Better than it looks!

“I’m going to have to email your Mom…”

My wife, Betsy, replied, “Yep.”

I had just made the best roasted turkey of my life and the planned Thanksgiving menu was going to have to come to a screeching halt to accommodate it.

Betsy and I normally spend Thanksgivings with her side of the family and over the years they’ve slowly relinquished control of most of the meal to me. There are, of course, exceptions. Betsy’s mom is always in charge of mashed potatoes and gravy because I can’t imagine that I could improve them in any way from her versions.

So, I’m normally in charge of the bird, stuffing, rolls, one or two sides, and maybe a pie or two if I’m feeling frisky. Normally, I just use Alton’s fantastic turkey brine recipe that makes a very solid bird.

Unfortunately though, I’m not sure I can ever go back to that recipe after trying the brine in this post. Hands down, best roasted turkey I’ve ever had.

I just did a turkey breast for this version, but you could easily cook an entire turkey with the same brine mixture. I intend to do just that in about 10 days.

Apple Cider Brined Turkey Breast

Yield: Serves 4-6.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 2 hours + overnight brine

Ingredients:

Note: If you want to do a whole turkey, just double this recipe.

1 whole turkey breast (5-6 pounds)
1 quart apple cider
1/2 cup kosher salt
1/2 cup soy sauce
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns
1 tablespoon Szechuan peppercorns
4 whole star anise pods
3 garlic cloves
3 scallions, sliced
3 inches fresh ginger, sliced thick
3 dried shiitake mushrooms
1 cinnamon stick
A few sprigs of cilantro
10 cups cold water

For cooking:
1 green apples
1 lemon

Helpful Equipment:
Digital Probe Thermometer

Directions:

1) Mix the cider, salt, soy sauce, and sugar in a medium pot and bring it to a simmer to dissolve the salt and sugar.

2) Add all the other brine ingredients except the turkey and the cold water. Let the brine simmer for about 5 minutes. Then kill the heat and let the brine slowly cool to room temperature.

3) Mix cold water in with brine and submerge turkey breast in brine. If you don't have enough brine to cover the whole turkey breast, just make sure the actual breast meat is submerged in the brine.

4) Stick this in the fridge overnight to brine.

5) When ready to cook, preheat oven to 475 degrees. Rinse off turkey breasts with cold water and pat dry with paper towels. Discard brine.

6) Slice apples into 1/4 inch slices. Add two slices of apple and the lemon (cut into eighths) into the cavity of the turkey.

7) Set turkey, breast side up, in a roasting pan on a bed of the sliced apples.

8) Cook turkey breast at 475 for 30 minutes. Then remove and insert digital thermometer.

9) Turn oven heat down to 350 degrees and cook turkey until it registered 165 degrees in the thickest part of the breast, probably about another 75-90 minutes. If you don't have a probe thermometer, I would check the temperature after 60 minutes and go from there.

10) Once the turkey is done, wrap it in foil and let it rest for 30 minutes.

11) Slice off each breast and slice them across the grain into 1/8-1/4 inch slices.

Adapted from November 2011 Bon Appetit.

Preparing the Brine

I’m not going to get into the science of why brining is good, but basically it results in a cooked turkey that’s much more moist than its unbrined brother due to the way that salt reacts with the proteins in the meat. Just trust me. It’s good and worth the time.

I’ll admit, there are a lot of ingredients in this brine. They all serve a purpose, but if you can’t find them all, don’t feel like you can’t make this brine. At the end of the day, I’d say 80% of the flavor comes from the apple cider. As long as you have that, you can make this happen.

The base of the brine and really all you need to make this if you’re in a pinch.

The basics of a brine.

Of course, if possible, any of these spices will just up the flavor complexity of the brine. Use as many of them as you can, but don’t freak out if you’re missing one.

Bring the cider, brown sugar, soy sauce, and salt to a simmer in a medium or large pot. Then add in all your spices and herbs. The only prep I did to my spices was chop my garlic cloves and scallions in half and slice my ginger into coins. Then just toss everything in the pot.

This will smell good.

Let this simmer for about 5 minutes, then kill the heat and let it slowly cool to room temperature. This will give plenty of time for the flavors to infuse into the brine.

Once the brine is room temperature, add the cold water and you’re ready to brine.

Brining the Bird

If you’re doing a full bird, make sure you have a large bucket or pot that can fit your entire bird. Most years, I use a small cooler for this honestly. It works great.

I was just doing a turkey breast though so I just used a large bowl and make sure that my breasts were submerged in the brine. When I do it with a full bird, I’ll make sure the whole bird is submerged.

That's a big bowl FYI.

Whatever device you use, cover it well and place it in a refrigerated place overnight. Depending on the temperature, sometimes I’ll just stash my turkey cooler setup outside somewhere or in a cool garage for the night. Just make sure your temperature outside is around or under 40 degrees and make sure rodents can’t get to it.

Cooking the Bird

When it’s time to cook, take your bird out of the brine and discard your brine. There’s no reason to keep it. It’s done all it can do to help us out.

Then rinse off your turkey really well with cold water. The brine is very salty and you don’t want it coating the bird. There’s plenty of flavor soaked into the bird. Trust me.

So rinse off the bird and then pat it dry with some paper towels.

At this point I’d recommend adding some lemons and apple slices to the cavity of the bird. This will just give it a bit more flavor and moisture as it cooks.

Stuffed with flavor.

The next step is very far from necessary in my mind, but Bon Appetit recommended it so I tried it out. I’m not entirely sure what it accomplished. Basically you just set the turkey on a bed of apple slices in the roasting pan.

