Thanksgiving Post #1: Turkey

I’ve got to say that the recent spike in views on this blog between Thanksgiving and today make me really happy because it means that people actually check this silly thing. It also makes me aware that I’ve been slacking on posting. I’m going to blame it on tryptophan.

I did cook a lot of food, and I took a ridiculous number of pictures. I’ve decided to split up the meal into a couple different posts, but I’m going to start my Thanksgiving posts with the post important one: the turkey!

Last year was my first year roasting a turkey. Feeling intimidated, I pretty much did exactly what I had grown up watching my mom and her sister do in our kitchen every year, though I turned to a recipe to give me specific ingredient amounts and step by step instructions. In searching for that recipe, I found a lot of recipes for brine. It looked scary and intimidating, so I didn’t give much thought to it and I certainly didn’t attempt it.

This year, I gave it a second glance. More brine recipes kept popping up, and when I started reading reviews, it became clear that brining a turkey is something that people generally try out of curiosity and then repeat every year because it’s so delicious. I was curious about this secret cooking method that everyone seemed to swear by.

The brine I selected (because someone pointed to it and said “Do this one”) had some ingredients I wasn’t familiar with. Like chopped candied ginger. I read that crystallized ginger could also be used. Same thing? Probably. Not sure. I’m a wannabe foodie, so I don’t have to know these things.

I’d never seen it before and expected it to be rock hard, but it was soft and was easy to chop up. I also used black peppercorns and whole allspice (which I hope is the same thing as “allspice berries,” which is what the recipe said to use).

Dump them in a large pot with a gallon of vegetable broth.

Also add a cup of kosher salt (no idea if that’s different than regular salt, but I figured I might as well buy it since I was using so much) and a half cup of brown sugar. God, this recipe is weird. Okay, not really, if you consider what you’re making. The point of soaking the bird in such a salty, flavorful mixture is that the moisture and flavor is drawn into the bird, making for a juicy and delicious meal. Something about osmosis, I don’t know. If you care, ask my brother. He teaches this stuff to high school kids. Maybe I should go back for a refresher course.

Confession: sometimes while I’m cooking, I think about the episode of Magic Schoolbus where Miss Frizzle takes the kids on a field trip inside a bakery, where their school bus is shrunken to the size of a fly and the kids learn about the chemistry of baking a cake literally from the inside of the cake as it’s baking. Is my nerdiness showing?

Okay, brine. I brought it to a boil, and then just removed it from the stove top to cool. When it was room temperature, I put it in the fridge for about 24 hours.

The day before our feast, I unwrapped our thawed bird, removed the neck and liver, and washed the whole thing in cold water.

Mix the cold brine with a gallon of heavily iced cold water. I used a large bucket. Immerse the bird, breast down. Since you’re assuming the breast meat will naturally be the driest, you want it to be the most likely to soak up the brine.

I planned to put mine outside on the balcony, so I wrapped it up in plastic wrap to keep out bugs. And puppies.

And that’s it for the brine!

Now for the other huge thing that I did differently with my turkey. My family has always stuffed our bird. Always. But this year I read a lot of bad things about stuffing the bird, such as the fact that it provides a beautiful place to grow tons of bacteria, or that it messes up the cooking time.

Two other factors were at play, as well. First, my stuffing last year was just okay. I normally love it, so I’m not sure what I did wrong, though I suspect I just put too much inside the bird. But it just wasn’t that great. Second, this year, hubby wanted to make the version of cornbread dressing that he grew up on, a southern alternative to the stuffing of my childhood. The combination of these two things, plus all the bad stuff I’d read about stuffing the bird, led me to follow the experts’ advice and stuff the bird with “aromatics” instead of stuffing.

This involved some fresh sage and rosemary.

It also involved a sliced red apple and a half onion (also sliced).

I added a cup of water and microwaved it for about 5 minutes.

Then I realized I was supposed to have added a cinnamon stick, so I put it in after the water was hot and just let it sit there in the hot apple-onion juice for a while.

I put the sage and rosemary in the bird’s cavity first, followed by the soft apple-onion-cinnamon stick stuff, which I inserted with tongs.

Another new thing this year:

I’ve always thought that turkey took all day to cook. Then I read online that slow-and-low cooking could help the bird dry out, so rather than doing that, you should start off with very high heat and then back off for a quicker cooking period. Also, no basting, because that just keeps letting all the heat out of the oven, kind of how you’re not supposed to pick the lid off your rice while it’s steaming. I was intimidated by this change at first, but after watching videos online, I decided to try it.

What did people do without the internet?

Anyway, I coated the bird in oil and a touch of butter, then placed it uncovered in a 500 degree oven for a half hour.

For that half hour, it smelled like I was doing an oven self-clean. If my guests noticed the bad smell, they didn’t say anything, but it was embarrassing.

Then I covered the bird with a foil shield and reduced the heat to 350 degrees, cooking for another 2 1/2 hours or so. That’s when it started to smell amazing.

It turned out beautifully! Look at that turkey!

