Gobble, Gobble

It turns out that everything worked out fine, timing wise yesterday...the auditions for Rocky Horror were quicker than scheduled, so I was able to get home and get my turkey in the oven in time for dinner.

I follow Alton Brown's recipe, to the letter...the brine, the filling of the cavity with onion, and apple, and cinnamon and rosemary, and sage, then the starting at 500 for 30  minutes, before applying the 'turkey triangle' and finishing at 350.  This was an 18-pound bird and it was done in under three hours, so...yay!

The only not yay about the dinner was it seemed to be a 'fatty' turkey, and we didn't get nearly as much extra meat off it as I hoped we would...just under 5 pounds. I was hoping for closer to a 50% yield...and the turkey sandwich I had an hour after dinner didn't cut into the final tally that much.

With  the turkey, my wife had bought some small white potatoes that were on sale for cheaper than the red's, or even the russets.  Score.  I know that there are different things you can do with different potato types due to starch content variances. One web site I found had these fateful words: Grilling whites brings out a more full-bodied flavor.

What the what?  Grilling potatoes?  After just grilling lettuce a few weeks ago?  Sign me up.

 

 

I thought they came out really, really good...like a smoky French fry.  The secret for this recipe is parboiling first.  Slice the potatoes (about 1/4-1/3 inch), boil for 10-15 minutes.  Drain, and coat with a mixture of 4 parts mayo, 1 part mustard, 1 part garlic, 1 part honey, and I added some ranch dressing too...paint it on the taters, and grill them up.  Since they are parboiled, they only need 3-5 minutes on a side depending on heat. 

 

This is something I will come back to at some point when I need to blow a mind or two. 

Sweet translations.

Had a pretty poopy day at work today.  So poopy that my 'must eat something bad for you' jones was acting up.  I crushed it down though, and by the time I made it home, the jones had shifted from something bad for me, to something baked and sweet...and it wasn't going away.

Foodgawker to the rescue!  A quick search for easy deserts revealed this tasty little recipe for Chocolate Muffins with Peanut Butter! 

But, to my horror, the website with the recipe was in Polish!  Luckily, it was internet technology to the rescue!  Near the bottom of the right hand sidebar, there is a button you could click on to translate....but I still had to do some math to translate ml into cups for measuring milk and oil.

The only problem I had(and it didn't effect the flavor) was that the peanut butter didn't wamt to stay on the bottom like it did on the Polish website.  I'll just have to try it againand again until I get it right.

Fresh Bread.

The other day at the local food co-op, I picked up a great looking bunch of kale, and some nice hot Italian sausage, with the thought that I would whip up a pot of wanna-be Zuppa Tuscana.  Life happened, so instead of making it Friday, it ended up sliding until today. 

Along with the soup, I set out to find a new bread recipe to try, and settled on this Ricotta Bread recipe that sounded pretty okay. 

The end result was better than satisfactory.

The only confession I need to make is that I DID NOT make the ricotta from scratch...I had my wife pick some up at the store. 

Even so, the bread was good...very light and fluffy, with only a hint of ricotta flavor.  My only hick-up during the process was I needed a LOT of extra flour to form the balls/loafs after the first rising period...the dough was very sticky.

Roll it Up.

While swinging through Win-Co the other day for party supplies, on a whim I bought a package of flank steak because they had it for a good price.

Flank Steak is on of those things that have really caught on in popularity...as a kid, I remember flank steak being one of the cheaper cuts of meat, in the same price range as chuck, and round.  Now, at my local Safeway, it's usually in the $6.50-$7 a pound range...putting it in the same price range as ribeye's.  It could also be the difference between the East Coast and West Coast...out here, some of the more dominant cultures have recipes that call for this cut of meat, so by shear demand, it's price has gone up.

Anyway...got some flank steak, and decided I wanted to do something semi-fancy, and make a roulade out of it.  I think I had been flipping through the food network a few days ago, and this is what put this particular bug in my ear. 

Some recipes for flank steak roll ups have you just pound the steak flat, some of you butterfly it...I went the butterfly method, and it was really the toughest part of the process.  Flank steak is thick, but not thick, and with the grain, it was just tough to keep my cut even.  In the end, I ended up slightly lopsided, and in some places, I ended up cutting holes in the meat instead of neatly butterflied.

Meat cut, I then gently(so it didn't tear) placed it in a bag, and marinated it a few hours in a marinade made of olive oil, some Lee & Perrins, some BBQ sauce, and a dash of Liquid Smoke. 

After pulling it out of the fridge, I opened it all up again, and made my filling, using some stuff we had on hand: about half a cup of crumbled Garlic and Herb Feta Cheese, half a pound(pre cooked weight) of crumbled bacon, and about 3/4's of a cup of frozen shredded spinach.  Spread that out on the meat, and then begin rolling.  To get the grain going the right direction for you, when you butterfly, cut on the long dimension, then when you roll it, roll it on the short dimension.  Then use some butchers twine to keep the whole thing together.

You can see how badly I gaffed mine butterflying...you shouldn't be able to see the stuffing.

A final rub of oil and some garlic salt/steak seasoning, and it's ready to go in a 400 degree oven.  My flank steak was just over two pounds, and took about 45-50 minutes to reach 140 inside...which was probably about 4 degrees too much, but in this house, I'm the only one who really likes RARE.

My wife really liked it...probably could have used a bit more spinach in my filling, but, the results were worth the effort, which..like I said, other than the mess I made trying to butterfly the steak, were fairly minimal.