It did make it a bit easier to take the bird out of the roaster after cooking because it wasn’t stuck to the pan at all.

I would call it an element of flare. It’s not necessary though by any stretch.

A bed of apples...

Lately I’ve used Alton’s technique when it comes to cooking turkey and it works really well.

Basically, you start the turkey in a super-hot, 475 degree oven for 30 minutes. Then pull the turkey out and insert your probe thermometer if you have one. Turn the oven down to 350 degrees and continue to cook it until it reaches 165 degrees internally (thickest part of the breast in my case here, or thickest part of the thigh if you’re cooking a full bird).

This was my breast after 30 minutes cooking in the super-hot oven.

NOTE: If you’re using a probe thermometer you can’t have it in for this part of the cooking. It could melt.

After the high heat bake.

Total cooking time for your bird at this point will depend on a huge number of factors so I’m not even going to try. I’ll tell you that my 5-6 pound turkey breast here took about 70 minutes to finish cooking at 350 degrees.

If you’re doing a whole turkey, obviously this will be much longer, but in the past, my turkeys have finished in about 3 hours. The quick, hot cooking period at the beginning really speeds up the overall time. I can’t even imagine cooking a turkey without some sort of thermometer so just rely on yours to tell you when the bird is done.

If you are cooking a whole bird though, I high recommend watching Alton’s videos (sound!) to learn how to use a foil triangle to keep your breast meat from drying out. It cooks a lot faster than the dark meat so by covering it in foil, you can make sure the breast meat and dark meat are perfectly done at the same time. It’s a crucial technique and easy to do.

Resting and Slicing

Once your bird hits its temperature, pull it out, cover it in foil and let it rest for at least 30 minutes. This is maybe the most important part of the whole process. If you slice right into it, all the juices will run out and you’ll have a much dryer bird.

For my breasts, after they had rested I just sliced them off the breast bone so I could slice them up nicely.

These breasts are around 2 pounds each.

Then I slice them across the grain into thick coins. This is how I carve a full turkey also. It’s makes sure everyone gets some of the crispy skin and just makes it a lot easier to serve.

Very juicy.

I know you can’t smell this, but I’ll hold it up really close anyway.

It has a really faint apple cider and spice taste and smell that’s just out of this world.

Delicious piece of turkey.

Well, this has been a long post, but it’s an important one.

You still have over a week to make this happen for Thanksgiving. I highly, highly, recommend you give it a shot.

Have you brined a turkey? Have you apple cider brined a turkey? Leave a comment!

There are some figs in there somewhere.

I have to say that I really like it when you guys email me recipes to try. There’s two reasons for this.

First, most of you are pretty good cooks (or on your way to becoming good cooks) and you have at least a few awesome recipes hidden away that are usually very unique and different from what I would normally do.

Second, you may not know this, but I’m actually fairly lazy and the idea of new, awesome recipes from readers just appearing in my Inbox always makes me happy.

So when reader Rachel (Hi Rachel!) emailed me this lovely Bircher Muesli recipe, I just had to try it out.

Bircher Muesli

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 5 minutes + overnight soak

Total Time: 15 minutes

Ingredients:

100 g. (about 1 1/4 cups) rolled oats, not the instant kind
250ml (1 Cup) milk
50ml (1/4 Cup) cream
50g (1/2 Cup) raisins (I subbed dried figs for these guys)
1 apple, peeled and grated
1 banana, diced
1 orange, cut into segments
1/2 lemon, juice only
Sliced almonds (or other nut)
Honey, brown sugar, or agave syrup (some sort of sweetener)
Yogurt

Directions:

1) Mix oats, raisins (or figs), milk, and cream in a bowl, cover, and store in the fridge overnight.

2) The next morning, prep the fruit. Dice the banana, peel the orange and dice the segments, peel the apple and grate it.

3) Mix the fruit with lemon juice.

4) Serve muesli with fruit topping, yogurt, chopped nuts, and some sort of sweetener.

Planning is Important

This recipe is far from hard. Actually, it’s very easy. Maybe easier than making actual oatmeal because there’s nothing to cook!

But it does require a bit of planning. For the muesli to really work well, you need to prep it the night before.

It takes all of 2 minutes. I think you can handle it.

Just the basics.

Rachel’s original recipe called for raisins, but I used some dried figs because my loving wife isn’t a huge raisin fan.

Just pour everything into a bowl, stir it together, cover it and stick it in the fridge!

If you’re using figs, chop them up a bit.

Soupy!

The Next Day

The next day, when you wake up, you’ll see that the oats have completely absorbed all the liquid.

It’s like a magic trick.

All soaked up!

Now you can prep the fruit part of the dish.

You’ll need these things.

A fruit assortment

For the banana, just peel it, cut it in half long-wise, then dice it up.

For the orange, peel it and cut the segments into chunks. Nothing fancy.

For the apple, peel it and then grate it. The grated apple adds an awesome texture to the final dish. It’s a great touch.

Mix all these things together and squeeze in some lemon juice to stop the fruit from browning.

NOT Cheese.

Other Add ins

Besides all that fruit, you can add in almost any nut in the world and any sweetener you can think of. I went with some sliced almonds and agave syrup.

Very tasty.

Any nut and any sweetener will do.

You can either mix the fruit into the muesli or just serve it on top. I liked it on top with the almonds and agave and a good dollop of yogurt.

A great breakfast.

