Turkey Gumbo

After Thanksgiving, we went to Jeff's house and had amazing leftover turkey gumbo. Pat & Eleanor had given us the turkey carcass from our own feast, so Claire and I were inspired to try it. The recipe we made was ENORMOUS but good. You will almost CERTAINLY want to alter the amount of stuff in this.

Ingredients

• 1/2c oil or leftover bacon grease or something similar
• 1/2c all purpose flour
• 2 large onions, chopped
• 2 red bell peppers, seeded, chopped
• 4 celery ribs, chopped
• 8 cloves worth of garlic
• 1 tsp cayenne
• 1/4c white vermouth
• 1 tbsp dried thyme
• 4 bay leaves
• 1 28-ounce cans diced tomatoes with juice
• 4-6ish cups turkey stock with turkey
• 1 package (?) andouille sausage (I think about 1 lb), cut into 1/2" slices
• 1 16-ounce packages sliced frozen okra
• 1 lb peeled (tail off) de-veined shrimp.
• Salt to taste
• Gumbo filé to taste

So, it's important to note before you start that we made the turkey stock as follows: chop up the turkey carcass and place in a slow-cooker. Cover with water, and leave for about 24 hours. Fish out any bones. DONE.

In a huge pot, add the grease / oil. Heat until quite hot, then add the flour. Stir around this paste, cooking over medium heat, for about 5 minutes. If you use oil, at least, it's supposed to turn reddish-brown through this process. Ours started out that color, so who knows. Anyway, add the onions, peppers, and celery. Cook until everything is quite soft - about 20 minutes. Then add the garlic and cayenne and cook another couple minutes. Then add the vermouth, thyme, and bay leaves. Turn to high heat and cook for a minute, before you add the tomato, stock, and sausage. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20 minutes, then add the okra and simmer for another 10 minutes. Finally add the shrimp and cook until just fully opaque (3-5 minutes). Salt to taste (ours needed quite a lot).

Serve.

Thoughts: Great flavor. Claire and I agree that we could have used more turkey - we could have had more, but we ate a lot of the turkey before we tried this. I think the amount of shrimp and sausage was good, though. We agree that the flavor was great.

Disaster Index: 1/10, but it made so much we'll be eating it for like 2 weeks.

Tres Leches Bread Pudding

This recipe requires you to do a little math. I recommend you check out the original bread pudding recipe I posted here to get an idea of how bread pudding works. I tweaked the bake time for this. The main difference is that I replaced some milk with evaporated milk and sweetened condensed milk.

Ingredients

• Stale bread, torn or cut into smallish (1" or 1.5" pieces) - bagels work, too
• Eggs
• Sweetened Condensed Milk
• Evaporated Milk
• Whole Milk
• Vanilla
• Sugar
• salt

Preheat oven to 375. Add bread into a casserole pan. Now you have to make the custard. You need the following ratios: 4oz dairy (which is 1/2c milk), 1 egg, .5tsp vanilla, 2tsp sugar. So, for example, one can of sweetened condensed milk is about 15oz. Evaporated milk comes in 5oz cans. That's 20oz total. Add another 1/2c milk, and you have 24oz., so you add 6 eggs, 4tbsp sugar, 3tsp vanilla. Add a pinch of salt, too. If this math is too hard, just do:

• 1 can sweetened condensed milk
• 1 can evaporated
• 1/2c milk
• 6 eggs
• 4tbsp sugar
• 3tsp vanilla
• 1/2tsp salt

Anyway, whisk those ingredients together thoroughly and pour over the bread. You want it to be pretty well soaked. Here's the secret. Let it sit for 10 minutes, then pack down the bread with a spatula or something similar. Let it go another 5 minutes or so and pack down again. You want the bread packed quite densely and quite soaked in custard.

Cover the pan in tin foil. Bake for 30 minutes, then take the foil off and bake for another 15 minutes. Make sure it's set (you want it to look slightly damp, but not "wet" - it's a custard, so it shouldn't be completely dry.) Let sit 10 minutes.

While that's baking, you can make the brandy sauce. You can kind of add your own flavors to this, too. Do what seems right. Rum might be good.

