Fried Turkey

Hey, all!

Hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

This year, my family and I tried something different for Thanksgiving. We decided to deep-fry our turkey! It was pretty amazing, to say the least. My mom did most of the work, but I helped :). My mom and I were discussing it last night actually and we both agreed that it was a lot faster (and somewhat easier) deep-frying it. It only took 45 minutes in the deep-fryer–much better than waiting three hours for it to cook in the oven. And the skin was so tasty!

We ran into a little trouble in the beginning, though. See, my mom had specifically ordered a 12lb turkey at the grocery store. Well, we get there and the butcher goes, “We only have a 15lb turkey left.” The guy who’d taken my mom’s order wrote it down wrong because he thought she’d said a turkey between 12-16 lbs. A 15 lb. turkey would have been great had we not been frying it, but the problem was that the deep-fryer had a 14lb max. SO, after discussing with the butcher what we should do, he suggested cutting off the legs and wings so it’d fit better in the fryer, so we did that and it worked perfectly!

So here’s what we did:

First, we bought this Butterball deep-fryer from Amazon.

Here’s our 15lb turkey. You can see how it’s all cut up. IMPORTANT: This is a fresh turkey, which means its kept in the fridge and not the freezer. We took it out two hours before frying it because it HAS to be at room temperature and patted DRY before frying it, otherwise a fire can start.

This is my mom injecting the turkey with the Butterball marinade. Mmmm.

Then I poured peanut oil into the fryer. 2 gallons of it, by the way. Yeah. A lot of oil for this process. And it has to be peanut oil, not canola, because peanut oil doesn’t get as hot as canola so it’s easier to maintain the temp of 375.

The fun part!! Putting the turkey in the fryer!

And 45 minutes later, boom. We had ourselves a deep-fried turkey.

My dad had read one of Paula Deen’s recipes for this and she said it’s about 3-4 minutes per pound for frying, so depending on how big or small your turkey is the time will vary. But either way, it’s fast, easy, and incredibly delicious. I recommend trying this one year for Thanksgiving for sure–it’s definitely worth it!

Until next time, guys!

Hushpuppies

Hey, everyone!

So this week on the southern agenda: Hushpuppies!

I love hushpuppies. About 5 years ago I went to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, with my family, and we ate at this amazing seafood restaurant. I wish I could remember the name of it, but it was at this restaurant I had my first-ever hushpuppies. I remember them being slightly sweet, crunchy–just so, so good.

The recipe I found from Paula Deen is just your plain, average hushpuppies. They aren’t filled with jalapeños or other weird stuff. Of course, you can always add those if you like that sort of thing, but I’m boring and like my stuff plain.

So here’s what went down:

Ingredients:
1 small onion, chopped
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 cup self-rising flour
1 1/2 cups self-rising cornmeal
6 cups vegetable oil
1 cup buttermilk
1 egg, slightly beaten

So before I show my process, a few side notes: 1. I cut this recipe in half, because I didn’t necessarily need 3 dozen hushpuppies. 2. I didn’t have self-rising cornmeal, so I found a recipe online and made my own, which is 1 TB baking powder, 1/2 ts salt, 3/4 cup + 3 TB cornmeal (this will make 1 cup). 3. I didn’t add the onion, because, well, I don’t like onions.

So first, I mixed together the cornmeal, flour, baking soda, and salt.

Next, in another bowl, stir together the buttermilk and egg. Then, pour the buttermilk mixture into the dry ingredient bowl and mix. The dough will look like this:

Drop the batter one teaspoon at a time into the oil. Fry until golden brown, turning the hushpuppies during the process.

I made my first batch too big, so the next batch I made smaller, as such:

Final result:

Sometimes hushpuppies will be sweet, but this recipe didn’t call for any sugar. These hushpuppies were really, really good, but I made some honey butter to spread on them, just because I like mine a little sweeter, so that’s what is in the glass bowl on the plate. I definitely recommend these, especially with the honey butter 🙂 Currently, my dad is eating the whole plate, so they must be good if the southerner approves, right?!

Enjoy! 🙂

Southern Roots

Pumpkin Chiffon Pie

Hi, Everyone!

In the spirit of fall and it being pumpkin season, I decided this week to make a pumpkin chiffon pie. I’d never made a pumpkin pie before, let alone a chiffon one, but it was surprisingly easy! Chiffon pies differ from other pies in that their lighter and airier–they’re made with egg whites and gelatin. However, Paula Deen’s pumpkin chiffon pie didn’t call for egg whites or gelatin, so it was pretty easy to make. Her recipe called for a pre-made pie crust and pre-made whipped cream (like Cool Whip), but I made everything homemade. Which i’ll get to. So here’s the steps:

Ingredients:
1 9-inch deep-dish pie crust
32 jumbo marshmallows
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 (12 oz) container whipped topping
ground cinnamon, for garnish

In the top of a double boiler (I don’t have a double boiler, so I just used a stainless steel bowl over a pot and I added about an inch of water at the bottom of the pot), mix the pumpkin puree and marshmallows. (Also, I didn’t have 32 jumbo marshmallows, only the tiny ones, but 32 jumbo marshmallows adds up to about half the bag.)

Once it’s melted down, add the pumpkin pie spice and salt.

While this was cooling, I made a pie crust.

This is a Betty Crocker recipe, which consists of: 1 cup flour, 1/3 cup oil, 1 TB water, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. Just stir it all together with a fork. I baked it at 425 for 12 minutes.

Next, I made the homemade whipped cream.

This is 1 1/2 cups of whipping cream, a little over 1/4 cup powdered sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla. I put it in the fridge right after to keep it cold.

Finally, the pumpkin puree and marshmallow mix cooled down, so I could proceed.

