a fresh 22 pounder ~ raised in open air and sunshine
My “Gangnam Style” recipe for cooking a turkey:
1. Loosely stuff the cavities with roughly chopped onions, carrots, and celery, lots of butter and salt and pepper.
2. Rub the entire outside of the bird with soft butter and salt and pepper.
3. Put more roughly chopped onions, carrots and celery in the bottom of the roasting pan with enough turkey or chicken stock so that the pan does not dry out.
4. Roast at 325° for a total of about 4 to 5 hours. Leave the bird alone, don’t baste, don’t cover, just “do nothing” and then marvel at the beautiful bird when it reaches 165 degree internal temperature. Use a remote thermometer to monitor the temperature.
5. Remove from oven and let it rest.
6. Have a Skin Party and do the Horse-Riding Dance.
I believe the secret is to start with a great turkey. This is a fresh Diestel Turkey Ranch Premium Range Grown Broad Breasted Young Hen Turkey.
My friends in the 5 Star Makeover Cooking Group have made some major changes to the iconic green bean casserole this year. Major. For our monthly challenge we’ve taken the classic casserole recipe, originally made with green beans, mushroom soup, and fried onions and turned it ON ITS HEAD. There are soups, quiche, gnocchi, pancakes, and catfish ~ some have a Latin twist, another Asian, some are modern, some deconstructed, others retro. It’s a virtual cornucopia of casserole makeover creativity. And you can view all the incarnations of this most loved/hated Thanksgiving dish in the world over at Lazaro Cooks here.
Here I remake the casserole into a bite-sized morsel which conjures up of all the memories of mom’s holiday dish but with a fresh twist and pair it with another one of our holiday traditions ~ fresh oysters.
Original Recipe Ingredients:
cream of mushroom soup
milk
soy sauce
ground black pepper
green beans
canned french fried onions
In this makeover, mushrooms are stuffed with earthy mushroom duxelles and a rich olive oil bechamel flavored with tamari. Bright steamed haricots verts are sliced thin and sit atop the mushrooms. Panko crusted fresh Fanny Bay oysters are fried in canola oil until crisp, then seasoned with truffle salt. Finally, frizzled leeks add texture and are an update to those canned fried onions .
Saffron Rice with Golden Raisins Roasted Eggplant with Cardamom Oil Pine Nuts and Sliced Scallion Garnish
Faith said, “If you have time to make the Saffron Rice, please feel free to do so and share your thoughts on the dish and what you served with it.” Well Faith, I’ve made your saffron rice recipe several times since you sent it to me back in September. It rocks. I’ve served it topped with curried chicken salad for lunch, as a side dish to grilled halibut with tomato lemongrass sauce, and over roasted eggplant with cardamom oil. Each time I made the rice, I followed your recipe exactly ~ it’s perfect, balanced, delicious.
An Edible Mosaic
Saffron Rice Mosaic in Honor of Faith’s Cookbook
My friend Faith Gorsky from An Edible Mosaic blog just had her first cookbook released: An Edible Mosaic: Middle Eastern Fare with Extraordinary Flair. It is my pleasure to be participating in her Virtual Book Launch Party and sharing a terrific recipe from her book.
The book has over 100 Middle Eastern recipes, with a focus mainly on dishes from the Levant, but also a few recipes from other areas of the Middle East. Faith has a pretty unique story…after getting married Faith spent six months living in the Middle East, where she fell in love with the culture and cuisine. Subsequently, she returned four more times for visits, each time delving deeper into the cuisine and deepening her passion for and appreciation of the region.
Recipes in her book are authentic Middle Eastern, taught to Faith mostly by her mother-in-law, Sahar but streamlined just a bit for the way we cook today, with unique ingredients demystified and cooking techniques anyone can follow. The book is available to order on Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
After you check out the recipe below, please head over to Faith’s blog to check out her virtual book launch party to see the other bloggers who are participating. Also, as part of her virtual book launch, Faith is hosting a giveaway of a fabulous set of prizes.
Faith’s recipe for Saffron Rice with Golden Raisins and Pine Nuts is vegan. Her mother-in-law likes to serve the Saffron Rice with an aromatic shrimp dish in tomato sauce (a recipe also in the book). I took her mother-in-law’s advice and served it with shrimp tossed with cardamom oil, salt, and pepper.
My sweet little Wilson is recovering from surgery. His procedure was a “right everted laryngeal saccule removal and stenotic nares resection.” (Kind of like a tonsillectomy and a nose job). He’s almost 10 years old, and is having more trouble breathing. The procedure opens up the airways in the throat and enlarges his tiny nostrils, as cute as they were, they were not very efficient. He is doing fine today, but must eat a soft diet. No biscuits. No pumpkin apple biscuits, his daily favorite…
