so much stuffing...

In the week after Thanksgiving, our fridge is normally full of leftovers. I assume that yours is, too. I've offered an option for your leftover turkey, and now I'm moving on to stuffing.

Or dressing, depending on where you're from. I've always called it stuffing, even though I've always been eating dressing. I don't think it really matters, as long as it is cornbread-based.

Regardless, you can use your old stuffing for turkey sushi. Don't freak out - the turkey's not raw. This is just a convenient way to get your holiday dinner in one bite, and it looks kind of like sushi. People love it.

We did this a couple years ago for one of our Christmas parties. For those of you not in the know, Kaytie and I throw a big Christmas party every year. It's a chance to see everyone we know, and it's also a chance to show off. There's usually a theme, like cajun or comfort food, etc. One year, we were inspired by our big 28-course anniversary dinner at Alinea, and we decided to do Christmas dinner, deconstructed and reimagined.

Some of the highlights were sweet potato & marshmallow nachos, mushrooms stuffed with green bean casserole, and, of course, turkey sushi.

Turkey Sushi

smoked turkey breast from the deli
(turkey should be sliced thick enough to stay together instead of all the slices falling apart)
canned cranberry sauce, cut into long strips
green onions
stuffing (see below)
mayonaise
seasoned cream cheese (see below)

Mix the stuffing and the mayonaise together. You only need enough mayo to moisten the stuffing and make it stick together. Probably about 1 to 1 1/2 cups of mayo for a whole pan of stuffing.

Lay one slice of turkey on a bamboo sushi-rolling mat. Spread a thin layer of seasoned cream cheese all over the turkey. Lay a green onion and a strip of cranberry sauce longways across one edge of the slice of turkey. Spoon some of the stuffing mixture over the cranberry sauce and green onion. Use the mat to roll the turkey around the stuffing, sauce, and onion, forming a roll about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Slice into 1-inch slices with a very sharp knife.


Cornbread Stuffing/Dressing

1 pan of cornbread (we make ours from a mix)
4 cups of dried herb-flavored white bread stuffing
1 stick of butter, melted
1 can of chicken stock (about 2 cups)
2 onions, diced
3 stalks of celery, diced
1 tsp garlic salt
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp poultry seasoning
2 tsp fresh sage, chopped

Preheat oven to 350.

Saute the onion and celery until wilted.

Crumble the cornbread, and add it to the white bread stuffing. Add the veggies, and stir everything together. Pour the butter and chicken stock over everything, and add the spices. Mix everything together.

Spread the mixture evenly in a casserole dish, and bake for 30-45 minutes, until browned.


Seasoned Cream Cheese

1 pkg cream cheese, room temp
1 Tbs poultry seasoning
1 tsp garlic salt
1 Tbs fresh sage, chopped

Mix it all together.

too much turkey?

So, Thanksgiving has come and gone (time for Christmas! Whoo hoo!), and you have a bunch of leftover turkey, right? (Unless you ate at my Thanksgiving dinner - the head honcho prefers roast chicken and ham. But I'm cooking a turkey next year. Fried or smoked, it matters not to me. With God as my witness, there will be turkey at my next Thanksgiving dinner!)

So, a fridge full of turkey - now what? Well, there's always the obligatory turkey & cranberry sauce sandwich, but how many sandwiches can you eat?

I have your solution: turkey bone gumbo. It's a recipe handed down to me from my mom and modified a little ('cuz that's how we roll) by Kaytie. It's friggin' delicious.

By the way, you may be wondering how we made this, since there was no turkey at our Thanksgiving dinner. Well, we like this recipe so much that we begged for bones from another house!

(Historical note: The first time we made this was the first time we ever made stock. Now, we make stock all the time! Like pioneers.)

Turkey Bone Gumbo

(makes a lot)

for turkey stock:

turkey bones

2-3 carrots

2-3 stalks celery

2 onions

1 rutabega

2-3 bay leaves

1 tsp black peppercorns

a few sprigs of fresh thyme

for the gumbo:

1/2 stick butter

1/4 c olive oil

3/4 c flour

2 onions, diced

1 bell pepper, chopped

3 cloves garlic, minced

2 stalks celery, chopped

2 bay leaves

1 tsp dried oregano

1 Tbs dried basil

1-2 Tbs fresh parsley, chopped

1 Tbs powdered sage

hot sauce, salt, & pepper to taste

1 pint heavy cream

2 c chopped turkey

1 lb smoked sausage, cut into bite-size pieces

1 bunch of green onions, diced

Put the turkey bones in a big stock pot. (We had a discussion about this at Thanksgiving dinner this year. What's the most appetizing word for turkey bones? Carcass? Body? Cadaver?)

