To Brine or Not to Brine

I posted my Thanksgiving Plan the other day, and since then have had lots of discussions on Facebook and by email about brining (BTW, that's not my turkey in that picture, just one I found on the Internet :-). Friends who haven't brined before wanted to know what the big deal is, and if it's worth the effort. I wholeheartedly say YES. It makes the meat so much moister. Last year, nearly the entire turkey was eaten--leaving me with almost no leftovers, LOL. But it was a huge hit around here, so it's a no-brainer to brine again this year.

I use Alton Brown's brining recipe. He has two of them--one on the Food Network that calls for a few ingredients that are hard to find here (allspice berries? Geesh, I have trouble finding shallots in my grocery store), and then this one, which is in his I'm Just Here for the Food book. That's the one I'm planning on using (though I have to admit to being tempted to try Anne Burrell's when I saw it on Food Network the other day).

I don't stuff my turkey, either. I used to, but have had great success putting aromatics in it--rosemary, garlic, onion, lemon and sage--and then rubbing butter all over it. I always worry about the food poisoning thing with stuffing the bird anyway. And I'm impatient enough not to want to wait for the extra cooking time ;-)

So tell me, do you brine your turkey? Are you going to try it this year? Or are you a deep fryer? Or someone who skips the turkey all together?

Shirley

The Thanksgiving Plan

Last year, my Thanksgiving dinner was a HUGE success. I'm doing the same thing this year, except making a few swaps. We just had a dinner party and had the carrots I made last year, so I'm doing Ina Garten's AMAZING Roasted Butternut Squash this year instead of carrots. And I'm making pecan bars instead of pecan pie. This year, I have a brining bag, which should take up less room in the fridge (and if it doesn't work, DH will be making a late run to Home Depot for a new bucket, LOL).

Anyway, here's last year's Thanksgiving plan...I HIGHLY recommend brining.

>> Thanksgiving was a HUGE success in my house. Brining the bird was DA BOMB and I highly recommend it. I mean, HIGHLY recommend it. I have never had a juicier, more delicious turkey--it was beyond simple to cook, and twelve people devoured nearly an entire 21-pound bird. Lots of going back for seconds and thirds that day!

Take notes if you want for next year, because here's how I did it (and managed to have a LOT of relaxation time on the big day, too):

Wednesday Night: Brine the Bird (in the fridge by 8pm)
Equipment needed: 5-gallon pail from Lowe's or Home Depot
Alton Brown's recipe for Brining from I'm Just Here for the Food
(which involves essentially cooking some water, brown sugar, peppercorns, bay leaves and kosher salt, then cooling and adding to the bucket).
Plus: 3 gallons ice water and 1 1/2 cups kosher salt

Thursday Timeline:
7:00 a.m.: Remove bird from Brining Liquid
Preheat oven
Dry bird, stuff with an onion, celery sticks. Brush whole bird with melted butter, then tent with foil, stick a meat thermometer in it, then put the bird in the oven.

8:00 a.m.: Cook sausage for stuffing, chop vegetables for stuffing (celery, carrots and onions), then cook when sausage is done. Add dried cranberries, leave to cool and set aside

8:15 a.m.: Peel 8 pounds of potatoes and start boiling them for mashed potatoes

8:45 a.m.: Start simple syrup for kids' Floating Island Punch
Put Frozen raspberries, pink lemonade and sugar in bowl to thaw for Poinsettia Punch for grownups :-)

9:30 a.m.: Mash potatoes and put in crock-pot (NOTE; the link to my recipe is right on the blog under Most Popular Recipes) --done till 11:15 a.m. (take a nap, read the ads for Black Friday shopping...I do all my house cleaning on Wednesday, so I'm chilling for these two hours)

11:30 a.m.: remove foil tent from turkey, baste with more butter and turn oven temp up to 425 degrees
Start green beans (I made a healthy version, which I can post later)
Start Citrus-Glazed Carrots

12:15 p.m.: Assemble stuffing

12:30 p.m.: Remove turkey from oven and let set
Put rolls in oven
Put stuffing in oven
Make gravy

1:00 p.m.: Serve and eat ;-)

My MIL made the pies, and I had baked cookies on Wednesday night, so all the rest was done ahead of time. I usually make the pies a day or two ahead of time, but this time someone else did them, so I was saved that chore. This turkey was SO SO good, though. I just can't even tell you ;-)

How was your Thanksgiving? Was it a huge success? I do dishes as I go, and run the dishwasher about halfway through so that everyone can eat on real plates. Clean-up is still a lot of work, but it's not AS bad as it could be.

