It’s possible I’m addicted to contests now. I know, I went for years without entertaining the thought of participating in one, to signing up for 2 recipe contests and 3 just throw in your name ones in a 2 week period. Yikes! This might be serious.
In any case, I submitted this entry to Pepperidge Farms. I *literally* threw these ingredients together just so I would have something to submit. That aside, these turned out AWESOME! I wasn’t completely sure of the gorgonzola, I thought I might need something more pungent, but it worked beautifully. There’s something about the sweetness of the potato, combined with depth of the cheese and the meatiness of the sausage that just works.
2 sheets puff pastry
2 cups sweet potatoes, cooked and mashed
1/2 lb sage breakfast sausage
1/3 cup Gorgonzola cheese crumbles
Sea salt and black pepper to taste
1 egg yolk, beaten
1/4 cp heavy cream
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Remove pastry sheets from freezer or fridge and allow to thaw.
Cook the breakfast sausage as directed, making sure it is a fine crumble. Allow it to cool. In the same pan, add the mashed sweet potatoes and cheese, taste your seasonings and adjust as necessary. Now add the yolk and stir it into the mash. Set aside.
I used a 2-inch biscuit cutter, but a smaller one will yield more of these puffs. Lay out the pastry sheets and cut out using the cutter. Moisten the edges of each circle with a bit of water, then drop about 1 tablespoon of filling onto the center of half of the circles.
Now top the filled circles with one of the other halves. Press the edges together and flutter them out or crimp them with a fork.
Place them on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper. Keep them about an inch apart. Now brush the tops with the heavy cream. Using a fork or paring knife, pierce the tops of each puff, this will allow the steam to come out and will keep the puffs intact, otherwise they will burst. Bake for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Allow to cool for a few minutes before serving. Enjoy!
Note: If you don’t have a cutter, simply use a knife and follow the folds on the sheets. You will end up with 9 squares per sheet.
We don’t do a formal Thanksgiving thing, we don’t really celebrate it. We just love turkey and having permission to overstuff ourselves, so we do.
This year, five of us got together at our place to overindulge. It was Linz and I, Dodo, Danny and Cindy. Dodo and Cindy are my friendsters-I’ve known them since I moved to the US. That makes them my oldest friends and the family I have here in Houston. Danny and Dorothy (Dodo) have been married forEVAH!
Entertaining should be fun for all involved. That means your guests and YOU. Really. Think about the last time you went to someone’s home, if the hosts seemed to be frazzled and tense, didn’t that take away a bit of the fun? I like entertaining and used to be a bit anal about everything being perfect. These days, I just kinda roll with it and I have to say, I have SO much more fun now. I love being able to enjoy my friends in the intimate setting of my home.
For Thanksgiving, I got some flowers and pulled out the folding table since our dining table is so small. I keep a tablecloth and napkins I bought on eBay for less than I could buy paper ones. Linz and I made the turkey, gravy and potatoes. Cindy and Dodo helped finish the cocktail and rolls. We ate and ate and talked and talked. It was perfect!
That's me lighting candles and finishing touches
Friends are always happy to help finish things up.
The Friendsters rule!
And the spread… Yah, it WAS 5 of us.
On the menu for the day, we had:
Brined Turkey with Gravy
Pesto Rolls
Cranberry Cooler
Mashed Potatoes with Onion Butter Sauce
Cindy’s Traditional Green Bean Casserole
Dodo’s Cornbread Dressing
Dodo’s Strawberry Pizza Pie (aka MY favorite dessert in the world!)
Thanks go to Dodo and Cindy for being photographers on this day. Thanks chicas!
Every turkey and dressing needs it. You must have gravy. It’s just the way it is, don’t ask why, don’t try to make sense of it. Just whip some up. Here’s my ode to gravy.
After you pulled the bird out of the oven, you’ll want to collect the drippings. I got about 6 cps of liquid, including fat; separate the fat from the liquid. Preheat a saucepan over medium high and add 5 tbsp of the fat collected. Once it is hot, add 5 tbsp flour and mix vigorously to make sure no lumps are formed. Keep stirring for about 5 minutes or until the roux is golden brown .
