My New Favorite Way to Cook Turkey

I found this awesome set of directions on how to cook a turkey on Simple Bites.  We are going to cook all our turkeys this way from now on.  Our turkey was nearly 18 lbs and it took less than 3 hours to cook!

Here are the directions in a nutshell (For a lengthier description, including the how and why, please visit Simple Bites.)

Step 1: If your using a frozen turkey, make sure it is completely thawed. I let mine sit in the fridge to defrost for 5 days.

Step 2: The Day before cooking, Remove the packaging and any junk inside the bird.

Step 3: Rinse Turkey under cold water and pat dry with paper towels.

Step 4: Put the Turkey in your roaster pan on a rack, and salt liberally.

Step 5: Place the turkey back in the fridge uncovered.

Step 6: Two hours before cooking: Remove the bird from the fridge and let it sit on the counter.

Step 7: Rub a stick of softened butter all over the turkey.

Step 8: Roast the turkey for 20 min at 400F. (Note the bird is not trussed or stuffed.)

Step 9: Turn the heat down to 350F.

Approximate cooking times are:
5 lbs – 1 – 1/2 hrs
8 lbs – 1- 3/4 hrs
10 lbs – 2 hrs
12 lbs – 2 – 1/2 hrs
15 1bs – 2 – 3/4 hours
17 lbs – 3 hours
20 lbs – 3 – 1/2 hours

Step 10: Rotate the bird after an hour and tent with foil if the skin is getting too dark.

Step 11: Let the Turkey rest, tented with foil, for 30-60 minutes before carving.

Thankful Thursday 48.11

1. Discovering I had two each 40% and 50%  off coupons that expired the same day I was going to Joann Fabric.  (SCORE.)

2. Blockette did not have a timeout at Joann Fabrics. (She only got counted to one.  First time ever.)

3. Teaching Blockette how to cross stitch.

4. Not running out of white thread before I went to the fabric store.

5. My best friend lending me her sewing machine when mine stopped working.

6. Not putting up with feeling like garbage.

7. Getting all my shopping done.

8. Knocking out lots of craft projects.

9. Having a grown up conversation waiting for Blockette and M get done with choir.

10. Remembering Wednesday was a 5 hour school day for Blockette and M.

Beer Crust Pizza

I think we all had high hopes for this beer crust pizza from Plain Chicken.  I'm not exactly sure what happened, but the top part of the dough, under the sauce, didn't cook completely.  Maybe this was because we don't have a pizza stone?  That's the only thing I did differently.  I cooked the pizza on a cookie sheet instead.   

The crust was very thin so I just don't understand why it didn't cook up the way it was supposed to, even without the use of a pizza stone. 

We all ate the pizza because even "bad" pizza is good. It just didn't wow me like cooking with beer usually does.

My advice to someone who wants to try this this recipe, but isn't a fortunate enough to own a pizza stone, is to cook the dough for 15 min without any toppings. Once the crust is mostly cooked, then put your cheese, sauce, etc on and broil the whole thing until the cheese is sufficiently melted.

Beer Crust Pizza from Plain Chicken
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp kosher salt
2 Tbsp cubed cold butter
1 cup beer

Place pizza stone in oven and preheat to 475°.  Pulse the flour and salt together in a food processor fitted with a steel blade. Pulse in the cold butter until it's well distributed. Add the beer and pulse until smooth*. Roll out dough onto a piece of parchment paper.   Prick dough with fork and add sauce, cheese and toppings.  Transfer pizza to hot pizza stone.  Bake at 475° for  12-15 minutes, until cheese is bubbly.
 
*I found the food processor with the dough blade to be unnecessary.  It was easier for me to just combine all the ingredients by hand.

One Pot Mac n Cheese

AAAAACK! And I was doing so good at remembering to take pictures of stuff. I can't believe I forgot to take a picture of the one pot mac n cheese from White on Rice Couple.  Instead, please enjoy this picture of Calvin and Hobbs.

Aren't they a photogenic duo?  Certainly much better looking than any picture of macaroni and cheese that I could have taken.

In particular, this mac n' cheese was a lot lighter than any other mac and cheese recipe I've made thus far. In fact, it was so pale, one might even dare to call it white. I think this was due to the fact that the noodles are boiled in milk. That's right. Boiled in milk.