Shirley

Ultimate Chicken and Dumplings

I've been craving this recipe for a while, ever since I saw Tyler Florence make this on "Tyler's Ultimate." I love chicken soup. Love dumplings. Love having all that in one big bowl :-)

The reviews on this recipe are raves, and I have to agree. It was so yummy...such simple comfort food. It was my daughter's first day of school today and I wanted to make something that said "welcome home, honey." This was it. She had two bowls (and so did I).

I already had homemade chicken stock (I use Ina Garten's recipe) but only had four cups in my freezer, so I cut down Tyler's recipe for stock a bit just to poach my chicken (I had some poached from making the Chicken Au Jus the other day (I used bone-in breasts instead of wings) so I only had to poach one more (instead of a whole chicken like the recipe called for).

Tyler Florences's Ultimate Chicken and Dumplings:

Chicken and Stock:
1 (3 to 31/2 pound) whole organic chicken
2 bay leaves
6 sprigs thyme
4 to 5 black peppercorns
1 head garlic, split through the equator
2 tablespoons salt

Buttermilk-Chive Dumplings:

2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1/4 cup chopped chives
3/4 to 1 cup buttermilk

Sauce:

2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons oil
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks celery, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 bay leaves
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
6 cups chicken stock
1 cup frozen peas
1 cup frozen pearl onions
1/4 cup heavy cream
Freshly ground black pepper, for garnish
Chopped chives, for garnish

I started this around 3:30, for eating a little after 5. It took a bit longer than I expected, but not much. Just a side note for folks :-)

Place the chicken and all stock ingredients in a large Dutch oven and cover with water. Set over medium-high heat and bring to a boil. Reduce heat to a simmer and cook for 1 hour until the chicken is tender. Skim the surface of fat and scum as it cooks.

When done remove the chicken to a cutting board. Strain the stock and shred the meat into big pieces - the stock will be used for the sauce and the chicken will be folded into it.

NOTE: About 15 minutes before it's done, start the other steps. Otherwise, you'll be behind on the estimated time it takes to cook this.

Make dumplings. Sift the dry ingredients together in a large bowl. In a small bowl, using a whisk, lightly beat the eggs, chives and buttermilk together; pour the liquid ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently fold. Mix just until the dough comes together; the batter should be thick and cake-like. (NOTE: I ended up using the full cup of buttermilk. This makes about twice as much dumpling batter as you need, but they're so darn good, I'm thinking about cooking all of it)

To prepare sauce: In a Dutch oven, over medium heat, add the butter and oil. Add the carrot, celery, garlic, (NOTE: I didn't have any frozen pearl onions so I chopped one onion and added it here. Also, I only had frozen pea and carrot mix so I skipped carrots here and added the bag of veggies at the end) and bay leaves and saute until the vegetables are soft, about 5 minutes. Stir in the flour to make a roux. Continue to stir and cook for 2 minutes to coat the flour and remove the starchy taste. Slowly pour in the chicken stock, 1 cup at a time, stirring well after each addition. (NOTE: This is a critical step--do it one cup at a time so it has time to thicken. In the end, I did add a small amount of cornstarch slurry to thicken even more). Add frozen peas and pearl onions.

Let sauce simmer until it is thick enough to coat the back of a spoon, about 15 minutes. Stir in heavy cream. (NOTE: I don't always have heavy cream on hand but had half-and-half and that seemed to work out okay).

