2016 Thanksgiving Day

Nothing is more important than to spend good time with family and friends and with good foods. This year Thanksgiving Day is celebrated with a fried turkey and delicious other side dishes like mac and cheese, sweet potatoes, deviled eggs, greens, beans, chips, cakes, cookies, pies, etc.

Mr. Big cut a big piece for my plate. I finish this in a jiffy. It was finger licking good. The meat was moist and seasoned perfectly.

The picture above is the electrical deep fryer and the peanut oil I used to fry the turkey.

I prep the turkey in garlic butter and Cajun seasoning for more than 4 hours before frying the turkey. This bird weighted about 14.3 lbs. The fryer took 45 minutes to heat the oil to 375F. For each pound, I need about 4 minutes. This bird cooked thoroughly in 50 minutes. The garlic butter that was injected into the meat really give a nice flavor.

I stuffed the stuffing into the cavity as soon as the turkey was taken out of the hot oil. The stuffing was cooked separately. It was a surprise to everyone since they thought they are not going to have stuffing. I really had a great time on Thanksgiving Day.

Thanksgiving Dinner

I am glad that the weather was very nice yesterday on Thanksgiving. Mr. Big Guy set up the turkey fryer in the front lawn. We do not need to set up the tent after all. The rain has stopped since Wednesday. I was busy chopping the onions and celery for the stuffing in the kitchen when Mr. Big was setting the fryer in the front yard.

Mr. Big had injected the turkey meat with flavored butter the night before. We are going to fry the turkey around 1:30 pm. It doesn’t take long to fry the whole 12 lbs turkey. We only need about 30 minutes frying time at 300 degree F.

I sautee the onion and celery with a stick of butter as early as at 10 am in the morning.

I then mixed the sausage and the onion with celery before adding the bread and the chicken stock.

I like deep fried turkey. The meat is tender and juicy. We used peanut oil to fry this bird.

Delicious...bread pudding.

Mr. Big likes the stuffing so much. I used chicken with tomato and basil sausage this time. The flavor was sweeter than the Italian sausage. I also add apple to the stuffing. Mr. Big usually mix everything and then bake it in the oven. This time, I cooked the sausage, onion and celery separately before mixing them with the chicken stock. I then bake the stuffing in the oven on low temperature until we are ready to leave the house.

Delicious...my favorite...sweet potato.

My MIL. Thanksgiving dinner went well at Mr. Big’s niece’s house. I was hoping for a quick stop at the shopping mall near to her house after dinner. But it was getting late.

Delicious...juicy meat carved by Mr. Big Guy.

Delicious...mac and cheese is a must too.
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Stuffed Bell Pepper with Turkey Sausage

The snow is mixing with ice this morning. Luckily, I've made it to work safely. Today's dinner is a recipe that I have been planning to cook for many months but did not get the chance to do it.
Ingredients
2 bell peppers
3 tablespoons olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, minced
1/2 cup chopped mushrooms
3 pieces fresh turkey sausage (remove casing)
2 tomatoes (diced)
3 tablespoons chopped fresh basil
1 teaspoon chopped fresh Rosemary
3/4 cup grated Parmesan cheese
2 cups stuffing bread
1/2 cup chopped coriander leaves

Method
Cut the top of the bell pepper.
Scoop out insides, leaving shells in tact
Heat 2 tablespoon of olive oil in a skillet on medium high heat.
Sauté onion and garlic until soft.
Add mushrooms and sauté for another two minutes.
In a separate skillet, heat a tablespoon of olive oil on medium
high heat.
Add turkey. Break it up with wooden spoon.
Lightly brown the turkey, stirring occasionally.
Cook until the turkey is lightly browned, about 6 minutes.
Stir in the onion and mushroom mixture from the other pan.
Stir in the tomato, basil, and Rosemary and cook one minute longer.
Remove mixture from heat and set it aside.
When mixture has cooled, add cheese and bread stuffing.
Fill bell pepper shells with mixture.
Fill a baking pan with 1/4 inch of water.
Place filled bell pepper in pan and bake at 375 degrees for 40 minutes.
Remove bell pepper from pan and serve while hot.


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Spaghetti with Turkey Meatballs

Dinner tonight is a simple meal. That is Spaghetti with turkey meatballs. I bought ground turkey thinking to make stuffing for the bell peppers I bought yesterday. Unfortunately, I could not find the stuffing bread in my kitchen. So, I decided to cook spaghetti with the turkey meatballs instead for our dinner today.

Ingredients:
4 cups thin spaghetti. Boil in water until cooked. Drain and set aside.
2 cups ready to use spaghetti sauce. Heat on low for 5 minutes.

For the meatballs:
1 pound ground turkey
1 big yellow onion
1 cup chopped coriander leaves.
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
olive oil to fry
Garnish with grated cheese. I don't have Parmesan cheese, so I am using Irish cheese.

Method:
Dice onion.
Chop coriander leaves finely.
Mix onion, coriander, salt and ground black pepper with the turkey.
Make small bite size ball.
Heat olive oil.
Fry the meatballs until golden brown.

To assemble it, place spaghetti on the plate. Then add meatballs. Pour some of the spaghetti sauce and then garnish with the grated cheese.
Serve warm.

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Thanksgiving and Black Friday

Mrinate the turkey with butter first.

Then sprinkle a thin layer of cajun spice on the outside.

It was raining on the morning of Thanksgiving Day in my neighborhood. Honey doesn't want to let down his family, so he went out to the store and bought a big tent. I am sitting here waiting fo the peanut oil temperature to reach 320 degree F.

The oil is ready for the turkey.

Finally the turkey is in. Every 1 lb of the turkey, we need about 3 minutes frying time.

Our dessert is a cheese cake. This is a truffles cheesecake from SAM's. Delicious.
The next day, I was not able to go for a black friday shopping. Luckily all the items I needed are available online. I am not sure if the tom yam I had 2 days ago is causing my heart burn. I drank glasses of home remedy, a ginger tea but it didn't help. I feel better today after taking dr. prescribed med.

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Turkey on Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a celebration that I adopt since living in the state. For this year thanksgiving dinner honey and I prepared our usual meal. We cook turkey, potato salad, sweet potato and delicious greens. Above picture is my potato salad that I sprinkle with some paprika as garnish.

Greens...I love my mother in law's greens. But I never learn from her how to make this dish. For this year's thanksgiving, I am giving a try to cook this greens since honey has no confidence cooking it. I bought greens that sold at regular produce market. I forget the name of this delicious greens.

Firstly, I boil about 2 cups of the vegetables stocks. Then I add few pieces of those delicious cooked turkey meat. I seasoned the broth with salt and pepper. I also add a bit of sweet soy sauce. Once I am satisfied with the taste of the broth I add the greens that I have cleaned and cut into bite size. Cover the pot and let the greens cooked down for about 10 minutes before I turn off the heat.

Walla! Our turkey is done. This turkey is rubbed with some spices that smells so good. Honey used spices that I bought from the store called Sweet Mixed Spices. There are coriander, cinnamon, caraway,dill, fennel, ginger, clove,turmeric and nutmeg mixed in this spice packet.


My nephew is asking for more of my sweet potato. yippea!

I forgot to take a picture of my sweet potato. Everyone loved it. I made it very simple, just sweet potato mixed with brown sugar and lots of butter.