This is a really great summer breakfast if you like oatmeal. It’s cold obviously which is nice and refreshing on a hot summer morning. And you don’t need to ever turn the stove on!

If you’re eating this by yourself, this will feed you for a few days and it keeps just fine in the fridge for that long.

Give this a shot if you’re in a breakfast rut!

Lots of apple going on here!

If you’re reading this than one of three things went down today:

1) The rapture is upon us. You have not been saved, like me, and will be forced to suffer on this Earth until it ends five months from now.
2) The rapture is upon us. You were saved (congrats) and they have Internet connectivity in Heaven (double congrats).
3) The rapture didn’t happen.

Whatever the outcome, I figured I would make muffins.

Because even unsaved humans like myself enjoy a good muffin now and then!

Triple Apple Muffins

Yield: 10-12 muffins

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Cups all-purpose flour
1 Cup rolled oats
1/4 Cup brown sugar
1/2 Teaspoon salt
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1 Teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 Cup butter, melted
1 large egg
1 Cup apple sauce
1 Cup apple juice
1 Teaspoon vanilla
1 large apple (Gala works well), peeled, cored and diced
Raw sugar, optional topping

Directions:

1) Peel, core, and dice the apple.

2) Mix dry ingredients together in a large bowl and fold in apple pieces.

3) Mix wet ingredients together in a separate bowl.

4) Fold wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir to combine.

5) Spoon mixture into a buttered muffin tin. Fill up the muffins until they overflow slightly. They won't rise that much.

6) Bake at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until they are cooked through.

7) Let cool for a few minutes before serving.

Apple Packed!

Ok. Enough Rapture jokes. In reality, the idea for these muffins came to me because we had some extra apples laying around and I figured I’d add them to some muffins. Once I was thinking apples though, I realized that apples come in many different forms, so I can add it to muffins in multiple ways!

Three different ways to be exact.

Apples. Three ways!

I’m not sure why I photographed two apples in the above photo. I only used one for the recipe.

Start by mixing all your dry ingredients in a large bowl. Once they are combined well, add in your apples. Definitely peel and core your apple for this recipe. I kept my apples in reasonably big chunks because I liked the idea of having some real apple pieces in the muffins.

Fold in the apples once the dry mixture is ready.

Nice apple chunks.

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix together the apple juice, apple sauce, butter, egg, and vanilla.

You’ll end up with a kind of strange slurry mixture that, well, smells like apples.

Strange brew....

Mix the wet stuff into the dry stuff and your batter is ready to go!

All mixed up.

A Muffin Fail

Ok. You guys know that I’m always honest. The first time I made these muffins they didn’t work out. They were really bland and they didn’t really resemble muffins at all.

More like large hockey pucks. See?

Fail alert.

So I adjusted the recipe a bit and the one above is the good version.

When you’re ready to bake these guys, butter your muffin tin and fill them up until they overflow a bit. These muffins don’t rise as much as some.

So you can really fill up the tins.

Try it again...

Sprinkle on a bit of raw sugar if you want and bake these guys for 20-25 minutes at 350 degrees.

Let them cool for a few minutes when they come out.

Now these are more like it!

Could already tell these were better.

My second attempt of these muffins turned out ten times better.

For starters, they actually look like muffins!

One other angle...

These had a nice light flavor, but the apple flavor was pretty intense. I don’t think it would be possible to have a more apple-flavored muffin.

So, in short, if you’re an apple fan, then these are for you!

Maybe best breakfast ever.

A few weeks ago I was browsing Sam Sifton’s (NY Times Restaurant critic) best dishes that he ate in 2010. It’s a fun little interactive piece. It has sound but if you have a few minutes and want to get really hungry, you can check it out here.

Some of the dishes are pretty complicated and would be really hard to reproduce at home (hence their greatness), but one dish jumped out at me as completely make-able. So make it I did!

The dish is an interesting twist on potato hash that includes some tangy apples and sweet honey. It’s just as easy to make as normal hash really but the flavors are way more complex and delicious.

Sweet Apple Hash

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 10 minutes

Total Time: 30 minutes

Ingredients:

2 Russet potatoes, diced (you could use any potato really)
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced
1 Tablespoon lemon juice
4 ounces bacon, cubed
2-3 Tablespoons good quality honey
Pinch of salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Prepare all ingredients. Cook bacon in a skillet over medium-low heat to slowly render out fat. Remove bacon and save for later once it's crispy, about 10 minutes.

2) Add diced potatoes to skillet with bacon fat and cook over medium-high heat until browned and almost cooked, maybe 8 minutes.

3) Once browned, add apples and bacon to pan and heat for another minute.

4) Drizzle honey over hash and stir to combine and coat hash.

5) Serve immediately with eggs.

Adapted from a Vandaag recipe.

The restaurant that Mr. Sifton went to charges $8 for this dish which honestly sounds like a heck of a deal to me. I thought it would be at least double digits.

It only has a few ingredients really. Try to use good honey and bacon if you can. That makes a huge difference.

Simple enough.

Of course, I have no idea how the restaurant actually prepares this dish, so I just kind of winged it. I decided it would be a good idea to fry up everything in bacon grease since I was making bacon anyway.

When is it not a good idea to fry stuff in bacon grease?!

Evenly cubed.

I think the most annoying part of this recipe is dealing with the apples. It’s just kind of a pain peeling, coring, and chopping apples.

But you can do it. I have faith in you. Toss in a bit of lemon juice with your apples to make sure they don’t turn brown.

Sliced with a bit of lemon.

