Turkey And Dressing In March? Why Not?

Been mostly puttering around today.

 Finished off a few painting projects, did laundry, housework, read a few blogs,

looked at more decorating ideas at BHG.com

You know...day off stuff.

I've been thinking about making turkey and dressing

 so I decided today is the day.

Now don't misunderstand, I'm not cooking the full blown turkey day meal.

I have some leftover turkey in the freezer,
even found a couple 1/2 pint mason jars of turkey stock,

 so I'm going to improvise.

What I'm going to do is make the dressing and add chopped turkey to it.

Trust me...I've made this before.

The turkey is thawing and the freezer bag of veggie ends

(onion skins, celery ends, garlic peels) are in a pot with water, gently simmering.

Crap.... only found a few slices of bread in the freezer and no cornbread.
Texans need cornbread in their dressing!

OK...

I made some foccacia dough in the bread machine,

whipped up a double batch of cornbread batter and both are in the oven baking.

The extra cornbread will go great with beans and rice

and the extra bread is good all by itself!.

The slightly wilted celery, an onion, a couple of pepperoncini and some garlic

are chopped and waiting to be sautéed.

OK, breads are out of the oven, lets get this done!
(I oiled the foccacia bread and added herbs to the top).

1. Drain the solids off the veggie stock,

add the turkey stock to the veggie stock and set aside.

2. Cube up about 5 cups of the two breads, put in a large bowl and set aside.

(I usually do equal amounts of each bread).

3. Cube the turkey and set aside.

4. Sautee the chopped veggies.

This is where it all comes together.

5. Throw a handful of dried herbs into the bread bowl, your choice.

Add the sautéed veggies and mix.
Add the cubed turkey and mix.
Add the stock to your desired wetness, I like mine on the wet side.
Pour into an oiled 9 x 13 baking dish.
Bake uncovered at 325° for 1 hour.
You could even sprinkle on some grated cheese
in the last 15 minutes of baking, but
I think I'm going to make gravy with the leftover stock.

There you have it, turkey and dressing with very little fuss!

I'm off to Canton Trade Days tomorrow,
I don't need anything but you never know....

Till next time,
Bonjour

Pattypan Squash Bread

Well...

Things have cooled off a bit here, and last night we finally got some rain.

Everything still looks fried but one can hope!

I've been wanting to bake,

anything,

cookies, bread, enchiladas, whatever!


Squash bread and jalapeno cornbread

Brendie over at Bregle Estate has been tempting me

with her baked Maori bread,

which sounds super yummy, and I'm dying to give it a try.

I've only turned my oven on once or twice since about June,

and I'm thinking, it's about time.

I can't do the Maori bread just yet (needs to ferment) but I can do a some quick breads.
I made a squash bread for our breakfast's during the week and
a jalapeno cornbread to go with our ham and beans.

So here goes.

Squash Bread

Ingredients:
Dry
2 cups flour/divided use
1 cup brown sugar
1 tbsp. baking powder
1 tsp. ground cinnamon.
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. baking soda
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/8 tsp. ground ginger or ground cloves

 Wet
1 cup canned pumpkin*
1/2 cup milk
2 eggs
1/3 cup shortening

Goodies
1/2 cup chopped walnuts*
1/2 cup raisins*

Directions:
 Preheat oven to 350° In a large mixing bowl, combine 1 cup of the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda and spices.

Add pumpkin, milk, eggs and shortening.
Beat with an electric mixer on low speed till blended, then on high speed for 2 minutes.
Add remaining 1 cup flour and beat well.
Stir in nuts and raisins with a spatula.

Pour batter into a greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
(Only grease the bottom and 1/2 inch up the sides,
lets the bread rise straight up, not out and over the edges, trust me).
Bake @ 350°  for about 1 hour.
Cool (in loaf pan) on wire rack for 10 minutes, remove from pan and cool thoroughly.
Wrap and store overnight before slicing.

*I didn't have canned pumpkin, but I did have cooked, frozen patty pan squash that I thawed, drained, then pureed in the food processor. You can use any cooked squash or sweet potato.
*You can use any chopped nuts.
*I used 1/4 cup raisins, 1/4 cup currants.
I have also done this recipe with dried, chopped apricots.

Squash bread

While I was in the freezer I spotted mixed, cooked greens.

I'm thinking,

pureed greens to replace the squash

dried rosemary, thyme, lemon balm or basil to replace the spices

diced, drained, canned pineapple or dried, diced apricots to replace the fruit

and diced ham or chicken to replace the nuts.

What do you think, Yucky or yummy?

