Archive for April, 2013

My Favorite Cheese

classic-cheddar

Having lived in Vermont for 19 years I had the wonderful introduction to

Cabot Cheese! It has been my favorite ever since. It wasn’t so easy to find

here in Maryland when I first moved here many years ago but now it can

be found in most grocery stores throughout the region.

Cabot is an icon in New England for very good reason. I particularly love

the Seriously Sharp cheese. I use if for everything from Mac & Cheese, cheese and crackers,

grilled cheese (and varieties of grilled cheese, i.e. & tuna, and or tomato, etc.), omelets,

cheese sauces and on and on.

You can get a number of tasty recipes from their website here:

http://www.cabotcheese.coop/

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Yogurt Cucumber Sauce

multiserve-nonfat-plain-sm

If you have known me for any length of time you know that I am very much into FRESH and NATURAL ingredients! This is why I love Chobani Greek Yogurt. It is made with the best ingredients with no artificial

additives or preservatives. It also contains twice the protein of other yogurts with  5 live & active cultures, including 3 probiotics!

 

 

Visit their site for more great recipes here:

http://chobani.com/kitchen/just-add-good/

They also have a really cool conversion chart to create healthier but still TASTY

recipes just scroll down on that page to see it.

Here is a recipe for a wonderful sauce I like to serve with fish. Particularly salmon:

1 Cup Chobani Plain Greek Yogurt (fat free)

1/2 Burpless cucumber peeled and grated (the long skinny ones usually wrapped in plastic) (these are less likely to “repeat” on you)

Fresh garlic (one small clove crushed)

Fresh Dill Weed (snipped) to taste

Mix the yogurt and grated cucumber then add the crushed garlic and snipped dill weed.

Serve this wonder sauce over any kind of fish.

Pecan crusted Salmon:

Spread about a TBS of Chobani Plain Greek Yogurt over the salmon

then cover with finely chopped pecans mixed with a little parmesan and just a touch of olive oil

You can add some fresh chopped parsley to this if desired.

Spread over salmon and then bake in oven at 350 for about 20 mins. (depending on thickness and desired doneness)

Viola!

A scrumptious meal!

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Turkey Dinner

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I know, I know, it’s not Thanksgiving or Christmas or even New Year’s Day so why in the world would I be making a Turkey dinner?

Because I just had a hankering for one! I only had a little bit of turkey back at Thanksgiving and didn’t get my annual dose I guess.

Preparing the turkey is easy. I like mine stuffed! So, I chop some onion and some celery and saute them in some melted butter. In this case I use a stick and a half (oh my!)

I know, it’s a lot of butter but come on, you only do this once a year right?

IMG_1089Turkey dinner ingredients

 

 

 

 

 

When the onion and celery have been sauteed for a few minutes they will turn translucent, then I added 2 bags of seasoned
dried bread crumb stuffing.

Stir that around for a couple of minutes coating with the butter mixture. I crack fresh black pepper into it

I like a lot of black pepper but you can season to taste. I then add 1 can of cream corn (I know that sounds strange but it really makes it tasty) and some chicken stock (I like stock better than broth in most cases
as it has more body and flavor IMHO (in my humble opinion).

I also season with some ground sage, crushed rosemary and crushed thyme. (again, this is to taste. Some like these seasonings and some don’t. Just don’t go too heavy on them as a little goes a long way)

As far as how much stock to add, you will have to decide because some like dryer stuffing and others like it moist. I tend to like it more moist so I added enough to make the bread crumbs sort of melt together.

Now it’s time to stuff the bird. If it was frozen you will need to have taken it from the freezer and left it in the frig for several days. It really takes a long time to thaw out. I prefer to use fresh turkey if possible.

stuffing for the birdstuffing the birdextra stuffing

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I had a little stuffing leftover so I put in a baking dish.

When I am prepping food earlier in the day for this dinner I usually peel the potatoes and put them in a pot of cold water so they are ready to go when the turkey gets closer to being done.

I don’t like to leave too many tasks for the last minute because I’ll be making the gravy and mashing the potatoes at the same time.

I like all the food to land on the table hot!

Let’s talk about gravy:

There are two ways that I make gravy. Remember that chicken stock I showed you earlier? Well, if I want to stretch the gravy a little further I will use some chicken stock. In this case I had some nice pan drippings to start with. I poured them into
one of these gravy fat separators like this:
Here’s a cool one you can get at Amazon:

good gravygravy rooster

This is a gravy rooster! I love it! Keeps the gravy piping hot

for the whole meal!

Gravy Roosters are a rare breed as I have only seen 2 in all my days

but they are worth hunting down.  LOL

 

 

 

 

 

 

Once I strained the gravy to get most of the fat out of it there wasn’t that much left of the drippings
so I put them into a frying pan and then I added a bunch of the chicken stock to it. I peppered it

This is when you can add some salt to if you like. You put it over a fairly high heat until it just starts to bubble.  I take a glass measuring cup and put about a cup of water in it and whisk in
enough flour to thicken it enough to make a runny paste. Now this is also according to taste.
For thicker gravy make the paste thicker, for thinner gravy make it thinner.

You can also flavor your gravies with something you can get at the store called “Gravy Master”

but I usually don’t use that. It gives it a rich dark color and more flavor if you find your gravy needs a boost.

Now right before I made the gravy I made sure the potatoes were cooked. I had turned on the flame under the pot and heated it to boiling. Then turned it down a little until they were fork tender.

I then melted 1 stick of butter in
a glass measuring cup (I know, more butter, but remember it’s once a year!) I add some milk (how much milk will depend

on how thick or thin you like your potatoes) to the butter and  I heat that up too.

(Remember I want everything to land on that table hot, this is why I heat them. Otherwise they tend

to cool the potatoes off before you can get them on the table). Once the potatoes are done I drain the water off and add my butter and milk mixture then take a hand beater and beat the heck out of them.

I use a hand mixer like this one and I really like it because the parts get stored with it and it eliminates that messy drawer thing and losing them.

This time I decided to roast some veggies to go with dinner. I cut some brussels srpouts in half and put them in a pan along with some fresh asparagus. I drizzled olive oil over the top of them and cracked some black pepper

and then added some fresh chopped garlic. My only mistake was starting them at the same time as
the asparagus roasted a lot faster so I would recommend giving the brussels about 15 mins. head start.

Asparagus and brussels sprouts

 

 

 

 

 

I popped these babies in right about the time we took the turkey out to rest.

By the way, you can’t always believe those poppers. This one lied! It popped

after only 2 hours in the oven and this turkey weighed over 13 pounds!

I left it in for another 2 hours and it was perfect! I did turn the heat down

a bit for the last hour.

Hint: if you like your outside skin dark and crispy like we do, don’t cover the bird

If you like it less dark and crispy you can cover it for the last hour and it won’t brown as much.

So here it is: Turkey dinner all on the table piping hot and boy was it delicious!

Turkey dinnerturkey dinner

 

 

 

 

 

Oh, and don’t forget some great wine! This wine was a gift at Christmas and boy was it tasty!

Please scroll down and share and comment! Thanks

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