Boiling the noodles in milk is what makes this a "one pot" dish. While this dish certainly saved me a lot of time in clean up, I spent more than that time babysitting the noodles over the stove so the milk didn't burn or evaporate too quickly. Regular old boil the noodles in one pot and make the sauce in another from scratch mac and cheese is loads faster.

This macaroni and cheese was with out a doubt the creamiest mac I've ever made. We found it quite lacking in the taste department though. This could have been because I used half Colby jack and half extra sharp cheddar cheese. I think this dish needs a really strong cheese to make it worth your time. However, I know my audience and Blockette wouldn't eat more than three bites of a very sharp tasting cheese dish. It's hard enough to get her to eat mac that doesn't come out of the blue box.

Creamy One Pot Mac n'Cheese from White on Rice Couple
2 cups large elbow Macaroni, uncooked (about 1/2 lb)
2 cups low fat Milk (about 16 oz)
if needed, additional 1/4 cup milk or water for final cooking
1 tablespoon Butter
1/2 teaspoon Mustard powder
1 teaspoon Salt, plus additional for final season later
generous dash of Nutmeg
1 cup Grated Cheese, any one or combination of ( jack, cheddar, swiss, mozzarella, gouda, parmesan*, asiago*, pecorino*) *Hard cheeses are best combined with a secondary, softer, better melting cheese.
additional toppings: bacon bits, bread crumbs, chopped parsley, diced tomatoes (optional)
black pepper to taste (optional)

Place raw elbow macaroni in colander and quickly rinse under water. Let drain. In med pan (about 3.5 qt), add milk, raw elbow macaroni, salt, butter, mustard powder and nutmeg. On medium heat, slowly bring milk/macaroni mix to a simmer, stirring macaroni frequently as it comes up to a simmer. This will separate macaroni and keep them from sticking together. DO NOT LEAVE THE STOVE! The milk mix will come to a boil very quickly and leaving it unattended will leave a big mess on your stove stop. Once to a simmer, immediately turn heat to LOW. Macaroni will slowly cook in milk. Having the heat too high will evaporate the milk too quickly! Continue to stir frequently so macaroni will cook and absorb milk evenly. If you don’t stir   frequently, you will get a big clump of macaroni in the end! Stir, stir stir! Cook  15-20 min or til milk has been fully absorbed. If macaroni not cooked fully, add a little more milk or water ( in small amounts) til macaroni is fully cooked. This will take about another 5 min. When milk evaporated, stir in grated cheese. Turn off heat. Place lid on top of pan and cover for 5 min. This will allow macaroni to plump up and absorb excess milk. Before serving, stir one final time to mix everything together. Serve immediately. Feeds about 3-4 people.

Chubby Hubby Bars

I swear I took a picture of these Chubby Hubby Bars from Food is My Friend. My camera must have thought it looked so tasty that it ate the picture.

Originally, I made them for a Sunday dinner gathering at my best friend's house. We wound up not going as Blockette had a very Flu like reaction to her Flu shot the night before.

These bars were quite similar to chocolate chip pretzel bars I made this summer. The major difference being these didn't have a pretzel crust, the pretzels were mixed in the bar. I liked this version better. The bars themselves held up better, and the pretzels retained more of their crunch.  Although, this may be due to the fact that when I made the chocolate chip pretzel bars it was rather humid.

Blockette did not like these bars at all. She loved the version I made this summer. I think her taste buds were still messed up from her reaction to her flu shot. Case in point, we had given her Cinnamon M and M's around the same time and she thought they were disgusting.  Then she tried one again a few days later and thought they were fantastic.  Of course, by that time I had sent all the rest of the bars to work with Mrblocko (and eaten more than my fair share), so they were all gone.  I'd be willing to bet if I made these again she'd think they were peachy keen.

