Thanksgiving 2012 - Tender Tender Turkey

Before the year gets away from us it's time to take a look at our 2012 Thanksgiving extravaganza. We already previously covered in great depth the various components of our traditional Thanksgiving meal from year's past (green bean casserole, stuffing, deviled eggs, sweet potatoes, etc). So this year we'll look primarily at things we did a bit differently with the turkey, as well as how to make amazing gravy using the turkey drippings and on-hand ingredients.

Through trial and error over the seven years Megan and I have been doing Thanksgiving together, we've found the best way to season the turkey is to mix seasonings with butter and rub it underneath the skin. Here Megan is starting to lift the skin away from the meat to make room for the seasonings.

Mix up some butter with your favorite fresh or dried turkey seasonings - sage and garlic are must-haves, but throw in anything you like.

It's messy but worth it: grab a handful of seasoning goop and get on in there to spread it around.

After getting enough of the mixture under the skin, Megan then massages it across for even distribution.

For a change this year we took a page from what we learned while griling this summer and decided to also inject the meat directly. Besides adding in more flavor, this also keeps more of the meat moist and prevents dryness. For the injection, we heated up some the butter mixture until it became more of a liquid to use with the injecting needle.

The butter, garlic, and sage gets delivered straight into the meat at various points across the turkey.

We use a cooking bag every year, which not only reduces the cooking time, but also heats the turkey in its own juices. In addition to the injection, this made for the most tender and moist bird we've ever cooked. There wasn't a single dry piece of meat to be found.

Here it is out of the oven after cooking for a few hours, but resist the urge to tear open the bag because there is liquid gold in there begging to be used for another purpose...

...making gravy! Cut a small slit near the bottom of one side of the bag, and then lift and pour the turkey drippings into a skillet or large pan.

The drippings are already flavored perfectly thanks to all the seasonings and injections.

Stir in some milk and flour, turn on the heat, and after a few minutes of stirring you will have gravy that easily beats any store-bought variety.

It never fails: every year by the time we're done with all the prep work and cooking we always too tired and  forget to get pictures of the actual meal itself! Next time we make turkey and gravy we'll have to make sure to get a shot of a finished plate of delicious glory, or you can always check out our previous Thanksgiving blogs.

Tuscan White Beans and Mexican Bean Salad

Back in September we covered making Cuban style black beans served with homemade corn tortilla chips and how they could easily be extended out into multiple meals. Continuing in that direction, we've made a variety of bean-based meals in the last few months and will be making plenty more in the months to come. As a quick look at two very different flavors that can be achieved using beans as the focus of a meal, today we'll dive into a Mexican bean salad and Tuscan white beans.

For both of these meals we soaked and cooked our own beans instead of buying canned, as the cost is incredibly low in comparison to the amount of food you get. To prepare bagged beans bought in bulk, soak them in a pot of water for about eight hours (overnight works fine). If you do this during the day instead, be sure to change the water out every few hours.

First up we made refried beans for the Mexican style salad, which starts out by cooking soaked pinto beans in oil on a skillet.

Adding in some chopped onion changes up the flavor a bit, and of course you want to throw in any seasonings that sound good. Garlic and onion powder are a great base, and you can finish it off with spicier elements like cayenne or crushed red pepper. As they cook and get soft, mash the beans up a bit for a softer texture.

For our salad we wanted tortilla shells for a bowl, but we wanted them baked instead of fried. Since making these we got an appliance that makes perfect tortilla bowls from flour tortillas, but here's the cheap way to do it with corn tortillas using the bottom of a muffin tin and no extra equipment required:

Ours unfortunately fell apart a bit as we were constructing the salads, but it still actually worked out quite well and tasted great. To start we've got a base of the beans along with diced tomato and avocado.

Next up goes a few dollops of sour cream and shredded monteray jack cheese.

An iceberg lettuce blend thrown on top adds in the necessary greens for a delicious salad.

