Apple Butter Basted Turkey

It's never too early to starting thinking about Thanksgiving dinner and how you're going to cook that delicious turkey for your family.  Last year I smoked a turkey on the Big Green Egg and this year I'm planning on using a slightly different recipe to grill my turkey.  I decided to give it a test run a couple of weeks ago just to make sure I had all the kinks worked out before Thanksgiving Day.







I started with a frozen turkey breast.  This recipe would work just as well with a whole turkey.  (For a whole turkey, stuff the bird with the Sweet Potato Stuffing instead of draping the breast over the stuffing.) 









Apple-Butter Basted Turkey Breast with Sweet Potato Stuffing
6-7 Pound turkey breast             ½ cup sherry
1 Tablespoon butter                     ½ loaf French bread, cubed
1 Tablespoon olive oil                 ½ cup chicken broth
½ onion, chopped                       ¼ cup parsley, chopped
1 sweet potato, cubed                  ½ teaspoon sage
½ cup celery, chopped                4 Tablespoons butter
8 ounces sliced mushrooms       ¼ cup apple jelly

 

Melt 1 T. butter and oil in skillet.  Add onion, potato and celery – cook 5 min.

 

Add mushrooms and cook 5 min.












Add sherry and cook until liquid is evaporated.



 







Transfer to bowl with  bread, broth, parsley and sage.  Toss.











Shape dressing into football shape in a 9x13 pan.













Drape turkey over dressing.













Combine apple jelly and remaining 4 T. butter in saucepan.

Whisk over low heat until melted.  

I set up my egg with the plate setter turned upside down and the grate sitting on top of it.








I basted the turkey every 30 minutes with the apple butter and I photographed it every time I basted.  This is what my turkey breast looked like when I first put it on the egg. 













30 minutes into cooking.

1 hour of cooking time.

 

hour and a half on the egg.













2 hours of cooking time.

2 1/2 hours on the Big Green Egg.

3 hours of cooking and smelling fantastic.















3 1/2 hours of cooking

I kept the temperature at 300 to cook my turkey.  I brought the turkey inside after 3 1/2 hours and tented it with foil so that the juices inside the bird could redistribute.  It rested for about 30 minutes before I sliced it.



I transferred the turkey to a serving platter and scooped the sweet potato stuffing into a round casserole dish.  I put the dish under the broiler for a few minutes to brown the top layer of stuffing. 

The turkey was delicious.  The meat was tender and moist and the stuffing had absorbed the apple butter basting sauce which made it truly decadent.  There was plenty of stuffing left over because my kids are not big stuffing eaters so I packaged up the leftovers and put them in my freezer to save for Thanksgiving.

If you are looking for a new way to prepare your Thanksgiving turkey, you need to give this recipe a try.  It is really good and it's a huge help to have the turkey and the stuffing on the Big Green Egg and the oven free to make the rest of the meal. 

If you have any questions about this meal or any of my other blog posts, send me a comment and I will do my best to find you an answer.

Bon Appetit!

Naughty Dog

We spotted Mia eating something in the front yard yesterday only to find out that it was the tops to the pumpkins!


It's a good thing Halloween was over because she devoured that pumpkin.

I made Honey Brushed Chicken on the Big Green Egg last night for dinner.  I never get tired of grilled chicken but I try to make different variations of it so that my family doesn't get bored with the same old thing.

Honey Brushed Chicken
4 teaspoons garlic powder                    ½ teaspoon red pepper
3 teaspoons chili powder                      8 chicken breasts with ribs
2 teaspoons salt                                      6 tablespoons honey
2 teaspoons cumin                                 4 teaspoons cider vinegar
2 teaspoons paprika







Combine the first 6 ingredients.

Sprinkle over chicken and grill for 20 minutes.











Combine honey and vinegar.  Brush on chicken and grill another 20 minutes. 

It sounds like there is a lot of spice in the recipe but it really pairs nicely with the honey and vinegar.   I love the combination of the sweet and smoky flavors.  You can adjust the level of spice to suit your family's palate.  

The chicken came out super moist and delicious.  I cut mine off the bone and ate it over a big garden salad.

