Thanksgiving Dinner

This past weekend our annual Turkey party. Last year it ended up being after Thanksgiving, so we put a Christmas theme on it. This year we got the timing right and had our turkey party as a pre-Thanksgiving celebration with friends.

I got a fantastic turkey from Trader Joe's, it was vegetarian fed and brined. The brine on a turkey keeps it moist while it cooks. If your turkey does not come to you brined, you can brine it yourself. Brining is the process of allowing your item to sit in salt water to push water into the bird. I would recommend buying a brining mix or adding some herbs to your mixture if you do this at home.

DON'T FORGET TO PULL OUT THE INNARDS! Most if not all turkeys come with the gross bits inside the body cavity. If you are a giblet gravy person, pull out the nasty bits and boil them then put them into some gravy. If you are grossed out as I am by the insides of a turkey, then you can simply toss them away. You can also turn a chicken stock into a nice turkey flavored stock by boiling the innards in the stock.

Once you have pulled out the nasties, and done what you will with them, you should stuff the body cavity with some aromatics. I recommend onions and an orange. The onions will supplement the flavor of the turkey; and the orange will steam the inside of the body and keep the meat juicy.

I always recommend trussing your bird. This simply means to tie the legs together and bind the wings to the body. This will ensure that everything cooks at the same time. Additionally, to this point, white meat cooks faster than dark meat. To prevent the breast from overcooking while the legs finish getting to temperature, you can place a double layer of tin foil over the breast during cooking. You can also stuff the breast between the meat and the skin This will keep the breast juicy during cooking.

For the outside of the turkey you want to ensure to use a fat and some flavor. Butter or oil will work well. For your flavorings use absolutely must include salt and pepper. After those key items you can use whatever you like. Sage, rosemary and thyme go nicely with turkey. I bought a turkey paste this year because the saleswoman at William's Sonoma was really convincing. It was truly delicious.

I am not one to stuff my turkey while cooking, it makes your turkey take much longer to fully cook. I do like stuffing, however, or I guess technically I like dressing. I made a sausage leek cornbread dressing that received rave reviews. Leeks have a very mellow and slightly sweet flavor. I have cooked with them several times, as I have detailed in several posts, and I always enjoy the results. I browned some sweet and spicy sausage in a sautee pan and then let it cool on some paper towels. In the sausage grease and some olive oil I sauteed the leeks until they started to become translucent. I combined the leeks and the sausage and then mixed in some cornbread crumbs. I topped the whole thing with my chicken/turkey stock and baked until it started to brown. Truly delicious.

I hope that you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving! Enjoy yourselves in the kitchen!

Potato Risotto and Caprese Chicken Salad

My roommates invited an old friend over for dinner the other night. I had never met this friend, but I have this uncontrollable need to impress people with my cooking. I am not gifted at singing, acting, or sports, but I can cook a mean meal. I wasn't sure what to cook for this mystery guest, but I was in a creative mood as I sculpted my menu.

I watch Top Chef almost religiously. In the one of the first episodes of the new season the chefs are challenged to create something awesome out of potatoes. Mike Isabella chose to make a potato risotto. I had never heard of risotto being made out of anything aside from rice, but there it was. Being the arrogant and adventurous cook that I am, I decided that I too could make potato risotto. To go with the potato dish I decided to do a play on the classic caprese salad. The salad would traditionally have fresh mozzarella, sliced tomato and basil. I decided to make my own pesto and coat chicken in the pesto and then stuff it with mozzarella and tomatoes.

The plan started to go wrong when I started making the pesto. Typically this would be done in a food processor, which we do not have. I have used a blender to make sauces before so I tried to make the pesto in the blender. The problem with the blender is that it doesn't actually reach all of the ingredients sitting in it. Especially when the items are small like basil leaves. Long story short, the garlic got chopped up very finely but the rest of the pesto didn't process as well. This resulted in a pesto that was overly pungent with garlic.