And to kick this into overdrive and hit all the Mexican notes, we topped it with some chipotle salad dressing and Mexican style rice. It works as a salad to be eaten with a fork, or as a sort of awesome nachos eaten with pieces of the tortilla "bowl."

A bean-based meal doesn't have to mean going Mexican, as there are plenty of other cultures and flavors to explore. Our Tuscan white beans offer up an Italian take on beans, which starts by dicing up fresh garlic.

For this meal we're using cannellini beans, which are also soaked overnight before the cooking process starts.

Due to some camera problems we unfortunately missed a few stages for this recipe (but don't worry, we'll make it again with more pictures again soon!). There are plenty of recipes available online but the basic gist is to cook the beans with the garlic and a small amount of oil and add in a variety of green seasonings, such as sage and oregano.

To turn it more into a full-on soup, add in a few cups of homemade stock (see how we make ours right here) and some extra veggies. Here's our finished Tuscan white bean meal, served with toasted bread:

We then used the leftovers for our non traditional bean-based pasta sauce the next night, which will be covered in a new blog soon. We've also got quite a few new bean recipes coming in the near future, along with the next stop in our culinary world tour.

Novel Noodles: Cheesball Bake and the Rainbow Ricotta Bowties

We love pasta of nearly all varieties year round, but its an especially satisfying meal in the colder months while stuck inside. Last time on "Novel Noodles" we explained how to make a sauceless pasta with sausage, beans, and roasted vegetables, and today we'll look at an interesting pasta bake that came about as a way to use up a variety of different ingredients in the fridge that were nearing their expiration dates.

Cheese and pasta are fast friends, but there are plenty of kinds of cheese you might not think to use in a noodle-based dish. One night while trying to figure out what to put together for dinner (the day before our big grocery shopping trip when supplies were low) we went on a limb and threw together a meal based around the remnants of a very non-traditional component: a cheeseball!

To start our bake we chopped up a few handfuls of mushrooms:

And next grated a zucchini to get some fun color and a different texture going:

Along with our mushrooms and zucchini we had about half a red bell pepper in the back of the fridge, which got diced up as well.

The vegetables are all softened up first by briefly cooking in a skillet.

To make this dish creamy without any heavy cream, sour cream, or cream cheese we threw in the only thing on hand: an almond and chive cheeseball. The almonds may sound strange, but there's actually quite a few pasta recipes that use different nuts (beyond just pesto, which is also technically nut-based), and we'll be covering some of those in future blogs.

Here's the filling after its been all stirred together and heated on the skillet.

While the veggies and cheese were melting together we cooked up some pasta - in this case macaroni, as there was half a bag leftover after making a casserole a week before.

After the macaroni is mixed into the filling, we spread everything into a baking dish. It may look a little like macaroni salad, but it's going to taste much different by the time we're done.

In most cases pasta needs a great sauce, and we almost exclusively make our own sauces. Now that we know the glory of homemade, jarred sauce from the store just doesn't compare anymore. Homemade sauce doesn't need to cost more than cheap jarred brands, however, as it's simple to whip together a fantastic sauce using just a can of diced tomatoes.

The tomatoes go in a blender with a healthy dose of Italian seasonings - basil, oregano, salt, pepper, garlic powder, and anything else that sounds good to you. In addition, a handful of sugar and a few dashes of balsamic vinegar take this sauce to the next level. Stir it up in the blender, and then reduce it down in a covered pan on the stove for a thicker consistency. You can also add in a little hot sauce if desired.

When our sauce is ready it gets spooned over the macaroni mixture in the baking dish.

To go along with our pasta bake we have some bread slices covered in garlic salt and a bit of butter, which are briefly baked in the oven until crisp.

Topping off this impromptu casserole goes a layer of shredded mozzarella cheese.

And here's our cheeseball bake out of the oven with a delicious layer of melted cheese on top.

