Turkey and Noodles

I am a big fan of leftovers. As a matter of fact, everyone in the family is. I guess that is a good thing seeing how I always cook too much. Holidays where a big meal expected are no exception. There are 5 of us in my house. Me and Belinda and 3 kids, 9, 5 and 2. I count heads and cook for adults. It is a habit , maybe from my days as kitchen help in a small restaurant. The plus side is that there is always some extra. The down side is that I need a bigger fridge to stick the stuff in. We didn't have an exorbitant feast for thanksgiving this year but it was by no means, a meager meal. We made a whole turkey, instead of just a breast, for the first time in forever. That left us with quite the overabundance of poultry. I really am not a fan of turkey unless its thin sliced deli lunch meat so I have to figure out ways to use the leftovers. The first thing that came to mind is turkey and noodles. I know!Feakin turkey and noodles? Its good stuff though,and easy to make. If you choose to make it, here the deal This was made with the "That'll do" method... No exact measurements, just approximates. Dump in what you think will be enough because that'll do.

2 handfuls of left over turkey, chopped up
1 bag of egg noodles (I use the Amish kluski noodles)
2 large carrots, diced
2 ribs of celery, diced
1 leek, cut length ways and diced
1/2 stick of butter
1 can cream of chicken
1 can cream of celery
black pepper, salt and chicken bullion powder. however much you want, that'll do
1 packet of turkey gravy.

Saute' carrots, leek and celery in butter til it starts to soften up and set aside. Boil the noodles to Al Dente' and dump out some water. You need just enough that it covers the noodles. Add the rest of the stuff to the pot.



Simmer for about a half an hour, stirring every once in a while. Add a little bit of water if it is too thick for your liking.


Go ahead and put it on top of some of those left over mashed taters because everyone know that your carb intake is nowhere near the front of your mind during this time of the year.



Enjoy

Mandarin Orange Cranberry Sauce

I would bet that almost every blogger that posts about food has done a full spread on the meal that they prepared for Thanksgiving. I belong to a food smoking forum (although I haven't been active on there for a few months) and we post everything that we make on a smoker there. If you want to check it out it is http://www.smoked-meat.com and click on the forum tab. You'll have to join to post but you can lurk all day with no commitment. Anyhow, back to the original idea of the post. I am not going to subject you to the full menu of this years Turkey Day feast. For once in a good while, I did not steal the show and kick everyone else out of the kitchen... Mostly because I was 4 hours away. The day before Thanksgiving is usually my time to prepare for it. I try to make as much as I can ahead of time so that I can concentrate on the turkey on Thanksgiving. This year I was stuck in North Chicago at a paper mill for 8 hours the day before and didn't make it home until about 5AM Thanksgiving day. Belinda prepared all of the side dishes except for the cranberries the night before, while I was sitting in the loading dock. I am grateful! I got a few hours of sleep and started the bird. While I was waiting for the turkey I was bored out of my gourd so I started looking for something to do and I realized that we didn't have cranberries. Honestly, I can do without the turkey but I have to have the cranberries. I had Belinda pick some up while she was out running an errand. Here is how I do mine


1 bag (12oz) fresh cranberries
1 1/4 C white sugar
1 C water
1 chai tea bag
1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice
1-2 drops rum extract
1 large can of Mandarin oranges (drained)
1/2 C crushed walnuts

Put water, sugar, extract, and pumpkin pie spice in an medium sized sauce pan on medium heat. Stir just til the sugar melts and put the tea bag in. Continue to heat til boiling. Remove the tea bag and squeeze the liquid out of it into the pan. Put the cranberries in and cover. Let boil for 5 minutes and turn to low. Remove the lid and simmer for 15-20 minutes. Remove from heat and stir in oranges. Chill in the fridge til cold and top with walnuts and whipped cream. Also goes good on pumpkin pie

South Texas style Barbacoa

My buddy James posted on Facebook bout stopping for some barbacoa a while back. Since seeing it I have wanted some. I haven't been to Texas much in the last several years and the times that I have been there, I haven't been able to find a good barbacoa place. I searched the net for a recipe and this is the one I decided sounded best. http://bit.ly/uNzWBy I made it almost the same as in the link. My variation is as follows.

