Turkey Wings Are Not Created Equal

In the freezer, we had a package of turkey wings left from the holidays and we decided to bake them with stuffing for an easy meal.  Notice I did not say easy week-night meal as every day is Saturday for us old retirees.  After opening the package, Bev decided the three wings would not be enough and she picked up a couple more at the store the next day.

I did some web searching and found several recipes for guidance and cooked them covered for a two-three hours at 250 F, then I removed them from the pan, dumped the liquid and added some uncooked dressing/stuffing mix prepared per package directions.  I raised the oven temperature to 350 F and put in the stuffing to bake for 10 minutes.  I then laid the turkey wing pieces (less the giant drummys) atop the stuffing and put them back into the oven until browned (about 15 minutes), then flipped them for another 15-20 minutes to brown on the other side.

We served them with some delicious baked sweet potatoes.

The meal was good, but this post is about the wings themselves.  While I know chicken pieces can vary a lot in size, when we buy chicken wings, they are pretty much the same size.  Even though I know turkeys can have a wide range in size, with the large ones in the store more than double the weight of the small ones, it never occurred to me that I would see this when buying wings. 

I was shocked when I opened the new package and declared "Holy cow, these things must have come from an ostrich."  The two drumettes are on the right and the two bone pieces are on the left and I think the size difference was even more than my shot shows.

They are laying on a full sized cutting board and the two bone piece is laying atop the dressing on a standard sized dinner plate.  One of the large wings had nearly as much meat as the three smaller ones combined so I cooked them based on size, adding them to the covered pan in 30 minute increments.  The lesson here is to be careful what you grab up at the store as all turkey wings are not created anywhere near equal.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

2/4/15 event date

2015 Florida Trip – Day 14 – Seafood With Sam & Meakin

When we come to southwest Florida, we try to meet up friends and fellow bloggers, Meakin and Sam (My Carolina Kitchen) and this time, we invited them up to the campground for an afternoon of shellfish.  We brought some very fresh clams and oysters with us from Cedar Key and bought some shrimp locally for Pat who eats neither of the molluscs.

But before we get into this further, even us seafood lovers need a break so we whipped this up on the grill the previous evening.

This is the entertaining and cooking area prior to the commencement of the seafood eating festivities.  We moved the toaster oven outside for baking, I use the red Coleman propane grill as a stove, and the Weber Jumbo Joe is for charcoal grilling – all three were used this day.  

We began our all afternoon seafood-a-thon (sorry you’re not here Joe) with some raw oysters.

After this first shot of Sam’s oysters, we descended into an afternoon of visiting, eating, and sipping fruit drinks so no other photos were taken – I obviously don't do well being the cook and photographer at the same time.

The raw oysters were followed by a batch of boiled little neck clams, which was a new way of cooking them to me as I had always steamed them.  But when the guy who farms them says to cook them completely submerged in seasoned boiling water, who am I to say otherwise.  He also advised cooking them in the mesh bag so they can all be easily removed once they begin opening.  I added some smashed garlic cloves and a couple of squeezed lemon wedges to the cooking water and served them with melted garlic butter.

They do seem to stay more moist and tender cooked this way but I still took them out as they opened rather than waiting until all were done and removing the whole bag full.  One of the advantages of the boiling water is that you can leave the pot lid off and grab them as soon as the pop open.  Here are a couple of shots lifted from the web and mine looked pretty much the same.

Bev just had to bake up a batch of rolls for the event and as always, they were a great addition – maybe even the best part.  In addition to the preceding, we noshed on grilled oysters Rockefeller (which Sam said may have been the best ever), char grilled shrimp, slaw and potato salad provided by Sam, and finished off with a French pear dessert and chocolate dipped local strawberries.  Needless to say, no one walked away hungry.

As always, it was fun to spend time with Sam and Meakin and he learned a new skill - he is now an oyster shucker  - we look forward to a visit at their Florida home the next week.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

1/9/15 event date

Country Steak – ALA Beverly

When I was a kid, my mom called this dish Swiss steak, which I later learned was actually made with a tomato gravy.  I’ve heard the dish called Country Style Steak, Country Fried Steak and Gravy, Baked Steak and Gravy – What is your name for it?  It should not be confused with chicken fried steak which is fried and usually topped with gravy but not baked in the oven.

