Let's Talk Turkey

I love Thanksgiving. I love everything about it. I love the fact that our entire nation has an entire 24 hour holiday dedicated to one meal. How fantastic is that? I love that I had a bottle of wine open by noon, that in 15 different recipes ranging from cranberry apple stuffing to ranch carrots to green bean casserole I used 9 sticks of butter. 9. Yes, 9. If I thought sausage meatballs would cause fits of joy in my minorly clogged arteries I had another thing coming. But I've decided to dedicate an entire post to the star of the show: The Turkey.

I had an affair this year. Truly, I did. At one point this Thanksgiving season my husband was unconvinced that I could spend one more second cleaning, tying, brining, buttering, basting, roasting, carving, stuffing or unstuffing a turkey. My love affair with the piquant poultry began more than 72 hours before the big day. And BELIEVE-YOU-ME, every second of every hour of every one of those three days was worth it. I'm going to apologize in advance for the lack of photos and while I'm at that for all photos in general. While cooking may be a minor forte photos certainly are not. All of the flurry of Thanksgiving activity and my mismanaged timeline caused an absolute onslaught once the timer went off. All I have to show for my labor is a photo of the prepped poultry, naked as the jay bird he was.

For the most part I followed this recipe but made some changes where I thought I could improve. My add ins are marked with **s.

Brined-Herb-Crusted Turkey with Apple Cider Gravy
Anne Burrell, Secrets of a Restaurant Chef

Brine
7 Qts water
1 Qt apple cider
3/4 Kosher salt
1/3 cup sugar
1 large onion, diced
2 large carrots, diced**
3 ribs celery, diced
1 head garlic, sliced in half
1/2 bunch fresh rosemary
1/2 bunch fresh thyme **
6 bay leaves
13 lb turkey, thawed giblets and neck removed

Herb Crust & Turkey Aromatics
1 bunch fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 bunch fresh thyme, finely chopped**
1/2 tsp dried basil **
1/2 tsp dried oregano **
3 sticks butter, room temperature

2 lemons, cut into quarters**
1 orange, cut in quarters**
1/2 bunch rosemary **

Gravy **
1 large onion, diced
2 large carrots, diced
2 ribs celery, diced
3 cloves garlic, smashed
1 granny smith apple, diced
5 bay leaves
1 cup apple cider
2 cups chicken stock

To brine the turkey: Combine all brine ingredients in a large container. Add the turkey and let brine overnight (2-3 nights prior to cooking), stirring occasionally.

The prepare the turkey for cooking: Remove turkey from brine and pat dry. Combine the rosemary, thyme, dried herbs, butter, salt and pepper in a small bowl. Work the butter under the skin massaging into breasts and legs. Lacquer that sucker on the outside as well. Let marinade in the refrigerator overnight. Be sure to keep raw food away from the turkey.

To cook the turkey: Remove the turkey from the fridge and stuff the with aromatics, lastly tying the legs together with kitchen string. Place all veggies listed under gravy in the bottom of a roasting pan and place the roasting rack on top of them. Place the turkey on the rack, breast side up. Roast covered at 325-350 degrees for 4 hours. Uncover the last hour to allow the turkey skin to brown. Be sure to baste the turkey every 30 minutes (secretly basting the turkey in melted butter DOES NOT HURT!). Add more chicken stock to the roasting pan if necessary. Allow turkey to rest, covered for 30 minutes after removing from the oven.

For the gravy: Gravy scares me. Intensely. As in night sweats. Ergo world's fastest gravy. After removing the turkey from the roasting pan strain ALL juices and veggies over a fine mesh strainer. Put all drippings into a pan. Boil over medium - high heat until reduced in half. Mix one tblsp cornstarch with 1 tblsp water. Whisk into the gravy mixture until mixture is smooth and creamy. VOILA!! Rich, flavorful gravy.

Go buy a turkey. NOW! Seriously! If you didn't cook this very turkey on Thanksgiving you just didn't do ol' Tom justice.

