Turkey breast Cooking time:

Image : http://www.flickr.com

It 'easy, a turkey moist succulent making some useful suggestions for:

* Your Place turkey in a baking dish low to circulate the heat very well.

* Place one inch of water to aid in the pan for the turkey moist and tender.

* Brush the turkey lightly with oil and freely with your favorite herbs, spices, seasonings and cover.

Imagine holding a tent of aluminum foil and place over the turkey breast in heatfor cooking. you want to remove the aluminum foil during the last hours of cooking a nice golden brown.

Check the water level periodically and add water if necessary. This mixture of juice and infusion of herbs can be used to make a good sauce turkey after the turkey is done cooking.

Times typical of Turkey for the thawed turkey at 325 to 350 degrees in the oven are:

* 2 to 3 kg – 1.5 to 2Hours

* 4 to 6 pounds – 2.5 to 3 hours

* 7 to 8 kg – 3 to 4 hours

It 'absolutely safe to take the turkey directly from the freezer and bake without thawing. Just make sure that the neck and giblets removed first.

This makes the turkey breast cooking time increases by about fifty percent.

* Your Place frozen turkey in a baking dish low

* Place one inch of water in the bottom of the pot to keep the turkeymoist and tender

* Brush the turkey lightly with oil and freely with your favorite herbs, spices, seasonings and cover.

Set up a tent of aluminum foil on Turkey to maintain the heat for cooking, remove the foil during the last hours of cooking a nice golden brown.

The timing of Turkey's typical for a frozen turkey at 325 to 350 degrees in the oven are:

* 2 to 3 kg – 3-4Hours

* 4 to 6 pounds – 5 to 6 hours

* 7 to 8 pounds 6 to 8 hours

It 'important to cook the turkey at 325 to 350 degrees to ensure that does not dry out and get to a safe internal temperature of meat.

The best way to check doneness is to use a meat thermometer. The minimum safe internal temperature is 165 degrees. If the chest with a fork should penetrate the juices have priority.

If you're a hot air oven for Turkey to reduceCooking times with the breast up to about 25 percent. To use it safely, a meat thermometer to test doneness

Following these simple tips will ensure that you have a delicious meal, which may be swarming all.

My Links : accusharp-001-knife-sharpener eureka-enviro-steamer scandinavian-teak-furniture.blogspot.com dog-apparel-blog.blogspot.com

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Egg Hunt Lunch

We’ve been enjoying a streak of absolutely beautiful weather lately.  The trees are in bloom, my plants are growing, and I don’t have to wear a jacket to stay warm anymore.  I love Spring!  I tend to feel more creative during the Spring and Summer months.

This is a lunch I packed for my husband, so it not only includes foods I can’t eat, but also a lot more food than I would want to eat.  Instead of stopping for lunch, he sometimes snacks throughout the day, so I sometimes try to pack lunches that match his eating style while still ensuring he’s eating healthily.  We had just dyed eggs together for the first time, so it inspired me to make his lunch a mini-egg hunt.

Clockwise from the top left: Three silicone cups of fruit salad with dried cranberries, broccoli and grape tomatoes, wasabi dipping sauce hiding some hard candies, stacks of crab California rolls, dried mango wrapped around a hardboiled egg, chocolate and cadbury eggs hiding in broccoli, more mango with another hardboiled egg, and some baby carrots.

I liked the little tomatoes hiding in the broccoli with the candy and chocolates; they seem to be a bit egg-shaped themselves.

[Via http://ipixy.wordpress.com]

Pizza with Mushrooms and Creamed Onions

Hello there,

this pizza is quite an ugly duckling! It doesn’t look like much, but it tasted delicious. I especially liked that it’s not covered in huge amounts of melted cheese. Come to think of it, I also really liked that it’s not slathered with tomato sauce. In other words: it’s a pizza, which is generally awesome, but it’s a little different.

The recipe comes from Johanna Handschmann’s Italian Vegetarian Cooking. I followed it pretty strictly; except that I doubled it (my husband and I are both suckers for pizza, so leftovers were a must), and that I used veggie broth instead of wine (I’m not having alcohol at the moment; generally, however, I would use wine in this, and will do so next time I’m making it).

