Make This Feast!

Hold on to your hat/horses/ass, Gentle Reader, because I'm about to rave madly about a pair of recipes that don't have obvious Asian, North African or Latin origins.

Have you braced yourself? Good, because here we go.

Roast Chicken With Balsamic Bell Peppers3/4 t salt, divided
3/4 t fennel seeds, crushed
1/2 t black pepper, divided
1/4 t garlic powder
1/4 t dried oregano
4 6-oz. skinless, boneless chicken breasts
2 T olive oil, divided
2 C thinly sliced red bell pepper
1 C thinly sliced yellow bell pepper
1/2 C thinly sliced shallots (about 1 large)
1 1/2 t chopped fresh rosemary
1 C fat-free, reduced-sodium chicken broth
1 T balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
   
2. Heat a large skillet over medium-high heat.
   
3. Combine half a teaspoon of salt with the crushed fennel, a quarter-teaspoon of black pepper, garlic powder and oregano.
   
4. Brush the chicken with 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil; , then sprinkle the spice rub over it.
   
5. Add 1 1/2 teaspoons of oil to pan, then add the chicken and cook 3 min. or until browned.
   
6. Turn the chicken over and cook 1 min.
   
7. Arrange the chicken in an 11 x 7–inch baking dish coated with cooking spray.
   
8. Bake the chicken for 10 min. or until done.
   
9. Heat the remaining olive oil over medium-high heat.
   
10. Add the bell peppers, shallots and rosemary and sauté 3 min.
    
11. Stir in the broth, scraping the pan with a wooden spoon to loosen any browned bits.
    
12. Reduce the heat and let the mixture simmer 5 min.
    
13. Increase the heat back to medium-high.
    
14. Stir in the vinegar along with a quarter-teaspoon each of salt and pepper.
    
15. Cook the mixture 3 min., stirring frequently.
    
16. Serve the bell pepper mixture over the chicken.

Yield: 4 servings of a breast half and 1/2 C of bell pepper mixture

Nutritional Info
Calories: 282
Fat: 11 g
Sat fat: 2.1 g
Protein: 35.9 g
Carbs: 8.8g
Fiber: 1.9 g
Cholesterol: 94 mg
Sodium: 644 mg

Normally I'd put my futzings here, but once again I ask you to hold on to your hat/horses/ass, Gentle Reader, because I'm not finished yet with the recipe fun and believe my futzings will be better presented all together.

Roasted Red Potatoes With Rosemary6-8 small red potatoes, quartered into 1/2" pieces
1 T olive oil or garlic-flavored olive oil
1 T minced fresh rosemary leaves
1/2 t salt
1/4 t ground black pepper

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.
   
2. Combine all the ingredients in a large bowl, then toss to coat the potatoes.
3. Transfer the potatoes to a large baking sheet or shallow roasting pan.
   
4. Roast the potatoes 25-30 min. or until they're tender and golden.

Nutritional Info
Unfortunately, the fine folks at FoodNetwork.com--or at least the ones posting celebrity "chef" Robin Miller's recipes--don't see fit to include nutritional info with the recipes. That's probably a good thing for the site, for if visitors got a gander at the nutritional info for Paula "Queen of Butter" Deen's recipes, they'd flee and set Google to block search results from showing her stuff.

All Hail the Queen of Butter!

The Faudie's Futzings
I'm getting spoiled by having a Sprouts closer to home. This week, the store had red and yellow bell peppers for 69 cents each, as well as fresh, hormone-free, boneless, skinless chicken breasts for $1.77 a pound. Those prices may not strike you as great deals, Gentle Reader, but they are to me--and I recommend you get out to shop more often so you know what grocery prices are these days. Even at low-price HEB, the asking price for hormone-free chicken is upwards of $3 a pound.

Anywho, I'd spied the roast chicken recipe in my freebie January issue of Cooking Light and aimed to make it if I ever got my mitts on some cheap red bell peppers. Imagine how grateful I was when Sprouts obliged not just with the bell peppers but with the chicken as well.

While I had the ingredients at the ready by and large, I had to futz. I'm The Faudie, after all, and futzing is what I do.

• While Sprouts had yellow bell peppers on sale, I didn't waste my money on them. Yellow bells have no flavor, in the opinions of both me and the husband.
  
• I didn't use more than half a teaspoon of salt total. Yes, Gentle Reader, I know its importance as a flavor differentiator, I just don't like using that much of it. My taste buds, long "deprived" of excess sodium since I don't ingest a lot of processed foods, can detect salt quite well, and I just don't enjoy that sensation.
  
• While I did purchase fennel seeds at a post-yoga trip to Central Markup (the seeds I thought we had for the husband's six-seed bread were all gone), I also purchased a small quantity of ground fennel just in case, y'know, I didn't feel like getting out my mortar and pestle and doin' a little crushin'. Which I didn't when I finally moved on in the day's culinary misadventures to start this recipe.
  
• I didn't coat the raw chicken in olive oil before applying the spice rub. I figured between the nonstick skillet and the teaspoon or so of olive oil I put in it before adding the chicken, I had enough fat and slick for decent browning. Furthermore, the spice rub had no trouble sticking to the raw chicken without the help of the oil.
  
• I used about two teaspoons of freshly chopped rosemary, purloined from the neighbor's rosemary shrub (bush? plant?). I'd told the husband to acquire a good-sized branch since I needed for both the chicken and the potatoes, and he delivered--and then some. I didn't like the prospect of the rosemary going to waste, so I used a wee bit more. It's a crime to waste something you've stolen.
  
• I didn't add any more olive oil to the skillet before preparing the bell peppers and shallots. The oils from the chicken preparation were infused with the flavors of fennel, pepper, garlic and oregano, and I wanted to try to transfer that flavor to the peppers and shallots.

By the by, Gentle Reader, I'll have you know I bought a shallot for the recipe on my weekly HEB trip. I'd only purchased shallots once, years ago, for a Korean recipe. Those shallots, packaged in a cellophane bag, were tiny, withered things that I recall not even using. This shallot, on the other hand, seemed large in comparison. Imagine my surprise when I started slicing into the thing and discovered it's like a pale red onion.

It's a real shallot!

In the magazine, the recipe is paired with one for mascarpone mashed potatoes, and after preparing the bell pepper topping, I understand why: The bell pepper mixture doesn't really thicken. It's a bunch of softened bell pepper strips and shallots swimming in a thin but tasty liquid composed of chicken broth and balsamic vinegar. I had thought the sauce would thicken slight, as it does in our favorite chicken with balsamic bell peppers and red onions dish. Nope, not here, thus the mashed 'taters are there to sop up the juice.

