Forecast Fun

The most important thing to keep in mind is that a turkey takes a long while to cook through to the bone…and keeps on cooking once you remove it from the oven. Make sure to bake, braise or roast the bird at a high enough temperature to keep it safe to eat and don’t overcook it. Don’t leave your turkey in the oven to keep it warm while you get the rest of the dinner ready to serve. Take it out as soon as it’s done, let it cool outside the oven for about 20 minutes and then carve away. You’ll see the difference immediately when a turkey is prepared properly: the dark meat soft enough to break apart with a fork - the white meat moist and tasty. The secret is all in knowing how to buy and cook a delicious turkey! We’re here to help you learn how to cook a turkey.

How big a turkey should you buy? You’ll need at least 1 to 1 pounds of turkey per person if you’re buying the whole bird, fresh or frozen. Of course, it’s always best to go bigger. (After all, there are at least 50 ways to serve your turkey leftovers, including a winter store of turkey soup.) How long to cook? Preheat the oven to 325F (160C) then place the bird in the oven to roast.

A thought to consider–Great chefs suggest trying out your skills with a smaller bird before attempting to produce a holiday masterpiece. Like any other skill, perfecting a turkey recipe takes practice. Very few cooks can claim that their first turkey was perfect…but with every attempt you get more comfortable with what you’re doing and the results keep getting better.

Simple steps how to cook a turkey:

Allow about 15 minutes of cooking time per pound - about 45 minutes per kilo unstuffed. It will take a bit longer, about 20 minutes per pound or an hour per kilo, if the bird is cooked with stuffing.

1. Preheat oven to 325. Remove the wrapper to see how much the turkey weighs and determine approximate cooking time. Remove the giblet bag and the neck from the turkey cavity. Wash the turkey inside and out and pat skin dry with paper towels.

2. Place turkey breast side up on a rack in a shallow (about 2 inches deep) roasting pan. Insert meat thermometer in thigh. Add 1/2 cup water to the bottom of pan, if desired.

3. Cover turkey loosely with a tent of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Roast the turkey until temperature in the thickest part of the thigh reaches 180F. Cooking time will vary. For example, a 20 pound turkey will take 4 1/4 to 5 hours to cook, check the temperature on the thermometer after 4 1/4 hours.

4. Meanwhile, mix the stuffing or dressing. Place in a casserole and pop it into the oven during the last hour or so of roasting time.

5. Remove the foil tent after 1 to 1 1/2 hours of cooking time to brown the skin. Brush with vegetable oil to enhance browning, if desired.

6. A whole turkey is done when the temperature reaches 180F. The thigh juices should run clear (not pink) when pierced with a fork and the leg joint should move freely.

7. Allow the turkey to set 20 to 30 minutes before carving to allow juices to saturate the meat evenly.
Note: Cooking times do vary. Why? There are many reasons - oven temperature may not be completely accurate, the turkey may be very cold or partially frozen, and/or the roasting pan may be too small which inhibits the flow of heat. The USDA highly recommends use of a meat thermometer to determine doneness of turkey. This is an important tool in learning how to cook a turkey.

Stuffed Turkey:
For uniform cooking results, the USDA recommends cooking the stuffing outside of the bird (see step 4 above) If you insist on stuffing the turkey, stuff loosely and follow the steps below.

1. See step one above

2. Mix stuffing and lightly fill cavity. Allow 1/2 to 3/4 cup stuffing per pound of turkey. It is safer to understuff than to overstuff the turkey. Stuffing expands during cooking. Refrigerate any leftover stuffing and bake in greased casserole during the last hour of turkey roasting time.

3. Place turkey breast side up on a rack in a shallow (about 2 inches deep) roasting pan. Insert meat thermometer in thigh (see Turkey Safety: Using a Thermometer). Add up to 1/2 cup water to the bottom of the pan, if desired.

4. Cover turkey loosely with a tent of heavy-duty aluminum foil. Cooking time takes longer for a stuffed turkey. For example, a 20 pound stuffed turkey will take 4 1/4 to 5 1/2 hours to cook.

5. Remove the foil cover after about 1 to 1 1/2 hours of cooking to brown the skin. Brush with vegetable oil to enhance browning, if desired.

6. A whole turkey is done when the temperature in the thickest part of the inner thigh reaches 180F and the stuffing is 165F. The juices should run clear (not pink) when a long-tined fork is used to pierce the thickest part of the thigh.

7. Check the internal temperature of the stuffing. Insert the thermometer through the cavity into the thickest part of the stuffing and leave it for 5 minutes. Or use an instant red thermometer which will register the temperature after 15 seconds. The stuffing temperature will rise a few degrees after the turkey is removed from the oven. If the center of the stuffing has not reached 165F after stand time, return the turkey to the oven and continue cooking.

Rita Hutner is a copywriter for Catalogs.com. Catalogs.com is the Internet’s leading source for print and online catalog shopping - and a growing hub of original content and “how to” information at www.catalogs.com

If you’re a consultant with a growing business, you may find that you’re out-growing the standard options for processing payments online, and yet are not producing the volume level of a particular service to justify the extra costs that a merchant account would require.

This is one of the reasons why I was looking for alternatives payment options. Sure, people who know and trust me already, who are used to the standard options for processing ebook payments won’t see a problem with being sent to a page that looks completely different from the rest of my site, in order to complete their transaction.

But since my business specializes in solutions for people who aren’t marketers or search experts, and who rarely pay for products online, I had to have another option. Not that I have anything against PayPal or Clickbank - not at all.