Due to a – totally unreasonable – sabotage of tomatoes on my husband’s part, I made half of the pizza without tomatoes, as you can see in the picture. Well, here we go:

Ingredients:

for one 12 inch pizza pan

for the dough:

1 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast

1 tsp. salt

1 2/3 cups flour

2 tbsps. olive oil

For the topping:

2 medium onions

2 tbsps. olive oil

3 1/2 oz. button mushrooms

6 tbsps. white or red wine

5 tbsps. cream

oregano, salt, and pepper to taste

2 medium tomatoes

1 cup freshly grated parmesan

Directions:

In a bowl, mix flour, salt, and yeast. Add olive oil and about 7 tbsps. warm water. Knead into a smooth dough (by hand or machine). If necessary, add a little more water. Let the dough rise for at least 30 mins.

In the meantime, peel the onions and slice them thinly. Wash and slice the mushrooms. Fry the onions in hot olive oil (in a large pan) for 3 to 4 mins., stirring all the time. Add the mushrooms; stir. Pour in wine and cream, stir. Add oregano (I used about 1 tsp. dry oregano), salt, and pepper to taste. Cook the mixture down over medium heat until the veggies are soft and the liquid has reduced.

Wash and slice the tomatoes.

Preheat your oven to 425° F. Grease a baking sheet and put it into your pizza pan.

Knead the risen dough very briefly, then spread it onto the baking sheet. Lay the tomato slices on the dough.

Stir the parmesan into the veggie mix, and spread this on the dough.

Bake the pizza for about 20 mins., until the topping is bubbly and the dough is crusty. Enjoy!!

I hope you have a wonderful, fun weekend. We have some good cooking planned, and some good hanging out and chilling. Those weekends are the best.

xoxo, F.

[Via http://sweetsmart.wordpress.com]

THE ART OF OVEREATING

Perhaps one of the best books of all time by Leslie Landis.  It’s hilarious however puts food in perspective & makes some valid points.  It cost $10 & you can read it in a day! She suggest not weighing yourself and I would have to agree with her %100.  The last time I was at the doctor’s I weighed 143 pounds.  I hate getting on a scale. I do not own one.  This book is a must have for anyone that loves food.  You will look at food differently.

[Via http://foreverflavor.wordpress.com]

How To Make Brown Sugar at Home

Over the years I’ve learned to make a lot of stuff here at home, not just food, but staples as well like: powdered sugar, brown sugar, baking powder, yeast, etc. Not only do you save money, you also save in packaging meaning less trash in the landfill. It’s more convenient to make them up in small batches and you have fresher products. Here’s one of them that I posted on my blog a while ago. I posted this on my blog a while ago and thought it was relevant for the Real Food Challenge.

*****

There are lots of things you can make at home for much less than you can buy them at the store. Not only does it save money, but it saves time as well. No more quick trips to the store to get brown sugar when you start baking and realize you’re out. I’ve been making my own brown sugar for quite a while, mostly because it can be difficult to find organic brown sugar when you live in a rural area and it’s pretty expensive when you do actually find it! I definitely couldn’t get organic brown sugar for less than $1.50/lb, which is about what this costs me.

To make your own brown sugar all you need is white sugar and molasses. I use organic evaporated cane juice sugar (not Sucanat) and unsulphered organic blackstrap molasses. The general recipe is 1 cup of sugar and 2 Tablespoons of molasses. You can adjust the molasses amount or use a different kind of molasses to suit your tastes. I’m partial to blackstrap or sorghum molasses. I also like to use at least 2 Tablespoons or a bit more, since I like dark brown sugar.

After adding the molasses to the sugar all you have to do is mix. This can take a while, you can use a mixer if you’re making a large amount, the whisk attachment works very well for this task. Mixing by hand is also fine, I like using a fork for this method. Don’t worry if you have small lumps of molasses in the final product, I usually don’t mix until completely combined.

Another added benefit to making brown sugar at home, is that it’s always fresh. It smells wonderful and it’s always nice and soft. It has a much deeper flavor than store-bought brown sugar, which I really appreciate!

Now you can add this to the growing list of things you can make at home. You’ll have a constant supply of fresh brown sugar for baking all kinds of delicious goodies.

Have you ever made brown sugar at home? Any other great things you make at home you’d love to share?