Quickly add 3 cps of reserved drippings and 1 cp beer. You need to allow the gravy to come to a boil in order for it to thicken. Season as necessary and serve.
Hubby and I love bread. Various types of it. We can’t get enough. I wanted fresh rolls for dinner without actually having to work too much to get them. So, I grabbed a couple of cans of crescent rolls and a bottle of ready made pesto sauce from the store.
As you can see, I kept the little squares–essentially using 2 crescent rolls and smeared each square with a bit of the pesto sauce. Roll lengthwise, then roll it into a coil and bake.
I spread a bit of butter on top of each roll after they came out of the even. Easy as 1, 2, 3!
Cookingly yours,
Anamaris
I wanted a festive looking cocktail to serve to my fam-friends on Thursday. I wanted something red and tart, sweet and refreshing. This is what I came up with. I’m calling it a Cranberry Cooler. I served it as punch for Thanksgiving dinner, but I’m giving you measurements for a couple of tumblers.
First I made some cranberry infused simple syrup by combining 1 cp fresh cranberries, 2 cps sugar, 2 cps water and the peel of 1/2 orange (optional). Bring this to a boil until the berries get puffy, then strain mashing the berries.
Cranberry Cooler
3 tbsp Cranberry syrup
2 oz white rum
1 oz triple sec
1 oz orange juice
Juice of 1 lime
Mix all the ingredients and pour into 2 tumblers filled with ice. Top it off with diet ginger ale or sparkling water.
Oh yeah!
Tia (Aunt) Doria is one of my mom’s youngest sisters. About 22 years ago, I went to stay with her in Oklahoma after a bad fall that left her leg in a cast. To this day Doria claims I made her a lasagna with like 17 different cheeses. I keep telling her that’s not possible. I know this, because I don’t think I knew 17 types of cheeses back then. But, in her honor and at her request, here’s my version of my Mami’s Lasagna. It has 4 different cheeses: Mozzarella, Provolone, Parmesan and Ricotta, and homemade meat and bechamel sauces.
Now, I feel I should mention a few things about making lasagna. I don’t believe this is a difficult dish to make. It IS, however, labor intensive and step abundant. I make my own meat sauce, just getting it on the stove took me about 2 hours. That’s from beginning–roasting peppers and tomatoes and chopping ingredients–to end, once all the ingredients are in the pot and about to simmer. I think it was another hour to assemble the trays.
I like making the sauce a day ahead to allow all the flavors to come together. Then assemble the trays and put them in the fridge for a few hours to allow it settle in. This time I assembled the trays just a few hours after I finished simmering the meat sauce and it had come to room temperature. I didn’t bake the tray until the next day. So it hung out in the fridge for about 18-24 hours. Mind you, this step isn’t mandatory. I just picked that tip up when I worked in a kitchen.
All this said, it is a DELICIOUS recipe, well worth the effort. I hope you will try it. One last thing, yield. This recipe made enough for 1 full 9×13 tray, which gave us 12 healthy servings, and 1 more tray that only filled about 3/4 of the way. The servings from that will probably be closer to 9 or so. We’ve frozen the 2nd tray for future enjoyment. Now, without further ado, Doria, this one’s for you!
Meat Sauce Ingredients
2 lbs ground chuck
1/2 lb hot Italian sausage, casings removed
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 cps onions, chopped (about 2 medium)
1 tbsp sea salt
1 cp carrots, finely diced (about 2 medium)
1 cp celery, finely diced (about 3 stalks)
2 cps button mushrooms, diced
1 cp red bell pepper (about 2 medium)
5 Roma tomatoes
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
3-4 garlic cloves, crushed (about 2 tsp garlic puree)
1 tsp black pepper
1-1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1-1/2 tsp dried basil
2 tsps sugar
3 bay leaves
1/2 cp parsley, chopped
2 cps red wine or beer
1 cp water
3 tbsp tomato paste
Process:
Roast the reds (optional) – You can roast the bell peppers and tomatoes over a stove burner. Get the skins scorched all the way around, then dunk in a bowl with cool water and peel. Remove the seeds from both, the tomatoes and peppers before dicing.