But the way my business has changed has led me to find an alternative, not just a supplemental payment processor.

But what’s so great about having a branded sales page? And how does it increase your conversion rates?

It’s easier to trust the familiar.

Isn’t this one of the reasons people buy in the first place, because the seller is familiar, and as such, more trustworthy than an anonymous solution? More people stay with the sales process when they are familiar.

Branded Sales Pages assure the client that they’re taking the right steps to fulfilling their order.

Have you ever clicked on the wrong thing or realized that with five windows open, you weren’t sure where your place was?

Abandonment rates are lower the smoother the processing experience is.

If you’ve ever studied your web stats and seen people abandon your sales process at the checkout page, you know that this one aspect can totally kill the user experience, and sink your conversion rate.

What could be more disheartening than the knowledge that you’ve somehow gotten all the elements to making sales perfect -only to have high abandonment at the last step.

In those cases, you know it’s the order page, but you don’t know what to do about it.

Branded Pages tend to load faster and contain similiar elements that are already on your site. Faster loading pages lower the amount of people who may leave because your page isn’t loading.

50% of Americans may be on high-speed, but there’s still the other half, not to mention the rest of the world.

Branded sales pages can help you enhance your brand and make the purchasing experience less confusing for your visitors. If increasing your online conversion rate is one of your New Year’s Resolutions, you will want to look into a company that can offer this solution for you.

Learn more about how you can brand your blog or non-profit donations page, or your consulting/service business sales pages with the Acceptiva.com online payment solution and start accepting online payments today.

Last week I saw a TV interview with a well-known actress who
maintained that all men are programmed to cheat. According to
this genius, testosterone surges compel men to dive into the
sack with strangers. The poor dears can’t help themselves, and
it’s our duty as women to accept it.

Fortunately, a well-known sex therapist just happened to be the
show’s next guest, and she set the actress straight. All men do
not cheat. All men do not fight their hormones all day long.

Honorable men are faithful.

Many women, like the actress, kid themselves into believing that
men just can’t be expected to behave decently. Don’t be one of
them. Putting up with substandard treatment from a love interest
can be dangerous (consider AIDS and other STDs). Expect men to
treat you as you would treat them: with love, loyalty, respect,
and passion.

No woman should ever assume that her boyfriend or husband is
biologically incapable of monogamy any more than he is of, say,
clearing a table. The fact is, the world is full of wonderful
men who want to love a woman the way she should be loved.

Silly magazine blurbs (”HOW TO GET A GUY TO COMMIT,” “IS HE
CHEATING? 10 TELL-TALE SIGNS!”)are designed to make readers feel
insecure enough to “need” the products advertised within. Do not
let them sway you into accepting shoddy behavior. Ignore
misguided proclamations about male sexuality from women who’ve
talked themselves into allowing rotten behavior from so-called
“lovers.”

Raise your standards. Expect only the best men to enter your
life. Allow no cheaters, liars, abusers, mama’s boys, or
controlling toads to cross your threshold.

Hold out for the man who will adore you and lift you up. He’s
out there, and you deserve nothing less.

Online dating sites have been around for more than a decade now and their success shows no sign of slowing down. As technology advances there are more and more ways in which we can interact with each other. Soon phone technology will allow us to communicate by video with one another while on the move and GPS will allow us to meet with each other in a crowded shopping mall. These technologies are soon to be combined to help us all in our search for suitable partners. This is the cutting edge of the interconnected world we live in. Yet, with technology allowing these meetings to take place in the world, why are committed Christians still reluctant to use it to help them find partners?

Single Christians are in the un-enviable position of being highly restricted in a number of areas in regards to how they can meet new people. Firstly, if a Christian is single and is committed to their faith, they will be restricted to only wanting to date other committed Christians. This rules out a huge percentage of the population at a stroke. A non-Christian can walk down the street and see potential matches all the time. A committed Christian knows that the only (more or less) guaranteed place to meet suitable people is in their local Church. Secondly, not only can single Christians only really date other single Christians but the fact that these are only to be found in all kinds of Churches spread out all over the area they live in makes meeting them quite difficult. No one likes to be too obvious that they are looking for a partner and Christians are no different. In the goldfish bowl environment of the local Church the single Christian can feel particularly on show and this makes any approach to the opposite sex a scary experience. A rejection by someone in their own church can put them off dating for good.

So what can single Christians do to help themselves? This is where dedicated online Christian dating websites give a distinct advantage. There are several advantages which should be considered by committed single Christians.

Firstly, a Christian run online dating service will know and understand the particular needs of committed single Christians. Non-Christian sites cater for all kinds of people and can’t target their profiles to committed Christians and their searches allow all kinds of people to contact each other. This leads to approaches by unsuitable people that may lead the Christian away from their lifestyle. A Christian run site will screen people through specially designed profile questions and the essays will usually reveal if a person is really a committed Christian.

Secondly, a Christian run online dating site allows committed Christians to cross the Church and area boundaries. This allows them to approach people they may never meet in their ordinary day-to-day church activities.

Thirdly, by using an online Christian dating service committed Christians can pursue their relationships with anonymity and without interference and potential judgement by others in the church.

So now really is the time to get online and join one or more of the excellent online Christian dating sites.

Richard Lloyd is the Director of ChristiansUK.com a dedicated online Christian dating site serving Christians in the UK and USA. Richard is an experienced Microsoft web-technologies developer and is the director of Black Ridge Design Limited.