The plan for the potato risotto was to put a very fine dice on potatoes and then saute the pieces in oil before slowly adding liquid to cook. All the recipes I found called for using a julienne setting on a mandolin, I don't have a mandolin, but I do have a julienne peeler from Pampered Chef. Let's just say that these two items yield very different results. The peeler did not work easily, and did not yield thick enough julienne strips to dice. The tragedy continued from there when the potatoes did not cook as the recipe said that they would. What resulted was something between hash browns and potato soup.

With the potato disaster, I ran out of time for my elaborate stuffed chicken plans. I ended up dicing the tomato and the mozzarella and serving a tomato cheese salad of sorts on top of baked pesto coated chicken.

All in all, this was one failure of a meal. I learned a valuable lesson. When you are having company over for dinner, stick to what you know. When I was younger we would make what we called Mike's Lucky Chicken whenever we had people coming to the house. It was so tasty and easy, we had perfected our version of the recipe and it was a crowd pleaser. Stick to a menu you know you can execute well.

Hollandaise Sauce

Recently my roommate had her 26th birthday. We had just moved in to our new apartment, we had never broken out the China from our China cabinet, so we decided to throw a fancy dinner party. We kept the guest list pretty small, and the menu was fairly simple. We had roast pork with leeks, pears and figs, asparagus with hollandaise sauce, mashed red skin potatoes and chocolate mousse. We also made a lovely champagne and pear syrup drink we called "The Leslie" it was quite tasty.

I have written about the roast pork dish before on this blog, it is becoming my go-to dish. The addition of the figs was a request from the birthday girl, and a brilliant addition the leek and pear flavor combo.

This was my first attempt at a hollandaise sauce. I tried a few different recipes to ensure that I got the sauce correct. I have a new policy when it comes to food, especially in regards to entertaining. Never serve a dish you have not previously attempted successfully to people you don't live with. I learned this lesson when a high school friend of my roommate's came over for dinner. See the potato risotto blog post for a description of all the ways in which this meal failed.

Hollandaise sauce is truly disgusting when you look at it as its ingredients. The sauce consists of egg yolks, a lot of butter, a splash of lemon juice and a pinch of cayenne pepper. Separately they sound like the bad makings of one of those cleansing beverages celebrities drink for three weeks to cleanse their chi. But when you whip the egg yolks over a simmering pot of water, and then slowly blend in the butter, you get something truly special.

The party was on Saturday night, so on Friday night I attempted Alton Brown's recipe for hollandaise. He instructs to chill the butter and cut it into small pieces. Whisk the egg yolks in a double boiler until they become lighter in color, and thicker in texture. Slowly add in small pieces of butter and whisk until they melt and incorporate, continue adding butter one piece at a time until it is all incorporated. You then add in the lemon juice and cayenne pepper. The result was an ok sauce, a bit heavy on the lemon. My arm was wicked sore from all the whisking, so the next day I decided to use a different recipe. The new recipe called to slowly add in melted butter. This was a little better on my whisking arm, but as i was making sauce for 15 people I did have to trade off with a friend half way through making the sauce.

My recommendation for those of you that would like to attempt this sauce is to use the melted butter approach. It will incorporate into the sauce a lot easier. I would also recommend using less lemon juice than is called for in the recipe. I would also recommend using a little more cayenne than is called for as well. This will add a little kick to the sauce, which is a delicious twist.

The Time Traveler's Wife

You may notice as you follow me through the blogo-sphere that my taste in films tends to lean towards films that are based on books. Stories I have heard of that are translated onto the silver screen hold a certain special magic in my heart. While I have not read this book, which I will soon remedy, this movie is no different.

The Time Traveler's Wife stars Rachel McAdams and Eric Bana. I have loved Rachel McAdams since her Mean Girls days. She is a talented actress, and proved yet again what talent she has while acting alongside Bana. I have never been a big fan of Eric Bana, his portrayal in Munich was creepy and moving, but aside from that I have never felt a particular affinity for him as an actor. His portrayal as a time traveler was adequate, although to be fair the movie really isnt about him. Though the plot actually follows Eric Bana's character through time, the real story lies in his wife.