CHUBBY HUBBY BARS from Food is My Friend
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup butter, softened
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
2 eggs
1 Tbsp. vanilla
1 1/2 cups semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips, divided
2 cups coarsely chopped pretzels, divided
1/2 cup chopped peanuts
1/4 cup peanut butter or butterscotch chips

Preheat oven 350 degrees. Line a 9x13 baking dish with foil and lightly coat with cooking spray. In a bowl, whisk flour, baking soda, and salt. Using a mixer, beat butter and sugars until light and fluffy; add eggs and vanilla. Beat in dry ingredients just until incorporated. Fold in 1 1/4 cup chocolate chips, 1 1/2 cups pretzels, and peanuts (if using). Spread batter in baking dish. Sprinkle with remaining 1/2 cup pretzels, 1/4 cup chocolate chips, and peanut butter (or butterscotch) chips. Bake for 30 minutes or until golden brown. Cool in baking dish for 10 minutes, then remove bars by lifting the foil and place on a wire rack to finish cooling. Cut into bars.

One final note: This batter is really really thick.  I don't know if I could have properly combined all the add ins without a stand mixer. I almost snapped my spatula scraping the dough out of the bowl!

Butterflake Frozen Rolls

My original plan for Thanksgiving was to make butterflake frozen rolls from Jamie Cooks it Up.  Actually, I was supposed to bring rolls and sweet potatoes.  The sweet potatoes were a no brainer.  I've made them so many times I can almost do it in my sleep now!

We were planning on all going to my husband's brother's house who lives about an hour/hour and a half a way, depending on traffic and how heavy Mrblocko's feet are.  I thought the Butterflake rolls would be a good way for us to have fresh rolls.  The rolls rise in a muffin tin for 3-5 hours.  This way the rolls would be a little more confined during transport than just on a cookie sheet.

Having learned from past mistakes, I thought it would be best to test out the recipe before the big day.  So, I made the rolls and put them in the freezer.  I took them out three hours later and set them out to rise.  Let me tell you, when it says the rolls need to be in the freezer overnight, this is not an exaggeration.  Three hours will most definitely not cut it. 

The tops of the rolls were all flat and bubbly.  They should have been smooth with a fanned out, domed top.  Sure they tasted great, but, man, were they ever ugly.  This was certainly a lesson in following the directions.

Oh silly me.  See, I didn't think the ugly rolls were a result of my lack of patience.  I thought it was because I had screwed the recipe up.  I had only baked six of the 30 or so uncooked rolls I had frozen.  Not wanting to waste food, I planned on making the rest of the rolls just for us at a later date.  Like I said, they tasted fine, they just weren't something I'd serve to people outside of the immediate family.  Mrblocko and Blockette don't care if a roll is ugly, just as long as it is yummy tasting!

So I whined lamented to my husband that my rolls were a disaster, and he said, "Oh, did I forget to tell you?  My brother already has bread."  Yes!  You most certainly did!  But what a relief!  Especially since at that point I was 95% certain I wasn't going to go.  (Recovering from pleurisy and being in a house full of people who smoke, even if they do it outside, is not conducive to breathing.)

Flash forward to a few days later when we had our own little belated version of Thanksgiving at home.  I thought we should have some rolls.  So I pulled the frozen dough pucks out of the freezer and set them in the muffin tin to rise.  Lo and behold three hours later, they were looking much better than their improperly prepared cousins.  Fifteen minutes in the oven and out came this:

I did the giggly giddy happy dance of joy around our kitchen.  They looked so cute!  I was so proud of my little rolls.

Mrblocko and Blockette liked that they had little pull apart sections.  They thought it was awesome that they had more surface area to slather butter on, but not me.  I ate those little butterflakes nekkid so I could enjoy every bit of their wonderful roll-y goodness.

These rolls just might prevent me from having to buy rolls in a can ever again.  Or maybe not.  Even though you do all the prep work well in advance, you still have to remember to take the rolls out of the freezer at least 3 hours in advance.  I definitely cannot rule out forgetting to do that, especially on a busy night when we are all rushing around.  If I'm consistent at anything, it's being forgetful. 