Fold in half of the whipped cream into the mix–and FOLD, don’t stir.

Pour the filling into the prepared pie crust and top it with the remaining whipped cream. Sprinkle cinnamon on top for a garnish. And VOILA! Pumpkin Chiffon Pie 🙂

Enjoy, everyone! Happy fall!

Southern Fried Chicken

Shrimp & Crawfish

Hey, everyone!

So I found a picture on my mom’s phone of the crawfish boil we had a couple weeks ago. I didn’t even know she got a picture! So here it is:

Vibrant & delicious!

So anyway. This week I took on lunch, and I decided to make Grits & Crawfish!

Originally, Paula Deen’s recipe was grits and shrimp, but we didn’t have shrimp. However, we did have a ton of left over crawfish, so I thought it only made sense to use those leftovers and make a dish out of it. Here’s the recipe:

Ingredients:

2 servings cooked grits
2 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup diced tasso ham
2 tablespoons onion, diced
2 tablespoons red pepper, diced
20 large shrimp
1 tablespoon white wine
1 cup heavy cream

Couple things here. First, tasso ham is a Cajun ham and really hard to find outside Louisiana, Paul Deen says. So to substitute, you can use pancetta or prosciutto, which is what I did. I used pancetta. And pancetta is the Italian version of bacon, except a lot saltier. Second, I cut this recipe in half because I was the only one eating it. So feel free to do the same.

Directions:

Cook grits according to package directions; set aside and keep warm. I used Quaker Oats grits that I found at Cub Foods.

Grits will look like this while cooking:

After 5-7 minutes, the grits will be done. Remove from heat, but keep warm.

Then, heat olive oil in skillet over medium-high heat. Add pancetta and sauté until crisp.  Add diced vegetables and sauté until onions are translucent.

Add crawfish (or shrimp) and sauté for 30-45 seconds. Remove from pan and set aside.

Mmmm!

Deglaze the pan with a little white wine (I used Moscato because that’s all we had in the house). Slowly add the cream and let reduce until thickened.

Then make your plate look all pretty like this:

I was really stepping out of my comfort zone with this dish where food is concerned. First, I’ve never had grits before. I’ve heard they’re a very popular breakfast item, though, so I think next time I’ll make them for breakfast somehow.

Second, I’m not a fan of onions or peppers. But surprisingly, they worked really well with this dish and I liked them. The cream sauce was kind of rich, but it was good nonetheless. And the crawfish added a nice touch, too! All in all a good meal. It was easy to cook and yummy to eat!

Enjoy, everyone! Happy Eating!

 

 

Crawfish Boil

Enjoy my podcast about the crawfish boil I had last weekend!

Sausage Gravy & Homemade Biscuits

I have to admit, I wasn’t too sure where to start with this whole cooking thing. I wanted to dive right in, cook up some jambalaya or gumbo.

But as I started researching recipes for those, I started to realize that maybe I should start from the bottom and work my way up. And what in the heck is easier than breakfast?

Sausage Gravy & Biscuits is my absolute favorite thing to eat whenever I go to Cracker Barrel–or, actually, whenever I go anywhere down south. It’s just full of so many yummy carbs (I would eat carbs for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and every stinkin’ snack if I could; but alas, I cannot) that I just can’t resist it! Plus my dad really likes it too. And it was his birthday yesterday, so I figured why not make him a delicious birthday breakfast?

[Disclaimer: For consistencies sake, I’m going to be using Paula Deen’s recipes for everything.]

Anyway, enough talk. Here’s the recipe and what went down:

Ingredients:
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tablespoons sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup (1 stick) butter
1 cup buttermilk
1/4 cup melted butter
Sausage Gravy Ingredients:
1lb. Jimmy Dean Original Pork Sausage
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1 1/2 cups milk (warm)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon pepper
2 tablespoons melted butter

Directions:

In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.

Cut in the butter with a fork until it resembles small crumbs. (I found using this cutting tool easier than a fork, but either will do.)

It’ll look like this once the butter is fully incorporated:

Add the milk, a little at a time, until well mixed.

Place the dough on a lightly floured surface. Knead lightly. Roll out the dough with a floured rolling pin to 1/2-inch thickness and cut. (Side note: I don’t own a biscuit cutter or whatever one would use to make circular biscuits, so I used a cup.)

Place the biscuits on/in a greased pan. Gently press down top of biscuits. Brush the biscuits with half the melted butter.

Bake for 14 minutes or until golden brown.

Up next: Sausage Gravy!!

Cook sausage in a skillet until the meat is no longer pink. (Couple things: Paula’s original recipe called for bacon grease instead of sausage, but I really wanted sausage so I improvised. Also, I used an iron skillet, but any skillet will do. Also, also the meat looks dull and kind of gross because of the lighting–I promise it wasn’t, though!)

Add the flour and whisk until smooth and bubbly. Add the warm milk, slowly, and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to a low simmer and stir until thickened (and if needed add more milk. Depends on how thick you want it). Add butter. Season with salt and pepper to taste. (I added a lot of pepper because I’m obsessed with it!)

Finally, cut the warm biscuits in half and dump your little hearts’ desire of gravy on top. Mmmm!

So delicious! And so easy! I’d make this again over and over. What I love about cooking, unlike baking, is that you can improvise (for the most part), which was helpful where this recipe was concerned. I’m sure I could have added both bacon grease and sausage, and maybe next time I will. Also, as I was looking at my biscuits after I baked them, I thought, why are my biscuits so yellow looking in comparison to, say, McDonalds or KFC’s? The reason is because I used butter instead of lard. So if you’d rather have whiter biscuits, feel free to use lard/shortening.

I hope you all find this recipe and the pictures helpful! Happy eating!

 

Stay tuned for lunch!