Heat up a large saucepan and add the ground beef, sausage and salt. Stir the salt in and make sure you break the meats apart, you want it to resemble coarse meal. The moisture in the beef will come out, so initially it will cook in its own liquid. Once the liquid evaporates, you will be able to begin browning the meats.
As the meat browns over medium high heat, add the onions, carrots and celery, cook it until the onions begin to look translucent. Then add the mushrooms, garlic, black pepper, Italian seasoning, pepper flakes, basil and bay leaves. Mix all the herbs in before adding all the tomatoes, bell peppers and parsley. Stir it all very well, taking care to scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any drippings that may be stuck. Now you can add the wine, water, sugar and paste; stir everything well and allow it to come to a boil.
Once this comes to a boil, bring temperature to low and cover it with a lid. Allow it to simmer stirring it occasionally. It will need to simmer for about an hour. Remove from the heat and let it cool.
Bechamel Sauce
Ingredients and Process
5 tbsp unsalted butter
5 tbsp flour
4 cps milk
1-1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Heat up the milk in the microwave until it is very hot, you’ll be able to see vapors rising up. Keep it hot. In the meantime, in a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat until there is foam on the top. Add the flour at once, and stir quickly with a wire whisk. This will make a roux, however, you want to keep the mixture light in color–bechamel sauce is a white sauce. 
You need to allow the flour to cook, otherwise the raw flavor will come through in the sauce. The process of making the roux, will take about 6 minutes and will be lightly golden.
Add the milk as quickly as you can, while still whisking it in to avoid lumps. Once you have incorporated all the milk, season the sauce with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Continue to stir until the sauce thickens, it will take about 15 minutes to achieve the consistency of soft yogurt. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
Ricotta filling: Combine 2 cps of ricotta cheese with 2 eggs, 1/4 cp chopped parsley, 1/2 cp Parmesan cheese. Mix and set aside.
Lasagna Ingredients and Process:
1 lb lasagna noodles
1/2 lb Provolone cheese, sliced
2/3 lb Mozarella cheese, sliced
1 cp Parmesan cheese, grated
1/2 lb Salami, sliced
Layering the Lasagna
Fill a large pot with water and bring to a boil. Add 1 tbsp sea salt, 1 tbsp oil before adding the noodles. The oil will help prevent them from sticking to each other, but you should still stir them around a bit. Make sure you keep the water at a soft boil and cook noodles for about 8 to 10 minutes. You want the noodles to be pliable but still too firm to eat. Drain noodles and dump them into a bowl of cold water.
You need to make sure the noodles are completely dry before layering. I usually take them out of the cool water and lay them across a kitchen towel before setting them aside.
It’s assembly time! In a 9×13 baking dish, spread about a cup of meat sauce in the bottom. Arrange 3-4 noodles lengthwise over the sauce. Depending on the length of your noodles and dish, you may need to trim the end of the noodle to fit. Spread with enough bechamel sauce to cover the noodles, then top the bechamel with chopped salami. Now add another layer of noodles to cover. Top the second layer of noodles with the ricotta cheese mixture. 
Now top the ricotta with more meat sauce, be more generous this time.
Top the meat sauce with a sprinkling of parmesan cheese, then layer with provolone and mozzarella. And begin again with a layer of noodles with bechamel and salami between the 2 layers of noodles, then ricotta. The final layer will be meat sauce covered with cheeses. This is likely your last layer, so you can go a bit crazy with the cheeses.
I would recommend allowing the tray to settle for at least 3 hours in the fridge, longer if you have the time. Cover with a short layer of plastic wrap then foil.
Baking the lasagna
Preheat oven to 375. Remove the plastic wrap and cover loosely with the foil, otherwise you’ll end up with all the cheese stuck to it. Bake for 25 minutes with foil, then remove foil and bake for 25 minutes more. Allow the tray to cool for about 15 minutes before cutting into it.