Fold the reserved shredded chicken into the sauce and bring up to a simmer. Using 2 spoons (NOTE: you do want to do it this way...scoop with one spoon, scoop off it with the other, scoop with first spoon one more time to drop the dumplings in), carefully drop heaping tablespoonfuls of the dumpling batter into the hot mixture. The dumplings should cover the top of the sauce, but should not be touching or crowded. Let the dumplings poach for 10 to 15 minutes until they are firm and puffy (NOTE: turn the dumplings over halfway through to cook on all sides). Remove and discard the bay leaves. Season with freshly cracked black pepper (NOTE: I also seasoned with a little more salt) and garnish with chopped chives before serving.

This was really good and my daughter said should go in the "keeper" folder. Ina, Giada and Tyler never let me down when I cook their recipes, and this recipe is no exception. I'll be making it often :-)

One tip--you can make homemade chicken stock VERY easily and anytime you need it if you just keep the bones from your chickens in the freezer. Bring home a rotisserie chicken? Save the carcass in a freezer bag until you're ready to make stock. I usually double my stock recipe (using two chicken carcasses) and make enough to freeze the stock in 2-cup containers so I always have fresh stock on hand for cooking.

Shirley

My Favorite Cooking Books and Magazines

I just received the last 2007 and 2008 Cook's Illustrated Annuals, and that got me to thinking about my favorite cooking books and magazines.


I LOVE Bon Appetit, though I am thinking of dropping that subscription in favor of a new magazine (considering I just bought the HUGE Bon Appetit cookbook). I did sign up for Food and Wine with DS's magazine drive this year, but haven't received an issue yet.


My absolutely favorite cookbooks are the Ina Garten ones. I only have Barefoot Contessa at Home, but I go and drool over the others in the bookstore. I like the way they seem so folksy and advice-filled, and the recipes...awesome. I need a bigger cookbook budget, that's for sure!

I also get Rachael Ray's magazine and while I like that, my bigger favorite is the Food Network magazine. That one has photos of every recipe at the beginning of the issue --great for deciding what you want to cook.

And finally, Cook's Illustrated/America's Test Kitchen. A friend (thanks, Marci!) told me about these magazines and I can NOT BELIEVE I went this long without reading them and watching the show. They are super-informative and give great reviews of products and equipment. They're now my go-to guide for anything basic.

I just stumbled across another website tonight, too, that featured Martha Stewart's Mac and Cheese recipe. It's definitely a food lovers website, so be sure to check it out :-)

Shirley

Another Worth the Work: Peking Pork and Easy Pad Thai

My kids had a serious Asian food craving this past week. So I spent a whole lot of time in the kitchen ;-).

First up was Peking Pork. This recipe came from Rachael Ray (and you know, I can never tell which issue it is, because I tear out the recipes I want to use before I recycle or pass on my magazines, and they don't print the month on the pages...kind of stupid, if you ask me). Anyway, this has a lot of steps, BUT I can tell you that both the dredging in rice wine vinegar and the cornstarch/flour mixture, plus the double frying (and I used peanut oil, which I found in bulk at my local Kroger, but you can buy MUCH cheaper in bulk at Asian stores) makes this JUST like what you get in a Chinese restaurant.

And the sauce...I can't even begin to tell you how yummy the sauce was. It made WAY too much and that was so awesome. I had bought vegetable dumplings at the Asian store and I've been making a few here and there for lunch or a snack, and using that sauce as a dipping sauce. It's beyond yummy :-). You can get the recipe here, and I did it (for once ) exactly as it was written. Mine, as you can tell from my photos, came out in thicker chunks, but but I think it was because I used boneless chops instead (hey, that's what was on sale ;-).

Along with this, I served Pad Thai, my own version, adapted from the Everything Thai Cookbook and Alton Brown's version on Good Eats. In my opinion, it's better with brown sugar (the Everything Thai ingredient) than Palm Sugar (the Alton Brown version). Plus a little I've learned from a Laotian cook I know. I recommend going to Google Images and looking at SEVERAL images of the ingredients you've never heard of, like Tamarind Paste, before going to an Asian store to buy them. The Tamarind paste that I bought came in a brick, not a jar, but it works just the same (FYI, I keep the excess in the freezer).