One of my smokers is broken, the other is a pain in the arse to use and burns up charcoal almost as fast as I can feed it so I used the indirect heat method my gas grill. One burner on low with a foil pack of hickory wood chips over it and the meat on the other end. The temperature stayed about 270 degrees on the cooking end of my grill. I let it go for about 2 hours so that it would get the smoke flavor. I took it in the house, cut it up into 4 big pieces and threw it in the crock pot with a can of Rotel tomatoes, set it to high and left it for about 6 hours. When the meat was done (I went to 200 degrees with it) I used a slotted spoon so remove it from the liquid and tomatoes. I then put the liquid and tomatoes in a sauce pot with the juice from one lime and about 2 tablespoons of chopped cilantro. I pureed this with my immersion blender and reduced it down to about half quantity and poured on the shredded meat just before serving.

Onion Rolls

So i was sitting there the other day thinking that I wanted hamburgers. That is about the best use of ground beef I know of. Plain hamburgers are great, fancy dressed up hamburgers are awesome too, but the best hamburger is any kind that you stuff in an onion roll. I had already been to the grocery store for the week and did not want to make another trip for a bag of onion rolls so I made some. Here's how...

6 1/2 C bread flour
1/3 C sugar
3 tsp (t) salt
3 packages active dry yeast
1/2 stick softened butter
2 cups hot tap water
2 Tablespoons onion powder
3 Tablespoons of dehydrated minced onion

Put minced onion in a bowl and cover with HOT water. Let set until the onion is re hydrated and drain.
Put 3 cups of flour, sugar, salt, onion powder, yeast and butter in a bowl. mix well. Make a well in the center and pour water in while stirring. add flour 1/2 cup at a time until it gets to hard to stir with a spoon. Turn onto a floured surface and work the rest of the flour into the dough. Knead for 10 minutes. Place in a greased bowl, spray the top of dough with Pam and cover with plastic wrap. Put in oven and turn to 400 degrees for 1 minute and shut off. Let rise til doubled in bulk. Punch dough and divide into 2.5 ounce portions. Shape dough into balls. Roll the tops of them in the re hydrated minced onion and put on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper about 3" apart. Let rise again til almost doubled in size. Bake in a 390 degree oven for 10-15 minutes. The most important step of this recipe is to enjoy them with gusto!

*If you have a sweet Kitchenaid mixer like I do, I assume that you know how to make dough in it... Use it!
** These rolls are quite dense and large so if you plan on using them for a sandwich I would suggest slicing them twice. Once near the top and once near the bottom. The middle piece can be enjoyed by its self or saved for bread crumbs or croutons

Chicken Cordon Bleu Mac and Cheese

A while back, the wife had a big get together with some of the people that she grew up with, and as usual, I got rooked into cooking for the shindig. I decided to make goulash because its cheap and easy. She was in Terre Haute one day and I suggested that she go to Sams club to get the stuff for it. She came home with 12 pounds of elbow noodles, because they were cheap . That's way more than what we needed. I thought "What the hell are we going to do with all of these freakin noodles?" Well, being the creative person that I am, I knew that it wouldn't take too long to figure out something to make with them. We had home made mac and cheese til it came out of our ears and so much goulash that I don't care if I ever see it again. We had chili mac and tuna noodle casserole and I even thought about making something with chocolate and noodles... I was sitting at the computer looking for a different idea for supper one night and I saw a chicken cordon bleu recipe, one of my favorite ways to have chicken. Then it hit me, chicken cordon bleu mac and cheese. It took a few times for me to get it how I want it and I enjoyed all of the R and D that I did. It is a winner with everyone in the house and a few of the guys I work with.

You'll need
2.5-3 cups elbow macaroni 3 large chicken breasts, cubed
12 ounces diced ham
16 ounces grated swiss cheese
10 ounces grated muenster cheese
2 cups heavy cream
2 egg yolks (save the whites to fry for a breakfast sandwich or a meringue pie)
1 tsp minced garlic
Panko bread crumbs
enough black pepper to suit your taste buds

Boil the macaroni noodles to al dente, strain and set aside.
In a large nonstick pot, saute chicken breast cubes in butter and set aside. Then saute diced ham til starting to brown, 3-5 minutes. Add cream and bring to a boil. As soon as the cream begins to boil, turn heat to medium and add 3/4 of the cheeses, minced garlic and beaten egg yolks and stir vigorously til the cheese is melted. Add the boiled macaroni noodles to the cheese sauce and stir well. Put in a large casserole dish. Cover with remaining grated cheeses. Put chicken cubes on top and cover with panko bread crumbs.





Bake at 375 til bread crumbs are golden brown, about 45 minutes




As tempting as it is to dig right in as soon as it's out of the oven.... DON'T! It will have the same effect as napalm on your face. ENJOY

Give a man a loaf of bread, feed him for a day...

