Tasteful Tuesday

Is it just me or does cooking the Thanksgiving Turkey scare the bajeebies out of you? For the longest time, I decided that we would never have turkey for our Thanksgiving meal when I was in charge, we would have ham. Ham is pretty hard to mess up. (Thank goodness I have yet to be in charge of Thanksgiving for anyone other than my small family, and that was only once! And, we had ham:)) However, this turkey recipe has me convinced that I can actually make a turkey and have it turn out. Doing your turkey this way will take about 4 hours. The actual cooking time is closer to 2 hours but so you don't have to think too hard about it, 4 hours will cover you for all the sitting time and preheating time. It has turned out fabulous turkey for me several times now...never on Thanksgiving but still fabulous. I always serve it with the usual fixings, but have added a mix of sweet and white mashed potatoes to the list. We love them and they add a little bit of health to my favorite part of dinner. Have a GREAT Thanksgiving holiday!

Incredibly Easy Turkey

1 (14-22 lb) turkey

Carrots, cut into large chunks

Celery, cut into chunks

Onion, peeled and cut into 4ths

Garlic cloves, peeled and smashed

Juice of 1 lemon

1 Tablespoon salt

1 Tablespoon pepper

Butter

Brown paper bag, split open

Make sure your turkey is thawed completely. Heat your oven to 500 degrees for one hour and move oven rack down. In the mean time, remove turkey insides and rinse well. Combine the salt, pepper and lemon juice. Rub completely over turkey, using all of the mixture. Fill the cavity with carrots, celery, onion and garlic.

Place the turkey in roasting pan with the breast down (this is opposite how you would normally do it). Place roasting pan in the oven for as many minutes as the turkey weighs (an 18 lb turkey would go in for 18 minutes).

While turkey is cooking, use the butter to completely grease the paper bag on both sides. Remove the pan from the oven and carefully make a tent out of the bag, carefully tucking the sides into the pan (if you don't make sure the sides are tucked in you could start a fire in your oven, so double check!) Turn the oven temperature down to 400 degrees and cook the turkey for 2 hours.

Remove pan and turkey from oven and let sit for 20 minutes. Remove turkey from pan and cut as desired. Use juices to make a wonderful gravy (just discard some of the grease on top)

Recipe Source:

Mel's Kitchen Cafe

Tasteful Tuesday

My husband always says I'm half chinese. I love to make asian type dishes. I have great recipes for sweet and sour chicken, wontons, bok choy soup, and lots of others. When I came across this recipe for lettuce wraps I had to try it. It is really yummy! My picture is definately not that great but don't let that keep you from trying these, you will be glad you did!

Lettuce Wraps

2 teaspoons oil

4 cloves garlic, minced

1 Tablespoon fresh ginger, minced (or grated)

1 1/2 pounds ground turkey or ground chicken

1 cup minced mushrooms

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 (8oz) can water chestnuts, minced

1/2 cup sliced green onions

1/4 cup soy sauce

2 teaspoons sesame oil

zest from one lemon

juice from 1/2 lemon

1 teaspoon hot sauce

Lettuce for wrapping (we used romaine and loved it)

Dipping sauce (recipe after....optional)

Heat oil in large skillet. When hot, add the garlic and ginger. Saute for just a minute and add turkey, mushrooms and salt. Cook until turkey is cooked through. Add water chestnuts, green onions, soy sauce, sesame oil, lemon juice and zest, and the hot sauce. Cook until everything is hot.

Wash lettuce leaves and separate. Spoon filling onto lettuce leaves and serve with dipping sauce (we just spooned it on).

Dipping sauce

1/4 cup soy sauce

1/8 cup rice vinegar

1 Tablespoon fresh minced ginger

2 Tablespoons sliced green onions.

Combine and serve.

My notes:

You can use iceburg or bibb lettuce but we loved using the romaine and eating it like a little boat. My kids love these and there are never any leftovers.

Also, the original recipe called for the juice of a whole lemon. I thought it was too much so I cut it back to 1/2. If you like lemon you can try the whole thing. My kids usually don't like mushrooms but they never complain about them in this recipe. I think it tastes better with them in it.

I serve these with a great jasmine rice recipe I have that comes from the Essential Mormon Celebrations cookbook by Julie Badger Jensen.