Here’s a tip: always let it sit for 20-30 minutes before you carve. I went ahead and put an uncooked casserole in the oven at this point, setting the time for a half hour. If you cut in too soon, you lose all the juices.

While I was waiting, I suctioned out the drippings and worked on my gravy. Here’s the gravy separator that I still don’t really understand.

I didn’t take pictures of the gravy-making process so I’m not going to dwell on it, but I will say this: I’m glad I read reviews about the brine before I cooked. Some people said that you couldn’t really use the drippings for gravy because it was too salty. They were right. I used the fat and a touch of that brown liquid underneath it, but it really was too salty to use very much of it.

As for the turkey, it was a hit. It was so juicy that I had a few moments of panic when I cut in and thought, “Holy crap, it’s undercooked,” before  realizing that it was just really, really juicy. Hubby announced with a mouthful of meat that he’d never had white meat that he’d enjoyed so much. I’m telling you, this was one juicy bird. And flavorful. It tasted a little different than what I was used to, but in a good way. Just yummy.

Like all the other reviewers, now that I’ve done it this way, I’m not going back.

If you want the recipe, google Alton Brown’s Good Eats Roast Turkey, or just wait for me to post it in my tastebook. He does some videos, too. One of the videos even explains the osmosis thing.

So, should my next post be about my sides or my pies? Comment and let me know what you think!

Lemon-Pepper Broccoli

Hubby and I are on this diet that basically has you buy a month’s worth of pre-fab entrees, leaving you to add in the fruits, veggies, and dairy. Essentially, it forces you to eat a low-calorie diet that is rich in fruits and vegetables. We’ve had good results with this in the past, so although the entrees aren’t exactly gourmet, no matter what the commercials tell you, we’re giving it another shot. No, it’s not permanent, but it’s a good kick-start.

But it leaves us wondering what to do with our veggies. Yes, you can steam, boil,stir fry, roast, or microwave. But what can you add to make it flavorful without packing on calories? I wanted to avoid butter if possible, and I wanted something a little more complicated than salt and pepper. It just gets old when you’re doing it every night.

So I invented something. Dangerous, since I don’t usually end up with great results when I do that, but seemingly necessary. I just wasn’t satisfied with anything I was seeing online.

First, I chopped up a bunch of fresh broccoli.

I put it in a wok with some olive oil and started sautéing it.

I wanted a flavor with a little zing to it, and decided that lemon sounded good. I started off by throwing some lemon pepper seasoning in with the broccoli, along with a generous sprinkling of salt. I started with just about a half teaspoon, but ended up adding more.

Yes, that’s the generic Safeway seasonings blend. Don’t judge.

When the broccoli was starting to get tender, I remembered that I wanted to add minced garlic. So I did.

Yes, that is an enormous jar of minced garlic. I’m sure real chefs would cringe, but hey. I will go through this eventually, and I’d rather have it be fresh like this than have real cloves get shrunken and rubbery with those little green shoots in them. So yeah, I added about a teaspoon of the garlic, and then a bunch of lemon juice. I’m not sure how much, but I’d guess about 2 tablespoons.

I followed it up with a sprinkling of dried parsley. I think this picture is weird because the fluid from the lemon juice and garlic was evaporating and steaming, but you get the idea.

As for the entrée, here it is. Nom nom nom.

And the finished product:

Honestly, I thought it was really good! The color was off, like the heat may have been a little high and it was just tired-looking. I guess I could have avoided that by blanching it, as I learned for another recipe. But that aside, the taste was fresh and had a zing to it that was refreshing and addicting.

As I was doing dishes, I thought about how I wanted to blog about this side dish at least so that I’d remember how to do it again, since I liked it. Hubby hadn’t commented on it, which probably meant he wasn’t a huge fan, but I didn’t mind. But as I was thinking this, he came up behind me and told me that he liked the broccoli. Score! So give it a shot and let me know how it goes. Play around with it. I’d be interested to hear what works and what doesn’t.

Chicken Cordon Bleu

I’m not real sure what possessed me to try this recipe, other than hubby and I had purchased too much deli meat and cheese and I was feeling adventurous. It had been a while since I tried something creative like this, so I thought I’d give it a go.

Warning: It didn’t look nearly as elegant as it should have.

First, pound some chicken breasts out and put a slice of ham and a slice of cheese. I used Monterey jack instead of Swiss because that’s what I had. Roll it up, ideally not letting the insides peek out, and secure with toothpicks.

MUCH HARDER THAN IT SOUNDS. Mine looked ridiculous with all those brightly-colored party toothpicks sticking out in all directions.

Mix flour and paprika in a bowl, and then dip each piece of chicken in the mixture. Everything wanted to come unpinned, and the toothpicks made it hard to coat the chicken. But I managed, I guess.

Fry the chicken in butter. Very healthy.

After it’s browned on all sides, add some dry white wine and chicken bouillon granules. Cover and let it simmer on low for about a half hour. Forgot a picture, sorry.

In the meantime, whisk together heavy cream and cornstarch.

When the chicken is cooked thoroughly, take it out of the pan. Put it on a plate and set it in a warm oven.