But I didn't know that until after the fact. That's why I thought my idea to pair the chicken with the red potatoes lightly flavored with rosemary that we'd get every now and then at the Central Markup Cafe would be a fantastic pairing. Yes, it's not the most imaginative pairing--two rosemary dishes--but for me to even consider preparing some kind of potato side dish is a huge stretch, Gentle Reader. I stay far away from potatoes.

Yet when I was at Central Markup after my yoga class, I found myself buying four palm-sized red potatoes at 99 cents a pound. I knew as I selected them that I could get then for 89 cents a pound or less at my local HEB, but I really didn't want to make another post-yoga stop. Then to top it all off, the checker tried to charge me the price for the "C" red potatoes, those iddy-biddy ones sometimes dubbed baby red potatoes, that go for $1.19 a pound. Sorry, lady, there's a noticeable difference between the C reds and the A reds, which I bought. Grrr.

If you're going to point out, Gentle Reader, that I could have bought some roasted red potatoes with rosemary from the cafe while I was shopping at Central Markup, you needn't. Those potatoes are kind of pricey, and I was looking forward to trying my hand at roasting my own potatoes, oddly enough. Since I'd be baking cookies out the wazoo for the boy to give to his classmates on his birthday (not homemade cookies, but instead six packages of Nestle mint chocolate chip cookies, with two portions mushed together to form bigger cookies, which I scored for a buck a piece at HEB some weeks back), I knew I'd have the oven hot and ready to go. Plus the recipe's just so damn simple, how could I resist an opportunity to see how badly I could muck it up?

When I made the potatoes, I used the lemon-flavored olive oil I use far too infrequently (largely because I'm so unsure how to use it to make the most of its lemon flavor). Rosemary and lemon seemed an appropriate combination to me. Fortunately, I was right. After 30 minutes of roasting atop a piece of parchment paper I put over one of the baking sheets I'd used while baking cookies, the potato wedges came out warm, fragrant and flavorful.

And a bit too early. I'd underestimated the skillet-cooking time for the chicken breasts, so they went into the oven about 10 minutes after the potatoes had come out. So much for time management! But it's not really my fault entirely. You can't buy 6-ounce chicken breasts around here. They're all friggin' huge. In fact, for this recipe, I used two breasts and halved them lengthwise; cutting them in half widthwise would have resulted in to super thick halves that would take at least twice the time to cook as their two thin companions.

Of course, the chicken needed additional time in the oven to cook through completely, which meant my tasty potatoes were cooling atop the oven far longer than I'd hoped. Fortunately, though, they were still pretty warm when at last the chicken was finished and ready to be served.

While we lacked mashed potatoes to sop up the juice from the mixture, we did have some foccacia, topped with sliced veggies and a load of Parmesan cheese, that we'd scored on the discount rack at Sprouts a few weeks back. The baked Parmesan tasted more like cream cheese it was so sweet, so I found it to be a nice pairing with the faint citrus of the potatoes and the savoriness of the fennel-laced chicken, shallots and bell peppers.

I suppose the culinary powers of the universe found favor with me on this day, for my pairing of rosemary recipes didn't just work well--they rocked our taste buds. The three human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker were quite enthralled by the feast, and even the feline residents seemed jealous of our fine dining.

Based on these results, Gentle Reader, I highly recommend these recipes to you. They're not difficult and make for a flavorful meal you could even prepare without shame for guests. Happy feasting!

More Fun With Chickpeas

Never would I have imagined that we Boeckman-Walker would human residents of Chezbecome consumers of mass quantities of chickpeas. These legumes were unknown foodstuffs to me less than two years ago. Okay, sure, I knew of them, as did the husband, I'm sure, but they were not part of our childhood and early adulthood dietary intake. They're...foreign. And where I grew up, foreign was inaccessible and...bad, according to some folks, morons though they be.

But now chickpeas are a well-loved, familiar sight on our table. Since it's about the legume I can get the husband to eat, I'm always on the lookout for new, tasty chickpea recipes. Thanks to the thoughtful Christmas gift from my sister- and brother-in-law and the culinary wisdom of Madhur Jaffrey, I have another dish to add to the chickapalooza collection.

Easy Chickpea Curry2 C drained weight canned chickpeas (about 1 lb. 3 oz. canned weight)
2 smallish tomatoes (about 8 oz.), chopped
2" piece of ginger, peeled and chopped
4 garlic cloves, chopped
3-6 fresh hot green chilies, chopped
1 C cilantro tops, chopped
1 T ground coriander
2 t ground cumin
1/2 t ground turmeric
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1 1/4 t salt
3 T corn, peanut or olive oil
1 medium cinnamon stick
5 whole cardamom pods
2 bay leaves
1 C finely chopped onion
2 medium potatoes (about 9 oz.), peeled and cut into 3/4" dice

1. Drain the chickpeas in a colander.
   
2. Put the tomatoes, ginger, garlic, chilies, cilantro, coriander, cumin, turmeric, cayenne and 1 teaspoon of salt in a blender along with 5-6 tablespoons of water.
   
3. Blend the ingredients until smooth, pushing them down with a rubber scraper when necessary to improve even blending.
   
4. Pour the oil into a wide, lidded, medium-size pan, and set it over medium-high heat.
   
5. When the oil is hot, add the cinnamon, cardamom and bay leaves.
   
6. Ten seconds later, add the onion and potatoes, then stir and fry for 6 min. or until the onion is lightly browned.
   
7. Add the paste from the blender to the pot, then stir for a minute.
   
8. Cover the pan, reduce the heat to medium-low and let it cook for 6-7 min., lifting the lid now and then to stir.
   
9. Add the chickpeas, the remaining quarter-teaspoon of salt and 1 cup of water, then stir.
   
10. Bring the curry to a simmer, cover and cook gently over low heat for 20 min., stirring occasionally.

Yield: 4-6 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
I can't provide this information, but I'm sure you could figure it out for yourself. This isn't the most sinful dish every prepared, that's for sure.

The Faudie's Futzings
I've made enough curries over the past two years or so to develop a sense of when things are going right and when things are going horribly wrong. I'm sorry to disappoint you, Gentle Reader, but nothing went horribly wrong with this recipe, which comes from Jaffrey's From Curries to Kebabs: Recipes From the Indian Spice Trail. I ended up with a nicely thickened, very flavorful curry that's quite satisfying.

But yes, Gentle Reader, I did futz:

• I soaked my own chickpeas--about 2 cups worth. They'd actually been in a container in the 'fridge for about a week, since I'd finished off a big bag of the legumes and then just chilled 'em since the husband had wanted to have some cooked chickpeas on hand to snack on. He never got around to snacking on them, so I put them to use.
  
