Perfect turkey!

I love turkey for Thanksgiving and Christmas but my husband's family usually does a ham for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Ham is wonderful but I had to keep the turkey tradition alive at least for Thanksgiving in our new family. Well if you're in this boat and love turkey but feel like it always turns out dry or its to hard to manage, today's post is for you. Happy early Christmas present.

Now if you glance at the directions don't freak out. There are several step but almost all are done BEFORE the big day. Preparation is the key to a great turkey. This really is incredibly easy even for first timers. You will never need another recipe and you will get rave reviews from family and guests.

Directions: 

1.       Defrost Turkey Completely in refrigerator.  A general rule of thumb is 1 day for every 4 pounds. THIS IS CRITICAL and none of that giving your turkey a warm bath tub or microwaving it. You will start cooking the outside if you try it and that's no good.

 2.    About 24 hours before cooking, brine the turkey. Remove neck and giblets and rinse the turkey. Combine ingredients listed below in a brining bag (you can find it at Bed Bath and Beyond and even Walmart) and place in the refrigerator. The brine is something that can be played with according to your tastes. Cover all of the turkey in the brine so add more liquid if you need it.

2 gallons of water

1.5 cup of kosher salt (please don't use salt with iodine. It wont work the same)

1/2 cup sugar

1/4 cup lemon juice

A few bunches of poultry herbs or a few TBSP of dried poultry seasoning

2 cloves garlic minced or a small TBSP of garlic powder

                 

3.      On the day of cooking, wash the brine off the turkey and pat dry. Loosen skin on the breast of turkey and stuff under the breast 1 stick of butter combined with a heaping TBSP of poultry herbs.  Rub any excess on top of turkey paying special attention to wings and legs. If none is left, spray the turkey with a nonstick cooking spray. If you have a large bird over 15 lbs cover the wing and leg tips with a little bit of foil before you cook it.

If you are not sure how to do this, click this link to watch a how-to video          Butter under turkey skin

4.       Do not stuff the bird with stuffing! By the time the stuffing has reached a safe temperature your turkey will be overcooked and dry. No getting sick on Thanksgiving.

5.      Stuff  the turkey with a quartered lemon and onion. Throw in a clove or two of garlic peeled and cut in half. This helps keep the turkey moist and adds extra flavor. I LOVE the lemon in it so I add more than 1 usually. 1 is a safe bet for the first time you try this. If you have a large turkey throw in some extra produce. You want it completely packed.

6.      Make a bridge for the turkey to rest on in the foil pan if you don't have a roasting pan with rack. Use celery and onions. This step does not need to be perfect but the goal is to elevate the turkey so it’s not bathing in its own juices and browns nicely. Remember the vegetables will soften as they cook so add enough to keep the turkey afloat.

7.      Position oven rack to low middle and preheat to 325F. Bake until it reaches 165F*. A 12 pound turkey will likely take a little under 3 hours but remember that a brined turkey tends to cook fast. You do not need to cover the turkey but if you choose to do so remove the foil 1 hour before the turkey will be done to brown. Basting is not necessary unless its a tradition.

 8. Remove from oven when done and let rest about 15 minutes before serving. 

*If you have ever been told to cook poultry to 170 or 180F it was probably right when you heard it. The USDA recently lowered it recommended "safe to eat" temperature. This gives you a little wiggle room now so if it goes a tad over 165 it wont be completely dry.

Parmesan Crusted Chicken and Twice Baked Red Potatoes

So tonight's dinner was really quite good. Chicken was on sale this week and I hadn't gotten around to freeze the excess so I thought really hard about how to use it in tonight dinner. I have TONS of recipes that involve marinating the chicken but I just didn't have time for that. Nor did I want something super time consuming or something super plain. I found this on the web after remembering someone mentioning using Mayo on chicken. Well I was skeptical as well but not anymore! I changed the recipe to fit my family size and tastes a little bit.

I'll work on those picture skills I promise :) And we used precooked bacon because we had tons in the fridge but the direction are for the much better tasting raw bacon wrapped potatoes. There's a picture of what they should really look like at the bottom of the post.

The recipe was incredible easy. I used a lemon bar pan but you can use a Pyrex dish if you have that instead.

Garlic Parmesan melt in your mouth chicken

Recipe:
2 boneless skinless chicken breast
1/2 cup reduced fat mayo
1/4 cup powdered Parmesan cheese (the stuff in the can by the noodles you know?)

