Left Over Thanksgiving Turkey Hash

Thanksgiving was piece of cake this year. It wasn't at our house. Our only responsibility was Dinah to make the family secret dressing. I'm not a dressing guy. I grew up with stuffing. I think dressing is a Southern thing and I just haven't bonded with it yet. But hers is good, albeit dry, but I just put gravy on it.

I made Funeral pie which I hope to post on soon.

I'm down on turkey this year. My favorite parts are the skin and the dark meat. I'm the ONLY one that eats the skin in my family. But there was little good crispy skin this year. But the dark meat just wasn't right. The problem might be me. Back in January I posted about trying a turkey thigh. Again at Thanksgiving I found the meat rubbery and just unpleasant to eat. I even found the color to be wrong. Maybe I'm just becoming dissatisfied with turkey. I've never been that fond if it anyway.

We did bring home two turkey legs. I have friends that crave smoked turkey legs like you see at fairs. I've had one good one before at a Nascar race, but in general I don't like legs (turkey legs that is). All the sinews and cartilage just give me fits. Scrounging for lunch today I saw the foil packages sitting in the corner of the fridge. Why not?

I grabbed the legs and picked off the best meat I could, then chopped it up. I didn't even cut myself thank you very much. I grabbed the left over French fries from Saturday's lunch Rose always insists on bringing home. Left over fries are never right no matter how you reheat them. I diced them and also an onion. Tossed it all with a little oil in the skillet and voila!



A little salt and pepper and better than any can of Hormel's corned beef has you ever had. You don't really cook anything as much as give it a little browning.

Sometimes You Strike Out Swinging

A few weeks ago I bought some turkey thighs on sale, BIG sale. I have been intrigued with cooking turkey without roasting a whole bird. I don't like white meat and I'm not crazy about legs, so I jumped at the opportunity to buy thighs.

I didn't do anything special, which may have been a mistake. I just baked them in a dish with an aluminum foil tent until done. In just cutting the meat off the bone I thought something was off. Dinah felt they tasted fine. I thought the texture was wrong, close to rubbery and I didn't care for the flavor either. I wouldn't call it gamey but it was too strong. I ate two bites and fed the rest to the dog. Normally I say "if it's no good, we'll go out." But now we're too broke for that option so if it is no good the choice is to starve. This was a big, big disappointment. I'll revisit it another day and try a rub or a marinade or maybe doing them on the grill but for now I'm not pleased.

Not much for snack food either. I just made some popcorn. I make mine the old fashion way, on the stove. I find it tastes so much better than the microwave bag stuff that I can't go back. And I believe it is healthier since mine only contains popcorn and healthy oil. I'm still hungry though.

Priorities

I had high hopes for today. I wanted to get the dining table cleared off for Christmas gift work space. I need to clean the cat boxes. I have to get to the gym. It's been a month and it shows (on the positive side though I've saved $20-$30 per week in not going). But priorities dictate that I get off my ass (actually sit on my ass) and work on finishing my parent's Christmas gift. It should have been done over a year ago and was supposed to be two Mother's Days gifts or a birthday gift at some point. Now there are only ten days left until Christmas and I need to get cracking!

But not to be a complete waste, I did get five or so loads of laundry in and my first attempt at making a soup stock. Inspired by this blog post, I saved the remains of the bird from Thanksgiving, bagged it and put it in the freezer. I emphasize inspired because this level of stock making is a little beyond me; I haven't got that far in class yet.

Not knowing really how to begin, I cracked open my three best tomes: the aforementioned On Food and Cooking Julia Child's Mastering The Art of French Cooking, which I had to buy after reading Julie and Julia (one of the best books I've ever read and for the life of me I don't know why this isn't a 5-star rated book on Amazon. Too many Little Brains. Quick name that movie), and my Joy of Cooking. I've met people who cook that don't own a copy of the Joy of Cooking. Inconceivable!

I did not make a mirepoix as inspired because none of my three books called for it. Harold McGee says that I should use 1-2 liters of water per kilogram of meat and bones. That didn't cover everything up though. So I took the body out, still frozen and hacked at it with my meat cleaver. Worked great except little bits of frozen turkey went flying everywhere. The dog (deaf and blind) and cat were thrilled though. I ended up using 3.5 liters of water just to cover up all the bones.

I started out cold and slow just like the books said. I never did get much gray scum on top that is supposed to be scooped out. Much? I'm not sure there was every any. After an hour and a half of barely simmering I said screw it and added my vegetables. Just to be different I used two bunches of green onions instead of a chopped whole onion. I also used two leeks. Chopped up some celery, yay much and four chopped carrots. A made a non-classical bouquet garni of one bay leaf, some dried thyme, some peppercorns, some cloves, some whole cloves of garlic and some fresh parsley that I grow.