Chop the carrots, celery, onion, and rutabega into large chunks, and dump them in the pot. Add the bay leaves, peppercorns, and thyme. (Please note: all of this stuff is optional, but it will make the stock delicious!)

Cover everything in the pot with water. Boil (covered) for about 1 1/2 hours. The meat should pretty much fall off the bone.

Strain everything out, and reserve the meat and the broth.

Saute the sausage in a frying pan. Get a good browning on most sides. Reserve the sausage.

Now, make a roux in the sausage drippings. First, melt the butter over low heat. Add the olive oil and flour. Cook over low heat, stirring constantly, until the flour turns light brown and no longer smells raw.

Add the onions, garlic, celery, and bell pepper. Cook until the veggies are wilted.

Add 2 quarts (8 cups) of the reserved turkey broth. (Freeze the rest in 2-3 cup containers for later use when making more turkey bone gumbo, cooking rice, making soup, etc...)

Add the bay leaves, oregano, basil, parsley, sage, hot sauce, salt, and pepper. Bring the whole thing to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, uncovered, for an hour.

Add the cream. Bring to a boil, and boil until the liquid level reduces by about an inch.

Add the sausage and chopped turkey. Lower the heat to med-low, and cook for 15 minutes.

Add the green onions, and cook for a few more minutes.

Serve over rice.

study break

So, I eat a lot of snacks these days. For some reason, I want to eat when I am studying, and since I study 12-13 hours a day these days, I want to eat all the time.

I like salty snacks. I really like candy, and I eat a lot of it. But I know these things are not good for me, and I've actually discovered that eating fruits and vegetables makes me feel better, so I try to work in some healthy snacks, too. Like apples & peanut butter, string cheese, nuts. (I'm currently a big fan of plain almonds. They're my new favorite super food. Other super foods: spinach, salmon, eggs, annnd... bacon.) I eat a lot of carrots, too. They're nice and crunchy - a good quality in a snack food. Plus, I can dip them in stuff. Like hummus.

Hummus

(makes about 5 cups)

1/2 lb chickpeas

3/4 cup tahini

1-2 Tbs garlic powder

1-2 tsp paprika

1/4 - 1/2 tsp cayenne powder

1 tsp salt

juice 1 1/2 lemons

1 1/4 cups water

First, the chickpeas. They come, dried, in 1-pound bags. Prepare them according to the package directions (salt the water). This will make too many, but you can freeze half of them until you make the next batch of hummus. You'll need about 3 cups of cooked chickpeas. (This probably translates to about 2 drained cans of chickpeas, if you want to take a shortcut. I don't judge.)

Now, let's talk tahini. You can buy it at the grocery store in the international aisle. (I've bought it at Kroger.) But I think you can probably get a better deal at a Mediterranean grocery store. I know for sure that you can get your weight in bay leaves for about 3 bucks. It's worth checking.

Okay, now for the recipe. It's pretty simple. Dump everything in a food processor, and puree the hell out of it. I've made the spice measurements variable for a reason. Start low, and add more until you like the taste. Also, if the hummus is too thick, you can add more water, a little at a time, to thin it out.

Puree, puree, puree. Store it in the fridge, and eat it on carrots while you learn about inherited disorders of metabolism or the lumbar plexus. Or on pita chips or Wheat Thins - hummus is good on those, too.

one last bite of summer

We hadn’t seen Sarah and Tim in a while. Sarah’s a doctor – I’ve followed her around the ER a little bit – and Tim is a lawyer, so it’s a pretty good match for us. (Because Kaytie’s a lawyer, and I’m in med school.) As a side note, they also have one of the best babies I’ve ever met. She's not quite as cute as Aubrey, but it's a pretty close competition.

Anyway, our schedules finally aligned a couple weeks ago, so we planned to have a glass of wine at their house. Well, we don’t like to go anywhere without food, and I hadn’t cooked anything in a while, so I thought I’d make a dip. Something on the lighter side, fresh-tasting. Something that just catches the tail end of the summer produce.

And now, here is the most thorough recipe for dip that you will EVER read.