[Via http://notdabblinginnormal.wordpress.com]

A Pepper Problem (part 3): Made-Over Chicken Cacciatore

We now reach an occurence when I create a recipe completely on my own. This normally goes one of two ways, either Great Success (as Borat would say) or “It’s okay if you don’t make this again” (as my husband would say). This got a good reception, so it is worth sharing.

Based on the fact that I didn’t want to go to the grocery store and that we had not eaten pasta in a while, I set out to create an italian dish with some of the abudance of peppers. Chicken cacciatore came to mind because it mixes meat with tomato sauce, and sometimes can have eggplant and mushrooms. My husband insists on meat with dinner, so I decided to do a bit of investigating regarding chicken cacciatore and this is the recipe I came up with after looking at about six. Otherwise we might just have had homemade pasta sauce with peppers, which is what you would get if you amde this and left out the chicken.

Just a note on the ingredients:

The peppers are from my initial bulk purchase (see A Pepper Problem (part 1)). After this recipe there will only be one left!

The chicken I used was a package of 6 deboned thighs because it was on meat manager special. (To me, meat manager sounds like a very funny thing to list on ones resume. However, the meat manager is one of my favorite people at the grocery store.) Because the price was so good, I bought two packs at the time, one for gumbo and the other for the freezer. So, when I needed meat, that’s what was available. This would probably be fine with leg quarters or even breasts. Bone in normally holds taste better, but thigh meat is pretty delicious, even de-boned.

Made-Over Chicken Cacciatore

Ingredients:

1.5 lb chicken pieces

3 bell peppers (red and green) sliced into strips

1 can of V8 (12oz)

1 can tomato sauce (plain)

1 cup wine (white or red. I used white.)

2 tbsp Italian Seasoning

1 tbsp crushed garlic

1 bay leaf

I preheated the oven to 375. and then combined all ingredients in a casserole. Then, I baked for 1 hour with the lid on and 20 minutes with the lid off so that the top got nice and toasty.

I served it over egg noodles and slices of sour-dough baguette because that is what I happened to have available at the time, but any pasta or bread would do.

Also, always drink the wine you cook with to complement the meal. Plus, it ensures that you cook with good wine!

This was really good and would be great with some mozzarella or parmesan. It would have been nice to add some sauteed mushrooms and onions to the mix, but I didn’t have any at the time.

There was very little left-over, so it probably made about 5 servings.

[Via http://cookscache.wordpress.com]

Life in the Raw: A week in the life on a new raw eater.

Looking up for Uma Thurman’s diet (She’s also into Raw) I found this really interesting article. It elaborates on the way I’ve been feeling after (and during) my first Raw week.

The article is Life in the Raw and it documents the experience of a Girl during her first week on Raw

I feel my will for raw slipping as I look at a mouth-watering menu – lobster, fish bisque, steak. Will one small deviation count? My friends are choosing what to eat with the light-hearted joy of normal diners. Going out for dinner is about so much more than food, but the restrictions are not making me feel sociable. I stay strong and stick to salad.

In General Raw Guru is a pretty good and helpful site for the new Raw eater. The article I liked the most revolves around making the transition from a cooked to a raw life. This is what I find more interesting:

Most people can switch to the transition diet quite easily and many stay with it on an ongoing basis. The transition stage consists of 80% raw and 20% cooked foods. The primary raw foods to eat on this diet include: fresh fruits and vegetables, fresh juices, avocado, raw nuts, and seeds. This should comprise at least 80% of your diet. [...] The remaining 20% of your diet can be cooked. That means 1 or 2 cooked meals a week, or up to 20% of individual meals. In order to be considered on the transition diet, you should not eat more cooked food than this.

It’s so great to read this! Based on this I can say that my past week (let’s not look at the current weekend, please) was 80% raw, which gets me on the right path and motivates me to keep working on this!

This Week I have a date during the week, for which I am already planning on cooking something my grandmother used to cook for me as a child, at least now I can feel a little less guilty for this. Now, the only thing I have to focus on, is staying RAW for at least 80% of my week.

I’m feeling very excited, very.