I think it came out pretty good. Smells awesome. Might be a tad too much onion flavor but I like it. Right now it is chilling over night in the fridge. Tomorrow I'll scoop out the fat that rises to the top and then bag up the stock in two cup units and freeze. I thought about trying to clarify it, but I've taken on enough for a first time turkey stock project and I've got to finish this Christmas gift!

What To Do With That Left Over Turkey?

Here's what my family does. My mom has made Chicken Strata with the left over turkey for as long as I can remember. I'm sure she found it in a magazine or some other source lost to time, desperate for a way to use up the left over turkey instead of throwing it away. You can only have so many turkey sandwiches. It became our traditional day-after-Christmas breakfast. And while we always ate it for breakfast, I have been making it as a dinner for years by just frying up chicken breast instead of using left over turkey, hence why I have named my recipe chicken strata not turkey strata. Guess what we are having for dinner tonight?

This dish has become so associated with my family that I made chicken strata kits last year and gave them as Christmas gifts.

I think you will easily become as addicted to this dish as I have become. After all, as my wife says, how can you go wrong with a dish that calls for gravy?

Let me know if you try it what you think.

A Happy Thanksgiving

We hosted Thanksgiving this year since leading up to it no one could seem to decide what to do. I think it came off excellent.

Our dining room is a little undersized for seating more than six but we had eight adults and three kids. It worked out. I wouldn't want to do that every day though.

I baked two pumpkin pies (pungkin as Rose says) the night before. I have made the real deal before with real cooked pumpkin but the can really is the way to go if you want to be sure that the pumpkin itself is going to taste good. But you have to buy the canned pumpkin not the canned pumpkin pie, big difference. I used store bought pie crust too. I wasn't in the mood to go homemade on that. I still got rave reviews. My secret? Mace and nutmeg.

I picked up the smoked turkey on Wednesday. This worked out great. We just needed to reheat the bird for two hours in the oven. Since our target was 11:00AM, this sure beat getting up at 4:00AM to pop it in the oven, not to mention the labor saved in not having to prep and season the turkey. It came out perfect. I let it rest for about 30 minutes before cutting into it and the legs just tore off. I barely had to use a knife. We got a 13 pound turkey and I carved half for serving and the other half for leftovers for people to take home.

Our bread was a combination of yeast rolls I picked up when I got the turkey and frozen biscuits I got when my coffee shop closed. The yeast rolls went over better than the biscuits but I preferred the biscuits.

Dinah's mom brought the traditional squash casserole and baked sweet potatoes. I don't like yellow squash but this casserole is quite good. I attribute it to the crushed crackers. Rose normally likes it but not yesterday. I'm not a sweet potato fan, especially the traditional pan with marshmallow on top. I was grateful that Dinah's mom's version has brown sugar and pecans instead of marshmallow. It was very good. Rose had three helpings. I thought it was adorable that she spit out a "seed." I had missed a pecan in serving her. Good girl.

Dinah's dad brought scalloped potatoes. They were out of a box and I LOVED them. Always have. The funny thing was he had never made them before and bought a bag of potatoes with the two boxes. Apparently Debra teased him about the potatoes already being in the box. And they were!

Deana brought the dressing and gravy. I grew up with stuffing, My Mom makes a traditional oyster stuffing with wild rice and croutons. She leaves out the oysters though. Every year half was stuffed in the turkey and half was cooked in a casserole. And every year we sobbed when the stuffing from the bird was gone because is always tasted better than that made in the casserole. Don't let anyone tell you they are the same. I LOVE stuffing. I'm still not up on the dressing thing which is made in a pan and cut and served like brownies. It's dry and needs gravy (graby as Rose says). I know this was an old family recipe. I like it but it just isn't the same. There was very little left though.

Rose didn't seem to care for any turkey at the beginning of the meal. I think the sweet potatoes preoccupied her. But near the end she asked me for "chicken." She had two helpings of white meat. Good girl. The turkey really was excellent. I think because it was smoked and only reheated it was much juicer than any I've had before. It barely had any smoke flavor and they must have brined it because every now and then you'd get a taste of something sweet or a bit of spice. And best of all was the crispy skin because I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE turkey skin and I'm the only one who eats it. It was mine, mine, mine.

So who knows what's missing?

MASHED POTATOES!

WTF? Apparently there was a communication break down and we ended up with none. I had planned on making them in my super-duper-can't-live without-anymore stand mixer, even looking forward to it, but I pulled off since I was told they were being brought. If there is anything close to being sacrilegious with Thanksgiving it is no mashed potatoes. I sobbed but we all survived fine.

And the best part? Aside form the food and family, we got to leave Rose with Grandma and the two of us went to the movies! Four Christmases was HYSTERICAL!

PS

I forgot about the cranberry issue. I grew up with real cranberry dressing. A bag of cranberries cooked down with sugar and spices until the berries start to pop. My wife's family eats the cranberry equivalent of spam. I'm not sure what this gelatinous red bile in a can is but there is no way I can eat. I've tried, it's not happening. It was nice to know that Debra was equally revolted, so I was not alone for once.