I have a big issue with time travel movies. As an engineer I am big on continuity in time travel. When a movie creates a loop of events that lead to each other, where every event is the cause of the next and the final event causes the original, it bugs the mess out of me. This movie does that in the introduction of the two titular characters. Aside from that I was actually ok with the sequence of events in the movie. They made logical sense, as far as time traveling movies can make logical sense.

The story itself is pretty evident from the title of the movie. Eric Bana plays a time traveling man. He has no control over when and where he travels to, but big events in his life tend to draw him back time and time again. He meets a young woman and they fall in love. The kicker is that she never knows when he will leave her, whether its carrying dinner to the table or on their wedding night. She loves him nonetheless. The story follows the formulaic route of problems that would arise from such a situation. The brilliance of the story again lies in the strength of Rachel McAdams character, to be her own person, chasing after her dreams, while still being the constant in a wild man's tumultuous life.

All in all I would call this movie a renter. It is a nice love story, and while a movie like this is bound to be a cryer, it definitely leaves you with a note of hope. It is a great rental for a rainy day when you want to believe in love. There is nothing ground breaking in this movie, but it is a solidly entertaining film.

Julie and Julia

Admittedly this movie is the reason I have started blogging and writing my own reviews of recipes and movies. I was very excited about going to see this. I usually steer away from movie reviews as they can ruin a movie before you ever set foot in the theater. I did read a review of this one prior to viewing Julie and Julia. All the reviews I read mentioned that the movie was really two movies in one, a fabulous movie with Meryl Streep and a bad movie with Amy Adams. I went in to this film expecting just that, something to put up with in between moments of Meryl Streep's brilliance. I got what I expected to some extent, however not in the way I expected it.

Julie and Julia could truthfully be two movies. The first would be the story of Julia Child, former OSS secretary who moves to France with her husband when his job requires that they do so. When trying to find a way to fill her days, she decides to take cooking classes. From here the story follows her journey to become the Julia Child that we know and love. The second movie follows Julie Powell as she tries to bring meaning to a life that feels a little lost. She decides to cook every recipe in Julia Child's book, Mastering the Art of French Cooking, in one year. She will chronicle her adventure in a blog. The critics were right in their assertion that the Julie parts of the movie are mostly tolerated in order to get to see more of the Julia part. This is in no way a reflection on the acting or the directing in the Julie parts. The truth is that the Julia parts are just so enthralling that nothing can hold a candle to it.


Meryl Streep was nothing sort of magical. I am a little young to have experienced the unique personality that was Julia Child. To me she is just a crazy lady with a funny voice. I grew up with Emeril Legasse and Racheal Ray teaching me to cook, granted they are both crazy. In my mind Julia Child was antiquated and stuffy. I wish I could travel back in time and meet this eccentric women who I now know embodies almost everything I love. So much of her story struck home with me that I found myself waxing nostalgic for a period of time I never knew.

Stanley Tucci plays Paul Child, and truthfully I have never been attracted to Stanley Tucci. That is until this movie. He was perfect as the overtly homosexual fashion editor in The Devil Wears Prada and that is how I have henceforth pictured him. It is a fascinating juxtaposition to watch Tucci and Streep as Paul and Julia Child after having watched their entirely different relationship in The Devil Wears Prada. Tucci and Streep portray a couple very much in love with each other, even after years of marriage. It is refreshing to see Hollywood portray a couple that can survive the dreaded M word and still be happy, so often we see Hollywood tell us that marriage is what ruins it all. Although to be fair i guess we can't blame cinema entirely for this notion, it date all the way back to the Bard himself. Read any of Shakespeare's plays, his comedies always end in a marriage, but his tragedies always start with one.

Julia Child has a triumph of spirit that Streep captures perfectly. If I could pick one seen that would be the scene to show everyone the joy that you are in store for with this film, it would be the one where Julia decides to attend French culinary school. While eating in a French restaurant she is discussing with Paul what she should do to occupy her time. She muses taking a hat making class, and a painting class, and he asks her what do you really like to do. Her response is simple: Eat. So from there she starts her upward battle into the world of being a chef, which is predominately a male world.