3/4 teaspoons seasoning salt 

1/4 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon garlic powder

Spray your pan with nonstick cooking spray. Combine all the ingredients thoroughly. Spread over chicken and bake at 375 for 45 minutes. 

Red twice baked potatoes

(don't worry if you don't have all of these. you can prepare them with whatever you have on hand)

Recipe:

4 medium sized red or fingerling potatoes

cheese

cream cheese

butter 

salt and pepper

milk 

green onions

8 slices of bacon, optional

toothpick, optional

1. Wash potatoes and stab a few hole in the skin for venting. Microwave uncovered for about 6 minutes. Slice open and let cool. The skin will be a bit softer than we want a baked potato to be but the second cooking step in the oven takes care of this.

2. After the potatoes are cool enough to handle carefully scrape out the insides and place in a bowl.

 

3. This step we will basically be making mashed potatoes kick up a notch. To my bowl of potatoes I add a little milk ,cheese, butter, salt, pepper, green onions and cream cheese until it reached the flavor I liked. You can simply do butter salt and pepper and whatever you think would be good. Maybe garlic powder?

4. Stuff the potatoes with the mashed potatoes. Top with cheese. 

 

5. If you like bacon, wrap the potato with a piece of bacon and secure it with a toothpick. Repeat for the rest of the potatoes.

 

 6. Bake at 375 for 15-20 minutes til bacon is crispy. As the bacon cooks, it forms to the potato and gives off a great bacon flavor. It also look a lot prettier. Remove toothpick and serve.

 

Cheap but tasty and low sugar (if you choose) sparkling apple cider

So about a week before Thanksgiving I went shopping for everything we would need for dinner. Well I of course bought sparking apple cider as it's not a holiday at my house without it. Well the bottles sat out on my counter and I began craving the sweet bubble drink. I felt too guilty about the price to drink some so I came up with a cheap but nonetheless tasty substitute.  We had apple juice and Sprite in the fridge and I was curious what it would taste like combined. Oh man, was I inspired! The juice tasted JUST like that expensive apple cider you buy in a bottle.

The savings is incredible! The cheapest bottle of apple cider I saw this season was $2.50 for a 25.4 ounce bottle. That's about 10 cents an ounces.I was able to buy a gallon of apple juice for $4 and a two liter bottle of sprite for $ .99.That comes out to 2.5 cents an ounces. So in simple terms I would have 4 times the amount of homemade cider compared to store bought for the same price. If you are throwing a large party the saving could add up real fast. Or if you want to enjoy this treat year-round its a lot more budget friendly.

Directions:
Mix half apple juice or cider with half Sprite.

Note: If you are diabetic or watching calories feel free to use Sprite Zero. It tastes nearly as good and I really enjoyed it.

Crazy Easy White Chocolate Pretzels

So I've seen all over Pinterest the melted Hershey's Kisses on pretzels topped with M&Ms. Well I thought this idea was fine and dandy but I never really thought I would make it until I was at the store and saw Candy Cane Kisses. BTW I love peppermint. My plans were solidified when I saw mint flavored Christmas colored M&Ms.

My inspiration came from a visit to Costco a few weeks ago. I saw a huge bag (what at Costco isn't huge?) of white chocolate peppermint covered pretzels. I couldn't resist buying them. Well my husband and I blew through the bag in a matter of days. They were kind of expensive but my main issue with them was they weren't satisfying enough and my husband thought they were not peppermint enough. Well this version of peppermint pretzels solved my sweet tooth issue wonderfully. It is also the quickest and easiest way for peppermint pretzels. Not to mention the clean up will take less than a minute. How's that busy mom! Now if you haven't tried the Candy Cane Kisses your missing out but by melting the chocolate the tiny pieces of candy cane inside melt and the flavor of peppermint intensifies.

I let my husband eat the green ones :)

You need:
1 bag of square or circle pretzels
1 bag of Mint M&M (you can use regular M&M's too)
1 bag of Candy Cane Hershey's Kisses
Parchment Paper

Directions
1. Preheat oven to 300 degrees F
2. Line a baking sheet with a sheet of parchment paper.
3. Place pretzels on baking sheet and top with unwrapped kisses.
4. Place in oven for about 4 minutes give or take depending on your oven and rack position. Just watch them until the Kiss is melted enough to press down. You don't want it completely melted or they wont hold there shape.
5. Remove from oven and quickly press an M&M into the chocolate.
6. Allow to cool and harden at room temp for at least 5 hours.
7. ENJOY!