What To Do With The Left-Over Turkey?

I found this recipe on www.hardlyhousewives.com and it is GREAT! Definitely a great way to use your left-over Thanksgiving turkey and even the cranberry sauce. Since these were new flavors for me, I decided to half the recipe and try it. Winner! Definitely will be making this one when I have left-over turkey breast.

I shredded the breast meat I had into a bowl.

I then added half the mayonnaise required to the turkey and mixed it in.

With the reserved half of the mayonnaise, I added soy sauce and curry powder and mixed it all together. After it was mixed, I added it to the shredded turkey.

I finely chopped a scallion. The recipe on the Hardly Housewives called for a red onion but I didn't have that. Living in the country, I made do with what I had and it actually added more color to the salad. But if you want to use red onion, do it! 

I added my chopped scallions and cranberry sauce. This is a great way to use the left-over cranberry sauce. Now doesn't that look festive with the green from the scallions and red from the cranberries?

I put my curried turkey salad in a little bowl and ate it with crackers. But you can have it in a sandwich. Eat it either way you like because it is just plain good! 

CURRY TURKEY SALAD

Ingredients:

3 cups shredded turkey breast

1/2 cup mayonnaise

1 1/2 tablespoon of low sodium soy sauce

1 teaspoon curry powder

2 scallions, finely chopped (or 2 tablespoons of finely chopped red onion)

3 tablespoons homemade cranberry sauce

Directions:

Finely shred the turkey breast. Add half of the mayonnaise and stir with a fork so turkey becomes nice and creamy. Add curry powder and soy sauce to remaining mayonnaise. Whisk together and add the dressing with a fork to the turkey mixture. Add onions, mix. Fold in cranberry sauce at the end and gently stir so shape and color of the cranberry sauce keeps its integrity. Serve on regular or toasted white bread and enjoy!

Leslie

Cooking the Perfect Chicken

Cooking pastured poultry. Should it be difficult? Should it be different than cooking store-bought roaster? From what I have read, the technique to cook a pastured bird is different. A pastured bird seems to have denser meat.

 

I bought a chicken a couple of months ago at the Danville Farmers Market from Herndon Family farm. You can find out more information about their farm at www.herndonfamilyfarm.com They have information on their site on cooking a pastured chicken along with a few recipes. I also looked up on the internet how to cook it. I thought it would take a long time to cook it but it didn’t for my 4-lb bird. I had seasoned it and covered it while it baked. One thing I had read was to brine the bird. I am not a fan of brining. I think it is just more trouble than it worth which is just my personal thought. I skipped that step. I really depended on my meat thermometer to make sure it was done. The way I cooked it was roast it in the oven covered with some white wine in the pan. The meat was good. More flavor in the dark meat. Well worth the investment. Definitely that intense chicken flavor you read about.

 

Last week, I returned to Danville Farmers Market and got another bird. While out shopping that day, I bought a magazine, Cooks Illustrated. There was an article on cooking poultry. What luck! I read the article and decided to try it. I am not sure if it was specific for the supermarket chicken or the pasture chicken. The recipe did not call for brining. In fact, the technique was pretty easy. The first thing I had to do was preheat my oven to 450 degrees. While the oven was preheating, I had my iron skillet in it also heating up. The article said to heat up the pan also so the thigh meat would start to cook immediately.

 

While the pan was getting hot, I prepped my bird. I rinsed it off and then dried it. My bird was already very clean and just needed a little rinsing. After I dried it off, I rubbed olive oil all over it and then seasoned it with salt and pepper. I was suppose to truss it but I didn’t have any twine so I had to skip that step. I inserted the meat thermometer in the thickest part of the breast.

 

Once that pan was hot, I put the chicken on it quickly. I didn’t want to lose the oven heat. It sizzled once placed on the pan. We had the meat thermometer set for 120 degrees. It took about 35 minutes to reach that temperature. Once the bird reaches that temperature, then it was instructed to turn off the oven but leave the pan and bird in the oven. I set the thermometer for 160 degrees. It took about 30 minutes to reach that temperature. The bird was then removed from the oven to a cutting board to rest for 20 minutes. I made a mistake and covered it with foil during the resting phase. Don’t! What happened is that the foil trapped some heat which to turned to steam and softened the crispy skin.

 

My husband carved it. Not only was it cooked perfectly, but it was moist. There was a some crispy skin that had a wonderful flavor. This technique was so simple and I felt gave me a great flavored meal. I served it with a tomato-mozzarella-basil salad.

 

Here’s the recipe from the October 2011, Cooks Illustrated:

WEEKNIGHT ROAST CHICKEN

1 tablespoon kosher salt

½ teaspoon pepper

1 (3 1/2- to 4-pound) whole chicken, giblets discarded

1 tablespoon olive oil

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position, place 12-inch ovensafe skillet on rack, and heat up oven to 450 degrees. Combine salt and pepper in bowl. Pat chicken dry with paper towels. Rub entire surface with oil. Sprinkle evenly all over with salt mixture and rub in mixture with hands to coat evenly. Tie legs together with twine and tuck wing tips behind back.
2. Transfer chicken, breast side up, to preheated skillet in oven. Roast chicken until breasts register 120 degrees and thighs register 135 degrees, 25 to 35 minutes. Turn off oven and leave chicken in oven until breasts register 160 degrees and thighs register 175 degrees, 25 to 35 minutes.
3. Transfer chicken to carving board and let rest, uncovered, for 20 minutes. While chicken rests, prepare pan sauce, if using. Carve chicken and serve.   