• I used a can of no-salt-added diced tomatoes. I don't feel horrible using them because (a) fresh tomatoes are kind of expensive; (b) fresh tomatoes are not terribly flavorful and (c) I haven't a bloody clue how to select fresh tomatoes.
  
• Because I used canned diced tomatoes and their juices, I didn't add the water to the blender. The juice from the can was sufficient for making the paste.
  
• I used canned chopped green chilies because I had some on hand--maybe a tablespoon and a half--from another recipe and wanted to use them before they went bad. I'd considered using the diced jalapeño I had in the pantry, but why open a new can when I have leftovers I can use up?
  
• I didn't have nearly a cup of cilantro tops, for I had to pick through the dregs of a bunch of the stuff I'd bought at HEB some weeks back to sort the slime from the...leafy. I really ought to find a better way to store cilantro than rinsing it, patting it dry, chopping off a good bit of the stems and then stashing it in a Gladware box in the nonfreezing portion of the 'fridge.
  
• I didn't use quite the full amount of cayenne called for. The boy has of late taken to complaining about the food I make being too spicy. Does that actually stop him from eating it? Rarely, but he'll bitch about it beforehand or afterwards like a dried up old biddy with nothing to do but bitch and moan. (Oh hell, my son is turning into my late Graga....)

Jaffrey is right to give this recipe the easy moniker because it is ridiculously easy to put together--if you don't mind dealing with the blender. My blender stays in its box on the top shelf of the pantry since it doesn't get much use, certainly not enough to justify giving it dedicated space on the countertop somewhere. I'm not a huge fan of cleaning the thing up because...well, I'm lazy.
I'm sure I could somehow pulverize the ingredients into the masala (for that's what the paste is, a masala) using brute force, some kitchen utensil and a large bowl--but, really, why go to that hassle when you can use the blender and probably clean it up in the time it would take you to even start to get to the paste consistency using brute force?

The potatoes, in my opinion, could be reduced in the recipe, especially since a person's more likely than not to eat the curry atop some rice, but I'm not a big fan of potatoes. The boys, however, seemed to enjoy them, especially the husband. He likes aloo matter but hates the peas that are part of that dish. With this curry, he gets tasty potatoes and a variety of pea he'll actually eat. And any time I can get the husband to eat legumes, I consider that a culinary miracle.

Sweets Fit for a Deity

Y'know what's great about Ganesh, Gentle Reader? A lot of things.

First off, good 'ol Ganesh has an elephant's head. There's a great story behind that, the type that sends a person to therapy for years:

"Well, you see, my dad, Shiva, the god of death and destruction, came home from war not knowing that Mom had decided to have a kid--me--to stand guard while she took her baths. Anyway, Dad came home one day while Mom was in the bath, and I dutifully turned him away, not knowing he's my dad and because Mom was, after all, in the tub. Dad, he freaked out at being turned away from his own home by some stranger, so what'd he do? He lopped off my head.

"Of course, as soon as he learned whose head he'd lopped off, he rushed out to make amends, vowing to take the life of the first living thing he encountered to replace my head. Bully for him and for me, that first living thing was an elephant. So while I guess it's great for family harmony that Dad tried to make it up to Mom for, y'know, lopping off my head, I'm stuck here with this elephant head. Not that I'm complaining or anything...."

Because of Ganesh's duty as his mother's bath guard, Ganesh is the patron god of entrances. But that's not his only realm of deity duty, which leads me to the second thing I find really cool about Ganesh: He's the patron god of writers and artists. Furthermore, he's linked with one of the great epics of all time, the Mahabharata (700 verses of which are the Bhagavad Gita). You see, Vyasa, the author of the Mahabharata, wanted to dictate the verses of his epic to someone capable of writing extremely fast and without mistakes. Lord Brahma decided Ganesh was the only person equal to this great task, and our elephant-headed bath guard used his own broken tusk to record Vyasa's tale.

There's a challenge between the author and his dictation taker, but that's another story.

Take that, Saint Francis de Sales! What epics did you record, huh? You just fell off a horse a few times. Sheesh, some patron saint you are.

Finally, what I also dig about Ganesh is that he's a candy freak. Ganesh loves him some sweets. Of course, sweets in India, called mithai, are a little different from those we devour mindlessly here in the U.S. I urge you, Gentle Reader, to score yourself some burfi or gulab jamun or laddu, sometimes spelled ladoo. Better yet, make some ladoo yourself, for it's Ganesh's favorite.

Besan Ladoo1 1/2 C besan (chickpea flour)
4 T sooji (coarse semolina for giving texture, not flour)*
1/2 C ghee (clarified butter)
3/4 C sugar
1 t cardamom powder
4-5 T almonds, coarsely chopped
4-5 T pistachios, chopped
1 T raisins
*Optionally, replace the sooji with besan to make this recipe gluten free.

1. Dry roast the besan over medium-low heat until it's aromatic.
   
2. In a second pan, warm the ghee over low heat without overheating. If it is solidified, then it will melt.
   
3. Add the ghee to the besan, mix well and then allow to cool from hot to warm. Don't let it cool completely.
   
4. While the besan-ghee mixture is cooling, add the raisins to the pan formerly containing the ghee to allow the raisins to plump slightly, then set aside.
   
5. Add the chopped almonds to the ghee pan, toast them 1-2 min. and then set them aside.
   
6. Add the sugar, cardamom, raisins, pistachios (if using) and almonds to the besan-ghee mixture, mixing well. Optionally, reserve half of the almonds for garnishing the ladoos after they're formed.
   
7. To form the ladoo, pinch off a small amount of the "dough," roll it between your palms to form a ball and then set aside to cool completely. If you reserved half of the almonds, press pieces of them into the ladoo you just formed or roll the ladoo in the almond bits, first rolling it in a small amount of melted ghee, if necessary, to help the almonds stick.

Yield: 10-20 ladoos, depending on the size you make

Nutritional Info
I got this great, easy recipe from a fellow food blog, ChefInYou.com, with some additions (namely, the pistachios) from a similar recipe on Indian Food Recipes From Bharathi's Kitchen. Unfortunately, neither blog had nutritional information for the recipes, but if you only eat one or two small ladoos, you'll be fine. Don't be Ganesh and gorge yourself!

The Faudie's Futzings
As I mentioned in the previous section, I added pistachios after finding them in the recipe on Bharathi's blog. Otherwise, I didn't really futz with this one too much because it was such unchartered territory for me.

Since this recipe was my first chance to work with besan, I wasn't quite sure what to expect when toasting it. I was expecting something warm and nutty, but I either had old besan (I'll admit that I bought two years ago and had never opened it) or burned it when trying to roast it because the aroma wasn't terribly appealing. Maybe the smell was just so counter to what I'd expected that my mind decided it smelled bad.