Julia Powell is at first what i would call the anti-Julia. She is not at all satisfied with her life. That is one credit you must give to Streep's Julia, while it is evident that she yearns to do something, she doesn't put off the whiny self indulgent vibe that you get from Adams' Julie. Julie works for a firm that is building the memorial for the twin towers. It is a thankless job, she answers the phones to get yelled at by people who are hurting. Its a no win situation, you cant get angry with these people, they have lost loved ones, but it is still crappy to get yelled at all day for something that you have no control over. Her friends are moving up in the world at their jobs and becoming more and more successful, while she toils at a place she hates. She takes no delight in the fact that she has a fantastic husband until he becomes something that she can brag about.

When a friend of hers has a blog picked up for syndication, Julie decides that she too could be a successful blogger. She doesn't want to just blog about anything though, so she gives herself a project: cook through Julia Child's cookbook in a year. From here cooking disaster stories unfold, as well as some personal disasters when her blog becomes her focus as opposed to her friends and family. The story is fine, it is a nicely amusing story. It just cant compare to Julia Child.

All in all I would say that if you enjoy cooking and stories of other people who do as well, then rent this film. Its a nice watch. Make sure you take snacks though because you will leave the theater very hungry.

Healthcare Reform Starts at Home

A couple of years ago I started doing Weight Watchers, I had pretty good results with the program and I really like the people at my meeting. When I changed careers I wasn't able to attend meetings anymore and I let the program slide. Fast forward a year and half and I have gained back everything I lost on the program. I am currently trying to get back into healthy eating and following the Weight Watcher program. I am starting very slowly, as I tend to get obsessive about things and I am trying to create a lifestyle that I can actually maintain instead of throwing myself into a routine I cant sustain and failing all over again.

The first week of my new program just required me to record everything that I ate. No restrictions, just write it down in the log if you eat it. Surprisingly I kept this up for a whole week, I am a terrible journaler. I must have about 16 diaries lying around various boxes in my house that have only 3 or 4 entries.

This week I am adding a step to record what I eat as well as the points associated with the food item. Again, I am not enacting any restrictions, merely trying to get a gauge of what I consume on a regular basis. My first day of recording points was yesterday, and it was very enlightening. When I was officially on the Weight Watcher program I avoided foods I knew were bad for you, so naturally that was what I craved. When I stopped following the program, those were the foods I went directly back to. Yesterday, I ate what I wanted to eat, what I would normally eat. Having to write down the points associated with those foods was like having a bucket of cold water tossed on me.

For those you that are unfamiliar with the Weight Watchers program, it works on a points based system. Foods have different points values depending on the number of calories, the grams of fat and the grams of fiber. Each person has a daily point target that they are shooting for. Men get more daily points than women, tall people get more points than short people, younger people get more points than older people and people who do physical labor daily get more points than desk workers. If you are trying to maintain your current weight and not lose any more then you get a few extra points a day. A moderately active person in their 30s of average height and build can have probably somewhere in the vicinity of 30 to 35 points a day if they are trying to maintain their weight. (This is equivalent to approximately a 1500 calorie a day diet.)

Keeping in mind that you shouldn't be eating more than 35 or so points in a day, the following numbers will probably shock you a little bit.

Sausage Biscuit from McDonald's - 10 Points
Large Fries from Chick-fil-A - 10 Points
1 Packet Chick-fil-A Sauce - 4 Points
2 Sticks Cheese Bread from Papa Johns - 7 Points
1 Slice Original Crust The Works Pizza - 8 Points
1 Small Peach Milkshake from Chick-fil-A - 16 Points

I will continue to add to this list as I move forward on my journey towards health. Stay Tuned.

1 Blueberry Scone from Starbucks - 11 Points

Roasting Pork

A good friend of mine and my roommates came over to the house a while ago to hang out and spend some time with us before moving to Missouri. She brought with her a fabulous William Sonoma recipe for Roast Pork with Pears. She is a great cook, and the pork was delicious. I have since tried to replicate the recipe and have learned a few things about roasting a pork loin.