At any rate Bev wanted to make it using her normal recipe, for which there is no actual recipe and it is a semi homemade version.

Her ingredients were:

Six pieces of cubed steak

Flour for dredging

S&P

Lawry’s seasoning salt

Some mushrooms she had in the fridge

Half an onion, chopped

One can cream of mushroom soup

Two packages of Pioneer Brown Gravy Mix, made per package directions.

1. Preheat oven to 325*

2. We added S&P to one side of the steak and Lawry’s to the other, dredged them in flour, and fried in oil until browned.

3. After skillet frying, the meat was placed in a prepared baking pan and the onion and mushrooms were sautéed in the skillet for a few minutes.  

4. Meanwhile the brown gravy was made per package directions and the soup was whisked into it.

5. The sautéed onions and mushrooms were added atop the meat and the gravy mixture was poured over it.  

6.It was then covered in foil and baked in a 325* oven for about 90 minutes.  Then the foil was removed and the gravy allowed to thicken for a few minutes (or maybe not at all) to the get desired consistency.

We served it over some mashed potatoes and I cannot imagine I could have liked it ant better no matter how fancy the recipe.  This was just about the ultimate comfort meal for a cool December day and perfect for when you want something delicious with minimal effort.  And another beauty of the dish is that it is almost as good leftover.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

12/18/14 event date

A Gourmet Southern Meal Ala Beverly

Late June is a great time for veggies in our area as the summer crops are coming in and some late potatoes are still available.  Bev decided to whip us up a meatless (hard for her) meal of corn, beans, potatoes, and tomatoes (the only part from our garden).  The gourmet part is obviously in the eye of the beholder mouth of the eater.

The local pole beans were cooked with smoked bacon, onion, garlic, and spices; the new potatoes were just boiled in water then mashed on the plate with butter; and the cherry tomatoes were halved.  Now for the corn – growing up, sweet corn was boiled in water and slathered with butter, salted and peppered and eaten from the cob, but since I married Bev I’ve discovered fried corn.

The fresh local corn was cut from the cob, then cooked in a skillet with butter and S&P, sometimes until just barely cooked, like this, and sometimes cooked until a little caramelized.  This method preserves all of the flavor that is removed by the boiling process and can be cooked to the same level of doneness as boiled or more if you prefer.

If you’ve seen Bev, you know she is a pretty small person but this is her plate which was all eaten.  My plate looked similar but without the tomatoes and I had seconds on the corn.

The meal was absolutely delicious and if you’ve never cooked corn this way, you are missing a real treat.  Bev used a half stick of butter for five ears of corn but this can be adjusted to your taste and dietary desires – I’m a disciple of Paula Deen so more is better – notice the word margarine was never mentioned in the above.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

7/9/14 meal date

Steak Diane

Bev had gotten a couple of rib eyes out of the freezer and decided she wanted Steak Diane (because of the flambé I suspect) so we began looking at recipes and settled on the one from Food.com.  Per Wikipedia - “Steak Diane is an American dish of a pan-fried beefsteak with a sauce made from the seasoned pan juices, generally prepared in restaurants tableside, and flambéed. It was popular in the middle of the 20th century, but was considered dated by 1980.”

Bev’s favorite steak is a filet and her least favorite is ribeye because of the amount of fat in them so I decided to see if I could help this by trimming the outside and removing the big fat layer between the two muscles.

The recipe below has the sauce ingredients doubled so we would have plenty for the pasta we used as a side dish (last of the leftovers from the blogger party).

Steak Diane – Saveur 

Ingredients:

2 tbsp. canola oil

4 (4-oz.) filet mignon steaks

Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

3 cups beef stock

4 tbsp. unsalted butter

4 cloves garlic, minced

2 shallot, minced

8 oz. oyster or hen-of-the-woods mushrooms, torn into small pieces

½ cup cognac or brandy (we used 1/3 cup brandy)

½ cup heavy cream

2 tbsp. Dijon mustard

2 tbsp. Worcestershire sauce

1/2 tsp. hot sauce, such as Tabasco

2 tbsp. minced parsley

2 tbsp. minced chives

Instructions:

1. Heat oil in a 12" skillet over medium-high heat. Season steaks with salt and pepper, and add to skillet; cook, turning once, until browned on both sides and cooked to desired doneness (see notes), about 4 to 5 minutes for medium-rare. Transfer steaks to a plate, and set aside.