In your favorite skillet (I recommend cast iron or non-stick), add your bacon and cook on medium-low so the fat gently renders out.

After a few minutes this should leave you with a Tablespoon or two of bacon grease and some really crispy bacon which you can scoop out of the skillet and reserve for later.

Nice and crispy.

Then add your potatoes to the skillet and cook them over medium-high heat until they start to brown nicely. This will take maybe 8 minutes.

You don’t want them cooked completely, but almost if that makes sense.

Bacon fat is a good thing.

Then add the apples and bacon back to the dish. Toss a few times and hit the whole things with a pinch of salt and pepper.

Cook for another minute or so just to heat everything and blend all the flavors. Be sure not to over cook it at this point or the apples will get soggy.

The Best Part

Once your dish is practically done, drizzle in a few tablespoons of honey.

This really sends the dish over the top.

Action shot!

Toss the dish one more time to heat up the honey and create a glaze over the hash.

As with any hash, I served this with some really runny over-easy eggs.

This was one of the best hashes I’ve ever had without a question.

Gotta have a good egg with this.

So, if you happen to live in New York and can stop by Vandaag for brunch, more power to you.

For everyone else, I highly recommend this stuff. I think it’s going to become my default hash. The salty and sweet combo is just out of this world.

Light but flavorful!

As I mentioned on Friday, Betsy and I packed up all of our stuff this weekend for our move which means that I’m without a kitchen for the next two or three weeks. This is mildly devastating to me as you might imagine, but I did hang on to a few pots, pans, bowls, and knives so I can at least cook some stuff over the next few weeks.

So the things you’ll see on Macheesmo at least until the end of the month will almost definitely be quick and require just the most basic equipment. I have no doubt that I can make some really awesome dishes with just the basics.

And that brings me to this dish. While it’s not exactly a one pot dish, it’s pretty close. It’s actually a pot, a baking dish, and a bowl dish. But for as simple as it is to make, the flavors are really awesome and delicious. And it uses one of my favorite pastas: orzo!

Orzo Salad with Chicken

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 30 minutes

Total Time: 50 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound boneless skinless chicken breasts (2-3 breasts)
1 1/2 Cups orzo pasta
1 apple, peeled and chopped
2 Cups seedless grapes, halved
1/2 Cup feta, crumbled (or more if you want)
2-3 Tablespoons parsley, chopped
1 lemon, juice only
3 Tablespoons olive oil
Salt and pepper

Marinade for chicken:
1 lemon, juice only
3 Tablespoons olive oil
1/2 Teaspoon garam masala
1/4 Teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Mix marinade for chicken together and pour over chicken breasts. Allow to sit for a few minutes or you could marinade them in the fridge for an hour or two for best results.

2) Bake chicken breasts at 350 degrees for 20-25 minutes until cooked through.

3) Bring a pot of salted water (1 Tablespoon kosher salt per gallon) to boil. Add orzo pasta and cook until al dente, about 6-8 minutes. It should be tender but still have a bite.

4) Peel and chop apple and halve the grapes. Mix with the lemon juice and olive oil.

5) When pasta is cooked, drain and add to the fruit. Add parsley, feta, and taste for salt and pepper.

6) When chicken is done, let rest for a few minutes and then slice.

7) Top salad with chicken and serve immediately. Salad is great cold the next day as well.

Prepping the Chicken

When I cook boneless skinless chicken breasts, which is pretty rare honestly, I usually try to make a good and interesting marinade for them because honestly, as is, I find them completely bland.

On this day, I opened my spice cupboard and this stuff was calling to me.

Secret weapon.

If you’ve never tried garam masala before, it’s a really awesome spice. Well, technically it’s a spice mixture and can have a pretty large array of stuff in it but it almost always will have some cinnamon, cardamon, and coriander. It has this really deep flavor that can add a savory and almost sweet flavor to a dish.

I just whisked together all my marinade ingredients and poured it over some chicken breasts. I let them sit for the marinade for a few minutes and turned them once or twice to get the flavors all over. Ideally, you could marinate the chicken for an hour or two, but I didn’t have that kind of time.

This is about as easy as chicken gets.

Bake the chicken at 350 degrees (I baked them in the same dish) until it’s cooked all the way through. Depending on the size of your chicken breasts it’ll probably take 20-25 minutes. It couldn’t be easier.

Meanwhile, we can work on the orzo pasta salad.

The Orzo Salad

Ok. I’ll admit that for a very long time I thought that orzo was a grain. I mean, after all, it looks like large grains of rice!

Pasta trying to be a grain.

But actually it’s a pasta as you might know. I don’t think most people cook with it that often and people probably mostly know it as being in those boxed rice pilaf situations.

But of course it’s very good just to make by itself because then you can season it as you want and get away from those super-salty flavor packets that are usually in box mixes. I find orzo to be really awesome for dishes like this.

Cooking orzo is just like cooking any other pasta. Bring a pot of salted water to boil (1 Tablespoon kosher salt per gallon of water) and when it’s boiling, add your pasta! Cook for about 6-8 minutes until the pasta is tender but still has a small bite to it. Then drain it and it’s ready to go!

I decided to add some other stuff to the salad as well, mostly fruits, because I thought they would go well with the spices on the chicken.

The lemon is most important.

Peel up the apple and slice it into pieces, then halve the grapes, and toss everything in the lemon juice and olive oil. This will keep the apples from browning.

Slice and dice.

Add the orzo, chopped parsley, crumbled feta, and taste for salt and pepper.

The lemon really makes this salad and brings out all the fresh flavors.

