Rice Dressing: A family recipe from our very own Audrey Atkins

Thanksgiving is a time to give thanks and enjoy family traditions old and new. Last year, Bill Pautler's family recipe for Paper Bag Turkey was so popular, we thought we'd follow this year with another family recipe - only this time from Audrey Atkins, our Director of Marketing. We hope you will enjoy it as well as all the bounty of the harvest season.

She Put What in the Dressing?!

In the mid 1890s, my great grandfather, Andrew Joseph Rowell, Jr., a young man in need of gainful employ, decided he would try his hand working at a logging camp in Chicora, MS. Joby, as he was known to his family, was hired on as an ox driver pulling great pine logs out of the woods and down to the river. It was hard work and dangerous, so when he had made enough money, Joby went home to Citronelle, AL, to build a home and start a life and family with his sweetheart, Ada.

Joby had one stipulation, however. It seems that while he was working at the logging camp, there was little served to eat except for cold collards and cornbread. Joby swore he would never eat either again! What was a young bride to do when Thanksgiving came? No dressing?

Ada thought back to her upbringing on the Mississippi Gulf Coast where rice was plentiful and a staple in the local diet and created the following recipe, which we still savor every year! From my family to yours...Rice Dressing.

2 cups uncooked rice

4 cups water
4 Tbl butter

1 cup finely chopped celery

1/2 cup finely chopped white onion

3 pieces white bread, toasted dry and crumbled

1 Tbl dried sage

Several dashes white pepper

5 eggs, beaten

1/2 - 1 cup chicken broth

Salt to taste

Combine rice, water, and salt to taste in a saucepan and bring to a boil. Cover, reduce heat to low, and cook until all water is absorbed, about 20 minutes. When rice is done, remove from heat, add butter, and let cool to room temperature. Add in all remaining ingredients. You can adjust the amount of broth if dressing appears to be too dry and adjust seasonings to taste.

Put in a greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes until brown on top and an inserted toothpick comes out clean.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Save 35% on your new phone system between now and Dec. 15!

As the old saying goes, the only two things that are certain in life are death and taxes. But here's one more thing that we know for certain, if your business is not taking advantage of Section 179, you are missing out on a real improvement in your bottom line. So...

What is the Section 179 Deduction and why is Blue Ocean Technologies mentioning it?

Most people think the Section 179 Deduction is some arcane or complicated tax code or know nothing about it at all. Blue Ocean Technologies is always striving to provide as much value to our clients as we can. The end of the year is upon us and we felt compelled to remind you of this potential money-saving tax deduction. It really is simple, as the following will show you.

Essentially, Section 179 of the IRs tax code allows businesses to deduct the full purchase price of qualifying equipment purchased or financed during the tax year. That means that if you buy (or lease) a piece of qualifying equipment, you can deduct the FULL PURCHASE PRICE from you gross income. It’s an incentive created by the US Government to encourage businesses to buy equipment and invest in themselves. It is sometimes referred to as the “SUV Tax Loophole” or the “Hummer Deduction” because many businesses have used this tax code to purchase qualifying vehicles (like SUV’s and Hummers.) 

Essentially, Section 179 works like this:

When your business buys certain pieces of equipment, it typically gets to write them off a little at a time through depreciation. In other words, if your company spends $50,000 on a vehicle, it gets to write off (say) $10,000 a year for five years (these numbers are only an example).

Now, while it’ true that this is better than no write off at all, most business owners would really prefer to write off the entire equipment purchase price for the year they buy it.

In fact, if a business could write off the entire amount, they might add more equipment this year instead of waiting. That’s the whole purpose behind Section 179. See the following graphic for an example of the savings that are available to you after the “Economic Stimulus ACT of 2008”. 

Lease and Section 179

Did you know that your company can lease equipment and still take full advantage of the Section 179 deduction? In fact, leasing equipment with the Section 179 deduction in mind is a preferred financial strategy for many businesses, as it can significantly help with not only cash flow, but with profits as well. 

Advantages of Leasing and Financing

The obvious advantage to leasing or financing equipment and still take full advantage of the Section 179 Deduction is the fact that you can deduct the full amount of the equipment without paying the full amount this year.

Material goods that generally qualify for the Section 179 Deduction

Please keep in mind that to qualify for the Section 179 Deduction, the below equipment must be purchased and put into use between January 1, 2010 and December 31, 2010

• Equipment (machines, etc.) purchased for business use.
• Tangible personal property used in business
• Business Vehicles with a gross vehicle weight in excess of 6,000lbs
• Computers
• Computer Software (off the shelf)
• Office furniture
• Office Equipment ----TELEPHONE SYSTEMS QUALIFY
• Property attached to your building that is not structural component of the building

2010 equipment Purchase:	$75,000
1st Year Write off: (Under the new law, $250,000.00 is the Maximum Section 179 write-off)	$75,000
Tax Savings: (Assume 35% tax rate. $75k x .35 = $26k)	$26,000
Total Equipment Cost: ($75k less all tax deductions of $26k)	$49,000

Take advantage of truly significant tax savings right now to help your business grow and move into 2011 in a strong position with a brand new phone system. Call us today 205.776.6900 for a quote for your business phone system needs or to update pricing on an existing quote you may be holding from us.

