How could I have forgotten the hit of the day? Mashed potatoes with a twist I've never tried before. They were fabulous. In fact they were just as good as the sample I tried in my favorite HEB grocery store in Belton, TX. I can never have regular mashed potatotes again!
Potatos ... how many you ask? As many as you need to feed your family is my answer. I probably peeled 8 med. to small size russets. Don't think it really matters. Just peel and plop in boiling heavily salted water until fork tender.
Remove from heat, drain and rinse.
Put your spuds into a mixing bowl or back into the pot you cooked them in.
Add 1 stick of butter (none of that fake stuff either).
1 heavy cream
1 cup shredded SMOKED cheese ... I bought it in cubes and then ran it through the food chopper.
1T kosher or sea salt (now at HEB I bought sea salt with truffles in it ... it cost $12.99 !!! YIKES)
Beat until it is as smooth or as lumpy as you like it adding milk to the desired consistancy.
This is so yummy that I will definately do this again.
Sunday, November 25, 2012
Turkey Club Sandwich
OK so now what to do with that leftover turkey . . . Never a problem for me because I love me some turkey breast on buttered bread with a little salt and pepper. Nothing better than that ... until I discovered the Turkey Club.
Fry up some really good and thick smoked bacon. Don't go for that cheap thin stuff .. get the good stuff for this sandwich.
Toast some whole wheat bread, add mayo, then iceberg lettuce and bacon to one slice of bread .. mayo, turkey breast and then a smear (or more) of that delicious chunky cranberry sauce. Love, love, love ...
Fry up some really good and thick smoked bacon. Don't go for that cheap thin stuff .. get the good stuff for this sandwich.
Toast some whole wheat bread, add mayo, then iceberg lettuce and bacon to one slice of bread .. mayo, turkey breast and then a smear (or more) of that delicious chunky cranberry sauce. Love, love, love ...
Chunky Cranberry Orange Sauce
I love this chunky stuff .. another surprise since I grew up with the canned gelatinous cranberry sauce (which I still like) but somewhere along my journey of life I tasted and fell in love with this tart little side dish.
In small sauce pan add 1/ 2 cups of water, one bag of fresh cranberries and the zest and juice of one orange. Bring to a boil and once the cranberries start to burst reduce heat to low. Add 1/2 cup sugar to the mixture and I added the juice of another orange and sliced the peel in very thin pieces and added to the simmering sauce. Cook down until it reaches the consistancy you like. Refrigerate (it will thicken) until ready to use.
In small sauce pan add 1/ 2 cups of water, one bag of fresh cranberries and the zest and juice of one orange. Bring to a boil and once the cranberries start to burst reduce heat to low. Add 1/2 cup sugar to the mixture and I added the juice of another orange and sliced the peel in very thin pieces and added to the simmering sauce. Cook down until it reaches the consistancy you like. Refrigerate (it will thicken) until ready to use.
Cornbread Dressing
Cornbread dressing is my favorite part of Thanksgiving. That in itself is surprising since I am a Yankee born and bred but I think I got some of my mother's southern genes because I just love the south and everything about it. Love the people, the food, the slower pace and did I say the food? I love the food .. not the grease so much but the food is so tasty. So here goes with the dressing .. you can stuff your bird with it but most true southerners would rather die than shove all that goodness in the backside of a bird!
Turkey Day Eve ...
First I made a double batch of corn bread (not the sweetened stuff) and baked it in a jelly roll pan (or a large cookie sheet). Once cooled I cut it into cubes, loosened it and set it out over night.
1 loaf of french bread cut into cubes and set out overnight on a cookie sheet.
Turkey Day ...
In a very large bowl put in all of your cubed bread. Melt 1 stick of butter and pour that in as well. Salt & pepper to taste.
In saute pan add 1/2 - 1 stalk of celery cut up (leaves and all) and 1 chopped onion. Saute in olive oil until transparent but not browned. Cool it down then dump in with your bread mixture.
Because I have it in my garden and because I have never used it before I chopped up some fresh sage into the mixture. I have no idea how much I used but I would say a minimum of 1T then to that I added ground sage until it smelled right (again no idea how much but add as much or as little as you like). Salt & pepper to taste and gently fold ingredients together (with your hands) so that all the spices are combined well.
To this mixture you will add 1 carton (more or less) of low sodium chicken broth. You don't want your mixture to be real wet so add slowly. You also don't want your bread to break down so be gentle with it.
Put mixture into a buttered 9x13 pan...Now to the tasty part ... remove the lid from your roaster pan and ladle out a couple ladles of turkey juice and pour over top of your dressing. Using a spoon move the bread around until it absorbs the juice. Add more juice until the dressing is moist but not saturated. Cover with foil and bake in 350 oven for 30 minutes. You can remove the foil the last 10 minutes if you want a crustier top.
Turkey Day Eve ...
First I made a double batch of corn bread (not the sweetened stuff) and baked it in a jelly roll pan (or a large cookie sheet). Once cooled I cut it into cubes, loosened it and set it out over night.
1 loaf of french bread cut into cubes and set out overnight on a cookie sheet.
Turkey Day ...
In a very large bowl put in all of your cubed bread. Melt 1 stick of butter and pour that in as well. Salt & pepper to taste.
In saute pan add 1/2 - 1 stalk of celery cut up (leaves and all) and 1 chopped onion. Saute in olive oil until transparent but not browned. Cool it down then dump in with your bread mixture.