DK, the authoress of ChefInYou.com, provides great tips throughout her recipe, including this very important one: "The chickpea flour should be warm and not cool. We require the mixture it to be warm since this warmness will help the sugar to melt a bit thereby binding the flour--enough to bind it into ladoos." Additionally, she includes a troubleshooting guide with the recipe for those of us who have problems forming the ladoo.

Such as me. For even though I'd read this tip before preparing my ladoos, I think I might have let the "dough" cool too much because I had a hell of a time getting the suckers to adhere and not crumble apart in my hands. My "dough" was a bit on the chalky side, but I found enough brute force got the things to clump.

Oh, if you're curious, Gentle Reader, I didn't garnish my ladoos. I wasn't going that far with 'em since I was making them for my Saturday yoga class attendees and had other things to do that day. Maybe next time.

Despite the funky aroma my toasting besan had, the ladoos turned out to be damn tasty. With the help of the almonds and pistachios--and maybe the toasting 'o the flour--the balls had the nutty flavor I'd expected with just a touch of sweetness to satisfy. The boys both found them tasty, as did a number of my regular class attendees. In fact, one of my regulars even asked me for the recipe, which I couldn't remember in specifics at the time. Bad me.

If you're curious to try some mithai but don't want to wait until Pancha Ganapati 2010 to whip up some treats for dear Ganesh, give these babies a shot. You don't have to heat up your kitchen, and if you've had a stressful day, squeezing the ladoo into shape can be a great way to release some of that tension.

Om gam ganapati namah, y'all!

Want a Taste of Living in Austin?

The husband and I seem unknowingly attracted to cities that have an ongoing tug of war between preservation (more like stagnation) and progress. Our time as dwellers of The City Different (aka, Santa Fe, New Mexico, although I don't know if it uses that slogan any longer) opened our eyes to this fight, and we continue to experience here in hipper-than-thou Live Music Capital of the World (ha!) Austin. On one side you have the old-timers who seem dead set on preserving their nostalgia-heavy memories, even though the things they remember about their city have long since changed and can never be brought back. On the other side are the folks who want to drag everyone, kicking and screaming if necessary, into the bright, shiny, ultra-convenient future--if even that future's bright gleam wears off in nanoseconds and brings on more inconveniences than it solves.

Some folks in Austin can't seem to let go of the past. This article from today's Austin American-Statesman typifies that stubbornness:

Austinites Save Another Icon, Albeit a Car Wash Sign

A Year Older, But No Wiser

The husband's careful attention to detail astounds me. Really.

--The Faudie

Sunday was my birthday, and we'd planned a memorable event for the day: After attending a wedding in Houston on Saturday, we'd head over to Galveston for a birthday lunch at Gaido's with family. Sounds like a great plan, doesn't it? Unfortunately, the wedding left a certain little boy sluggish and (even worse) puking when he awoke the next day. As tempting as lunch sounded, it just wouldn't be fair to submit a sick-to-his-stomach six-year-old to a trip to a seafood restaurant. Reluctantly, we packed up and headed back to Austin with the boy attempting to convalesce in the back seat. (Just how sick was he? Well, he's fine now, but he felt so bad on the trip home that he couldn't even play LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga on his Nintendo DS. So yeah, he wasn't feeling well.)

Thus it was that we ended up back at home instead of at a table at Gaido's eating fresh snapper. And what can you do when your lunch plans fall through? You bake some bread, of course!

With more free time on my hands for my birthday than I'd anticipated, I started leafing through our bread machine cookbooks for a recipe that could be prepared with ingredients on hand. I ended up picking this one from Bread Machine Bounty:

Wheat 'n' Seed Bread

3/4 C plus 2 T milk
1 T honey
1 1/2 t shortening
1 1/3 C whole wheat flour
2/3 C bread flour
1/4 C sunflower seeds
4 t sesame seed
1 t poppy seed
1/2 t salt
1 t active dry yeast or bread machine yeast

1. Add the ingredients to the machine according to the manufacturer's directions, adding the sunflower seeds, sesame seed and poppy seed with the flour.
   
2. Select the Wheat cycle on the machine, and then press the Start button.

Yield: One 1-pound loaf

Nutritional Info
Calories: 81
Fat: 3 g
Protein: 3 g
Carbs: 14 g
Cholesterol: 1 mg
Sodium: 74 mg

The Husband's Futzings
One particular ingredient caught my attention when I was considering this recipe, and that ingredient was the shortening. I wasn't even sure we had any shortening in the house, but Angela assured me we did (though for what purpose, I have no idea). As you can probably surmise from the recipes on this blog, we don't do a lot of cooking involving shortening. [I bought some Crisco sticks ages ago--I think when we were still apartment dwellers--but I don't remember why. And we don't do any cooking that calls for Crisco. I consumed enough of that atherosclerosis-inducing colloidal complex as a youth, thank you very much. --The Faudie] Probably due to my unfamiliarity with this item, I didn't pay much attention to the fact that our leftover shortening was giving off a particularly sour odor. Does anyone know if shortening can go bad? Because if it does, then ours did. But I didn't know this at the time, and I proceeded to use the expired ingredient for this loaf of bread.

Oh, and I accidentally used one-and-a-half tablespoons rather than one-and-a-half teaspoons. That, I admit, may also have had an affect on the recipe. (As it says in the title above, I may be a year older, but no wiser.)

If you haven't guessed already, this particular loaf did not come out well. Oh, I'm sure it looks fine in the pictures, but trust me, of all the breads we've made with our machines, this one's the worst. It has an overpoweringly odd taste; Angela describes it as "bitter," but she's being charitable, I think. It probably doesn't help that the seeds used for this bread--sunflower, sesame and poppy--aren't terribly flavorful and probably don't have much chance of leaving an impression against an overly generous amount of expired shortening. The seeds that go into my favorite six-seed bread are much more flavorful.

Bad, bitter bread

I honestly haven't eaten any of the bread since trying the first, disappointing slice. The bread just tastes strange. It's bad enough to make you as sick as...well, as sick as the kiddo after a wedding celebration.

Such Promise...and Such Disappointment

After day after day of turkey-based meals, the boys were overjoyed when I decided to prepare a different source for protein last night. Granted, said protein source was still in the fowl family--chicken--but I've yet to have either human male here at Chez Boeckman-Walker turn down chicken.

To mark the return of everyone's favorite barnyard poultry to our table, I decided to prepare a new recipe, which I'd received just that morning in my daily dispatch from AllRecipes.com. It seemed like a promise flavor combination, and none of the ingredients seemed like they'd offend the boy's gustatory sensibilities (the husband, upon my showing him the recipe, was behind it wholeheartedly).