Gradually pour the cream sauce into the wine sauce in the pan, mixing continually until it thickens up. Then just serve the chicken and pour the wine cream sauce over it.

Not bad, not bad! It was a little labor intensive for what it is, but it’s also a nice fancy twist on simple chicken breast. Hubby didn’t have any because he’d eaten at Taco Bell on the way home, but he ate a good portion the next day and I think he liked it. I know I did. It was very flavorful and filling, and the cream sauce kept leftovers from being dry.

Recipe in the Tastebook soonish.

“First Time” Chili

At work, I received a mass-email inviting me to participate in a big chili cook-off, a fundraiser of some sort. I ignored the offer because even if I like to cook, that doesn’t mean I’m very confident that strangers might like my cooking or even prefer it to other strangers’ cooking.

But then the emails kept coming. And coming. And coming. Finally, I figured that they were low on entrants and actually needed people. I liked those odds, so I typed up a reply email, hovered over my mouse for about 10 minutes, and finally hit “send.”

First step was coming up with a good name. I’d heard from other people at work that the name was key because people’s votes could be swayed by a clever name. I asked around for help because I was hopeless – I just call my recipe “chili.” I vetoed anything that had my name in it, because let’s face it, “Jolie’s delicious chili” is a stupid name. Finally, hubby grinned with a triumphant look as he calmly said “Call it ‘First Time’ chili.” I was confused but wasn’t sure if I wanted to admit that I didn’t get it. “First time chili?” I finally asked. “Yeah, because it’s the ‘first time’ you’ve had chili this good!” Ding ding ding, I had my name.

I felt confident that my recipe is unique. It’s my own combination of two different recipes: my mom’s, typed up and emailed, and one on allrecipes.com. Even my mom’s is never the same, as you could tell in her email: “a bunch of tomatoes, fresh or canned or smooshed," etc. Basically, what I ended up doing a few years ago is combining mom’s spices with the base ingredients of the recipe I found online to find one that suited my idea of what chili should be.

I start off with a green pepper and an onion. I like to chop them up pretty finely, since I don’t think that huge chunks of either really belong in chili.

Then brown some ground beef with chopped garlic. God,I love this deep skillet. I think it’s the one pot that I use most often.

Cook until browned, then drain. Add the onion and green pepper, and cook it until the veggies are tender.

While it’s cooking, drain and rinse some red kidney beans and pinto beans.

When the veggies are soft, transfer the mixture to a slow cooker. Neither original recipe says to do it this way, but I have found that the longer it simmers, the better the flavor is, so I always plan to take a full day for this.

Add diced tomatoes and tomato sauce.

And the beans.

And then all of your spices and seasonings, which includes cayenne pepper, brown sugar, oregano, black pepper, salt, cumin, chili powder, cloves, and cocoa powder.

Stir it all up..

And cover it and leave it alone.

It simmered all day while I was at work, chilled overnight, and then simmered the whole next morning at work. I made two batches for the competition (borrowed an extra crock pot) and almost all of it was gone by the time the cook-off was over.

There were some pretty interesting chilis there. There was one with beer and honey and venison, one that was Asian-inspired, one that tasted like Louisiana-style red beans and rice, and one that was vegetarian.

I had typed up a list of ingredients for people to look at when they tasted mine. I have no weird compulsion to protect my secret recipe, and I figured people might appreciate it more if they knew what was in it.

Someone pocketed the list. Deliberately. This padded my ego.

And in the end, I won third prize and my very own apron. Woo hoo!

Okay, yes, the competition was in 2010. I have since changed jobs. But that recipe is still called "First time chili” and it is still my personal favorite chili recipe. I took all these pictures a few months ago and never got around to posting. Writing this up is making my mouth water and now I want to go to the store for some ground beef and green pepper.

Perfect dinner!

Okay, this isn’t a real post, the kind with pictures and a new recipe and step-by-step playback of my kitchen experiment. Consider this more of a follow-up.

Remember this dish? That creamy tomato-based dish with Italian sausage and rotini pasta that I was so proud of inventing?

I made it again, and I made some key tweaks:

1. I remembered the cream cheese this time, and I added about twice as much as I normally do. I guess I was making up for that day I forgot it. Also, I was hungry.

2. I diced and included an extra fresh tomato that I had sitting on my counter. Seemed silly to use canned diced tomato and ignore the fresh one entirely, but I didn’t want to skip out on the canned stuff either.

3. I included 2 leftover meatballs and some sauce from Meem's spaghetti and meatballs. Just sliced up the meatballs and dropped them in the sauce with everything else. I didn’t even slice them up correctly because I didn’t want to get my cutting board all saucy – I just stuck a butter knife into the gladware container that the meatballs were in and did my cutting freestyle.

4. Less cheese on top, mainly because the cheese I had smelled a little funky. I used a few shakes of Parmesan instead, and that actually turned out really nice.

5. Didn’t put foil over it to bake.

Hubby loved it. Very much. So much that he thinks I should make meatballs to put in this dish each time I make it now. And he serenaded me with a loud burp, which of course means “Compliments to the chef.” Compliments accepted.

Now go out and made this!