Roasted Red Pepper Dip
(makes about 3 cups)

2-3 red bell peppers
2 ears of corn, husks on
2 shallots, diced small
2 Tbsp fresh basil, chopped fine
3-4 slices bacon
½ cup manchego cheese, grated superfine
1 ½ cups mayonnaise
¼ cup sour cream
salt & pepper

Roast your peppers. Preheat your oven to 425. Remove seeds and ribs and cut peppers into large slices. (the larger, the better) Line a baking sheet with heavy-duty foil, and spray it with Pam. Lay your peppers out, skin side up, and slide them in the oven. Bake for about 20 minutes, and then broil ‘em until the skin blisters and blackens all over. Let them cool.

Cook your bacon. Crispy is good, but burned is bad. I usually cut my slices in half, cook them over medium heat, and flip them often. Once the bacon is cooked, lay it out on paper towels. As soon as it is cool enough to touch, crumble it into a food processor, but reserve a little bit (about ½ tsp) of crumbs for garnish. Pulverize the rest of it in the food processor into very, very small crumbs.

If you still have bacon grease in the frying pan, use it to sauté your shallots over medium heat until they’re just translucent. If you tossed the grease already, just use a little olive oil. Set the shallots aside.

I like grilled corn. A lot. So, instead of just draining a can of corn and using that (which you can do if you want), I decided to grill the corn and slice it off the cob. Basically, pull as much of the silk off as you can, rewrap the corn with the husks, and soak them for 10-15 minutes so the water soaks up into the husks. Grill for about 5-10 minutes on each side. Wear some leather gloves and work quickly as you shuck the husks off the corn and throw them back on the grill. Keep an eye on them and rotate to brown the corn a little bit. When it cools down a little, slice it off the cob. Reserve a little for garnish.

Okay, time to do some stirring. Combine the mayo, sour cream, basil, bacon, shallots, and corn in a mixing bowl. Stir it up and add the cheese. By the way, pretty much any hard cheese would be good – I used manchego (I think – it might have been gruyere - I can't remember) because we had it in the fridge. Also, I used a microplane to grate it so fine it was fluffy.

Back to the peppers. Once they’re cool enough to handle, you need to get the peels off. This is a messy and slightly annoying task, but it’s worth it. Home-roasted peppers are SO much better than the ones you buy in a jar.

Puree the peeled peppers in the food processor. Add the resulting mush to the dip that you’ve already mixed. Stir well. Season with salt & pepper to taste.

Put it in a serving bowl, and garnish with the corn kernels and bacon crumbles. You could add some julienned basil, too. You can serve this right away, but I think it benefits from a couple hours in the fridge, covered with plastic wrap. That gives it time for the flavors to marry.

We served this with plain pita chips. It would be great with Fritos, too.

one-upper

Obviously, I haven't been posting much lately. Why, you're wondering? Well, I started med school in August. And let me tell you this - there's a lot to learn. Luckily, I like what I'm learning.

Every once in a while, though, I need to cook. It's a great study break.

So, recently, I made some "World Peace" cookies from a recipe I found in a recent Bon Appetit. Sounds great, right? Well, they were good. A little on the dry side, though. My buddy Kris said cookies don't have to be soft. He and his wife enjoyed them.

I disagree. Cookies should be soft. And what does Bon Appetit know? I can make a better cookie. So, I messed with the recipe, and let me tell you, they're SO much better.

There are times to be humble, I know. This is not one of them. These cookies are absolutely delicious. I can say without exaggeration that they are the best chocolate cookies you'll ever eat. Okay, that may be a bit of a boast, but these cookies are great. They're soft and rich and light at the same time.

Kaytie took one bite, looked at me, and said, "I hope you wrote this down."

I did. And instead of learning about the innervation of the heart, I'm sharing it with you. It's THAT important.

Best Chocolate Cookies EVER

1 1/2 sticks butter, room temp

1 Tbs vanilla

1 Tbs milk

2 Tbs strong coffee, room temp

1/4 cup granulated sugar

2/3 cup packed brown sugar

1 egg

1/4 tsp kosher salt

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1/3 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

5 oz bittersweet chocolate

Mix the butter, vanilla, coffee, milk, both sugars, and salt until creamy. Add the egg and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift the flour, cocoa, and baking soda together.

Combine the wet and dry ingredients, and mix until smooth.

Chop the chocolate into small chunks (nothing bigger than about 1/3 of an inch). Fold the chocolate into the dough.

Refrigerate the dough for a couple hours until it is firm. (NOTE: This step is unnecessary. If you want your cookies faster, you can cook 'em right off the bat - just knock a minute or two off the baking time. The benefit to cooling the dough is that you have a lot more control over the shape and size of the cookies.)