Add some feta and you're ready to rock.

When your chicken is done baking, let it rest for a few minutes and then slice it up! Serve it up on top of the salad and you should be all set.

I like slicing the chicken not only because it looks nice but because Betsy and I rarely ever eat a whole chicken breast each so I find that 2-3 sliced chicken breasts can easily feed 4 people.

Great dish.

Of course, if there are any leftovers, the salad is really awesome cold as well. The flavors get even better actually after chilling in the fridge for a day or so.

Start to finish the dish took me about 45 minutes and most of it is just waiting for the chicken to cook. Very easy dish to make and it actually ends up being a kind of impressive dish because it has two things that most people don’t cook with regularly (garam masala and orzo pasta).

In all honesty, this was one of my favorite pasta salads that I’ve made!

Really good!

You guys pulled a trick on me! When I posted last week’s poll on rhubarb, nobody even mentioned that it would be absolutely impossible to find rhubarb in June! After going to a few different stores and checking in at a farmer’s market, I learned that the rhubarb season is approximately 10 seconds long.

So you see, it’s impossible to make the dish that I wanted to make as an appetizer. But I got as close as humanly possible.

It turns out that for this specific recipe you can sub apples for rhubarb, leave everything else the same, and it’s very delicious. So if you happen to have rhubarb, go for it. If you don’t, you can use a few apples!

Chutney on Toast

Yield: 15 pieces.

Prep Time: 15 minutes + cool time

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1/2 Cup sugar
1/3 Cup red wine vinegar
1/4 Cup orange juice
1/4 Teaspoon cinnamon
1 inch of fresh ginger, grated
2 apples, peeled, cored and diced (OR 2 1/2 Cups chopped rhubarb)
1/4 Cup dried currants
2 scallions minced (not the green parts)
Baguette, sliced and toasted
5-6 ounces blue cheese

Directions:

1) Combine 1st five ingredients in a small saucepan and stir over medium heat until the sugar melts, about 2 minutes.

2) Peel, core, and chop your apples (or rhubarb) and add them to the chutney. Stir everything together and cook over low-medium heat until the apples are soft, about 5 minutes.

3) Add currants and chopped scallions to the chutney at the very end.

4) Cool the chutney for at least an hour and serve on toasts with blue cheese.

Making the Chutney

In terms of chutney making, this is actually a really easy one. Some chutneys require lots of cooking time, but this one is just a few minutes of chopping and cooking. Really easy to throw together!

Basic stuff!

Start by combining the first five ingredients in the list in a small saucepan over medium-low heat. Stir it until the sugar melts. Should just take a minute or two.

While you’re waiting for that to happen (or before you start it if you’re a slow-poke), peel, core and chop your apples. Rhubarb would be even easier prep I guess.

Not exactly rhubarb...

Next, just add all your apples into your sugar mixture. The apples won’t be covered by the mixture, but give them a good stir. As they heat up, they’ll cook down and also give off some of their own liquid.

Don't worry about the liquid covering...

Meanwhile, get these bonus ingredients ready. These just add a nice punch of flavor and texture to the finished chutney. You could use raisins if you don’t have any currants, but if you do, give them a quick chop first.

You could use raisins also...

Add your currants and chopped scallions to the chutney along with a pinch of salt and let it simmer for maybe 5 minutes until the apples are soft. Mine was a bit liquidy, but that’s just fine.

Yum.

Cooling it down

The original recipe said to cool the chutney for at least an hour before using it, but I was hungry so I just stuck mine in the freezer for about 10 minutes. Mine was still warm to the touch when I ate it which I thought was kind of nice. If you let it cool all the way down it’ll obviously get thicker but you’ll have to WAIT!

The Toasts

You could serve this with any number of crackers or toasts. You want something pretty sturdy though. The chutney is pretty thick and with the cheese added in, I recommend just making some thick toasts using a baguette.

Slice them on a diagonal like so…

Sliced bread!

That allows for maximum surface area! Cook these at 400 degrees on a baking sheet for about 5 minutes until they are nice and toasty.

Perfect toasting.

Also, get your blue cheese ready. If you can, try to hunt out a creamier blue cheese. You want one that’s kind of spreadable. Don’t buy the blue cheese crumbles that are pre-crumbled and try to spread it on a toast. Just get a small block of the stuff.

I love blue cheese so much. If, for some reason, you don’t like blue cheese, you could use goat cheese I think but it wouldn’t be as good.

My favorite cheese.

You want a good-sized schmear of cheese on each toast.

And yes, schmear is a technical term. It means this much:

A schmear.

When adding the chutney to the toasts, use a spoon and try to drain off any extra liquid so you just get the apples and other non-liquid stuff. If you get too much liquid it’ll just make your toasts soggy and, dude, nobody likes soggy toasts.

Respect the ring!

The apples were sweet and spicy and the blue cheese is creamy and delicious.

I honestly think I could’ve eaten 20 of these in one sitting. This would be an awesome dish as an appetizer for a dinner party!

You see, revisiting things usually makes them awesome.

It'll add a year onto your life.

The salad is pretty simple really but there are a few things that I think are really important. For starters, the dressing is awesome. Rather than an intense mayonnaise dressing that the traditional version has, this version has a light buttermilk dressing (with just a touch of mayo). Second, the chicken needs to be spiced up nicely. It gives some great texture and protein to the dish. If I was doing a veg version I think I’d grill some mushrooms?

The Waldorf Revisited

Yield: Serves 4.

