Thursday’s Culinary Adventure IV

 

 

It’s that time again!!!  Tonight, on Thursday’s Culinary Adventure

Can you believe it??!!  So, so adorable.  How could I not make it?  Well, I’ll tell you:

I took the idea for this recipe from the Taste of Home’s Halloween Food and Fun.  The original recipe calls for a pork roast, however we don’t eat much pig in our house, so I switched it to turkey breasts instead.  Feel free to follow the same recipe with a pork loin if you’d prefer.

You will need, a package of phyllo dough, dijon mustard, heavy cream, butter, an apple, dried thyme, and turkey breasts. (Again, or pork.)

First, put the turkey breasts on a cookie sheet and broil them until they are starting to turn brownish white on top.

Mix 1/4 cup Dijon mustard with 3/4 cup heavy cream, and bring to a boil.  Turn down heat and simmer 5-10 minutes.  Stir in 1/4 tsp. Thyme.

Spread mixture on top of chicken breasts, reserving a little for dipping.

Melt 3 Tb. butter.

Get out a sheet of phyllo dough and (GENTLY!) unfold in onto the counter. Brush it with the melted butter, and put another sheet on top.

Continue this pattern until you have a stack of four sheets.

Time out for a quick letter to phyllo dough.

Dear Phyllo Dough,

I hate you.  Why do you have to be like that?  Come on now!  The Office is starting in an hour, and Joseph is hungry!  The rest of you is going IN THE TRASH!!!

Glares and feelings of hatred,

Caitlin 

Man!  This stuff is HARD to work with! (for me.)  It is very thin, delicate, flaky.  The instructions say to keep the unused phyllo dough covered with a damp towel and saran wrap while you are working with the other sheets.  What?!  STRESSFUL!  The longer I took, the more and more brittle the sheets were!  I may have even yelled at Brian to “Turn off that stupid music toy!!!  It’s stressing me out!”  Obviously, it was the phyllo dough, and not the toy that was my problem.  Sorry Brian.

Here is me stressed out at the phyllo dough.

Anywhoo, disregard that outburst as we continue on with our recipe.

Place the Turkey Breast at the end of the phyllo sheets, and wrap it on up, tucking the ends under.

Now, take a new phyllo sheet, brush it with butter, and put another one on top.  Using a pizza cutter, cut into thin strips.

Wrap the thin strips around the turkey breast, saving a few.

Cut a square chunk out of your apple.  Keep in mind that this will be the head, so it should be somewhat proportionate to the body.  Wrap the remaining strips around the apple chunk, and position it next to the body.

You will not actually be eating the apple portion.  I know, a bit disappointing.  But, it is all in the presentation, people!!

Okay, I have a confession to make.  I actually only made ONE of the turkey breasts into a mummy.  The other one I did this to:

It was taking WAAY too long and I was hungry!

Pop it in the oven at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, or until you are tired of checking on it. 

The phyllo dough will brown up really fast, but don’t panic (I did!  That’s why I was so tired from checking on it every 30 seconds!).  The browning seems to happen fast at first and then slow down considerably.

Voila!  Your Yummy Mummy!  AWWW!! Isn’t it cute???!!

Taste Testers Say:

Caitlin

(note the blanket.  It’s COOOOOLD!!! tonight!)

Brian

(I know, hard to read.  Imagine being married to this hard-to-read face.  What is he thinking???  I always just assume that he is thinking how funny and adorable I am.  In this case though, I think he is thinking “so-so.”)

Summary:  Meh…not so much.  Just aright for me.  Pretty rich, and I am VERY picky about my meat, so very rarely do I cook a turkey/chicken breast whole, without dissecting it for veins and fat. (Anal, I know.)  I started imagining all of the things that were in it, and I was done.  Brian liked it at first, but then thought that it was too rich.  Maybe it would be better with pork?

SOOOO cute though!!!!!  Great for a party!  (Especially if you have lots of other food that they can eat.)

Grade: C+

but Presentation: A+

(I ate cold cereal for dinner instead.)

   

Thursday’s Culinary Adventure 3

 

Tonight on Thursday’s Culinary Adventure, (did you get my hint?  What do you not want a diaper to do?)…

 

 

Okay, so this isn’t actually what we are making tonight.  How in the world did that get there??!!  Oops!  Well, ho hum, as long as they are up, might as well take some time to admire my excellent fall cupcakes that I made today.  Please note the leafy cupcake liners and fall themed sprinkles   

 

Anywhoo, where were we?  Oh yes, what do you never want a diaper to do?

Leeks are in the same family as onions, and in that family, are most closely related to the Elephant Garlic. 

It is one of the national symbols of Wales, immensely popular there, and worn on the shirt of Welch men for St. David’s day.  (How do they hold it on?)  It was also, allegedly, the favorite vegetable of the famous Emperor Nero.

I will be adapting my favorite potato soup recipe into a Potato Leek Soup for tonight’s dinner.  Hip, hip, hooray!!

You will need Leeks (obviously), potatoes, chicken broth, butter, bacon, sour cream, and cheddar cheese (optional).

 

1)  Fry up your bacon.      Yumm!  Turkey processed and formed into bacon strips!  My favorite!! (no really…)  When it is nice and crispy, remove it from pan, (DO NOT DRAIN GREASE!!) crumble it up, and put it in the fridge to put on top later.