The Williams Sonoma recipe calls for a pork loin split horizontally. You put a mixture of herbs and garlic on the top of one half and then tie the pork halves back together. Placing the herbs inside the roast allows the flavors in the rub to seep into the meat while it roasts. The pork loin is browned on the outside and placed on top of a bed of leeks swimming in stock and then surrounded with grilled pears before it is roasted. The pork turns out quite juicy and flavorful, the leeks wilt down until they are delicious bits of subtle onion flavor and the pears give everything a burst of sweetness to contrast with all the savory flavors. You can find this recipe on the Williams Sonoma website, and I highly recommend it if you want to make something special for dinner guests. The link to the recipe is at the bottom of this post. I have a few tips to add to the recipe, however, that I think will ensure a successful venture.

The first step in a fabulous roast is getting the pork. Most stores don't have pork loin sitting out except for the kind that come pre-marinated in a plastic tube. That pork is very expensive because it is just the choice part of the meat. You don't need to spend the money on a choice cut of pork because you will be ensuring the tenderness and juiciness of the meat with your cooking method. If you don't see other pork options, just ask your butcher to cut you a pork loin. You can also ask the butcher for some butcher string, mine just gave me a large chunk of it without charging me for it.

The last time I made pork I asked the butcher for a cut large enough for 4 people, I got a cut large enough for 8 so we froze half of the loin. If you end up in this situation, make sure that you thaw the loin entirely before cooking the previously frozen piece. Cutting corners here will result in an unevenly cooked piece of pork that is to done in places, and too raw in others. You can eat pork at a medium rare, but it is not recommended to eat rare pork. I also do not recommend microwave defrosting, I tried to speed the defrost process along and ended up with the corners of my loin fully cooked before I ever started the official cooking process. If time is an issue for you and you must enlist a microwave to speed up the defrosting process, cut off the cooked portions of the pork before continuing with the recipe. If the pork is fully cooked before you put it in the oven, it will burn while the rest of the pork cooks. This is definitely something to avoid; burning loins are only a good thing in trashy romance novels.

Leeks can be tricky to handle if you have not worked with them before. Leeks are essentially a really big scallion, or the green onions you often see in salad or on top of baked potatoes. They are grown in sandy soil and their layers are not as packed as a traditional onion, so the soil often will get lodged between the layers. Eating sand is never desired. Cut the white portions of the leeks off and then slice them in half lengthwise. Fill your sink with clean cool water and place the leeks in the water. The leeks will float and the sand will fall to the bottom. Separate the layers of the leek to ensure all the soil had fallen away. This recipe only calls for the white portion of the leeks but save the greens, they make a great potato leek soup.

One thing that I like to do is find a recipe and then change it while still keeping the basic idea of the recipe intact. I did that with this recipe and had quite wonderful results. The basic idea that I see in this recipe is to place flavor elements inside pork and then roast it on top of some aromatics. You can experiment from here with the flavors you place on the inside of the meat as well as what you roast it with.

For my variation on this recipe, I placed sliced peaches and onions inside the pork loin. I used hot spices on the outside of the loin (cumin, onion powder, and red pepper flakes) before browning the meat. I used chunked yellow onions and apples as the base for my roasting pan. I glazed the outside of the loin about halfway through the roasting time with a mixture of honey and orange juice concentrate. The flavors of spice and fruit contrasted nicely with each other, both seemed to pop individually in the mouth as you ate. I recommend serving this with a sweet wine wine, we used a Riesling and that was lovely. If that doesn't sound like the type of thing that gets your taste buds excited play around with different flavor combos at home. Once you get the hang of the basic steps, this can become a go-to dinner without getting stale because you can mix up the flavors however you like depending on what you have on hand.

http://www.williams-sonoma.com/recipe/recipedetail.cfm?objectid=18361AE7-A94D-104C-7EE77833DFF8F77D