Because I have it in my garden and because I have never used it before I chopped up some fresh sage into the mixture. I have no idea how much I used but I would say a minimum of 1T then to that I added ground sage until it smelled right (again no idea how much but add as much or as little as you like). Salt & pepper to taste and gently fold ingredients together (with your hands) so that all the spices are combined well.
To this mixture you will add 1 carton (more or less) of low sodium chicken broth. You don't want your mixture to be real wet so add slowly. You also don't want your bread to break down so be gentle with it.
Put mixture into a buttered 9x13 pan...Now to the tasty part ... remove the lid from your roaster pan and ladle out a couple ladles of turkey juice and pour over top of your dressing. Using a spoon move the bread around until it absorbs the juice. Add more juice until the dressing is moist but not saturated. Cover with foil and bake in 350 oven for 30 minutes. You can remove the foil the last 10 minutes if you want a crustier top.
Thanksgiving Dinner
We had made plans to barbecue ribs for Thanksgiving but our plans changed when my sister in law wanted to come over and share the day with us. It turned out to be a really nice visit and the meal .. although somewhat accidental was scrumptious. I have always tried to make cornbread dressing and it just never came out as good as Granny's but this year .... I knocked it out of the park!! YEE HAW and Yeah for me!
I decided this year to buy an electric roaster to clear me some room in the oven so I prepared my turkey the night before and got up at 5:30 a.m. to put it in the roaster. Surprise to me that the 20# turkey was DONE by 9:15 a.m. I thought for sure it would be awful by the time noon rolled around but I was wrong. This is what I did .. tips from The Pioneer Woman in the preparation helped out alot.
Rinsed the humongous turkey inside and out (carefully removing the yukky stuff in the bags). I then took some Kosher salt (we don't even have the regular stuff in the house anymore) and salted the cavity and outside of the bird. Into the cavity I stuffed as much carrots, celery stalks, onion and garlic as it would hold (actually about 2 stalks of celery & a handful of baby carrots, one onion quartered and a big bulb of garlic). Put the turkey in the roaster, turn on to 375 for 2 hrs. then down to 325 until the bird is done. Use a meat thermometer and when the temperature reaches 165 degrees your bird is done. In my case it was done in less than 3 hrs. I just shut the thing down to warm and let it sit until I was ready to carve it at noon. Don't remove the lid and it will continue to stay moist and tender. The only thing the roaster doesn't do is brown up the skin but we throw that out anyway so it didn't matter to me. Once the bird was removed from the roaster I removed both breasts and carved it on my cutting board... OH MY was that ever easy and tasty too. I will never cook another turkey in the conventional oven again!!
I decided this year to buy an electric roaster to clear me some room in the oven so I prepared my turkey the night before and got up at 5:30 a.m. to put it in the roaster. Surprise to me that the 20# turkey was DONE by 9:15 a.m. I thought for sure it would be awful by the time noon rolled around but I was wrong. This is what I did .. tips from The Pioneer Woman in the preparation helped out alot.
Rinsed the humongous turkey inside and out (carefully removing the yukky stuff in the bags). I then took some Kosher salt (we don't even have the regular stuff in the house anymore) and salted the cavity and outside of the bird. Into the cavity I stuffed as much carrots, celery stalks, onion and garlic as it would hold (actually about 2 stalks of celery & a handful of baby carrots, one onion quartered and a big bulb of garlic). Put the turkey in the roaster, turn on to 375 for 2 hrs. then down to 325 until the bird is done. Use a meat thermometer and when the temperature reaches 165 degrees your bird is done. In my case it was done in less than 3 hrs. I just shut the thing down to warm and let it sit until I was ready to carve it at noon. Don't remove the lid and it will continue to stay moist and tender. The only thing the roaster doesn't do is brown up the skin but we throw that out anyway so it didn't matter to me. Once the bird was removed from the roaster I removed both breasts and carved it on my cutting board... OH MY was that ever easy and tasty too. I will never cook another turkey in the conventional oven again!!
Thai Salad
I can't believe it has been a month since I last posted. I've been busy trying out new recipes and watching lots of cooking shows. My favorites right now are The Pioneer Woman and Trish Yearwood's Home Cooking. Easy and deliciousness is waiting for you. So let's start with Trisha's Thai Salad recipe .. so good (and good for you)! Enjoy... The only thing I would change is less red cabbage (1/2 of a small head) and more napa. It just wasn't as pretty with all that red cabbage I put in it.
Ingredients
Thai Salad:
- 1 head Napa cabbage, shredded
- 1 head red cabbage, shredded
- 1 large cucumber, julienned
- One 10-ounce bag shelled edamame, cooked
- 2 carrots, peeled and grated
- 2 green onions, finely sliced
Sweet Lime-Cilantro Dressing:
- 2 cups olive oil
- 1 1/2 cups finely chopped fresh cilantro
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 cloves garlic, minced
- Juice of 2 limes
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon pepper
- 1 avocado, peeled and finely sliced
Directions
For the Thai salad: In a large serving bowl, toss the cabbages, cucumber, edamame, carrots and green onions.
For the sweet lime-cilantro dressing: Put the oil, cilantro, sugar, garlic, lime juice, salt and pepper in a large blender and blend until smooth.
Top each serving of salad with 2 tablespoons of the sweet lime-cilantro dressing and 2 slices of avocado for garnish.
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