Cheeseballs are all well and good when nothing else is handy, but if you have a container of ricotta you can make an out-of-this-world pasta with just a few ingredients. For this novel twist on a noodle dinner, we take a jar of ricotta, sliced the solid cheese in half, and cover it in seasonings in a baking dish.

While the cheese is baking we put together another fantastic tomato sauce, this time with the a can of whole tomatoes (instead of diced). They are kept whole throughout the cooking process until just the end, when they are then crushed with a wooden spoon. The sauce also includes diced onion, diced fresh garlic, oregano, and balsamic vinegar.

Here's the ricotta fresh out of the oven after baking. Ricotta bakes very well on its own, keeping its form instead of oozing or melting apart.

Our pasta here is rainbow bowties, covered in a few spoonfuls of the tomato sauce and a helping of the firmer ricotta.

Culinary World Tour: Iceland (Lamb Pie With Rye Crust)

After a few months focusing on grilling and trying out new pastas, it's time to get back into our culinary world tour as we continue to expand our recipe horizons and try out foods from other cultures. If you missed our previous entries you can check out our stops at:

Mexico: Posole
Canada: Poutine
Greenland: Suaasat

The next stop was Iceland, and to get some inspiration I contacted the members of Solstafir, a personal favorite band of mine hailing from that country. I should have known a metal band was going to point me in the direction of a meal called "Satan's Face on a Plate," which along with quite a few other traditional Icelandic meals we ended up deciding against both because the ingredients would be difficult to obtain and because we didn't particularly want to eat a cold sheep's face.

We noticed quite a few of the recipes found online used lamb and rye bread, so we decided to make a meal inspired by Icelandic cuisine but not perhaps a direct recipe taken from their traditional foods: a lamb pie made with a rye dough crust.

Before seeing the step-by-step breakdown of our lamb pie, get into a cold Icelandic feel with a music video from Solstafir:




Here we are starting to put together our rye dough ahead of time, which is made from a mixture of rye and white flour, along with butter and water.

The dough is divided into two separate parts, since the pie will have a top and bottom layer, and then refrigerated until it gets to this consistency:

While the dough is being prepared we also start putting together the pie filling, which is based around onions, carrots, mushrooms, and garlic.

The vegetables are cooked in a skillet along with ground lamb, which we found at Smith's on clearance for $3.49. As bargain shoppers, it was a little pricier than we'd normally spend for only a pound of meat, but it was worth trying out something new.

We didn't want the filling to be dry, but at the same time the end product needed to slice like a pie and not be goopy, so we used a small amount of Greek yogurt to keep the filling moist.

The filling is then seasoned with the standards like salt and pepper, along with some dill.

To start constructing the pie, Megan is rolling out one of the rye dough balls.

The dough is pushed into the bottom of a spring form pan to form the bottom layer.

Next we pour the filling of veggies, lamb, and yogurt onto the bottom crust layer.

Everything is spread out evenly so each bite will be full of delicious filling.

The second piece of dough is then also rolled out and placed over top the filling, creating a filled pie.

The top layer is brushed with an egg wash and then has a star shape cut in the center to allow the pie to vent during cooking.

The pie here has just come out of the oven and is baked to golden perfection.

When the spring form pan comes off you can see the pie has retained its shape, and the smell was fantastic!

Here you can see the filling from the side, which hit the perfect balance and wasn't dry or overly moist.

We're serving our pie with a big dinner salad for a complete meal. The lamb is a bit lighter and more delicate than beef, but tastes amazing and goes very well with the other ingredients. We're excited to try this recipe again by changing around some elements, such as adding in potatoes and bell peppers or using the different Philadelphia Cooking Creme flavors in place of the yogurt.

This trek into the flavors of Iceland was a rousing success, and one of our favorites so far. For the next stop of our culinary in-kitchen world tour we'll be skipping over the Faroe Islands, as they are technically part of Denmark and we'll be covering that country later on, and instead head straight to Ireland.

Check back soon for more from Six-Seven-Eight, and in the mean time, check out another killer Solstafir video!