-Kou

[Via http://kougoesraw.wordpress.com]

essex&jamaica in one day

when i got in two hours ago i cast my eyes over the pitch that i spent so long on yesterday and realised that the tone in which i had written was completely inappropriate. i don’t know whether it was my lack of tiredness or my general frustration and missing out on the stereophonics but to describe it in one word, lets say ‘awful’ would do it complete justice. i put my current contentment down to a tummy full of reggae reggae chicken as well as rice and peas, and paired with the pressure of a deadline of what i assume to be first thing tomorrow morning i sat down and the words instantaneously travelled to my finger tips and appeared on the screen in front of me. i love it when that happens.

the geography field trip was as strange as i predicted it would be. i knew it was going to be a bad day as soon as we discovered that we couldn’t even manage to get ourselves on the right train from east croydon (despite being with two teachers), ending up at city thames link opposed to london bridge, resulting in around a one and a half mile walk to fenchurch street. just what we needed. we were all exhausted before we’d even started to walk collecting our data. despite this negativity, the ominous purple grey sky swollen with rain that bulged above us never did burst, so despite us being freezing and thoroughly windswept, we remained dry. 

fact # 89

the laptop battery light flashing threateningly at me to turn it off before it decides to itself has decided that it is bed time for me. i really do not feel like sleeping.

fact # 89 1/2

… the laptop turned itself just as i was about to post this yesterday.

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Weekend trip to Toubacouta

The weekend of March 5-7, my program went on a fieldtrip to Toubacouta, Senegal.

Dakar is located at the westernmost point of Senegal. Toubacouta is farther south along the coast but a little inland, almost near the Gambia.

The weekend was filled with lots of dancing and Senegalese food, but the highlight was spending the day and night in a Senegalese village. Keur Moussa Siny is the birthplace of one of our program directors and that is where we spent the night. The purpose of the visit was to experience life in a Senegalese village. As a female, I was to spend a day in the life of a Senegalese woman living in a village. I cooked, took care of children, carried water, had my hair braided, and danced. It was an amazing twenty four hours, the villagers are so content to live their lives and share their culture. It was a really pleasant and rewarding experience in every way possible. Some pictures of my Senegalese domesticity:

This was the baby of my host mom in the village. I was holding another child when she strapped this one on my back. It was amazingly comfortable. The Senegalese women do everything with the baby tied to their backs, including cooking, cleaning, dancing...everything.

My host mom with the dish we prepared, Yassa Ginaar. The preparation included chasing and catching two chickens, ringing their necks, boiling them, plucking their feathers, cutting up the meat and rubbing it with salt, cooking the chicken over fire, boiling rice, cutting up and cooking vegetables, and pounding spices and garlic to make the onion sauce. We then distributed the rice, chicken, and sauce into many bowls to feed the entire compound.

One of the ladies in the compound asked to braid my hair. This is near the end...when she was pulling at my scalp and my neck was very sore.

Along with my host sisters, we made about six trips between the well and the house to refill the water containers. I was given a small bucket to carry and managed to get most of it to where it was supposed to be.

When I returned to the house after carrying a water bucket, one of my male American friends was hanging around. He had been watching wrestling on the television while the women were carrying water. A perfect example of the role of women in Senegalese society...

[Via http://kellidakar.wordpress.com]

Dr. Smoothie Launches a Brand New Smoothie Line Called “Classic”

Keeping it fresh, Dr. Smoothie Brands continues to lead the way by developing new products with the consumer’s good health in mind first. Creating a brand new smoothie line called “Classic” will provide businesses the opportunity to offer a great new smoothie without having to sacrifice quality, price or taste. The hallmark of the Classic line is its extremely fresh and vibrant natural fruit taste as compared to the competitions cooked and overly sweet profiles.

Classic will be available in nine delicious flavors, are made from real vine ripened fruit. They feature NO high fructose corn syrup, No artificial colors, flavors or preservatives. Enriched with an assortment of vitamins and minerals, Classic flavors are all natural, lactose free, fat free and shelf stable.

100% Crushed, manufactured by Dr. Smoothie is a premium line of100% natural, 100% whole fruit purees that provide over three servings of fruit per 16 oz. beverage and meet the FDA 100% fruit guidelines. These 15+ flavors of functional smoothies have a superior anti-oxidant based vitamin & mineral package in each smoothie to maximize the benefits to the mind and body.