Such promise....

Cinnamon and Lime Chicken Fajitas4 boneless, skinless chicken breast halves
1 T ground cinnamon
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
2 large baking potatoes, peeled and cubed
1/4 C canola oil
1 large yellow onion, chopped
1 large garlic clove, peeled and minced
1 T chopped jalapeño peppers
1 lime, juiced
12 6" corn tortillas, warmed

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees F.
   
2. Place the potatoes in a shallow baking dish, drizzle about half of the oil over them, and then season them with salt.
   
3. Bake the potatoes until tender (30 to 40 min.).
   
4. Season the chicken with the cinnamon, salt and pepper, and then arrange it in a separate baking dish.
   
5. Bake the chicken until it's no longer pink and its juices run clear (30 min.).
   
6. Let the chicken cool and then shred it.
   
7. Heat the remaining oil in a skillet over medium heat.
   
8. Saute the onion and garlic until tender.
   
9. Mix in the shredded chicken, chopped jalapeños and lime juice, and then cook until heated through.
   
10. Serve the chicken and potatoes on warmed tortillas.

Yield: 6 servings

Nutritional Info
I'm not sure this information is terribly accurate. Check out that sodium total! Did I miss the part about serving a cow's salt block on a tortilla?

Calories: 395
Fat: 12.9 g
Protein: 22.3 g
Carbs: 49.5 g
Fiber: 7.4 g
Na: 1,234 mg
Cholesterol: 45 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
Having lived in Texas now some 13 years, I must confess that I'm accustomed to seeing strips of meat that are maybe half an inch thick and one to two inches long used for fajitas. Shredded meat--or so I've observed--is used more commonly in enchiladas and maybe some burritos of lesser quality, but not for fajitas. Part of the joy of fajitas, it strikes me, is the meat that's still sizzling and smoking from its time on the grill when it's brought to you for assembly.

But, hey, not everyone lives in Texas nor has everyone lived in Texas at some point, so not everyone has the relatively same experience I have with fajitas. Or maybe I'm the one with the skewed sense of how meat's used in Tex-Mex dishes. Eh.

Would it surprise you then, Gentle Reader, that I didn't make fajitas from this recipe? That I didn't shred the chicken? That I really didn't do anything as indicated in the recipe?

I didn't think so. Here's what I did:

• Forget the potatoes. These aren't breakfast tacos!
  
• Forget seasoning the chicken with oil. After I cubed the two chicken breasts, I tossed them into a Ziplock, dumped in the tablespoon of cinnamon, sealed the bag, did my best impression of a Shake 'n Bake commercial and then tossed that puppy in the refrigerator for an hour-long chill.
  
• Forget baking anything. I cooked the chicken in the same skillet with the sauted onions and garlic.
  
• Forget cooking the onions and garlic at the same time. I tossed the onions in the skillet once the wee bit of canola oil was warm enough, sprinkled them with a little cumin and let them saute for a while before I added the garlic. Once it was fragrant, then I added the chicken. Once the chicken was cooked through, I add the peppers and lime juice, holding off on the juice until the last minute.
  
• Forget the jalapeños. While I do have a can of diced ones in my pantry, I already had an opened can of diced green chiles. Not wanting to potentially offend the boy's palate with a pepper with a little heat, I used the green chiles.
  
• Forget the tortillas. I served this concoction on a bed of jasmine rice.

A mouthwatering aroma filled the kitchen while I was preparing this dish, but the fragrance and flavor didn't really zing in the finished product. I could detect the cinnamon for sure, and there was a hint of lime, but neither one really popped. As for the peppers, I really sort of wasted them in this dish because they completely disappeared. For all the flavorful ingredients that go into its preparation, I found the dish sort of bland.

The husband, on the other hand, thought the meal was rather tasty. I think the boy liked it well enough. At least we didn't have to tussle over whether or not he was going to finish his serving, which is usually a sign that he finds a recipe enough to his liking.

I'm not sure how to "fix" this dish. More lime juice, perhaps adding it to the cinnamon in the bag for the marinade? I'd considered that but was afraid that the citrus would then overpower the cinnamon. More heat, such as from jalapeños? Maybe. Maybe not. I really don't have enough interest in this recipe to explore it further.

Lipstick on a Pig

No, Gentle Reader, this isn't a rant about a certain imbecilic former governor of Alaska. It's about leftovers. Lots of leftovers. No matter how you dress 'em up, they're still leftovers--just like putting lipstick on a pig doesn't disguise the fact that it's a pig.

When the husband brought home his poultry prize, I warned that he and the boy would be eating lots of turkey sandwiches after December 25. Lots of turkey sandwiches. Not surprisingly, that seemed to suit him and the boy just fine at the time.

To help the eating 'o the leftover turkey sandwiches, I even bought (for the first time in many, many months) two loaves of bread and some Lawry's season salt. I'm not sure, Gentle Reader, if you have the tradition of leftover turkey on sandwich bread slathered with Miracle Whip and sprinkled with Lawry's, but that's the tradition in my family, and it's one the husband was introduced to years ago and latched on to quite fervently. The turkey drought at Chez Boeckman-Walker had him quite anxious for some Lawry's-sprinkled turkey sandwiches.

Naturally, after the first one, the lipstick was off the pig. The boy barely made it through his first sandwich and refused to eat more.

Which left me still with some 16 pounds of leftover turkey meat. Joy.

Of the two big tubs of meat, one was filled with the two large breast portions, which I figured I could make up nicely with turkey highlighted. The other tub was filled with dark meat and other white meat morsels, and that stuff I knew I'd have to disguise in some manner. So to the Internet I went! But after finding only a few appealing possibilities on MyRecipes.com and AllRecipes.com (turkey and pasta seems to be a popular combination, but the thought of which causes my stomach to churn). I turned then to my shelf of cookbooks in the kitchen, pulling first, surprise surprise, The New Best Recipe from good 'ol Christopher Kimball.

I Heart Christopher Kimball

This giant tome has not been as useful as I thought it would be when I got it for a song nearly two years ago, and in the turkey department, it was a letdown. Want several variations on a turkey brine? The New Best Recipe can provide! Want an interesting use for leftover turkey? Eh, look elsewhere.

"Elsewhere" happened to be the chicken section of the book. Since the recipe I'd followed for the bird the first time was a modified chicken recipe, why not see what Kimball & Co. could offer for chicken?

Sure enough, I found a poorly formatted India-inspired variation on the main recipe for one-dish chicken and rice that I thought would suit the palates of us human residents of Chez Boeckman-Walker. In fact, I figured those breast portions would be highlighted nicely by this dish.