Bechamel, also known as white sauce is one of the mother sauces. It is a simple sauce to make, but it does require you to move quickly and be watchful. You will see it used as a base to other sauces, including cheese sauce for mac & cheese.
Bechamel Sauce
Ingredients and Process
5 tbsp unsalted butter
5 tbsp flour
4 cps milk
1-1/2 tsp sea salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
1/8 tsp nutmeg
Heat up the milk in the microwave until it is very hot, you’ll be able to see vapors rising up. Keep it hot. In the meantime, in a medium saucepan melt the butter over medium heat until there is foam on the top. Add the flour at once, and stir quickly with a wire whisk. This will make a roux, however, you want to keep the mixture light in color–bechamel sauce is a white sauce. You need to allow the flour to cook, otherwise the raw flavor will come through in the sauce. The process of making the roux, will take about 6 minutes and will be lightly golden.
Add the milk as quickly as you can, while still whisking it in to avoid lumps. Once you have incorporated all the milk, season the sauce with salt, pepper and nutmeg. Continue to stir until the sauce thickens, it will take about 15 minutes to achieve the consistency of soft yogurt. Remove from heat and allow to cool.
This is my basic meat sauce. It is a wonderful base to lasagna, goes superbly over any kind of pasta. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do.
Meat Sauce Ingredients
2 lbs ground chuck
1/2 lb hot Italian sausage, casings removed
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
3 cps onions, chopped (about 2 medium)
1 tbsp sea salt
1 cp carrots, finely diced (about 2 medium)
1 cp celery, finely diced (about 3 stalks)
2 cps button mushrooms, diced
1 cp red bell pepper (about 2 medium)
5 Roma tomatoes
1 28 oz can diced tomatoes
3-4 garlic cloves, crushed (about 2 tsp puree)
1 tsp black pepper
1-1/2 tsp Italian seasoning
1 tsp red pepper flakes
1-1/2 tsp dried basil
2 tsps sugar
3 bay leaves
1/2 cp parsley, chopped
2 cps red wine or beer
1 cp water
3 tbsp tomato paste
Process:
Roast the reds (optional) – You can roast the bell peppers and tomatoes over a stove burner. Get the skins scorched all the way around, then dunk in a bowl with cool water and peel. Remove the seeds from both, the tomatoes and peppers before dicing.
Heat up a large saucepan and add the ground beef, sausage and salt. Stir the salt in and make sure you break the meats apart, you want it to resemble coarse meal. The moisture in the beef will come out, so initially it will cook in its own liquid. Once the liquid evaporates, you will be able to begin browning the meats.
As the meat browns over medium high heat, add the onions, carrots and celery, cook it until the onions begin to look translucent. Then add the mushrooms, garlic, black pepper, Italian seasoning, pepper flakes, basil and bay leaves. Mix all the herbs in before adding all the tomatoes, bell peppers and parsley. Stir it all very well, taking care to scrape the bottom of the pan to loosen any drippings that may be stuck. Now you can add the wine, water, sugar and paste; stir everything well and allow it to come to a boil.
Once this comes to a boil, bring temperature to low and cover it with a lid. Allow it to simmer stirring it occasionally. It will need to simmer for about an hour. Remove from the heat and let it cool.
Thanksgiving comes and goes. You eat roast turkey to your little heart’s delight and your tummy’s sacrifice. You’ve packed your fridge with leftovers. The family is mostly gone. And the thought of another bite of straight turkey sends you running for the hills. What should you do with all that day old delicious meat?
Make some Turkey and Rice! That’s what I did and it was a hit! You’ve already done the toughest part, cooking the bird. The easy part is staring you dead in the face. So let’s get to it!