Dr. Smoothie Brands "Classic" smoothie puree

[Via http://drsmoothieusa.wordpress.com]

So good to be a carnivore in the winter

Tonight’s theme for dindins? Bacon.

Everyone loves bacon! I bet even vegetarian enjoy the smell of cooking bacon. Mmmmm mmmm piggies. So tonight, we’re “celebrating” my husband being through with his exams for promotion. We’re really hoping he gets it, as the extra money will fund my cooking madness…err our family. OK, so what’s on the menu tonight?

Bacon Wrapped Meatloaf with Mushroom Gravy

Macaroni and Cheese with a bacon and panko breadcrumbs topping

Sauteed green beans with crumbled bacon

And Sweet Potato-Bacon biscuits

Yah, bacon overload for a health conscious lady like me. But, I this is a every now and then thing. I do not and will not cook like this everyday! M0derati0n is key!!! So IF everything turns out nicely, I will report back with pictures to share with you all my baconfestivities.

[Via http://yumyumsommom.wordpress.com]

Granola bar FAIL

I found this fine, non-fail recipe for homemade granola bars and decided to try it. So I picked up some lovely dried cranberries and bittersweet chocolate chips (mmmmm, tasty).

Then, I got out the other ingredients from my pantry — brown sugar, rolled oats. Hmmm, that box feels awfully light.

And I discovered that I had about a quarter-cup of rolled oats. That expired in 2008.

FAIL.

Fast-forward to two weeks later, and we are going to try again…this time I discover that I don’t have wheat germ. And don’t want to use whole-wheat flour. Left out the wheat germ, increased the flour and the rolled oats slightly to compensate.

The result smelled good, but:

2x FAIL.

What is wrong with these granola bars? I’m going to need a list:

• When I tried to poke them in the pan for doneness, I hit a chocolate chip instead of the granola area. You know what happens when you stick your finger into hot melted chocolate? It HURTS. Then, you stick your finger in your mouth to get the chocolate off and burn your mouth. So now I have a burned finger and a burned lip.
• I tried to cut the granola bars up, but the binding didn’t quite work, so I have quite a bit of deconstructed granola bar. Hmmm…what do you call it when you have granola ingredients not in a bar…maybe…”granola”? Lesson: Follow the recipe, which says to cut them up when they are “warm”. Not hot, warm. (I was still mad about the burned finger and wanted to take my revenge with a knife.)
• Taste. Oh, the taste. Did I mention that I baked the granola bars at the same time as a lovely batch of non-fail brownies? I neglected to increase cooking time to compensate for multiple pans in the oven, and so my granola “bars” have a slight raw flour taste. Which is not good. Also, I think I didn’t use enough sweetener, so in addition to the raw-flour note, there’s also an unsweetened oats feature. This may work for horses, but not for me. Neigh, not at all.

Lessons learned:

• Avoid melted chocolate chips in the oven.
• Do not “wing it” when assembling ingredients on a new recipe. The major reason that this recipe fell apart is probably that I was eyeballing the ingredients instead of measuring them. “What could possibly go wrong, other than a second-degree burn?” I thought blithely.
• When in doubt, add more sugar.
• When in doubt, follow instructions closely.
• “Wing it” is for recipes you know well, and maybe hockey.

[Via http://sarahokeefe.wordpress.com]

Zing

Last week was one of those weeks when you’re constantly running around being busy, but when you look back you can’t see any result, and can’t actually remember what you were doing (apart from playing with microfibre cloths ).

We had friends in for supper on Saturday, and I was badly prepared. In fact I wasn’t prepared at all and at mid-day hadn’t even decided what we were going to eat. So I set myself the challenge of putting together a three-course meal using only ingredients that I had in the house, and it worked pretty well, if I say so myself.

For a starter we had goat cheese and mint tart, followed by Glamorgan sausages with red pepper jelly and parsnip and potato mash.

I don’t know about you, but regardless of how large or splendid a meal, I never feel that it’s complete without a dessert of some kind, and I always serve one. Didn’t have any eggs or fruit, so after a bit of head-scratching I settled on crazy chocolate cake. Just to give it a little something extra, I added 1/4 teaspoon of cayenne pepper to the mix. The result was a deliciously sticky, rich chocolate cake, served with some double cream, and a fleeting, tantalising zing that followed every mouthful. We all had a very small slice to begin, having declared that we were too full to eat more, but all ended up having two more large slices each. So I think we can say that it was a success.