Butterflake Frozen Roll Dough from Jamie Bakes it Up
2/3 C warm water
1 T yeast (I use active dry)
1/2 t sugar
4 1/2-5 C flour
2 t salt
1/4 C sugar
2 eggs
1/2 C softened butter, divided
1 C milk

Pour warm water into bottom of stand mixer and pour yeast over top. Add the 1/2 t sugar and stir mix around a bit, allowing yeast and sugar to dissolve. Let sit for 5 min, or til it starts to bubble. Add 2c  flour, salt, sugar, eggs, and 4 T e softened butter. Let dough mix 1 min. Heat milk in the microwave for 1 minand pour it into mixer. Turn mixer on and add the rest of flour one cup at a time. You will know that you have enough flour when dough pulls itself away from sides of mixer. Once you have enough flour, let dough mix on medium for 5 min.

Spray a large portion of your counter with cooking spray and set dough onto it. Shape dough into an oval. Let it rest for 5 minu. This part is important...you won't be able to roll the dough out well if it hasn't had a chance to sit. Roll dough into a large rectangle. Spread the remaining butter over top. (I used my hands)

With a pizza cutter, cut the dough into quarters. Cut each quarter into thirds. Stack strips 4 deep. Cut stacks into chunks about 2" wide.

Place a piece of parchment paper onto a large jelly roll pan, and spray it with cooking spray. Set each little roll onto parchment. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Spray the top of the wrap with cooking spray, thn carefully turn it over so that the side you sprayed is touching dough and wrap the pan securely. Put the pan in your freezer overnight. (OVERNIGHT!  I mean it!) Once the roll dough is frozen  remove from pan and place in a freezer safe Zip bag, and store it back in freezer.

When are ready to use dough, place as many rolls as you need in muffin tins that have been sprayed with cooking spray. Cover loosely with plastic wrap. Spray top of wrap with cooking spray and  carefully turn it over so the side with the spray is touching the dough.

Let dough rise for 3-5 hrs, til dough risen about 1" above rim of pan. The dough will rise faster if kept in a warm place. Take plastic wrap off and bake at 350F for 15 minutes til golden brown.

Apple Cider Ice Cream

Do you want to know why I made this Apple Cider Ice Cream from a Sweet Simple Life? Um, because I bought a turkey.  Huh?  Well around Thanksgiving, turkeys were around 40 cents a pound.  That's cheaper than a roaster chicken.  So I bought one to stick in my freezer.

Now, those of you that have a ice cream attachment for your stand mixer know that the freezer bowl takes up a goodly amount of freezer space.  (It takes up about the same space as an 11 pound turkey.) I figured if I had to take the ice cream maker bowl out of the freezer, I'd better put that freeze-y goodness to good use.

I chose this recipe for apple cider ice cream, not only because it sounded tasty, but because I had all the ingredients on hand.

The taste of the ice cream was very surprising to me.  Mainly because I think for some reason I was expecting it to taste like apple pie.  I don't know why.  It's not like it's called apple pie ice cream.  It's Apple CIDER Ice Cream.  Duh.  Once I got in my head what the ice cream was supposed to taste like, I really enjoyed it.

So far I have tried it plain, with granola, and with cinnamon.  So far I like the cinnamon topped version the best.  Some other suggestions for toppings I've thought of are: warm honey, crushed gingersnaps, warm cinnamon apples, caramel sauce, pralines, or crumbled pie crusts with cinnamon.

Finally, this is a very soft and smooth ice cream. Even after several days in the freezer it is still very easy to scoop. This is unlike most of the other ice creams I've made where they are hard as a brick after 2 days.   Also, milk based ice cream tends to be a bit grittier than the cream based versions.  This ice cream was a lot smoother and creamier than the other ice creams I've made with skim milk.  What a pleasant surprise!

Apple Cider Ice Cream adapted from a Sweet Simple Life
1 14 oz. can sweetened condensed milk
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
1 packet of instant apple cider (I used Alpine Spiced Apple Cider)
2 cups dairy (I used skim milk)

In a small bowl combine all ingredients and pour into ice cream maker following your manufacturers instructions.  Or if you don't have a ice cream maker: Combine the condensed milk, vanilla and cider mix.  In a separate, larger bowl beat the whipping cream (gotta use the cream cause milk won't hold the volume properly for this version,)  until stiff peaks form.  Gently fold in half of the condensed milk mix into the whipped cream.  Then stir in the other half until combined.  Pour into a shallow container and freeze overnight.