It was really good.  I love warm chicken on a spinach salad.  I intentionally cooked more than enough chicken for 1 meal.  I sliced the leftover chicken and made wraps to pack in the kids lunches the next day.  They love those. 

If your looking for a new way to grill chicken - give this recipe a try.

Bon Appetit!

Camping

 

We did some camping with our friends last weekend.  It was wonderful to get away and enjoy the beautiful Fall weather.  We spent time sitting around the campfire, taking hikes around the park and we even got up the nerve to go on a haunted hay ride.  It was a great weekend and thanks to our friends and their camper, we all had a nice warm bed to sleep in on Saturday night.  

We were treated to the most excellent meal on Saturday night.  Chili and cornbread cooked over the campfire - yum.  For dessert - blueberry cobbler  baked in the dutch oven on the fire - double yum.  (Why does food taste so much better when your eating outside by a campfire?)





 Sunday morning it was our turn to make breakfast.  We decided to make BEAT sandwiches for everyone but we wanted to provide something for those early risers to snack on.  We set out some granola and yogurt to help keep everyone from getting too hungry while we cooked the bacon and eggs.  Everyone seemed satisfied to snack on the granola while they waited for breakfast.  

This recipe is really basic and you can add or change ingredients as you like.










 4 cups oats                  

















1 cup wheat germ              














3 cups nuts
(I used pumpkin seeds, whole almonds, walnuts and slivered almonds)













 1 cup sunflower seeds













1/2 cup brown sugar
















½ cup olive oil

          




1/3 cup honey


               













2 teaspoons vanilla












Combine oats, wheat germ, sunflower seeds, nuts and brown sugar.










 Stir together oil, honey and vanilla.













Add to nuts and stir to coat.










Spread onto cookie sheet and bake 20 minutes at 300.


Stir.  Bake 10 minutes.  Stir.  Bake 10 minutes longer.

Immediately spoon granola into Tupperware containers to cool.  Store cooled granola in refrigerator.  




Granola is a great food to take on a camping trip.  It is easy to pack and light enough to carry on hikes.  It's a great way to get some protein into your snack too. 










Just look how happy the boys were about their granola.

After breakfast we took a hike around the park.  It was a beautiful day.

 








I think the dogs enjoyed the walk most of all. 

It was a great weekend.  

So thankful to our friends for inviting us to tag along on their campout.   We had a blast. 










Bon Appetit!

Street Sweeper

The kids had a great time trick or treating in their costumes last night. 

The morph suit was a big hit.

Even I pulled together a last minute costume for myself yesterday.  I had to pick up a shirt and a hat for my daughter so I decided to get one for myself as well.  (I think she might be taller than me in this picture.  When did that happen?)

One of our neighbors invited us to their house for hamburgers and hot dogs before the trick or treating.   Everyone that came brought side dishes to go along with the meat.   My contribution to the party was homemade hummus with pita chips...

and homemade hummus and carrots.

Hummus is fairly simple to make because it doesn't have many ingredients.  It's a great way to get more protein in your diet too.

Hummus
I can chick peas
1 clove garlic
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 tub tahini sauce from Trader Joe's
1 Tablespoon sugar






Drain and rinse chick peas.  Process chick peas, garlic and salt in food processor.  Add tahini sauce and sugar and process until smooth.  

I've made a lot of hummus recipes in the past and I have had a hard time getting them creamy enough.  This recipe is super easy and the Tahini sauce from Trader Joe's already has the lemon juice, oil and water included.  It makes this hummus even easier than most. 

My choice of pita chips are the cinnamon sugar from Trader Joe's and the reduced guilt multigrain Pita chips - also from Trader Joe's.

I also took a few chocolate cupcakes that I rolled in toffee bits and frosted with marshmallow meringue.  We gave away plenty of candy to some hungry trick or treaters last night and had a lot of fun in the process.

Mia and I are heading out for our usual walk around the neighborhood this morning.  Today is Mia's very favorite day of the year.  She acts like a big vacuum cleaner sucking up all of the candy that was dropped into the streets by careless trick or treaters.  She actually does a pretty good job of cleaning up - I like to think of it as her contribution to the neighborhood.

Bon Appetit!