A Different Kind of Apple Pie

This makes it easy and at the same time provides just as good a tasting pie as any you can have.  Same filling, just roll it up in a flour tortilla and bake.  Add Ice Cream and you will be in A la mode la la land.

Good Old Southern Cooking

Talk about South In Your Mouth!  This is it up one side and down the other.  Fresh out of the garden Turnip Greens and Turnips cooked together with some seasoned meat.  Fried Taters with Onion right at the end, and Black Eyed Peas, Cracklin Cornbread to die for and what ever else makes a supper like this special on the plate like pickled jalapenos, sliced onion and all you need is some buttermilk.

BBQ (Butt over Brisket)

I never do one without the other as I like that Pork Fat dripping on my Brisket when I cook one.  This Brisket was cooked using my own Injection of beef brother and other seasonings and my own Rub which was heavy on the black pepper.  It was really tasty.  I have used large disposable pans in cooking both these meats after they have cooked long enough to have a nice color and bark on them and decided that I need to wrap with foil first to get that braising / steaming effect to penetrate into the meat more and I think I will stick with that idea from now on but I have to do a better job on these big Briskets and not loose my broth.  The Pork Butt was not injected and I find them to have a better flavor that way.  I did finally find a Misto Spray container I really like to spritz the meat with (pump it and it sprays a real fine mist).  So our BBQ Stash is now replenished and we are in good shape to barter meat and enjoy sandwiches for awhile.

Friday Night Pizza

We have been having Frozen Pizza every friday night for a long long time now and never tire of it.  Aldi's brand Mama Cozzi? or the California brands are the two we think are the best.  What makes it work for us is that we always buy either just a cheese pizza or veggie pizza and put other topping on it that we might have on hand.  This pizza was as you can see the veggie pizza and we were very lucky to have just cook a turkey and had that nice turkey breast and added plenty of anchovies along with extra Pecorino Cheese which is an amazing cheese and we are never without a large wedge that takes the place of so many other cheeses.  We use it for everything.  We like all the different crust but Thin seems to be what we like best and we never ever leave off the Sriracha.

Fried Turkey - New Thoughts

Just wanted to be sure I said how well this Waring Pro Rotisseri Turkey Fryer worked.  It was easy to use and did a great job and cleaned up nice as well.  As far a the turkey goes, I am like everyone else and really sold on how good they are but with one difference.  I find that after they are held over you get about the same turkey that I do when I smoke a turkey.  That could be that I just do a better job on turkey by not over cooking them which is what I think most people do.  That is important to me because I just don't like the pressure of carving a turkey or anything else at the table and like to feed a crowd by having all that done ahead of time.  They are very good though and we will still use ours this Thanksgiving.  Here's a pic of a little leftover breast meat that I made Turkey Melts with and mine had Cajun Peppers and her's had dill pickles.  Oh how I love those Sweet n Hot Cajun peppers, these are hot as hell fire but I can't resist them and they proved to be a perfect addition to this Turkey Melt.

I have wanted to try Fried Turkey for a long time because I hear about how good they are all the time and not once have I heard anyone say a negative word.  Sooooo, Waring Pro Professional Rotisserie Turkey Fryer / Steamer was on sale at Sam's for 199.00 and I had to have one.   It makes a lot of sense to have this thing set up the way it is and be able to cook with much less oil due to the rotisserie.  Any frying a big bird has always seemed to make sense to me as well, and I must say I am not disappointed.  Now I have had plenty of good reviews on my turkey cooked the conventional way and never dried one out, but this frying effect on the outside of the bird is worth it all.  I won't say that my smoker will never see another turkey but this fried bird is probably better but just different.  I had absolutely no problems with my first cook but will tell you what to look out for if you ever find yourself using one of these cookers.  First, it takes around 45 min for 2 1/2 gal of oil to come to 350 and you may need to plan on that amount of time but you can expect the cooking time to be right on with the recipe included in the book, i.e. about 3 min per lb.  Another thing I was not expecting is the skin on the breast was not crispy and I guess that might be good because I don't know how you would slice it if it had been.  The skin on the legs and wings were super crispy and very good, they were also my fav part.

