in there to be baked with the birds? Chop them up and put them in there (uncooked, although aren’t they pre-cooked already)? Or perhaps I can do something stuffling-like with the (instant) mashed potatoes or broccoli I have on hand?

Anyhow, I have two fall backs - one is the two bottles of champagne already in the fridge that I can bust out at any time, and the other is the dessert, which I didn’t make myself. Pumpkin pie! Purchased from a local gourmet dessert business. Hey, I whipped the cream myself, complete with agave syrup and bourbon vanilla. Um, I probably won’t post how this turns out. Eat on!''

Update: By the gods it worked out pretty well - 400 deg. for 30 min. and 45 min. at 375 degress (F) uncovered, and it was perfect. The only thing I botched was the squash - an arorn squash split half and then seasoned with molasses and sugar cane (instead of brown sugar itself) just didn't cut it. I was out of the stuff, what can I say? Ah well.