Turkey Stew

What to do with our turkey leftovers as we are getting pretty sick of turkey these days? Our answer: turkey stew.

First, we made a turkey broth by placing any turkey meats still attached to bone in a slow cooker and pretty much cooked it all day. Once the stock was ready, I strained out all the bones and meats so it was just soup in the pot. It was delicious and definitely tasted like turkey. I don't know why, but I guess I assumed all stock soups taste the same. 

Then, I separated all the turkey meat from the bones and threw the meat pieces back into the pot. I also added more turkey pieces (now all we have left are the two drumsticks), chopped onions and chopped carrots. (I would've added chopped celery but we didn't have any on hand and le hubby doesn't like'em).

Just cook in slow cooker until everything is soft and delicious. Serve with rice or pasta if not on a keto diet. Topped with spinach. It was mm-mmm good, especially on a cold night!

Biscuits n Coffee

Pear sauce, Apricot preserve, Strawberry preserve, Peach preserve, Orange marmalade and Grape Jam

Pillsbury's blueberry biscuits

Biscuits n Coffee topped with whipped cream

Om nom nom nom nom. Twas a delightful breakfast! :D

Turkey quesadillas

Oh turkey, when will you be finished? There's only 3 of us and 14lbs of you! We are slowly eating what's left of our turkey but it seems to take forever! Here we have a turkey quesadilla made with flour tortillas, shredded gouda and mozzarella, turkey, gravy, lettuce and tomatoes. 

Turkey, you are so delicious in a cheesy quesadilla, but I'm not sure how much more I can take!!

Pear-sauce

If you've ever had applesauce and really enjoyed it, you'll really like this homemade pear-sauce. It's super easy and all you need are pears and an orange! No sugar needed bc it's super sweet on its own!!

I used 10 ripe pears (from costco). If they are not ripe, they won't be sweet so it's totally worth it to wait until the pears are yellow-green. 

Peel, core and quarter the pears. Then place in a slow cooker.

Scrape an orange with a microplane for 2 tsp of orange zest and then juice the orange, pulp and all.

Add the 2 tsp orange zest and roughly 1/3 cup orange juice. Cook on high for 1 hour with cover to cook the pears. An hour later, break up the pears and stir so as not to burn the edge.

2 hours later, pear sauce should look like this. Cook for another 2 hours on high uncovered.

A total of 4 hours later, add in 2 tsp of pumpkin spice. Continue to cook.

An hour later, I used an immersion blender and blended the sauce. It's beginning to look a lot like applesauce. :)

Ta-da. It was mm-mmm yummy!!

And if you reduce it even further, you can get pear butter!!! I will do that next time for sure!!

Other pear butter recipes:

http://www.gimmesomeoven.com/easy-pear-butter-recipe/

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/pear-butter/

Turkey Sandwich

For a truly delicious turkey sandwich, toast your bread. Slather both toasts in mayo and sprinkle with fresh ground black pepper. Place some iceberg lettuce, then turkey, then a couple slices of tomatoes followed by course ground mustard and then a slice of american cheese. Top with other toast and enjoy! If you don't get full easily, add an egg in there! Mm-mmmm!!!!

Golden Turkey

Le hubby and I bought a 14lb turkey sometimes in December. We thought it'd be nice if we ever decided to have a family dinner. Alas, our families are not near us and so the family dinner never did happen. The closest we got together for a sit down meal was a total of 4 members. Oh well, our turkey will always be remembered as golden and delicious.

PS: This was my first time baking a turkey. This role typically falls to my husband or my sister... that said, I had to look up a recipe/guide and found this lovely site: How to Cook a Turkey for Thanksgiving

The frozen turkey was slowly defrosted in the fridge for about 3 days.

After 3 days, I unwrapped our turkey, took out its "stuffing" and prepared a brine (water and lots of sea salt).

The turkey bathed in brine for another 3 days (in the fridge).