2. Return skillet to high heat, and add stock; cook until reduced until to ½ cup (1 cup for me), about 10 minutes. Pour into a bowl, and set aside. 

3. Return skillet to heat, and add butter, garlic and shallots, and cook, stirring, until soft, about 2 minutes. Add mushrooms, and cook, stirring, until they release any liquid and it evaporates and mushrooms begin to brown, about 2 minutes.

4. Add cognac, and light with a match to flambé; cook until flame dies down.  Below was supposed to be a flambé shot but it didn’t pick up the flame.

5. Stir in reserved stock, cream, Dijon, Worcestershire, and hot sauce, and then return steaks to skillet; cook, turning in sauce, until warmed through and sauce is thickened, about 4 minutes.
 6. Transfer steak to serving plates and stir parsley and chives into sauce; pour sauce over steaks to serve.

Notes:

1. I cooked the meat to less than medium rare then took them to the desired temperature when I added them back into the gravy.

2. Trimming the steaks like this worked beautifully and Bev loved the ribeye this way - I gave her and Pat the leaner center pieces and I ate the outer ones. 
3. Because I doubled the sauce ingredients, my times were all longer than the ones in the recipe. 

4. Next time I will add a thickening agent as the sauce was too runny for the pasta.

Like Salisbury Steak, Steak Diane may now be out of style but it’s easy to see why both dishes were popular at some point.  I don’t remember ever making or even eating Steak Diane and I didn’t know what I was missing.  It was pretty easy to make, totally delicious, and a big hit with all of us.  It will be made again, but next time, I think it will be served with some smashed potatoes.  We also had some broccoli but after eating what was on my plate, I was too full to eat any.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

6/16/14 event date

Smothered Pork Chops

We made this dish once before but I apparently didn’t blog about it, as it was nowhere I could find it.  Since we considered it one of the best we’ve ever eaten, I wanted to be sure I documented it this time.  The recipe comes from Tyler Florence and is reproduced here.

Smothered Pork Chops - slightly adapted from Tyler Florence

Ingredients:

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons onion powder

2 tablespoons garlic powder

1 teaspoon cayenne

1 teaspoon salt

1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper

4 pork chops, 3/4-inch thick, bone-in (I used 1” boneless)

1/4 cup olive oil

1 cup chicken broth

1/2 cup buttermilk

Chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley, for garnish

Directions:

1. Put the flour in a shallow platter and add the onion powder, garlic powder, cayenne, salt, and pepper; mix with a fork to distribute evenly. Pat the pork chops dry with paper towels to remove any moisture and then dredge them in the seasoned flour; shaking off the excess.

2. Heat a large sauté pan or cast iron skillet over medium heat and coat with the oil. When the oil is nice and hot, lay the pork chops in the pan in a single layer and fry for 3 minutes on each side until golden brown. 

3. Remove the pork chops from the pan and add a little sprinkle of seasoned flour to the pan drippings. Mix the flour into the fat to dissolve and then pour in the chicken broth. Let the liquid cook down for 5 minutes to reduce and thicken slightly. 

4. Stir in the buttermilk to make a creamy gravy and return the pork chops to the pan, covering them with the sauce. 

5. Simmer for 5 minutes or until the pork is cooked through (143* for me). Season with salt and pepper and garnish with chopped parsley before serving.

As before, they were very good, especially with the sautéed mushrooms I added to mine.  We served them with some smashed new potatoes and steamed broccoli for a fine meal.  Note:  broccoli at our place is cooked, so it loses it's bright green color.  Also I made double the above gravy recipe to ensure plenty for the potatoes.

Photos can be enlarged by clicking on them.

Have a great day and thanks for stopping by Almost Heaven South.

Larry

6/13/14 event date