Chicken and Rice, Indian Style1 whole chicken (3-4 lb.)
Salt
Ground black pepper
2 T olive oil
1 medium onion, chopped fine
3 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press
2 medium green bell peppers, cored, seeded and cut into medium dice
3" cinnamon stick
1 t ground turmeric
1 t ground coriander
1 t ground cumin
1 1/2 C long-grain white rice
14.5 oz. diced tomatoes
1/2 C tomato juice drained from diced tomatoes
1/2 C dry white wine
2 C water

1. Rinse and pat dry the chicken, then remove the giblets and wings and cut the chicken into 8 pieces.
   
2. Sprinkle the chicken pieces liberally on both sides with salt and pepper.
   
3. Heat the oil until it shimmers in a large, nonreactive Dutch oven over high heat.
   
4. Add the chicken to the pot, skin-side down, and cook without moving the pieces until well browned (about 6 min.), then turn over and let the other side cook without moving until it too is well browned (about 6 more min.).
   
5. Remove the browned chicken to a plate and keep warm.
   
6. Pour all but 2 tablespoons of the fat from the pan, then return it to the burner and reduce the heat to medium.
   
7. Add the cinnamon stick and saute, stirring with a wooden spoon, until it unfurls (about 15 sec.).
   
8. Add the onion and bell peppers and saute, stirring frequently, until softened (5-6 min.).
   
9. Add the garlic and then the turmeric, coriander and cumin and saute until fragrant (about 1 min.).
   
10. Stir in the rice and cook, stirring frequently, until the grains are coated and glistening (about 1 min.).
    
11. Stir in the tomatoes, reserved tomato juice, water and one teaspoon of salt, then scrape the frond off the bottom of the pot with the wooden spoon.
    
12. Return the chicken thighs and legs to the pot, bring it to a boil reduce the heat to low, cover and let simmer gently for 15 min.
    
13. Add the chicken breast pieces to the pot, then gently stir the ingredients until the rice is thoroughly mixed.
    
14. Return the lid to the pot and allow the contents to simmer until the rice and chicke are tender (10-15 min.).

Yield: 4 servings of unknown size

Nutritional Info
Here's one of my bigger disappointments about The New Best Recipe, other than the dearth of recipes I really want to make: It contains no nutritional information. If we want to get people back into their kitchens and cooking for themselves as a means of helping them eat better, then this information is really important. Oh well.

The Faudie's Futzings
Right off the bat, Gentle Reader, the big 'ol futzing that's most obvious is that I used roasted turkey breast in lieu of raw chicken meat. Did that majorly change up the recipe?

If you were expecting a "You betcha!" here, Gentle Reader, go hurt yourself. Painfully.

Actually, the use of the cooked meat didn't really change how I prepared the recipe. I did dramatically reduce the amount of olive oil: Maybe a teaspoon I used, I think. The first time I made this recipe (I had enough breast meat to make it twice), I used a nonstick Dutchie, so there was no frond to scrape. The second time, though, I got out Chive, and a bit of a frond formed.

I do believe the estimated times for some cooking milestones in this recipe are off. For example, I needed a few minutes for my cinnamon stick to unfurl both times, not a mere 15 seconds. Perhaps I didn't have my pot hot enough. Instead of a minute for the spices to become fragrant, I only needed about 15 seconds. Perhaps Christopher uses cheap spices.

One word of warning if you choose to make this recipe: Don't strictly follow the recipe for adding liquid to cook the rice in. The first time around, I didn't use the full two cups of water because my can of diced tomatoes was juicier than anticipated, even after I'd drained it and had the half-cup reserve liquid. That additional "hidden" liquid combined with the half-cup of wine and maybe a cup of water was enough to relatively cover the rice and cooked turkey hunks I threw in. The second time, though, my tomatoes weren't as juicy, and I needed probably a smidge more than two cups of water. Of course, the second time I think I added a whole lot more turkey meat, so if you use cooked meat that might be a little dry and might not release much moisture as it cooks, consider adding a smidge more water. In other words, Gentle Reader, eyeball it!

The result is a very hearty, mildly sweet and spicy dish that seems more like a distant American cousin of a traditional Mogul pulao or biryani than an Indian-inspired take on that mushy abomination formed when cream of mushroom soup meets 3-minute rice and chunk chicken. You could probably kick up the heat of the dish by swapping out one of the bells for a spicier pepper, or maybe you could throw in a bit of cayenne or hot paprika. I think this dish definitely has lots of futzing potential.

Turkey in the Straw! Ha ha ha! Turkey in Disguise! Hi hi hi!
The pulao-esque turkey and rice dish, twice made, by and large took care of one big tub of leftover turkey. What's a faudie to do with a second big tub of dark meat and assorted bits of white meat that will not be going towards sandwiches, even under threat of death?

Drown it in liquid, throw in a good amount of tomato goo and pray, Gentle Reader.

Southwestern Turkey Soup1 1/2 C shredded cooked turkey
4 C vegetable broth
28 oz. whole peeled tomatoes
4 oz. chopped green chiles
2 roma tomatoes, chopped
1 onion, chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
1 T lime juice
1/2 t cayenne pepper
1/2 t ground cumin
Salt to taste
Pepper to taste
1 avocado, peeled, pitted and diced
1/2 t dried cilantro
1 C shredded Monterey Jack cheese

1. In a large pot over medium heat, combine the turkey, broth, canned tomatoes, green chiles, fresh tomatoes, onion, garlic and lime juice.
   
2. Add the cayenne, cumin, salt and pepper.
   
3. Bring the mixture to a boil, then reduce the heat and let simmer 15 to 20 min.
   
4. Stir in the avocado and cilantro, then let simmer until slightly thickened (15 to 20 more min.).
   
5. Spoon the soup into serving bowls, and top with shredded cheese.

Yield: 8 servings of an unknown size

Nutritional Info
As this recipe comes from a user of AllRecipes.com, I'm not terribly confident in this information. Plus it reflects the use of full-fat, full-sodium and other less health-conscious products, so it's not terribly accurate for how I prepared it.

Calories: 184
Fat: 9.8 g
Protein: 13.5 g
Carbs: 11.9 g
Fiber: 3.8 g
Na: 632 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
The directions for preparing the soup are, in a word, simplistic. Granted, there's nothing necessarily wrong with them, as I've learned from listening to The Splendid Table (the episode from November 7, to be precise). The recipe follows one of three basic foundations for creating a soup: Simmer everything in liquid without sautéing to yield clear, true flavors. The other two methods are (a) slowly stewing onions and key ingredients, such as herbs, in a little fat in a covered pot over low heat to yield mellow flavors and (b) quickly browning onions and some of the vegetables in good-tasting oil or butter over medium-high heat to yield bold and sturdy flavors.