Till next time, eat your veggies,
Bonjour

Rosemary and Parmesan Madeleines



ROSEMARY AND PARMESIAN MADELEINES

 

Don't Panic....

I got the butter scraped up and
the oven is as good as new!

Another vacation day, can't get out, icy and freezing in north Texas.
Some baking is in order.

I saw this picture on Lorrie's blog a few weeks ago and thought
this sounds good, maybe I'll give it a try.
She didn't list a recipe so today
 I googled and found one at Williams - Sonoma along with the picture.
I don't have a madeleine pan but
I do have corn stick pans, just as good I'm thinking.

So....I'm going over the list of ingredients,
have everything except the cake flour.
What's the difference between cake flour and all purpose flour I ask myself?
Another trip to the computer.
Seems cake flour has less protein (8% or less)  and is made from the softer endosperm of the wheat.
 All purpose (10% protein) is a mix of hard and soft wheat. Bla, bla, bla.
Humm...
Is there a substitute?
More googling!
Why yes, there is.
For 1 cup of cake flour you can substitute
7/8 cup all purpose flour with 1/8 cup cornstarch.
Ok then.
Here's the recipe.

Ingredients:

1 stick unsalted butter, melted

1 cup cake flour

3 tsp. finely minced fresh rosemary

(I am not going outside to clip rosemary, dry, smooshed is good enough.)

1 tsp. fleur de sel (very expensive salt, normal sea salt will have to do!)

1/4 tsp. freshly ground black pepper (I used lemon pepper instead.)

4 eggs

1/4 tsp. cream of tartar

2 Tbs. sugar

1 cup grated parmesan cheese

Directions:

Preheat oven to 375°

Brush two madeleine corn stick pans with 2 Tbs. of the butter, set aside.

Sift the cake flour into a bowl and gently stir in the rosemary, salt and pepper, set aside.

In your mixing bowl wisk the eggs until fluffy. Add the cream of tartar and sugar. Wisk some more.

Using a rubber spatula, gently fold in the flour and cheese, then fold in the remaining butter.

Spoon the batter into the buttered molds so the batter is even with the rims.

(Keep in mind, I'm using corn stick pans so there was no spooning, I had to scrape it off the spatula then spread it with a  table knife. Very thick batter!)

Bake for about 12 minutes. Immediately remove from the pans and cool on a wire rack.

Sounds easy enough, right?

WRONG!!!!

BUBBLING, BUTTERY MESS!!!

I'm sitting on the kitchen stool waiting, I hear sizzling, I see a flash in the oven.

What the hell heck?

Open door of oven, butter is dripping everywhere, trying to ignite the element, crap darn.

Smoke alarm goes off!!!

Quickly get the cookie sheets out and put the stick pans on top of those.

Back into the oven they go. (gotta keep that smoke contained)

Smoke alarm stops.

After about 15 minutes total I guessed they were done,

it was hard to tell with all that butter floating on top!

There was no quickly transferring to a wire rack happening,

more like wait a few till all that butter stopped bubbling.

Meanwhile I'm waiting for the oven to cool so I could scrape up the butter.

They taste ok, a little heavy, and suprisingly, buttery.

Probably would have been better if I'd used cake flour.

After more googling I found that cake flour is better able to absorb fats,

maybe I should have paid attention to the bla,bla,bla?

Steve faired better with his Confetti Corn Bread.

CORNBREAD WITH GRATED CARROTS, CHOPPED ONION AND JALAPENOS

I will try this recipe again, only next time, WITH cake flour.
Hope your day is going better than mine.

Till next time,
Bonjour

"Chillin"

Just Chillin...



Nate cooking breakfast



We had a great show yesterday, sold lots of soap etc....

This morning we are just trying to take it easy, having a leisurely breakfast to start our day. I've been teaching my grandson Nate how to cook biscuits ( I say biskits, spell ckeck says biscuits) & gravy with fried eggs on the side. He really enjoys making the gravy, adding the herbs & seasonings. He's learning to identify the different herbs that I grow & how to use them in cooking.

You never know what's going to be added to the gravy... dill, rosemary, oregano, thyme, sage or all of the above! I know it sounds weird but it always turns out great. He loves to medley the herbs for his special jar of,    SUPER NATE SPICE!!!    Who knows, he might be a great chef some day.    Steve is going to make some corn bread to go with the HUGE pot of beans he made Friday. Half of the beans for cornbread & beans the other half for chili. Don't have any ground meat, but there's some cooked roast in the freezer we can dice up to put in the chili. I guess you know what we are eating this week!



Nate cutting herbs,



lots & lots of  herbs!





Got to go unload the truck so I can inventory the product, make more ETC....

Till next time....

Bonjour