Prep Time: 20 minutes + marinating time

Total Time: 1 hour

Ingredients:

1 large head of bibb lettuce or butter lettuce
1 red pepper, diced
2 apples, peeled cored and diced
1 Cup of almonds, chopped
4 large ribs of celery, chopped
2 chicken breasts, I like the skin on
Olive oil
Salt and Pepper
Red Pepper Flakes

Buttermilk Dressing:
3/4 Cup buttermilk
1/4 Cup mayonnaise
1/2 lemon, juice only
2 Tablespoons chives, minced
2 Tablespoons parsley, minced
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1) For dressing, mince chives and parsley very finely. Then whisk together all ingredients to make dressing.

2) Let chicken marinate in olive oil, salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes for about 30 minutes before cooking.

3) Grill the chicken for about 10 minutes per side or until the breasts are cooked through. If you don't have a grill, cook the chicken in a cast iron skillet for about 5 minutes per side and then finish it in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes.

4) Let chicken rest for a few minutes and then slice it up.

5) Slice up other salad ingredients and top over lettuce. Then drizzle on dressing and top with the sliced chicken.

6) Serve with extra dressing and crusty bread.

Adapted from May 2010 Body and Soul.

Making The Dressing

Betsy and I really liked this dressing and I think I might start rotating into my normal salad dressing rotation. It’s not too heavy but very flavorful. You’ll need these things.

Fantastic dressing.

The only things that you really need to chop is the chives and the parsley. Make sure to mince both pretty finely though. You don’t want a huge piece of parsley in the dressing.

Go heavy on the chives.

Then just whisk all the ingredients together. If you want it a bit thicker, add another Tablespoon or so of mayo. Also feel free to add more of the herbs and taste for salt and pepper obviously. It’s a kind of runny dressing, but it’s very flavorful actually. It even gets better on day two.

It'll be pretty runny.

Cooking the Chicken

This salad was flavorful enough that I didn’t feel the need to have a full chicken breast on mine. Betsy and I split a chicken breast and it was more than enough which is why the recipe says two breasts for four people. If you have big meat eaters though, then you could do a breast a person I guess.

I marinated mine in a few Tablespoons of olive oil and big pinches of salt, pepper, and red pepper flakes. I only let it marinate for about 30 minutes before cooking it.

Don't be afraid of skin people.

If you happen to have a grill, by all means throw this on the grill. I don’t have one unfortunately so I cooked mine on high heat in my cast iron skillet for about 5 minutes per side to get it nice and brown and then I finished it in the oven for about 20 minutes at 350 degrees.

Turned out perfect.

Grilled would be good also.

Putting the Salad together

While your chicken is cooking, you can prep all your other stuff which is pretty straightforward. If you can get your hands on some nice fresh butter lettuce or bibb lettuce, it’ll kick this salad up a notch. Otherwise you can use whatever you normally use for salads.

But seriously, if you’ve never tried butter lettuce, it’s kind of amazing.

Butter lettuce rocks.

Wash your lettuce and dice it up. The same goes for all the other veggies. You could definitely sub in your favorite nut for almonds if you wanted, but they worked great if you have some on hand. Just give them a rough chop and you’ll be all set. Then pile the veggies high and deep.

Almonds or some kind of nut are important.

Add your apple right before serving so it doesn’t turn brown and dress the salad immediately. Feel free to go pretty heavy on the dressing. You don’t want pools of dressing or anything, but using a heavy drizzle is just fine.

All dressed up.

Back to the chicken

If you aren’t used to grilling or cooking chicken, it’s very important to let the chicken rest for five minutes at least before slicing it up. That gives the juices a chance to redistribute throughout the meat. Then you can slice up your breast into nice strips.

Enough for 4 people.

Pile the chicken right on top of the salad and you have yourself a very healthy and delicious salad-based meal. If you were so inclined, you could also serve it with some hearty bread.

Yum.

Betsy and I liked this salad so much that we happily ate it two days in a row. It was very flavorful and just left me feeling healthy but still full.

Honestly, it was one of the best salads I’ve had in awhile. I mean just look at those colors!

I highly recommend you visit this revisited salad.

I wanted something warming but I wasn’t really in the mood for something hot. Does that make sense?

I came up with this port punch that very easy to throw together and is very tasty.

Im-PORT-ant

This could also be called Cheater’s Sangria. It tastes a lot like sangria which makes sense since Port is red wine that’s been fortified with Brandy. Most sangrias (including the white variety) are beefed up with brandy or rum or some other kind of hard liquor, but if you use port than that extra booze is already included!

Port Punch

Yield: 8 drinks

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Total Time: 15 minutes + Marinating time

Ingredients:

1 bottle (750ml) Port
1 apple, diced
1 orange, segmented and chopped
1 lime, juice only
Grapes (optional)
Orange juice
Ginger ale

One Drink:
2 parts port mixture
1 part OJ
1 part ginger ale

Directions:

1) Cut segments out of oranges. Peel and core the apples and dice into chunks.

2) Add fruit to a bowl with lime joice and port.

3) Let marinate for 1-2 hours or overnight.

4) Mix 2 parts of the port mixture with 1 part OJ and ginger ale in a tall glass with ice.

I kept the fruit kind of minimal for this version because, frankly, it’s all I had! You could go crazy though with pears, berries, grapes, etc.

Basics...

When prepping your fruit, try to just get out the segments from the orange. You don’t want the white casing part which will be kind of bitter in the final drink and also hard to chew.

If you take a sharp paring knife and slice down each side of the segment, you should be able to just pop each segment out.

