Thursday, November 27, 2008

Happy Thanksgiving!

I'm sitting here, with a FULL belly, a little bit of wine left in my glass, and trying to stay awake now. I had a nice Thanksgiving here. Computer games, relaxing, and cooking. I decided to keep things a little simple this year, and didn't over do things with the food. I bought a half-a turkey breast, and was worried it might not be enough... silly... it was plenty. I wasn't sure how I was going to prepare the turkey breast. I don't use my oven except maybe 3 times a year, so I don't feel confident on knowing how it works. I think I did this one year before (can't remember if I did it, or just thought of doing it?). I decided to cook the turkey in my WOK! Yep, like you, I was hesitant. But I figured why knot? It's not much different than chicken right? So that's what I did.
The difficult part was trying to cut the meat off the bones ahead of time. Wegmans included the wishbone, a few small rib bones, and the back bone in this package (A little perturbed at learning this... I thought I was getting just the breast meat, and not a package full of bones). But, after about 20 minutes of careful cutting, I managed to get a nice stack of meat. I cut the meat in heafty chunks (about 1.5 inches). I didn't want it to cook too fast and dry out.
I started my potatoes first as they took the longest to cook. As they were boiling, I was doing the meat cutting. It worked out perfect.
In addition to the turkey, I added one large onion, diced roughly, poultry seasoning, a little garlic powder, olive oil, a chunk of butter towards the end, and salt and pepper. That's it. Set the heat to high at first, then as I started to make the mashed potatoes (using soy milk), I turned the heat down to med.
After finishing the Mashing, I made some 'stove top stuffing' (quick and easy and tastes good - but NO where near mom's homemade stuffing!), I then finished everything off, by heating a small can of corn in the microwave. Oh, and as the turkey was done, I added (right out of the fridge) a small container of Wegmans (home made) gravy. I let that come up to temperature in the wok, then started to "plate" (fancy chef talk for putting the food on the plate). I put a layer of Mashed, Then a layer of stuffing, then poured the gravy/meat/onions mixture on top of it all. Corn in a sep bowl.
Man... it tasted good! Turkey was tender and juicy, not the slightest bit dry. I knew it was all fully cooked, so no worries about "is that section cooked enough"?
Much to my surprise, I have a LOT of leftovers too.

I hope your Thanksgiving meal turned out as well as mine did. I love it when I wing it and it works :)
Tomorrow's challenge... Pumpkin pie for Saturday dinner with folks. I've made them before and pretty easy. Yes... I cheat, and buy pilsbury crust.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Mmmmmm--that wok-turk sounds great! and i can vouch for you that your homemade pumpkin pie was out-of-this-world BY FAR, the best we've ever tasted! congrats on a winner!