Comfort Food Express

After reading my first blog my husband has reclaimed How Merlot Can You Go? with a fervor only possible of a marine officer tasked with an official order. In the meantime I plan to continue sharing some delicious recipes and potential flops with interspersed anecdotes.
On a day when you're intent to make the students complete their peppered moth labs and geologic time lines and they're intent to eat the paper dots, play sword fights with the rulers and make falic symbols out of your tap dispenser you need comfort food. Obviously my timing for this warm and fuzzy feeling-inducing food was off. This day from hell was, of course, the last day before Thanksgiving break and my refrigerator consisted solely of produce and products dedicated to the most important meal of the year. The possibility of Mexican floated through my head and thoughts of heart-burn ensued. I stared at the contents of my fridge and decided to reinvent some of these ingredients for a new dish. My first notion was to use the Johnsonville sausage as a base for some spaghetti sauce but that just wasn't going to cut it. After some poking and prodding deep into the scary depths of the pantry and cabinets I came up with a delicious option for meatballs. If these circular nodes of glory don't qualify me for goddess status they still won't leave me empty handed with at least the beginning stages of cardiovascular disease - maybe both?

Sausage & Italian Parsley Meatballs
1 package Johnsonville Sweet Italian Sausage
1/2 cup fresh Italian parsley, rough chopped
1/4 cup Italian bread crumbs
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/8-1/4 cup Parmesan cheese, shredded
2 tblsps Worcester sauce
2 tblsps garlic olive oil, divided
Salt and pepper to taste

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Combine all ingredients and 1 tblsp of the olive oil in a large mixing bowl. Mixture should be moist but shapeable. If mixture is too dry add more olive oil. If mixture is too wet add more bread crumbs until desired consistency is reached.
3. Roll 1 tblsp of mixture between palms until a round ball is formed. Continue until all mixture is used.
4. Brown meatballs in reserved tblsp of olive oil on all sides over medium high heat, approximately 1 minute per side.
5. Bake meatballs for 15-20 minutes more or until no pink remains in the center.

Serves 4.

Humble Blog Beginnings

My friends recently coerced me into beginning another blog. My previous attempt, if I may grant myself these adjectives, was witty and fun, but relatively short lived. Alas, to my disappointment, http://www.how-merlot-can-you-go.blogspot.com/ did not catapult me into a state of fame and fortune where my career solely consisted of traveling to exotic winery locations and receiving a hefty pay check to divulge in unlimited free libations of the tastiest sort. Our winery hopping days have come to a halt since an eventful 2010 where we had an engagement, pre-deployment work ups, wedding, deployment, and three Xanex-inducing moves. We've settled into married life in Hubert, NC and I've settled into a love that rivals that of wine: cooking.
I've always loved to cook. Okay, that's a lie. In high school I managed to catch the kitchen on fire. To this day, I still blame the author of this recipe. I followed her explicit directions! Heat pan over high: check. Put butter in: check. What Martha Stewart failed to explain was that one should not go straighten your hair during the high heat - insert butter interval. Well, move over, Martha, I've learned a few things since then.
Through this blog, I hope to diligently,and sometime drunkenly recall my recipes of that day or week. Some will be my own. Some will be borrowed (I'll reluctantly give credit where credit is due) ... Some will be delicious. Some will be inedible unless, you, too, on your 3rd bottle of your Wine-of-the-Month club. Regardless of the outcome I hope you enjoy.





















Orange Chicken and Shrimp with Parsley Brown Rice

2 small chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes
1/2 lb shrimp, peeled and devained
1/2 bunch asparagus, ends trimmed & cut into thirds
1 bunch scallions, ends trimmed & cut into thirds
1 cup Ken's Asian Sesame salad dressing
1 tblsp butter
1 tblsp soy Sauce
1 tblsp oyster Sauce
1/4 cup orange marmalade

2 cups quick cook brown rice
1/2 cup fresh parsley, rough chopped.

1. Marinade chicken and shrimp in seperate bowls in the salad dressing for 30 minutes - 1 hour
2. Heat butter in a large pan or wok over medium-high heat. Saute chicken 1-2 minutes per side until browned.
3. Add scallions and saute for 2 minutes stirring frequently.
4. Add asparagus and cook for 2 additional minutes stirring frequently.
5. Add shrimp, marmalade, soy, and oyster sauces.
6. Cook until shrimp are pink and sauce thickens.

Meanwhile, cook rice according to package directions. Stir in parsely to finished rice. Serve the chicken and shrimp over the rice, spooning extra sauce over the dish.

Serves 4

Or in my case with my Arnold-esque, strong-man aspiring husband 2 ;)