The latest edition of the Carnival of the Recipes is posted over at Booklore. This was my first ever carnival submission, and I plan to enter more during the 2007 calendar year. Go and check things out at the carnival. There are a number of good recipes for the chef in all of us.
Read the rest of this article...Traditional Thanksgiving dinner - turkey, stuffing, mashed taters, and a veggie - is the meal that I could eat four to five times a week, if I had to. I love turkey - white meat, dark meat, legs - you name it. If I am in a restaurant and they have turkey dinner on the menu, I have a hard time choosing something else - especially a homestyle New York diner. Cooking turkey dinner, on the other hand, is a tough deal for a single guy. Cooking a turkey has a complexity level that exceeds heating up a can of soup or microwaving a bag of popcorn (my usual home cooking!) by a large margin. The holidays, though, bring out the best in me.
I had Thanksgiving dinner at a friend's home where I was one of 35 guests. While happy for the invitation, "seconds" to take home were not an option. Heck, I was lucky to get "firsts" - some of those people could eat! Ever since, I have been eager for some turkey dinner. Publix, apparently upon hearing of my want for turkey, had them on sale for 79 cents a pound last week. I picked up a small bird (less than 10 lbs.), and based on this Roguefood.com thread, I decided to make the stuffing the focus of the meal. Any good turkey dinner should be measured on the merits of the accompaniments, as well as the flavor and texture of the turkey, itself. Naturally, I tweaked the recipe to my own liking (soft pretzels were not an option, and the original recipe lacked traditional stuffing seasonings). The full recipe and photos of the adventure can be found after the break...
PRETZEL STUFFING
Saute onion & celery in butter until soft. Mix in pretzels & remaining ingredients. The original recipe calls for the mixture to be set overnight in the refrigerator. In this case, that was not an option, and the end result worked. I may try it next time - just to see what difference it makes.
Bake in casserole dish (I used 13X9 Pyrex) at 350 for about 25 minutes.
The stuffing (yeah, I know that if it is prepared in the stove, as opposed to in the bird, that it should be called "dressing" - I just don't care) turned out delicious. The pretzels definitely add a different flavor and texture compared to what most folks usually expect from traditional stuffing.
At this point, I was still pretty skeptical. We had some seasoned and sauteed onion and celery and some broken pretzels. But, things started to take shape....
I won't lie. There is a good reason that there is a box of Stove Top sitting on the counter. If this stuff turned out bad, I wasn't having dinner with no stuffing! There is a part of me that thinks that this is common sense and needs no mentioning, but....DO NOT ADD SALT. There is plenty on the pretzels. I didn't think that the final product was too salty, but I like Stove Top - and that stuff is loaded with salt.
No worries, though - it tasted as good as it looks! One of the truest stuffing tests is to see how it holds up the next day as leftovers, and I happily report that the flavor and texture didn't lose anything overnight in the fridge.
The ultimate plate of food - mashed Yukon Gold potatoes (five potatoes - almost one whole stick of butter - a ratio that should be set in stone), green beans, pretzel stuffing, and mixed light and dark turkey - all covered in homemade giblet gravy. I am pretty sure that THIS is what God created on the eighth day.
Never satisfied, though, I am thinking about making a sweet version of the pretzel stuffing. It works with bread stuffing, right? I think I can add apples, cinammon, and maybe raisins. If it happens, I will do a follow-up post.
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Living the single life doesn't always afford one all of the opportunities to save that a typically frugal person might hope. This situation rears up on me sometimes at the grocery store. It is not easy to stock up on staples, nor is it practical for me to make a full turkey dinner with all the fixings. Since I am also trying to cut down on dining out at restaurants (an area that has not been all to successful, of late), so trying to navigate around the grocery store looking for something unique to eat, but mindful of the time/effort/expense of some of the things that I like. Honestly, I think I could be one of the few people in America who could date more often and SAVE money!
Last night, Publix was hawking some of their convenience items in the aisles. At the seafood department, I found some tasty tilapia stuffed with crabmeat. For the first time in quite awhile, I was induced to purchase by a sample tasting. They offered a freshly packaged (in-store, same day) whole fillet, seasoned and stuffed, and ready to spend some quality time in the oven. The price for this convenience, I felt, was quite reasonable - $5.99/lb. I know that tilapia, alone, can be found cheaper, but $5.99/lb isn't really a bad price for a slab of fresh fish. Since this came as a ready-made meal, I would expect to pay a little bit of a premium. The whole cost for the package was just over $7.00.
It made me realize that I am willing to pay for a few other convenience items, especially at Publix. In the deli, I like their chicken tenders - even the cold ones that I have as grab-and-go, and their fried chicken (yes, all the healthy stuff!). In the bakery, I will always grab a loaf of challah bread, if they have one unsliced out on the shelf. Their danish are also good, and I previously mentioned their fresh pizza dough.
I do have my limits, though. It seems preposterous to me to pay for someone to cut up fruit for me in advance. When I look at the price that they charge for a melon cut into chunks versus the cost of a whole melon, I wonder why people pay for that sort of thing. Then I think if other people think that I am nuts for buying a loaf of bread or chicken tenders instead of making them myself.