After its bath, it was placed on a rack, patted somewhat dry (not entirely dry bc then the salt won't stick), salted and peppered and then placed in the fridge to dry some more (2-3hrs). 

Preheat oven to 400°F and position an oven rack in the bottom third of your oven.

Pour 3-4 cups of broth or water into the roasting pan. Place the turkey in the oven and turn down the heat to 350°F. Every hour, remove the turkey from the oven, close the oven door (don't let that heat out!), and baste the turkey all over. [Picture above is after 1 hour]

Another hour later, another baste. It was also flipped for a more even golden color. 

Another hour later, another baste. This was the last baste so I used melted butter.

45 minutes later and we have a delicious golden turkey on top of our stove. Me = happy! :D

PPS: Since this was my first time baking a turkey, I didn't realize it was upside down until we were about to carve it. teehee.

Orange Marmalade

I was watching the Food Network channel when Ina Garten (Barefoot Contessa) was on showing a few easy recipes to make for the holidays. One of them was truffles and the other was orange marmalade. Ever since, I had been wanting to make both the truffles and orange marmalade even though this household had never once bought orange marmalade before. (We've had truffles before). I was going to use our neighbor's oranges that hangs over on our side, but I tried one of them and they were still tart so away to Costco I went and just bought a bag. It was even better bc the Costco oranges were seedless. Whoohoo!

To make orange marmalade, I used 8 cups water, 4 navel oranges, 1 huge lemon, 6 cups sugar and 1/2 cup honey.

Chop off the ends of the orange, cut in half, and then slice. Repeat for all oranges.

(I only needed 1 lemon since our homegrown lemons are as large as a regular orange). Slice same as oranges. Remove seeds as you slice.

Throw all slices in a pot of 8 cups of water.

Bring the mixture to a boil, stirring often. Took about 30 minutes. Remove from the heat. 

Stir in the 6 cups of sugar until it dissolves. 

Cover and allow to stand overnight at room temperature.

The next day, bring the mixture back to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer uncovered for about 2 hours. Stir in 1/2 cup of honey. Turn the heat up to medium and boil gently, stirring often, for another 30 minutes. Cook the marmalade until it reaches 222°F. 

Sterilize, then fill four pint jars. Wipe the rims thoroughly with a clean damp paper towel, and seal with the lids. Store in the pantry for up to a year.

They are such a pretty golden color! The very next day, I added marmalade to my oatmeal and it was super yummy! Also delicious on top of waffles and toast! :o)

FYI: for what to do to sterilize your jars, see Alton Brown's version.

Sidenote: I may reduce the sugar to 5 cups next time maybe add more honey instead.

Smoked Salmon Bagel Sandwich

Sometimes I feel like I make sandwiches worthy of being sold at a sandwich store. This is one of them :D

Keto friendly cheesecake

This is one of my favorite cheesecake recipe and le hubster really enjoyed it too when he was off keto, so I thought I'd try out a keto friendly version. It came out wonderfully. It's also crustless, but if you insist on a crust, the only keto friendly version I know can be found here (with a different cheesecake recipe).

The ingredients:
24 oz cream cheese
1/2 cup splenda (use less if you don't like really sweet cheesecakes)
3 tbs coconut flour
1/2 tsp finely grated lemon zest
1/2 tsp orange extract
3 large eggs
1 large egg yolk

Prepare a water bath for your cheesecake by filling a pan (that's bigger than your cheesecake pan) with water about a third to half way and place in oven of 275°F.

In a standing mixer, beat together cream cheese, splenda, coconut flour, lemon zest and orange extract until smooth. Add eggs and yolk, one at a time, beating on low speed until each ingredient is incorporated. Scrape bowl down between additions to ensure everything is mixed. Pour filling into pan.

Place your cheesecake into the now hot water bath and let it bake for 1-2 hours. It should look beautiful like this:

Le hubster really really really loved it. :D