You just want the pulpy stuff.

Also, peel and core your apple and then dice it up into tiny chunks. Add all that fruit to a bowl along with your lime juice.

Fruit in a bowl.

Then add your port!

Action shot!

Now you could just let this marinate for an hour or two, but the longer the better. I let mine sit overnight in the fridge and it was great!

Finishing the Punch

When you’re ready to serve, you just need some ice, OJ and ginger ale.

After a night soaking...

I decided to mix mine up a cup at a time, but if you’re serving a crowd you could definitely mix up a big punch bowl and then just ladle the punch into glasses with ice.

The ratio is:

- 2 parts port mixture
- 1 part OJ
- 1 part ginger ale

Tasty!

The orange juice and lime juice do a great job of cutting the sweetness of the Port and the ginger ale gives it some good bubbles.

This'll lift your spirits!

I was kind of worried when I started making this mainly because Port is one of my most favorite drinks. The idea of wasting a bottle of it on a bad drink was scary to me! Luckily, this stuff turned out great. It tastes basically like sangria without the need for all the individual liquors!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to get back to the largest snow storm in DC history…

I changed my tune because I recently happened to have all the fixings for some muesli so I thought I’d whip some up before I left for work one day. I very loosely followed a recipe from Bon Appétit, but there is barely a need for a recipe.

This was my resulting bowl of health!

Kind of a humble thing.

You know why I think this stuff rocks and is perfect for a weekday breakfast? You don’t have to watch it! It’s not like normal oatmeal or eggs where you have to hover over the stove. Just throw some things in a bowl and then come back in a few minutes after a shower or something and breakfast is ready!

Fruit and Honey Muesli

Yield: Serves 2.

Prep Time: 20 minutes

Total Time: 20 minutes

Ingredients:

1 1/4 Cup rolled oats
3/4 Cup milk
3/4 Cup lowfat yogurt
1 Teaspoon vanilla
3/4 Cup orange juice
1/3 Cup honey (or adjust for your sweetness desires)
1 apple, peeled, cored, chopped
1/2 cup dried fruit (cranberries, blueberries, raisins, etc.)
Pinch of salt
Sunflower seeds or some other nut (optional topping)

Directions:

1) Toss your oats, yogurt, milk, and vanilla in a bowl and stir it up really well.

2) Let this sit for at least 5 minutes

3) In a separate bowl, mix together your orange juice and honey. Add your apples and dried fruit.

4) Let that sit for about 5 minutes to let the apples absorb some flavor.

5) Toss everything together, let it sit for 5 minutes, then enjoy!

Preparing the Oats

To make a good muesli, you’ll need these things. You could leave out the vanilla if you were in a crunch, but it adds a wonderful flavor to the bowl.

Oats are cheap! Vanilla... not so much.

Basically, just toss your oats, yogurt, milk, and vanilla in a bowl! Stir it up really well. It will look pretty liquidy, but your oats will absorb a good amount of liquid.

Not pictured: My skeptical glances.

Let this sit for at least 5 minutes, but you could let it sit longer if you’re doing something else. This was mine after about 5 minutes. All the milk was basically absorbed and the oats were pretty soft.

Just after 5 minutes!

Meanwhile, in a separate bowl, mix together your orange juice and honey to make sure the honey is completely dissolved. Then add your apples and dried fruit. You could sub out any fruit that you want honestly.

Kind of like sangria!

Let that sit for about 5 minutes to let the apples absorb some flavor and then toss everything together!

Kind of a mess.

The longer this sits the softer the oats will get and the less moisture there will be. I let mine sit for another 5 minutes or so before digging in!

The sunflower seeds add some good texture to the dish. Totally optional though.

Coffee is the drink of choice.

Quick, simple, and healthy. And also delicious! Ok. Maybe not cheesy omelet delicious, but a different kind of delicious. The kind that leaves you feeling ready to tackle the day ahead.

Try this next time instead of your normal oatmeal. I think you’ll be happily suprised.

And for me, there’s nothing like a good plate of stuffing. It’s the perfect side in so many ways. Since I usually brine or deep fry my turkey, I never actually stuff the bird with the stuffing. Instead, I always bake it separately.

My friend worked out a recipe last year that I continue to use and still say is one of the best I’ve ever tried. This year though, I decided to add some roasted chestnuts to it.

Very hard to beat this.

I posted on chestnuts in ravioli form a few weeks ago and there are some more detailed photos on how to prepare them in that post. You can also buy them jarred. Here’s the thing about the chestnuts in this version of the stuffing though: they are subtle.

Like almost invisible.

There are so many competing flavors going on (which trust me is a good thing) that the chestnuts get a bit lost. They do add some nice texture to the dish, but if you want a really big chestnut flavor to shine, you might consider doubling the chestnuts in the below recipe and eliminating the sausage.

After much test-tasting I decided that the sausage is what masked the chestnut flavors.

Chestnut Stuffing

Yield: 13x9 Pan. Serves 6-8.

Prep Time: 45 minutes

Total Time: 1 hour 45 minutes

Ingredients:

Breading:
1/2 loaf white bread, cubed
1/2 loaf wheat bread, cubed
Note: You can totally just use one or the other, but I like the mixing.