In case you were wondering, the tilapia turned out great. All it took was adding a pat of butter on top of the fish and about 1/2 hour in the oven at 350. It was delicious, and I was able to portion myself out something for dinner and some for lunch tomorrow. Now, if only I could have grabbed some type of vegetable-type substance, I could have made a whole meal!
I really am trying to make a concerted effort to cook more and eat at home. To do this, I need to come up with foods that I would be likely to make at home. I actually have some reasonably good cooking skills, and what I don't know how to do, I can usually pick up pretty quickly (solid learning curve potential). My problem is that, as a single guy, cooking for one just stinks. In the past, I posted about trying something a little more difficult. Tonight, I went for something a little more simple -- homemade pizza.
We are going to use the term "homemade" in the broadest sense here. I bought fresh pizza dough from Publix. So, I didn't "make" the dough. I used jar pasta sauce - so, I didn't really "make" the sauce. I bought a pre-packaged cheese blend - so, I didn't shred or slice my own fresh mozzarella. I also bought pre-sliced pepperoni, too. But, I did combine and prepare all of those ingredients myself. I will say, though, that writing about this experience sure makes it seem like I didn't really do all that much.
First, let's discuss the positives. This was one cheap meal. The total cost for the whole pizza breaks down like this:
Set the dough out to rise - usually 1/2 hour to an hour.
Prepare your ingredients.
Press dough into pie shape on a pizza stone, and bake at 425 degrees for about five minutes - just about until the dough is set and slightly browned. When you remove the crust from the oven, you will likely need to poke some holes into the top with a fork, as the crust will "puff" up.
Use your own discretion, but spread an even amount of sauce across the crust's surface. I sprinkled some oregano on the sauce. On top of the sauce, add your cheese. I used a shredded mix of Italian cheeses, including mozzarella, romano, provolone, parmesan, asiago and fontina. In the past, I have used sliced mozzarella. Use what you like. I also added some sliced pepperoni, for flavor. Get creative in your own way here. Add whatever you like.
Bake for about 15 minutes, but keep a good eye on your pizza, as you may like yours more or less well-done as I do. I pulled mine out of the oven at the perfect color for what I like.
I can only wish that my pie tasted half as good as it looked. I am sure that I did something to screw up the crust, and I will give another go sometime in the near future.
One of my favorite restaurants in southern California is a place in Marina Del Rey called "Killer Shrimp." To say that the place is a little "minimalist" might be a huge understatement. They have one thing on their menu -- three guesses as to what it is? Their shrimp is served a few different ways -- over pasta, over rice, or simply in a broth with a side of crusty French bread. The restaurant is barely decorated, the tables are nearly empty. Most folks know the original way to eat is with no utensils -- just diving into the bowl of broth-covered shrimp, peeling and eating the fleshy prawns; then soaking up the spicy broth with bread. It's so simple, it's complex.
So complex was this meal, that I decided that I had to be able to duplicate it. And, since I wanted to replicate the minimalist experience, I served the meal on TV trays! I made my first attempt last night. The recipe is as follows:
Ingredients:
2 Tbsp fresh or dried rosemary
2 tsp thyme
1/2 tsp black pepper
1/2 tsp white pepper
2 cloves garlic, peeled and chopped
1/2 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp celery seed
1 tsp crushed red pepper
2 qts clam broth (I used crab broth, made from leftovers from my snow crab dinner)
6 ozs tomato paste
1 stick butter
5 lbs shrimp; med to large
loaf(ves) of crusty french bread
Let me just say that this recipe yields A TON of broth. I only cooked two pounds of shrimp, and I am only guesstimating that I could have easily added three more pounds -- but, I may have been able to make 10 pounds -- who knows? I figure that extra broth is not such a bad thing. It will keep. I was also unsure as to where the kick comes from in this recipe. I don't see anything listed in there that would create the kind of spicy effect that I had back in MDR. Well, I assure you -- this has some kick. I don't know if it is the red pepper (doesn't add kick like that to a slice of pizza!), the black pepper, or just the combination of spices, but it has kick -- you should like spicy foods if you want to try this.Process:
Break up the spices, rather than grinding them. You should see recognizable pieces of rosemary, etc. when you are done. Mix the ingredients in a large stock pot. Bring to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer for about two hours. If you are in a pinch for time, you can get by with less time, but the more time you allow, the better flavor you will get. Just before serving, add unpeeled shrimp to the stock pot. Continue to simmer for two to four minutes. The shrimp will be done QUICKLY.
Serve in bowls. Each bowl should contain a number of shrimp and a lot of broth. The broth should almost cover the shrimp.
The dish is eaten with your fingers -- no utensils. Grab a shrimp and peel and eat. Soak up the broth with the bread. Enjoy.
The broth was EXCELLENT -- about just like I remembered from California. But, I definitely made a mistake on the shrimp. Albertson's had a great price on some very large (16 ct.) frozen fresh water shrimp. Hmmm....they weren't that good. I need to find a good local source of shrimp -- maybe gulf shrimp. I don't know if the frozen aspect was an issue, but I guess fresh would be better. I take all of this on me, but the recipe rocks.