Since I'm creating a spicy soup, I want flavors bold and brassy so they can disguise the less desirable turkey meat bits floating in the juice. If you want the same, Gentle Reader, here's what to do:

1. Heat a wee bit of olive oil in a large pot over medium-high heat.
   
2. Toss in the onions, sprinkle with half a teaspoon or so of cumin (the amount will depend on how much diced onion you have to brown and how much you like the flavor of cumin) and then sauté.
   
3. As the onions begin to soften, toss in the garlic and sauté until lightly fragrant (probably no more than 30 sec., but the quality of your garlic could impact this time).
   
4. Add the broth, tomatoes, turkey, chiles and spices, stirring well to blend, and then bring the ingredients to a gentle simmer.
   
5. Once the ingredients are heated through, add the lime juice and stir.

As you may have noticed, I make no mention of avocado or cheese or cilantro or salt and pepper. I didn't use them in either batch of soup I made, although I would have used some freshly chopped cilantro atop my own bowl if I'd remembered to mince it before the soup was ready. In addition to these omissions, here are some other futzings I made:

• I reduced the amount of cayenne to 1/4 teaspoon because I know that amount is enough heat for the boy...and probably for me as well. Half a teaspoon of the stuff seems excessive--heat for heat's sake. Like those asinine chili cook-offs at which macho types see who can prepare and ingest the most hellishly hot chili, not to determine which chili tastes the best but to see which person's taste buds and GI tract can withstand that much capsaicin and other flavor building blocks. Spare me, please.
  
• I added a bag (20 ounces, I think) of HEB frozen super sweet corn. I kid you not about the product name, Gentle Reader: This corn was teeth-achingly sweet, just a notch or two below candy corn in terms of sugary sweetness. That said, it served as a nice counterpoint to the heat.
  
• I used chicken broth instead of veggie broth, and I can't say how much of it I used either time because I was eyeballing the ratio of liquids and liquid-yielding solids to overall solids (more on this in a moment). I do recall using a bit of water when I prepared the first batch because I'd polished off what was left of the already-open chicken broth container and needed a wee bit more moisture, so I poured a bit of water into the empty broth container to collect any residue seasoning remaining and then dumped that into the pot.
  
• The first time I used three or four canned roma tomatoes and their juices left from the can I'd opened when I made the spicy rice on December 25. I had to break them up as I cooked them, which was a total pain in the rump to do with a 25-cent wooden spoon. The second time around, I used a can or two of no-salt-added diced tomatoes. They worked much better than the whole tomatoes.

I used well more than a cup and a half of shredded leftover turkey in both batches of soup, and the 20 ounces of corn certainly added a lot more to the pot, so just as I did with the Indian-inspired turkey and rice dish, I eyeballed the amount of liquid in the pot as the soup cooked. The second batch turned out to be a little less soupy for two reasons: (1) I probably used four cups of turkey meat just so it'd be gone but not wasted, and (2) I planned to freeze the majority of the soup, and I've found previously frozen soup reheats much better if I add newly opened broth to it as it warms up on the stove.

That said, if you aim to freeze the soup for a few months but will micronuke it before eating it, consider adding all the liquid you need initially. I don't reheat much in my microwave anyway, but I find trying to add ingredients to stuff being micronuked to be a pain in the arse. If you're a more experienced microwave chef, maybe you can accomplish this feat without muss and fuss, so perhaps withholding some liquid from the initial preparation will still work for you.

And while you're making this very easy, very satisfying turkey take on tortilla soup, please experiment with it, Gentle Reader! If I ever have the misfortune of having several pounds of leftover turkey meat on hand, I'll probably whip up another batch of this soup and add some black beans and diced bell peppers (red if I can afford them, green if not). You could also substitute jalapeño or another spicier pepper for the green chiles, maybe even sauté a cinnamon stick with the onions or add a dash of ground cinnamon with the other spices for a touch of sweet.

Damn. Now I kind of wish I still had some turkey so I could go play some more!

Eh, who am I kidding?

Let's Talk Turkey

Eighteen pounds and 11 ounces of it, in fact.

Yep, that's how much the freebie turkey the husband got from his company weighed. To go from a multi-year turkey boycott to having nearly 20 pounds of the stuff to prepare, I was a wee bit apprehensive about the big meal of December 25.

So as not to roll over and surrender to any sort of conventional tradition, I vowed I would not simply roast the carcass in the oven with a bit of salt and pepper, a light rubbing of butter and with an onion shoved down its throat or up its ass, which was how Mum typically prepared turkey for the turkey-eating holidays, along with some Stove Top and brown-and-serve rolls. Ugh, how...all-'merican. And you know well, Gentle Reader, all-'merican is not how we do things here at Chez Boeckman-Walker.

Instead, I turned to an old friend for some inspiration. Okay, never in a million years would this person be my friend, but she's helped me out in a pinch more than once. I'm referring, of course, to Madhur Jaffrey. In late November, I was lucky enough to find a 1973 hardcover, beat-to-hell copy of her first cookbook, An Invitation to Indian Cooking. It's her first book and represents how she learned to cook via correspondence with her mother while she was living in London and is also her way of sharing to a much larger audience her native cuisine, although with some alterations made for the Western lifestyle (waaay back in the early 70s). The introduction itself is fascinating reading because it unintentionally speaks a lot about how globalization has changed how we eat and shop for food.

Anywho, there's not a single turkey recipe in the "Chicken, other birds, and eggs" chapter (because there are so many turkeys in India), but there is one for a roasted chicken with a spicy rice stuffing that sounded delicious enough for me to ponder the possibility of substituting a big-ass turkey for the chicken.

Roast Chicken Stuffed With Spiced Rice1 4-pound roasting chicken, thawed
2 T olive oil or vegetable oil
1 T lemon juice
1/4 t salt
1/8 t freshly ground pepper
1/2 t ground cumin
1/4 t ground garam masala
1 medium onion, coarsely chopped
2 garlic cloves, coarsely chopped
1" cube of fresh ginger, coarsely chopped
1 C canned whole tomatoes, drained OR 3 fresh tomatoes, peeled and chopped
1 t ground coriander
1 t ground cumin
4 T vegetable oil
1/4 t whole black mustard seeds
1/4 t whole cumin seeds
2 C (well-packed) cooked rice
1/2 t salt (or as needed)

1. Combine the olive oil, lemon juice, salt, ground pepper, half teaspoon of ground cumin and garam masala in a small bowl.
   
2. Wipe the chicken well with a cloth or paper towel so it is as dry as possible.
   
3. Brush three-fourths of the marinade all over the chicken, inside and out, and then let it sit, unrefrigerated, for about 2 hours. Reserve the remaining marinade.
   