Other than that, I usually add some cooked chicken to my Pad Thai, instead of shrimp, since my daughter, who is the biggest Pad Thai fan in my house, doesn't like shrimp.

If you are feeling daunted by the thought of Chinese/Asian food cooking, let me tell you that it's not nearly as hard as it looks. Be sure to A.) have all your ingredients assembled and ready ahead of time. When I'm making two dishes like this at the same time, I set up two different "stations," with the ingredients. One cutting board with all the Pad Thai ingredients, including the bottles of wet ingredients, and a second for the Peking Pork. If there are shared ingredients, those go between the two cutting boards. I have a really small kitchen, so this kind of organization is essential for cooking Asian food. Once you get food into the wok, it all goes pretty quickly.

B.) everything you need for Asian food is MUCH cheaper at an Asian market. Don't be nervous about going into one. Most of the proprietors also speak English, or at least enough English to help you, and if you bring your ingredients list, they can help you find what you need. Most of the ingredients have Enlish directions, too. I'm continually amazed at how the ingredients are at least half the cost of my local grocery. I buy rice in bulk at the Asian market, buy things like dumplings and won tons, sometimes vegetables and garlic, and soy sauce (SO much cheaper) there.

C.) Taste as you go along, and feel free to season. I find that many of these recipes are guidelines. I taste and season, and add a little more soy sauce or fish sauce (which is a staple in Asian cooking. It does smell fishy, LOL, but it cooks wonderfully), or lime juice, or whatever it seems to need. I never add MSG and go for MSG free seasonings. So you don't have to have that seasoning if you don't want it.

D.) Start with something easy -- Fried Rice, for example, and move on from there. Do a simple stir-fry. Then work your way up to something like Spicy Thai Coconut Shrimp Soup (which is really easy BTW) and Pad Thai. Before you know it, you'll be cooking at home instead of ordering out ;-).

Shirley

Products and Sites I Like

I'm constantly doing blog posts where I sneak in mentions of things I like, not that I get paid for any of that, LOL, but I figured I should do one big post about these things. And again, I don't get paid by any of these people or products. I just like them.

* For a one-stop coupon site, try Coupon Mom. She was on...Oprah, I think. She did this huge shopping trip for like $40. Made my weekly savings feel pitiful, though I do take pride in what I manage to save every week. I just can't throw the coupons away. It feels like I'm tossing dollars into the trash. I have this great pad of grocery planning sheets I got free from someplace that lets you list your menu at the top, then the stuff you need to buy in groups at the bottom. It keeps me on track at the grocery store. My whole menu is planned around meats on sale, and I do believe in stocking up on big-ticket items. Anyway, CouponMom also has a blog that has lots of free and reduced dollar offers, too.

* The new Levi's Perfectly Slimming Jeans. They slim. Perfectly. Cheapest at Wal-Mart. Get 'em in a dark wash, as the folks at What Not to Wear will tell you, and you'll look even slimmer.

* Scrubbing Bubbles Mega Shower Foamer. OMG. This stuff is DA BOMB. I really, really, really hate cleaning the shower. I mean, who likes doing that job? This stuff does what it says and takes virtually every inch of soap scum off, and leaves everything squeaky clean. I had to do a tiny amount of scrubbing on some stubborn areas, but that was it. Most of it was done entirely by those magic little scrubbing bubbles. If you click on the link, there's a one dollar off coupon.