Ref.: http://www.section179.org/index.html

Paper Bag Turkey

Back this year by popular demand is Bill Pautler's famous Paper Bag Turkey recipe! Bon Appetite!!

Paper Bag Turkey

Thaw your turkey in the refrigerator for a couple days in advance of cooking.  Fresh turkeys are always the best if you can get one.

Preheat oven at 325 degrees F.

Make sure you take the neck and gizzards out of the cavity!! I just throw them away, but you can save them for gravy if you prefer.

Rub the outside of your turkey with either olive oil or butter and then rub it with the spices of your choice. Some people like nutmeg and cloves. Some like salt and pepper. I like Tony Chachere's creole seasoning and fresh garlic. Sprinkle some seasoning inside the cavity too.

Then put a whole peeled white onion and a red apple in the cavity.

Line your pan with aluminum foil.

Then put your turkey in a regular brown paper grocery bag. The bag won't burn; don't worry about it!

Lay your bagged turkey in the pan and pour 1 cup of cold water into the cavity of the turkey.

Roll closed the front of the bag so it is well sealed and don't open the bag again until the turkey is done!

Cover the whole pan with aluminum foil and seal as well as possible.
 
Put your turkey in the oven and cook for the appropriate time:

6 to 8 pounds:3 to 3-1/2 hours
8 to 12 pounds: 3-1/2 to 4-1/2 hours
12 to 16 pounds: 4-1/2 to 5-1/2 hours
16 to 20 pounds:5-1/2 to 6 hours
20 to 24 pounds: 6 to 6-1/2 hours

When the turkey is done, pull it out of bag and let it cool for about 15-20 minutes, carve and enjoy!

Hint - Sometimes we will cook a second turkey the day after Thanksgiving, because there are usually no leftovers.  Fresh turkeys are on sale then, and I bought one at Winn Dixie last year for 90 cents a pound!

Cloud computing? What's not to like!

Every year the New Oxford American Dictionary publishes its list of new words for 2010. Through the magic of the Interweb, we'd like to share with you a few that we thought were all that. Some of them might surprise you almost as much as a wardrobe malfunction, but some may not. While you enjoy this little vocabulary lesson, we think we're going to plan a staycation in the 'Ham - maybe partake in some parkour at the new Railroad Park, enjoy some coffee and steampunk at Urban Standard, or catch a webisode of "We Have Signal" on aptv.org. TTYL!

New Words

big media n. [treated as sing. or pl.] the main means of mass communication (i.e., television, radio, and the press), as opposed to blogs or other personal websites.

cloud computing n. the practice of using a network of remote servers hosted on the Internet to store, manage, and process data, rather than a local server or a personal computer.
credit crunch n. a sudden sharp reduction in the availability of money or credit from banks and other lenders: the beleaguered company has become the latest victim of the credit crunch.
green audit n. an assessment of a business in terms of its impact on the environment.
green-collar adj. denoting or relating to employment concerned with products and services designed to improve the quality of the environment: green-collar jobs.
– ORIGIN on the pattern of white-collar and blue-collar.
hashtag n. (on social networking websites such as Twitter) a hash or pound sign (#) used to identify a particular keyword or phrase in a posting.
homeshoring n. the practice of transferring employment that was previously carried out in a company’s office or factory to employees’ homes.
– ORIGIN early 21st cent.: on the pattern of offshoring.
hypermiling n. the practice of making adjustments to a vehicle or using driving techniques that will maximize the vehicle’s fuel economy.
– DERIVATIVES hypermiler n.
Interweb n. humorous the Internet.
parkour (also parcour) n. the activity or sport of running through an area, typically in an urban environment, using acrobatic techniques to negotiate obstacles.
– ORIGIN early 21st cent.: French, alteration of parcours ‘route, course.’
paywall n. (on a website) an arrangement whereby access is restricted to users who have paid to subscribe to the site.
staycation n. informal a vacation spent in one’s home country rather than abroad, or one spent at home and involving day trips to local attractions.
– ORIGIN early 21st cent.: blend of stay and vacation.
steampunk n. a genre of science fiction that typically features steam-powered machinery rather than advanced technology.
tag cloud n. a visual depiction of the word content of a website, or of user-generated tags attached to online content, typically using color and font size to represent the prominence or frequency of the words or tags depicted.
TTYL abbr. informal talk to you later: Anyway, gotta run now! TTYL.
wardrobe malfunction n. informal, humorous an instance of a person accidentally exposing an intimate part of their body as a result of an article of clothing slipping out of position.
webisode n. an episode, esp. from a television series, or short promotional film made for viewing online.
– ORIGIN 1990s: blend of Web and episode.

New Phrases

be all that informal be very attractive or good: he thinks he’s all that—yeah, God’s gift.
what’s not to like? informal used as a rhetorical expression of approval or satisfaction: cleaner air, cooler temperatures, and mountain views—what’s not to like?

Old Words, New Senses

friend n. a contact associated with a social networking website.
v. add (someone) to a list of contacts associated with a social networking website.
meme n. an image, video, phrase, etc., that is passed electronically from one Internet user to another.
tweet n. a posting made on the social networking site Twitter: he started posting ‘tweets’ via his cell phone to let his parents know he was safe.
v. to make a posting on the social networking site Twitter.

viral n. an image, video, advertisement, etc., that is circulated rapidly on the Internet: the rise of virals in online marketing.