4. Preheat the oven to 450 degrees.
   
5. Place the onions, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, coriander and full teaspoon of cumin into a blender and blend on high speed until you have a smooth paste.
   
6. Heat the vegetable oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat and, when very hot, drop in the mustard and cumin seeds.
   
7. When the mustard seeds begin to pop (15 to 30 seconds), add the paste from the blender, keeping your face averted to avoid hot, splattering tomato-based paste.
   
8. Fry the paste on medium-high heat, stirring frequently, until browned and the oil has separated from the paste (about 10 min.), stirring more frequently as the moisture evaporates.
   
9. Add the cooked rice, as well as the salt if you need it, to the skillet, reduce the heat to low and mix the paste with the rice.
   
10. Loosely stuff the chicken with the rice, truss it, place it in an ovenproof baking dish, breast up, and then put it in the oven.
    
11. Let the chicken brown for about 20 min., basting it with the remaining marinade every 5 min.
    
12. Reduce the oven to 350 degrees, then allow the chicken to cook another hour or until you can easily move a leg when pushing it up and down in its socket, all the while basting every 10 min. with the juices that come out of the chicken.
    
13. After roasting, remove the bird to a warm platter and let sit 15 min. so the juices do not flow out when carved.

Yield: 4 servings

Nutritional Info
As with her other book, Ms. Jaffrey provides no nutritional information. Do you really think such things were obsessed over as they are now in 1973? Maybe. Maybe not.

The Faudie's Futzings
I'm sure you can gather, Gentle Reader, from the directions that this roasted bird is quite involved--and that's just with a 4-pound chicken. As much as I was looking forward to the flavor of my finished bird, I wasn't going to go to all the effort. Thanks the FSM for Reynolds self-basting turkey bags! Even ones that are more than 10 years old work.

Yes, that's right, Gentle Reader. I still had an almost-full box of Reynolds oven bags from 1997 in my pantry. We weren't even living in Chez Boeckman-Walker in 1997. That box moved twice--from our first apartment to our second and then to Chez Boeckman-Walker. Yes, I can't throw anything away.

After cleaning (and plucking from pin feathers from) my big-ass bird, I dumped it into an oven bag and did my best to glaze its cold, dead skin and hollow visceral cavity with the marinade. Let me tell you, it was quite a workout. Mind you, I regularly do bicep curls with a 50-pound bar, but a dead turkey is incredibly difficult to handle with care. That's some awkward weight to manage with one hand, let me assure you, Gentle Reader. But I coat it coated, used a twistie to close up the bag and stuck it in the refrigerator to marinate while the boys and I cleaned up from the big gift-unwrapping extravaganza and made the requisite phone calls to family, none of whom had opened their gifts yet, but it was only 9:30 or so in the morning. Since the bird would need four and a half to five hours of roasting time and supper was to be on the table no later than 6 o'clock, I wasn't exactly lamenting our early start.

Here are a few other ways I "lazified" the recipes:

I used jarred minced garlic instead of chopping up my own.

I used one canned Roma tomato from Muir Glenn--those tomatoes were big and one looked to be about the equivalent of a measuring cup.

For roasting my seeds, I used maybe a teaspoon of canola oil. I would have used less, but I knew I'd be adding more to it than just seeds.

Lest you think I'm some uneducated, illiterate fool, please know, Gentle Reader, that I did not stuff the bird with the rice. There were enough warning labels on the sucker cautioning consumers about the health hazards of putting consumables in the raw carcass that even if I didn't already know said hazards, I would have learned them over and over again by the time I'd removed the bird from its packaging. Furthermore, can you imagine how dry and disgusting that rice might have been after four and a half to five hours in a hot oven?

Anywho, since the bird didn't get stuffed with rice before roasting, that meant three things: (1) I got to shove half of a big yellow onion down its neck, (2) I could be a bit more leisurely with putting together the masala for the rice and (3) I had time to play with the turkey's carefully bagged innards and neck. "Oh goody! Guts!" I can hear you crying out for joy now, Gentle Reader. You're not alone.

While I've read a few articles on how to prepare broth from leftover bird bits, I had no intention of doing so. But why let edibles go to waste when I've got four hungry cats outside? So I simmered whatever organs were in the bag (do turkeys have multiple livers, because I swear ours came with three of 'em) along with the neck in some water, and the kids outside got a tasty treat--or so I presume. Hell, I wouldn't touch that stuff. But more on the kids later.

The turkey spent just a smidge over four and a half hours in the oven. Its little timer had popped and nothing seemed amiss with the bird when I took it out of the oven, except that somehow the Reynolds-provided zip-tie had come off the bag and melted in the bottom of the oven I'd just recently cleaned. Le sigh.... Instead of removing the bird to a platter--I don't have one large enough and had to use an oversized round, oven-safe casserole pan I got for Mother's Day in 2008 to roast the thing in because I didn't have a baking pan large enough--I just cut away enough of the bag to get at the bird and start tearing away hunks of breast meat with a fork.

That breast meat was moist, but I didn't get much of the flavor of the marinade. That probably was lost since turkey seems to have a more pronounced flavor than chicken--or at least it seems that way to my taste buds. Turkey, to me, is sort of like salmon: You can do a few things to dress it up, but you really can't escape the basic flavor of the meat. And it's probably a good thing since I still had probably 18 pounds of bird to deal with after supper, and being stuck with the same flavor would have severely limited my ability to shovel that leftover meat down the boys' throats.

The rice, unlike the turkey, was wonderfully flavorful. I'll admit I was a bit skeptical about the mouth feel of the final product; after all, you'd kind of expect, well, mush after blending a tomato-based paste with cooked rice, right? Well, perhaps you'd get mush if you used a blander rice (I saved up Basmati from prior meals) or badly overcooked it, reducing the grains to mush before you even added the paste. I also think reducing the amount of canola oil helped too.

After supper came the task of stripping the bird of as much meat as I could and then figuring out what to do with the rest. Simply tossing the bones and the juices in the trash seemed wasteful--and would stink up the garage since trash day was many days off. So after spending a good 90 minutes tearing away chunks of meat, enough to fill to large Snap Lock bowls, I was dog tired and just put the casserole pan--oven bag, juices, onion, bones, particulates and all--out on the deck storage chest on the patio, right beside the bowl with the untouched turkey organs and neck I'd set out earlier in the day that no cat had touched. For the next two days, the outdoor kids had quite a feast.

Stay tuned, Gentle Reader, to read all about my turkey leftover culinary misadventures. Getting rid of more than a dozen pounds of turkey meat ain't easy!