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The Perfect Oscar Pairing

 

courtesy: google images

Since I give up popcorn and lemonade for Lent, I can never have my FAVORITE festive favorite…but you can have it for me.  Popcorn and champagne!  Well, Prosecco, an Italian sparkling wine.  Not very expensive, yet extremely lavish and yummy.

[Via http://kymx.radio.com]

Success with own business...why not??

2 days ago, i told with my friend (call Mrs. Tiur) that i want to be an entrepreneur. i see my self that i can success with my own company beside my main job. i like cooking and one day i want to have a cake shop. after i told Mrs. Tiur, she was really excited. why? because she saw my passion and spirit on my eyes (actually i didn’t know how she saw me like that ). she has a friend who success with her own business in cooking. her name is Fatmah Bahalwan . she is great in cooking. she has cooking mailing list (milis) and its member is more than 1000. why she can success in her business?? Mrs. Tiur explained me the key of her success:

1. She is good in internet. she built a community, its name is natural cooking club. you can see her community on her milis. every member of its community always help each other.

2. She usually give a secret recipe for her member ‘cooking club’ community.

3. Not only how to make a good food that she usually give for member, but also she usually give her knowledge how to build business in cooking. ‘from kitchen be money’.

4.She usually hold food festival periodically

5. She is so nice, that’s why everybody love her.

after Mrs. Tiur talking about Mrs. Fatmah, she wanted me to join Fatmah’s milis. based on fact, more than 1000 people are succes join her milis. because Mrs. Fatmah usually give the key of running own company. Mrs Tiur also wanted me to join Fatmah’s course. everyday, Mrs. Fatmah usually give course with different theme. and, after i got information about Fatmah, i see her website. and i decided to join her milis. Sunday, March 26 2010, i have cheese cake course on it. n i hope, after i take a cooking course, i can be an expert in cake. and i trust with my self that one day, i can be a successfull woman with own business. i hope

[Via http://flatshoe.wordpress.com]

Mariah Stewart's new book trailer COMING HOME - Chesapeake Diaries series

Coming Home Book Cover - Mariah Stewart

I have to share a little story with you.

I noticed this book trailer so I wanted to find a picture of the book cover.

So I went to Martha Stewart’s website and searched for ten minutes.

Frustrated, I couldn’t believe she didn’t have the book on there?

That’s when I took a SECOND look and it’s not a Martha Stewart book — it’s MARIAH Stewart! LOL

[Via http://theideagirlsays.wordpress.com]

Coriander

Getting on a coriander tip, researching the best ways to grow it and experimenting with recipes forthe leaves, stalk / root, and seeds. In a grow bag, I’ve got a strip of both coriander and chervil popping up, sowing a few seeds each week for a continuous supply.

For recipes for coriander leaves and stalk, had a go at a coriander-heavy chutney, inspired by a recipe in The London Cookbook. Actually, it felt more like a pesto to me – thicker paste, very delicious, good hit of green chilli.

To make it, you dry roast a spoonful of cumin seeds then a handful of peanuts in a heavy frying pan, then grind them up. Then, in a blender, whizz garlic and green chillies, add the peanuts and cumin, sugar (jaggery), salt, lemon juice and then bunches of coriander, chopped down to just above their root.

I deliberately haven’t included exact quantities. This is the kind of recipe that needs a bit of instinct to balance the flavours how you like it.

Coriander chutney

_____________

Gardening: chillies and tomatoes germinating in heated propagator, earlies chitting, peas and broad beans in cold frame, garlic okey dokey.

[Via http://cityleaf.wordpress.com]

Menu Plan Monday - March 1st, 2010

As you may or may not know, I have some medical things going on.  I’d rather not broadcast what those are, so just use your imagination (it’s not Lupus).  Rather than post my menu of nothing but liquid for the week (yes, it’s awful), I’ve decided to just point you back to Org Junkie’s MPM.  Go there and see all the lovely menus people who are able to eat solid food can have.  Don’t expect menus for at least a month from me.

On a more positive side, I went to Stitches West over the weekend.  Details and photos of goodies to come.

[Via http://yarngeek.wordpress.com]