Sausage Base:
1 pound pork sausage. Spicy is good, but not essential
1/2 large onion, diced

Aromatics:
1 Cup celery, chopped (about 3 stalks)
1 Tablespoon fresh sage, minced
2 Teaspoons fresh rosemary, minced
1 Teaspoon fresh thyme, minced

Other Flavorings:
1 Golden delicious apple, cored, peeled, and cubed
1 pound roasted chestnuts (about 1 1/2 cups)
1 Cup dried cranberries
1/3 Cup fresh parsley, chopped
2 Cups turkey or chicken stock (this varies depending on your breading. More on this later)
1/3 Cup melted butter
Salt and pepper

Directions:

1) Cube bread up into relatively large pieces and toast it in a 300 degree oven until it’s super-crispy and dry for about 20-30 minutes. Give it a quick stir halfway through just to make sure it’s cooking/drying evenly.

2) Cut an X on all of chestnuts and roast them (you can do it at the same time you are toasting your bread) for about 20 minutes or until the shell peels back nicely on each chestnut.

3) When they are roasted, halve each nut and then handle each half basically like a clove of garlic. Gently smash it with the side of a knife, the chestnut will pop right out. Do that for each one.

4) Take the casings off sausage and cook over medium-high heat in a large skillet. If sausage is on the leaner side, you might need to add a tablespoon or two of oil just to help it out.

5) After it cooks for a few minutes and starts to brown, add diced onion to the pan.

6) When the sausage is completely cooked and the onion is translucent, add celery and cook for just a few more minutes.

7) Toss all of this stuff in a bowl with your roasted chestnuts. Add other aromatics (herbs) and flavor ingredients to the sausage mixture and then toss that all together with your bread mixture.

8) Stir it together well to make sure the bread soaks up as much moisture as possible from the sausage and onion.

9) Add stock and butter in 1/2 cup batches and stir well after each batch (approximately 2.5 Cups of stock). Add a big pinch of salt and pepper.

10) Pour stuffing mixture in a 9 x 13 pan.

11) Bake at 350 degrees with foil cover for 30 minutes and then uncovered for 30 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes.

Prepping ingredients

The chestnuts are definitely the hardest part of this recipe. As for the other stuff, cube your bread up into relatively large pieces and toast it in a 300 degree oven until it’s super-crispy and dry. You don’t want it burned, but it should be crunchy like a crouton.

This should take about 20-30 minutes. Give it a quick stir halfway through just to make sure it’s cooking/drying evenly.

A white and wheat bread mix is good.

Then you can prep the stuff for your sausage mixture. This includes your sausage and onions. While you are at it you can chop up the aromatics also.

Sausage is optional I guess.

For the chestnuts, cut an X on all of them and roast them (you can do it at the same time you are toasting your bread) for about 20 minutes or until the shell peels back nicely on each chestnut.

This is a picture pre-roast. For more details on the chestnuts, check out the ravioli recipe.

Chestnuts roasting on a metal sheet...

When they are roasted, I halve each nut and then handle each half basically like a clove of garlic. Gently smash it with the side of a knife, the chestnut will pop right out. Do that for each one and you’ll have a big bowl of wonderful.

A good amount of chestnuts.

Cooking the sausage

Take the casings off your sausage and get it started cooking over medium-high heat in a large skillet. If your sausage is on the leaner side, you might need to add a tablespoon or two of oil just to help it out.

After it cooks for a few minutes and starts to brown, add your diced onion to the pan.

When the sausage is completely cooked and the onion is translucent, add your celery to the party and cook for just a few more minutes.

Toss all of this stuff in a bowl with your roasted chestnuts!

Just four ingredients, but a lot of flavor.

Bringing it all together

Add your other aromatics (herbs) and flavor ingredients to the sausage mixture and then toss that all together with your bread mixture.

Stir it together well to make sure the bread soaks up as much moisture as possible from the sausage and onion.

Then add your stock and butter to the party.

Add your stock in 1/2 cup batches and stir well after each batch. You want each bread cube to be well soaked, but there shouldn’t be any liquid left at the bottom of the pan. I probably used about 2.5 Cups of stock for my version and then mix in the melted butter last.

Also, add a big pinch of salt and pepper to the party. There’s no harm in giving this a taste at this point although it will be kind of room temperature. You are basically just tasting for salt and pepper levels.

Just remember, if it’s good now, it’ll be great later.

Warning: This will smell amazing.

Baking the stuffing

Pour your stuffing mixture in a 9X13 pan. You can really pack it in.

Ready for the oven.

Bake this at 350 degrees for a total of an hour. Bake it covered with foil for 30 minutes and then uncovered for 30 minutes.

And the trick to baking it is to make sure you give it a good stir every 15 minutes. This will prevent the bottom from getting too soggy and make sure everything cooks really evenly. I forgot to give mine a stir on one version that I made (I’ve made this twice in the past two weeks) and it was a noticeable difference.

Also, you may need to bake it for longer than an hour. Adding 15 minutes isn’t the end of the world. The end product should be moist, but not soggy and have some browned chunks throughout.

Betsy and I ate more of this than I can admit in public.

The above picture was actually of the version that I forgot to stir throughout the baking and you can see how some parts are super-crispy and some are a bit more soggy. But guess what, it was still delicious! It’s the best stuffing I’ve ever had, this just wasn’t the best version of the best stuffing I’ve ever had. Ya follow me?

So, in review:

- If you are going to be making a stuffing outside of the bird, this is one of the best I’ve ever had in my life (I’ve never actually stuffed it in the bird although I’m sure you could).

- If you want a real chestnut flavor, I’d axe the sausage and increase the chestnuts in the above recipe.

- If you don’t care about chestnuts, just leave them out. The stuffing is great without them. (Sorry chestnuts, but it’s true.)

- Stir the stuffing while baking to ensure amazingness.