*Let me just take a minute to show you how huge, and slightly intimidating, Leeks are And keep in mind that I have a large, suspiciously melon-like head.*

 

 

2)  Cut off the top part of the Leeks

People only eat the light green and white part, so throw the dark green top away  (just in case you don’t know how to do that, I included a picture…)  Also, cut off the roots, then cut the Leek in half length-wise.

 

3)  You will be left with something like this

Notice all of the layers?  If the center part is hard, remove it, otherwise chop ‘er on up!  

 

4)  After you have chopped up the leeks, toss them in the pan with the bacon grease.  If you don’t have much grease, add a spoonful of butter.  Fry them up until they are tender and slightly opaque.

5)  Break out my BEST FRIEND IN THE WHOLE WORLD (besides Twizzlers) the

Now is probably a good time to tell you that I have a small crock pot, and I am making this recipe to make about 3-4 servings.  Using one Leek.  You may want to double it to feed more.

Plop those leeks into your trusty crock pot.  One leek made this much in my small crock pot

6)  Wash and cut up some potatoes and add those (raw) to your crock pot as well.  I left the skin on, and used 2.5 Russet potatoes. 

I also threw in some Butternut Squash puree that I had frozen. (I love Deceptively Delicious cook book!!)  That is why my soup will look a little orange…A Festive Bonus!!

7)  Here is where things get sketchy with measurements.  Do whatever you want to based on your tastes.  I added

A dash of salt

A larger dash of pepper

Some Rosemary

Half-way filled with chicken stock

A spoonful of sour cream

Two splashes of milk

Here is what it looked like when I put the lid on and waved goodbye.

I left it on high for four hours and when I came back from eating cupcakes with my friends, it looked like this    

 

8)  Mash up the potatoes with a fork, and add extra broth/milk until it reaches your desired consistency.

Top with shredded cheddar cheese, and the bacon bits from earlier.

TA DA!!!

 

The Taste Testers Say:

 

Brian: 

Caitlin: 

 

Joseph: 

 

YUMMY YUMMY YUMMY!!!!  So much for Joseph not liking potatoes…

 

Summary: 

Very yummy!  The Leeks gave it a mid onion-y flavor, not nearly so strong as if you had actually used onions!  A hot, hearty, delicious soup, with an excellent Leeky (word?) flavor.

I would think that you could use Leeks in recipes that call for onion, when you don’t want as harsh of an onion taste.  It is very mild and unobtrusive.

Grade:  A!!!!

In other news, did you notice Joseph’s eye owie?

Poor little buddy            

 

The adventuresome item next week is actually a recipe with an exciting finished product, so I can’t really give you a hint.  But, I can say that it will look like a Halloween character of some kind, and that you can eat it for dinner………….

Thursday’s Culinary Adventure 2

Believe it or not, it’s that time again!!  Today on Thursday’s Culinary Adventure…did everyone get my hint from last week? (rhymes with shmok shmoy?)  That’s right, it’s

For those of you who don’t know (and why would you?), Bok Choy is also known as “Snow Cabbage” and it’s closest family member is the turnip!  It is most commonly found in Asian dishes.

I will be preparing Bok Choy loosely based on the recipe “Bacon-y Bok Choy” found on allrecipe.com.  I am sure that there are many delicious ways to prepare it, but this is the recipe for which I had all of the items already on hand.

You will need 5 slices of bacon, an onion, red pepper flakes (unless you expect kids to eat it- red pepper flakes are HOT!), and rice.  Oh, and Bok Choy of course.

1) Cook the rice as usual  

(I LOVE MY RICE COOKER!!)

2) Fry up the bacon in a skillet, then crumble into bits and set aside.  Drain the grease, reserving a little in the bottom of the pan. (I used Turkey Bacon.)

3) Dice up half of the onion and fry it up in the bacon grease, along with a few dashes of red pepper flakes.

4) Meanwhile, wash the Bok Choy and cut it in half, separating the white stem from the green leaves.

Dice the stem and tear up the Bok Choy leaves into little bits. (NOTE: IF YOU USE BABY BOK CHOY, THEN YOU CAN SKIP THIS STEP AND JUST USE THE BOK CHOY WHOLE.  I HAVE NEVER DONE THIS, THOUGH, SO WATCH OUT)

5) Add the Bok Choy stem to the onion and top with a tsp. or so of olive oil.  Stir ‘er up and cover your pan.  Let cook about 3-5 minutes.

6) Add the Bok Choy greens and the bacon bits.  Cover and cook about 2-3 more minutes.

7) Serve over hot rice.

TADA!

TASTE TESTERS SAY:

Caitlin:

Brian:

Surprisingly Good!

Summary: We both thought that this was really yummy!  Although how can you go wrong with bacon and Walla Walla sweet onions?!  I will definitely be making this again.  Light, tasty, nutritious, different.  A little zip.  Yum!  

p.s. If you want to use Bok Choy in a stir-fry, separate the leaves from stem as shown, throw in the stem with carrots/zucchinis/stuff that can cook longer and save the greens for very last, like with the snow peas.

GRADE: B (it is still a vegetable…)

Hint for next week’s Adventure:  It is something that you never want a diaper to do…