Let a man know you can bake bread and he'll show up any time you mention you have dough rising. When me, Mom and my little brother moved up here from Ga, we were pretty poor for a while. Mom worked as much as she could at a little gas station in Dana, In, making minimum wage and cleaned houses on the side. We didn't always have everything we wanted but never did without the things we needed. We always had food, shelter, clothing and more love than you could stuff in a 53' Trailmobile. Mom was and is still pretty thrifty. The old man says that she can squeeze a nickle and get 6 pennys and I believe every word of it. One of the things that she did to save a little bit of coin was making bread instead of buying it. That ruined me on store bought bread. After she got a better job, she had extra dough to spend but no time to make dough, so I had to settle for store bought. Nearly two decades later I have my own family and all the bills that go along with it and a pretty good job. I can afford to and usually do buy my bread from the store, but sometimes I sit there and think about how wonderful Mom's bread tasted and the smells that filled the house while it was rising and baking and I head to the kitchen. Today was one of those days. I decided on cinnamon raisin.




If you would like to try it for your self:
1/2 Cup of milk
4 Tbsp sugar,
2 Tsp salt
3 Tbsp butter (you can use margarine if you choose o_0)
2 packages of very active dry yeast
1 1/2 Cups warm water (105-110 degrees)
5-6 cups all purpose flour
1 cup raisins
2 Tbsp butter, melted
cinnamon and sugar to suit your tastebuds

Put first four ingredients in a small sauce pan and heat on medium, stirring with a whisk, just until the butter melts. Let cool to luke warm. Add Yeast and water to a warmed mixing bowl (I usually put a Tbsp of sugar in now, also) Stir to disolve and let sit for 3-5 minutes for yeast to activate. Add the milk mixture and raisins. Stir a few times. Add 1/2 C of flour and stir, repeating til it is too stiff to stir. Put the dough on a dusted counter and add remaining flour, 1/2C at a time til the dough a little sticky. You may not need all of the flour. Knead 8-10 minutes til smooth and stretchy and put it in a greased bowl, spray with pam and cover with plastic wrap. Let rise til doubled in bulk, about an hour. I'll put it in the oven, turn to 400 for 1 minute and shut it off. its almost as good as having a proofer. After rising, punch down and divide in half. On a floured counter, roll out into a rectangle. Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with cinnamon and sugar. Roll like a jelly roll, pinch seams on bottom and end and put in a loaf pan with the ends folded under.



Let rise again til doubled in bulk and the top of the loaf is starting to stick up over the sides of the loaf pan. Put in a 400 Degree oven for 30 minutes, cool immediately on a rack. Enjoy



PS, I use my kitchenaid stand mixed... Screw that hand kneading crap :-)

So, I have commitment issues? And a little bit about me...

Over two years ago, I started this blog. Shortly after that, i forgot about it. I posted one entry and had another saved as a draft. Neither one of them were worth reading and have been deleted and I am starting over. This time, I hope to keep myself interested in it. I'll start off by saying a little about myself. I am a Georgia native, born to a couple Yanks. Mom drug me to the Midwest when I was 5 and have been trying to get back south ever since. I currently live in east central Illinois. I have wanted to do two things for as long as i can remember. One being drive a truck. Two, become a chef. I'm not sure where my love for trucks came from. I just know I loved big trucks almost as much then as I do now. One of the few good things (maybe the only good thing) that I remember about my biological father is that he was a chef. Im guessing that's where my dream of becoming a culinary master came from. Being the oldest and raised mostly by a single mom, i took on a lot of responsibility at a young age. One of them was helping in the kitchen. Mostly just dumping in ingredients when I helped Mom and microwaving stuff for me and my little brother's snacks after school. It was enough to keep my interest in cooking. When i was 12, Mom remarried... a truck driver. Life goal one just became a lot easier to meet. I rode with him every chance I got and loved every minute of it. Fast forward a few years... I have my Drivers license and a pick up that I can't drive. I get a job in the kitchen of a local restaurant and worked there til I was old enough to get my intrastate CDL. This is what really got me interested in cooking and got me into playing with recipes and making my own. As soon as I graduated high school I started driving a dump truck and life was good. When I Turned 21, I went to work for a large interstate company with the goal of owning my own some day OR going to culinary school and pursuing the chef thing. I decided to scrap the both ideas when I found out I was going to become a father, at least for a few years. While it wasn't at the best time, I'm glad that it happened when it did. I didn't want to be one of those parents that was old enough to be a grandparent. I now have two of my own, Dustin (5) and Kelsey (2) and a stepson, Dallas(9). They all seem interested in trucks and food. Other than being Dad, cooking and trucking, I like to fish and ride my Harley, and will be trying to get into hunting this season also.