Veggie Garden Update

Last year by this time, I was done with my garden. So, this year, I am surprised, I am still keeping up with my gardening. The weeds are gone, I water frequently and I harvest when vegetables are ripe. If I don't, the chickens will. The chickens do go into the garden to eat the bugs. But they don't bother the plants. I am a bit surprised about that.

I didn't plant basil but I have several volunteer plants. I let one of my basil plants go to seed last year. 

I added sweet banana peppers this year to the garden. I also have jalapeno and red peppers. I am trying a canning recipe this year with the banana peppers. My husband loves the pickled banana peppers on his sandwiches. Right now, they are pickling for 2 weeks then he will try them. I hope they are good. 

Another new vegetable this year is the eggplant. I only planted one plant. The bugs loved it. I thought it was a goner. But I used garlic spray on it and it survived. Now it has taken off. It is pretty good roasted but I am looking forward to trying it in other dishes.

Sugar Baby Watermelon is the only plant my son is excited about. For a while there, I didn't think we would be able to enjoy any melons. They were disappearing when they would get big enough to eat. I thought it was the deer or the rabbits getting to them. Whatever was eating them would eat the whole melon. Then one early morning, my husband caught the watermelon thief in the act. It was our dog, Nicco. Nicco developed a taste for unripen watermelons. He was eating them and really enjoying them. I guess it is better than the goat poop that he likes to eat (big heavy sigh).

I have Roma tomatoes this year. I wanted to see how their flavor compares to the larger tomatoes. When I get too many, I chop them and throw them in the freezer for later.

My favorite are the Sweet 100 Cherry tomatoes. They are like tomato candy. I will pop them into my mouth when I am working in the garden. 

A third small tomato variety I tried are the Jellybean tomatoes. In this picture, the Roma are the top left, the cherry tomatoes are top right and the Jellybean tomatoes are the bottom. The Jellybean tomato is not sweet like the cherry but have a very good flavor of the tomato. We like them. Great to put in salads. Or as a snack. I keep a bowl of the cherry and Jellybean tomatoes on the kitchen counter. Nice to grab a couple as you walk through the kitchen. Yum!

Happy Gardening!

Leslie

Halifax Farmers Market

Today was the grand opening of the Halifax Farmers Market. I have participated in a couple of the Friday Night Jams that the farmers market sponsors. That was kind of like a rehearsal for the farmers market today. Pretty much had all of my supplies set up for my product and my table. 

I got there early to get my spot. It is first-come-first-serve in getting your tent. Plus I wanted to get my stuff set up so I could help get the Southern Virginia Goat Association booth set up. The goat association was invited to set up an information booth and bring a couple of goats. There were also goat recipes available. 

I am member of the goat association so I wanted to be next to their tent to assist with membership info.

Hudson Heritage Farm and Soleil Farm (that's me) share a booth. It makes sense for Denise to sell her meat and then people can buy the charcoal to grill it. Plus we can help each other out. If one of us wants to go look to see what else is for sale, the other will stay and "man" the tent.

This poster is on loan from the extension office. We display it so people can see that we use local items.

The Molasses Grill chef, Steven Schopen, did a cooking demo using ground goat, ground lamb and ground pork provided by Hudson Heritage Farms.

Steven was going to cook the meat on our charcoal. 

When he put the meat patties on the grill, it smelled so good. All he did was season with salt and pepper and a little drizzle of olive oil. Otherwise, nothing else was added to the ground meat patties.

He cooked the goat meat and lamb first. Once browned, Steven added some toppings. The lamb has pesto on it. The goat has the red onion on it. Steven already had the red onion prepared before coming to the farmers market.

A little piece of pepper jack cheese was added to the goat burgers.

He also grilled some sliced zucchini and squash and whole mushrooms. He briefly marinated the vegetables in a balsamic vinegarette before grilling them.

The sliced grilled squash topped the goat burger. I am not a lamb fan so I didn't try the lamb. I took half of the goat burger. It was outstanding. Such flavor. Maybe I'm a bit partial to the charcoal flavoring but it sure does add a nice flavor to any grilled meat. I know Steven added his flavoring and it just made it one of the best burgers! This is on my list of things to try very soon since I have ground goat in my freezer.

Too bad there isn't a scratch-and-smell to the computer screen. I can't do it justice to describe the experience your nose would have here at the farmers market. 

Leslie

Snow Peas

We have more snow peas than we can eat in one day. 

Sometimes when Alan waters my garden, he will pick the snow peas off the vine, rinse them off and eat them. 

After picking a big basketful of them, I cleaned them and got them ready for the freezer. I did a bit of research on how to freeze my snow peas. Could it be as easy as cleaning them, bagging them and putting them in the freezer? Nope! They need to be blanched first.

Actually, it was pretty easy. I got a big pot of boiling water going.

Threw them all in the boiling water for 90 seconds. I didn't want to take the chance of over-doing them so I did stayed by the pot. 

I had the ice bath ready before I put the snow peas in the boiling water. The ice bath stops the cooking process of the snow peas. 

At the end of 90 seconds, I scooped out the hot snow peas and put them in the ice bath. I love the contrasting colors of green and white. 

Once they were cooled, I drained the snow peas. Then I had them in 1 cup portions and put them in sandwich bags. Then the little bags went into a big freezer bag. Now, when I need snow peas for a recipe, I already know the amount. I can defrost as much as I need. It didn't take me long to do this whole process. It takes longer to clean them which has to be done anyway. 

Enjoy,

Leslie