* The Braun Hand Blender. I know I've talked about this before in my recipe posts, but I seriously use this thing three or four times a week. I use it for EVERYTHING. Grinding nuts. Shredding cheese. Making mashed potatoes. Making dressings, sauces...you name it, if it'll fit in the food processor, I make it there. If the hand blender will fit in the bowl, I use it. It's small, it's powerful, and easy to wield. No need to get out the monster Kitchen Aid mixer. If you don't have one, demand Santa bring you one ;-)

* My favorite recipe magazines are Taste of Home, Rachael Ray (though I probably only use about 8 recipes an issue, they're usually 8 winners) and Bon Appetit. The entire Taste of Home family is really good. Woman's Day has some good ones, but not nearly enough recipes per issue. And I don't have time to read anything else, LOL. I do get Gourmet, but it's mostly too complicated and time-consuming stuff for me. I'm a "get it done, so I can eat it" kind of cook.

Tell me, what products and websites do you like? Do you have any new things that you've tried that you totally love? Please share! I love finding new things to try!

Shirley

Asian Night Recipes

Last night was another Asian night (and I got so busy I totally forgot pics again...I swear, I need a second brain. I wonder if the Scarecrow has a spare).

First -- a HUGE thank you to Karen for telling me about Fresh Market. Finally a market that has neat, cool, unique ingredients. I found the butter lettuce that makes for good Asian wraps. I also found all kinds of cool organic things. Apple chips (yummy!), neat cheeses and ready-made meats for later meals. Also SO MANY COOL mushrooms and other things. My only wish was that the market was larger like a Whole Foods. Sigh. I just need to move to California or something ;-).

Here are my tips first for making this kind of meal easier:

1. Assemble all ingredients first (I lay the ones I need for each recipe on top of the specific recipe)
2. Serve family style. My family LOVES wraps, but likes to make their own, so I got a HUGE platter, and put a variety of wrap stuffings on the round platter:
a. julienned carrots
b. cilantro
c. rice noodles (these could NOT be easier to cook; immerse in hot water for two minutes, drain; these are available in the Asian section in most markets. I cut them into smaller pieces to make for easier handling)
d. green beans
e. lettuce
f. diced peanuts (I have a Braun hand chopper/blender. The best thing ever)
(you can put anything else you want on there: cucumbers, mint, water chestnuts, zucchini...we just added whatever we had)
3. Make individual dishes of dipping sauces. I picked up small dishes at a yard sale. I actually found real Asian ones from an Asian home (I'm not going to try to guess if she was Chinese or Burmese or what) that are just BEAUTIFUL. That way, everyone has their own and no one gets all sloppy.
4. Don't be afraid to use leftovers. My chicken was from last night's dinner (did that little pic, BTW, with the Snipping Tool from Windows Vista). I made a new steak recipe, but used up some of the leftover chicken.
5. Don't be daunted by unusual ingredients. I made Pad Thai, and that calls for Tamarind Paste. Go to an Asian market and bring your ingredient list. They are more than willing to help. (FYI, Tamarind Paste is AKA Thai Fruit Paste. :-)

Here's what I made, BTW: Pad Thai, from the Everything Thai Cookbook (VERY GOOD. This is a great cookbook). The beef from Emeril's Beef Lettuce Wraps ( have you watched Emeril Green? It's a really good show, and probably my favorite Emeril show ever.). And I made the sauce from PF Chang's Chicken Lettuce Wraps. I could eat that sauce on EVERYTHING. I added, as the reviewers suggested, hoisin sauce (I doubled the recipe, so I added two tablespoons of Hoisin).

We had chicken and the orange steak, then the bibb lettuce and all those fillings, and the PF Chang's sauce. Plus the Pad Thai. VERY yummy. VERY healthy. Considering we had gone to Cold Stone Creamery for lunch (ice cream lunch...is there anything better?) then the movies in the afternoon and had fattening popcorn when we'd seen "The Longshots" (it was good; if you are looking for a feel-good family movie, with minimal cursing, and a nice message, this was nice. Sort of "Pursuit of Happyness"-ish. I teared up at the end. And it's a true story. Good on all points), that made our dinner that much better.

Okay that was A LONG sentence. I'm breathless. Anyway, the light dinner was a nice touch.

Today's a family barbecue. Back to the fattening food. I'm making balsamic vinaigrette wings and yesterday's eclair dessert. :-)

Have a great Labor Day!

Shirley