Brine with Perfectly Good Wine

When I was 21 and a strict vegetarian, I watched my mother mix salt, white zinfandel and a whole bunch of ingredients to brine her Thanksgiving turkey.  My thoughts were, “What a waste of perfectly good wine, lady.” (I was quite classy back then and would only drink the finest white zinfandel and here she was salting it and putting raw meat in it — really!)  Things have changed a little bit since then.  Based on my vague memory of what my mother did plus browsing a few brine recipes via Google.. this is what I ended up doing and it turned out pretty good.

 

Brine with Perfectly Good Wine (Enough brine for a 6-8# turkey breast)

• 1 grapefruit quartered
• 4 sprigs fresh rosemary whole
• 1/2 bulb garlic peeled with cloves smashed
• 2 onions halved
• 5-6 bay leaves
• 1c salt
• 1/2c brown sugar
• 1 750ml bottle white wine
• 8-10 cups water

1. In a large pot add water, squeeze grape fruit quarters and add whole. Add all ingredients together except wine.
2. Bring to a boil for 10 whole minutes
3. Turn off heat.
4. Once brine is room temperature, add wine.
5. Add your favorite turkey.
6. Let sit for 12-24 hours.

Thanksgiving Stuffing Gravy

Thanksgiving was 5 days ago and yesterday I ran out of gravy, so I made my own using left over stuffing as a base.

Ingredients

• 1/2c – 1c stuffing
• 16oz fresh mushrooms (I used baby bella)
• 1/2 of a medium sized onion chopped or diced
• 2 TBS olive oil
• 1/4 c chopped garlic
• 1/4 c flour + maybe a little more
• 2 c water (or veggie/chicken broth)

1. Add olive oil, stuffing, mushrooms, onion, garlic to sauce pan and cook on medium high until the onion and mushrooms get soft and everything in the pan is getting a little mushy.

Time to move on to step 2

2.  Turn off heat.  Add 1/4 c flour and stir until all ingredients are coated

3. Slowly add in your water or broth until your gravy looks like this. Stir well so you do not end up with flour chunks. (eew)

4. Optional step: Your gravy is ready to eat but you can utilize an immersion blender for a less chunky more creamy experience. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving Throw Down

It’s brine time!

I’ve never cooked an entire Thanksgiving meal before and when I wake up tomorrow that statement will be not true.  I was out of most brining ingredients last night for the turkey so I made up my own with grapefruit, wine, garlic, bay leaves.  Hope it’s delicious. (and if it is, you’ll hear about it on this blog) My hermanita, while younger than me, has cooked a few Thanksgiving meals in her day so she’ll be on standby. 

My Favorite Bouz-Chef

Have you seen this blog? Hannah Hart is my favorite booze-fueled youtube chef.  Her talent for puns are unreal.  I dare you to check out her website and not instantly lose 2 hours of your life and return to reality craving booze and meat pie with macaroni salad. Here’s one of my favorites…

Make Your Own Damn Taco Seasoning

I’m too frugal to buy packets of seasoning or bottled marinades. I usually make this recipe and add it to my protein for tacos/burritos, but I’m sure it would do for any recipe that needed taco seasoning. (Sorry no pictures! You will have to use your imagination.)

MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN TACO SEASONING

• 1 TBS + 1 TSP ground cumin
• 1 TSP oregano
• 1 TBS cayenne
• 1 TBS onion powder (or when you make your tacos, finely dice an onion and put it in your protein
• 1 TBS garlic powder

1. Mix well
2. Add it to you protein when cooking and stir in throughly to ensure it coats your protein.