Ingredients
1/2 cp bacon, diced
1 large onion, diced
1/4 cp cilantro, chopped
1/4 cp parsley, chopped
4 cps cooked turkey meat, chopped
2 tbsp vegetable oil
3 cps rice
1 packet Knorr Sazón
4 cps broth or water
1 cp beer (or water if you don’t wish to use beer)
Sea salt to taste
Here’s what:
You will need a large saucepan with a tight-fitting lid. Cook the bacon until lightly brown, then add the onions and cook until they become translucent. Add the cilantro and parsley, after stirring it in add the turkey pieces. Remove all to a plate and set aside.
In the same saucepan, add the vegetable oil to heat up. In the meantime, rinse the rice. Once you have drained the rice, add it to the pan, stirring to coat it with the oil. Now add the packet of Sazón, making sure that the powder is evenly distributed on the grains of rice. Now add the liquid and check the salt, season as needed. Bring it to a boil without disturbing it.
Once the water is almost completely evaporated, add the turkey mix and cover with the lid. Lower the temperature to low and allow the rice to cook/steam for 30 minutes. At the end of the 30 minutes, incorporate the turkey into the rice and serve.
This is how I make turkey every year, or rather, every time I’ve made turkey in the past. This is my true and tested method for a deliciously moist bird without fail. No basting, no fussing. The only fussing I do, takes place a day or so before T-Day. Just long enough to allow the bird to swim about in the briney water, relaxing in all the spices and seasonings I chose for that ocassion.
Then on the day it is to be served, I just lay it breast-side down on a roasting pan, brush it with butter and olive oil and forget about it until it needs to come out of the oven. It is always successful and enjoyed by all. You should try it this way, I promise you won’t be disappointed.
I’m not cooking this one until tomorrow (Thursday), but I wanted to give you a play by play in case you were searching for an easy way to prepare your bird. I will update the pictures as things evolve.
Turkey Brine (1-2 days before serving)
In a saucepan, combine:
6 tbsp sea salt
4 bay leaves
2 tbsp sage, powder
3 tbsp Herbs d’Provence
6 cloves garlic
5 cloves
1 tsp black peppercorns
1 orange, quartered
3 cps water
Bring this to a boil for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool down.
The turkey I’m working with is a 20-pounder. Remove giblet bag and neck, reserve these to make broth and gravy. Rinse the turkey under cool running water. In an oversized storage bag or a bowl, add the cooled brine, place the turkey in and top it off with more water–about 1-1/2 gallons of cool water. Give the turkey a couple of turns in the bag to ensure the water and brine mix in. Seal the bag or cover the bowl with plastic wrap then foil paper. 
Put the whole thing in the fridge overnight. Usually I start this process 1-1/2 days before I am roasting the bird and I flip the bird every 8-10 hours or so, if it’s not completely submerged in the brining liquid.
Roasting Day
Remove turkey from the bag and drain any brining liquid that may be in the openings. Pat dry the turkey. Melt 1/2 cp butter (1 stick) with 1/4 cp extra virgin olive oil, 2 cloves of garlic (peel and cut them in half). Brush this mixture (avoiding the garlic) over the breast side of the turkey. Put it in the fridge for about 15 minutes, then flip the bird so the thighs are on top and brush with the rest of the butter. Place it in the fridge for another 15 minutes.
In the meantime, preheat oven to 400°. Coarsely chop:
2 oranges
2 carrots
1/2 cp parsley
4 cloves garlic
5 cloves
and mix in:
1 tbsp sage
1 tbsp thyme
1 tbsp rosemary
1 tsp sea salt
Use 1/2 of this mixture to loosely stuff the large cavity of the bird and arrange the other 1/2 under and around the turkey. Put the bird in the oven for 20 minutes at 400°, then lower the temperature to 325° for the remainder of its cooking time.
Once the thermometer reads about 170° in the thickest part of the thigh, remove it from the oven and cover it loosely with foil. Allow it to rest covered for about 15 minutes. Remove the aromatics from the crevices before you begin carving it.
I feel a bit silly to have to say this. I totally forgot to take a shot of the bird as it came out of the oven. And boy do I hate that, because it was a BEAUTY. Perfectly cooked, super juicy and golden brown. Will you take my word for it? Here’s a shot of it after slicing.