Flank Steak, Baked Vidalias

Seems you never stop learning and some times it is re-learning as was the case with cooking my Mom's day meal. I knew there was a reason I had stopped buying Flank Steak many years ago and it was simply that, I don't like them. It's a tough piece of beef at best - beefy and tasty for sure, but tough. I know a lot of people like them and even see them used for fajitas a lot and that's even worst as Fajitas and all Authentic Mexican dishes are never good if the meat is rare and you just don't want your Flank Steak to be well done. The leftover steak will be chopped and fried for steak tacos as that is the only use for this meat I can live with. With plenty of time on my hands, I decided to foil bake the potatoes and followed my procedure for that by pricking them with a sharp tined fork all over after scrubbing, then oiled them with evoo and covered them with a couple of tablespoons of kosher salt before wrapping and baking for an hour and fourty minutes in a 350 degree oven. We usually nuke these and it had been so long since baking them properly in the oven we had forgotten how much better they are this way. I started the salad by pulverizing 3 garlic cloves into some salt in the bottom of a wood salad bowl and added 1/4 cup olive oil, tbs of dijon, tbs of wine vinegar, before tossing the mixed greens. The onions were outstanding and we usually wrap them whole with butter in the center and found out that is the wrong way to bake them - they are much better sliced and inch thick and grilled or baked with oil and butter to brush on them as they cook. By cooking them this way rather than in foil you can better judge when they are done. Sour cream yeast rolls were made the day before and baked again and the meal was served with a Shrimp Coctail. Desert was home made Lemon Ice Box Pie Ice Cream that has become our favorite of all Ice Cream.

Grilled / Smoked Chicken

There are 3 types of grilled chicken - VERY GOOD, SO SO, AND BAD. These two whole "all natural" Tyson birds (which I halved) happened to fall into the VERY GOOD category, much to my surprise. I have always believed that it is all the little "extras" you do when cooking anything that makes the difference so I try to always brine my chicken the day before and air dry them in the fridge overnight. This time however due to a busy day working outside, I skipped the brine step. While the smoker / grill was heating up, I mixed several tbs of Five Spice into little room temp butter and let it get hard in the freezer to insert under the skin on the thighs and breast. Seasoned the bird on both sides and popped them into a 325 degree cooker for about 1 hour on the skin side before turning them over to cook another 30 min or so to an internal breast temp of about 165 - 170. I don't think they got much over the 170 while resting with a foil cover in a pan before we made the pictures and they were done to perfection. Which brings to mind another thing I have always believed held true when grilling and even cooking great BBQ, which is that, cooking to the perfect finished temp, is one of the main ingredients.

I thought a few Stuffed and Wrapped Jalapenos and Bacon Wrapped Tater Tots would be good with the chicken and of course they are good with anything or all by themselves. These were mild peppers and they have to be for us to enjoy them even though I consider myself a pepperhead. The Tots are tricky and you have to let them thaw in order to get a toothpick threw them and you also have to make sure the bacon reaches completely around them as the bacon is what holds them together while they cook, the toothpick just holds the bacon.

I have very fond memories of the Lemon Icebox Pies from my youth when my Mom made them on a regular basis but not so often that they were taken for granted. They were always great and the taste deserving of top spot in the special treat category. Head over heals into using our new ice cream maker to make our own special recipes of ice cream, I was looking through the Southern Living magazine and saw this recipe and immediately knew it was the next recipe we would try. Glad I did because I was and still am shocked it actually taste just like the pie. If you love this pie, you absolutely have to try this ice cream.

Morel Sauce and Benton Ham

Visiting friends in Tn usually results in a stop at Benton Hams which is understandable since this is some of the best cured pork on the planet - it is well know even in fine restaurants in other countries where Chefs have it shipped and use it regularly.

This trip we found time to head to the farm and look for Morels, hoping to find a great harvest but disappointed to only find a handful. With our meager Morel harvest we were only able to make this Red Wind / Morel sauce to accompany our ham dinner.

It was still a special treat as these Morels as everyone knows are very hard to come by.