Brining a turkey

Ooooh - isn't that arty?

I call it "Forest in the Winter".

No, actually I call it "Salt and Stuff in a Bucket To Brine a Turkey".

We decided to brine our turkey for Thanksgiving last month, and we also decided it at the last minute, which sent us scrambling to find a recipe to use, and a bucket to brine in.  With no thanks to the employees at the local sporting goods store for their complete lack of help, we found one and whipped up a brine from Nigella Christmas for her Spiced and Superjuicy Turkey. 

Confession - I've only cooked maybe 3 turkeys in my life, so I was quite nervous about the whole thing.  Would I be able to clean up the mess from washing and brining the turkey so I wouldn't sicken my entire family?  Would the turkey stay cold enough in the garage so I wouldn't sicken my entire family?  Would I cook the turkey long enough so I wouldn't sicken my entire family?  

Yes, there was a theme.

I've always been afraid that I will undercook turkey and make people sick.  I have no idea why as to my knowledge none of my cooking has ever made anyone sick, but there it is, and it's a real fear.  

Anyhoo, as you can guess, the kitchen cleaned up nicely, the turkey stayed cold enough in the garage, and I cooked it to an acceptable temperature. We all lived!

Another quick confession - I am not a huge fan of turkey - it's usually dry and tasteless and you need to add too much butter and gravy and salt to make it taste good.

This bird was juicy - very juicy -  but I still didn't think it had any flavor, which was disappointing.  What's the point of adding onions and oranges and ginger and spices to a brine if you're not going to taste them even a little?

I would definitely try brining again, another recipe next, to see if we can improve the flavor.

Here's Nigellas - Spiced and superjuicy roast turkey

So corny

It was sort of weird. I started that "Here's what I ate today" week as a way to pull myself out of a cooking rut. I figured that maybe if I put a little bit of fun into it I'd feel more interested. Maybe find some new recipes to try. Instead it did the opposite, big time. I didn't want to cook, didn't want to post. Thought about hitting the delete button on my blog. So instead I turned off the computer and walked away. No blog, no email, no facebook or twitter. It was nice. And relaxing. Except for the part where my camera ate a whole bunch of pictures, personal and food related. Dammit.

I went to my very first corn maze a couple of days ago.

Our weather did a 180 turn last Thursday. The morning was sunny and hot and by the afternoon it was much cooler, with a big wind storm that turned to rain and thunder. The wind was so fierce I had to take the baby out of the stroller and try to protect him from the wind and blowing debris as we ran for cover. The rain only lasted a day but the temperatures have stayed low.

The maze was pretty fun. At most parts the corn was heading towards 7 feet tall. We were lost for about 30 minutes. My arms and back got a workout pushing the stroller over and under and around mud and rocks and dips and fallen corn. Not that Paxton noticed.

The signs outside the maze say not to pick any corn while you're in the maze. So when we were done I bought some corn to take home and freeze.

I decided to try 2 methods for freezing the corn. The basic blanch and freeze,

and also a recipe I found on Cooks.com where you don't boil the corn first, just cut it off the cobs and freeze it with a "brine".


I'm going to give them a couple of weeks in the freezer, then try them and see what we think. We're heading back that way this weekend; I think I'll be bringing more home if I'm lucky.

Brine your pork

That brined pork tenderloin we made the other day was really something. We finished up the last of the leftovers in sandwiches (yum!) and I bet we will make this again soon. Pork tenderloin is really the only cut of pork I like anymore. Chops and all that are just too dry, not like the pork chops I remember my parents buying when I was little. When pig breeders started altering pigs so they would grow faster and be leaner (which is just so very WRONG, WRONG, WRONG on about 11 million levels) they got rid of the flavor too. I do not buy chops anymore, but if I had any in the freezer (which is a possibility) I would try them too in this brine.

Soy Orange Brine from The Complete Book of Pork

1/2 cup soy sauce
1 tb freshly ground or chopped ginger root
2 - 2 inch strips of orange zest (i just hacked some off an orange - no measuring)
1 1/4 cup orange juice
2 tb salt
2 tb brown sugar
1/2 tsp chinese 5 spice powder

1 cup ice cubes (i used about 1/2 cups)

Place the soy sauce, ginger and orange zest in a small pot on the stove. Bring to a boil and simmer for 2 minutes. Remove from heat.

Place the orange juice in a large bowl. Whisk (or stir) in the salt, sugar, and 5 spice, until all or most of the crystals have dissolved. Add in the soy-ginger-orange mixture, and stir well. Add in the ice cubes, and stir again. I let the brine sit until it was cold, then removed whatever ice had not melted.

Place your pork in the brine, or place the pork and brine in a plastic bag and seal, cover and refrigerate for 3-6 hours.

Remove the pork from the brine and pat dry. Grill, bake or whatever.

I rubbed my pork with a dry rub before grilling. I didn't follow a recipe, just mixed brown sugar, paprika, 5 spice and salt, then let it sit on the meat while the bbq heated up.

Enjoy!

I brined a pork tenderloin, and I liked it.

We bought a huge pack of pork tenderloin from Costo last month, and I wrapped each of the 5 'loins in plastic wrap and froze them. I thawed one to cook on Saturday but hadn't thought of what to actually do with it, so we made something else for dinner that night and I pulled out some cookbooks to see what I could find. Not surprisingly, I found a nice sounding recipe in Bruce Aidells' Complete Book of Pork. The recipe called for brining and grilling the tenderloin, and at the end of the recipe, there was a note about butterflying the tenderloin to lessen the time needed for brining and grilling. We out of the house longer than we'd intended on Sunday, so butterflying the tenderloin was a perfect solution. The brine - soy sauce, ginger, orange zest, orange juice, salt, sugar, and Chinese 5 spice - soaked through that pork in about 3 hours. Once it was removed from the brine and blotted off with paper towel, I rubbed it with a dry rub - paprika, more 5 spice, brown sugar, and salt. It grilled up quickly, and had a great color and crust from the brine and rub.


So good! The orange was a strong flavor, but not overpowering. It was juicy and tender, and very excellent with a side of stir fried bell peppers.

I'm trying to get back in the habit of writing out a menu plan for the week, or even just for the few days ahead. I've been very unorganized in the kitchen lately, and have had to toss out more leftovers/moldy produce than I'd like. Which is why this week there was no farmers market post! I went to both markets this week - the Wednesday day market downtown and the Saturday market, and kept my hands in my pockets.

There will hopefully be a little less food to chop up for the worms this week (who seem to be all or mostly all still alive!). And I'll be able to start fresh next Saturday at the market, with more room in the fridge.