Preheat the oven to 325.

Line 2 cookie sheets with parchment paper.

Roll the dough into balls that are about 1 - 1.25 inches in diameter. I recommend wearing latex gloves while you do this. Place the balls on the cookie sheet about 2 inches apart. (If you decided not to chill your dough, just scoop it onto the cookie sheets.)

Bake for 11 minutes.

You probably can't bake all of the dough at the same time. You should keep the extra dough in the fridge while you're baking the first round.

Cool the cookies on a rack.

Makes about 4 1/2 dozen delicious cookies.

parting gift

August is a big month for us. Kaytie starts a new job – she just finished her clerkship today. I quit the restaurant business, and on Monday, I start med school. I, of course, am excited about this, but leaving my work was bittersweet. I will miss my friends there, and I’ll probably be too busy to stop for a drink.

As a parting gift, Melissa made me one of her famous angel food cakes. This, to me, is in the same class of culinary magic as homemade marshmallows. I think of angel food cake as something that is bought at the store, not made at home. Melissa has proved otherwise, and I can’t wait to make this cake myself.

Angel Food Cake

1 ¼ cups sifted flour
1 ½ cup sugar, separated in half
12 egg whites
1 ½ tsp cream of tartar
½ tsp salt
1 ½ tsp vanilla
½ tsp almond extract

Plan ahead. Set your dozen eggs on the counter and let them sit out overnight. Don’t worry – you’ll be fine.

Preheat the oven to 350.

Sift ¾ cup of sugar and the flour together. Set aside.

Combine the egg whites, cream of tartar, salt, vanilla, and almond extract. Beat with a wire whip until soft peaks form.

Gradually add ¾ cup more sugar, about 2 Tbsp at a time. Beat until the meringue holds stiff peaks.

Gradually fold in the flour/sugar mixture until it is just incorporated.

Pour the batter into an ungreased 10-inch tube pan that is 4 inches deep. Gently run a knife through the batter a couple times.

Bake 35 to 45 minutes, until a cake tester comes out clean.

Invert the pan on a cooling rack until the cake is completely cool.

the end of an evening

To finish off Tott’s end-of-the-first-year-of-law-school dinner, we served a lemon crème brulee that the folks at Briarwood paired with an Elderton Semillon.

We chose crème brulee for a couple of reasons. We’d had several successes in the past. The custard could be made beforehand. And, of course, everyone loves crème brulee and thinks it is fancy.

Lemon Crème Brulee
(makes 8 servings)

2 lemons
3 cups heavy cream
7 Tbs white granulated sugar
6 large egg yolks
½ tsp vanilla
about 8 tsp turbinado sugar
8 crème brulee ramekins
1 blowtorch

Preheat the oven to 325. Make sure the oven rack is in the middle position.

Zest the two lemons and combine the zest with the cream in a heavy saucepan. Stir in the white sugar and a pinch of salt. (Save the zested lemons for juice later.)

Heat the mixture, stirring occasionally, over medium-low heat until it is almost boiling. Remove it from heat. Allow it to cool to room temperature, and then cool in the fridge for 2 or 3 hours. (You don’t have to do this step of cooling it in the fridge, but if you do, the lemon flavor will be stronger.)

Remove the cream mixture from the fridge and place it over medium-low heat. Once again, stir occasionally as it warms, and remove it from the heat just before it boils.

Lightly beat the yolks in a heatproof bowl. Gradually whisk in the cream. Just slowly drizzle it into the yolks while you are whisking quickly. This should prevent the eggs from curdling.

Pour the custard mixture through a wire colander to strain out the zest and any cooked yolk. Stir in the vanilla and 1 tsp fresh lemon juice.

Divide the custard evenly among the 8 ramekins.

Arrange the ramekins in a roasting pan. Place the pan on the oven rack, and pour in water until the water level is about halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake 30 to 40 minutes. The custard will be set around the edges, but the centers should wobble when the ramekins are wiggled.

Carefully remove the roasting pan from the oven. (I bumped the edge of the stove and ruined two custards when the water bath spilled into them. I was able to save two others by carefully soaking up the spilled water off the tops of the custards with paper towels.)

Cool the custards in the water bath for 20 minutes, then chill uncovered in the fridge for 4 hours.

Just before serving, evenly sprinkle the turbinado sugar over the tops of the custards. Use your blowtorch to melt and caramelize the sugar. Keep the torch moving to avoid burning the sugar.