• 1c sugar
• 2/3c water
• 1/3c brandy
• 2tbsp grand marnier
• vanilla bean or cinnamon stick, if you have it (or similar)

To a pan, add 1c sugar and about 2/3c water and vanilla / cinnamon (if using). Boil over medium heat until sugar is dissolved and sauce is slightly thickened, about 5 or 10 minutes? Then take it off the heat and add the brandy and grand marnier.

When the bread pudding is done sitting for 10 minutes, poke holes in it with a chopstick or fork or something. Pour the brandy sauce over the top and serve with whipped cream.

Thoughts: I think I've done something really smart here. Judging by the reaction, this was something of a hit. I only regret that when I put the bread pudding together, I didn't poke holes in the bread pudding and pour the sauce over - I more or less put it on individual servings. I think that in the future I want the brandy sauce to really soak into the dessert. Also, I had so much bread that I needed a LOT of whole milk. I used only 1 can of the sweetened condensed milk and 1 can of evaporated milk, but I could have doubled that and used less whole milk - this would have given it a stronger "tres leches" flavor. But I think we have a winner.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Chocolate Chip Meringue Cookies

When we made this, we added the sugar too early, and it took FOREVER to whip the egg whites. The instructions include the CORRECT method.

Ingredients

• 4 egg whites (which is a scant 1/2 cup) (Claire hates it when I call it albumin, but really it's hilarious)
• 1/2tsp salt
• 1/4tsp cream of tartar
• 2tsp vanilla
• 1c superfine sugar
• 12oz good chocolate chips
• 1/2c nuts optional (we didn't use 'em)

Preheat the oven to 200*, if you think that kind of thing is important.

In a bowl, combine the egg whites, salt, cream of tartar, and vanilla, and beat until it forms soft peaks. Then add the sugar and beat until it forms stiff peaks. Our problem was that we misinterpreted what "soft peaks" means, so we under-whipped before we added the sugar.

Anyway, roughly chop the chocolate chips (and nuts, if using), and fold those in.

Spoon the "batter" onto a parchment paper-lined baking sheet (about 1 to 1.5tbsp per cookie) and bake (yes, at 200*) for about 2 hours, until "lightly golden".

Thoughts: For me, the flavor of these cookies was fantastic, and the texture was amazing. If you cook them at 300 for 25 minutes, they're supposed to be crispy and hollow, but I wanted them to be more ethereal. Though it does make one wonder - could I bake them hollow and then pipe something into them? Maybe worth investigating. I would use a bit less sugar next time - maybe as little as half a cup? Otherwise, I think this was very successful. Claire thinks they're weird. SHE'S THE WEIRD ONE.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Gelato

I'm not sure, maybe we've posted other gelato recipes here before, but this one worked very well, so I'm just going to go ahead and post it.

Ingredients
3c whole milk
3/4c sugar
6 egg yolks
add-ins

Combine 1.5c milk, the sugar, and the egg yolks in a medium-sized sauce pan. Whisk together and cook over low heat until it coats the back of a metal spoon, being careful not to cook the egg. When it's done, take it off the heat and add the rest of the milk (to cool it down rapidly so it halts the cooking). Pour through a fine-mesh sieve (just to be on the safe side). Stir in any add-ins you might have. We had some chocolates that had bloomed a while back, and we chopped them up and stirred them in. You can also add citrus zest, vanilla, cinnamon, whatever. Cover and chill for at least 4 hours. Process in an ice cream machine, then freeze. Makes about a quart of ice cream.

Thoughts: Because this recipe uses whole milk instead of half-and-half or cream, it's a little more solid at freezer temperatures, meaning that you have to let it thaw a minute before you can really serve it. However this comes with the benefit that the flavors really come through. The high fat content of half-and-half or cream tends to mute the flavors you add. Whole milk doesn't have that problem. I would use this recipe again. Other thoughts: maybe in the future I would consider the use of a double-boiler to make the custard base? Just a thought.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Peanut Sauce

I guess I should blog my peanut sauce recipe because it's pretty great. I've been making it forever based loosely on what I read on the internet and based on a type my mother makes. It's a lot of tasting and adjusting seasonings, though, so the amounts here aren't exact.

Ingredients

• 1/2c peanut butter
• 3tbsp soy sauce
• 1tbsp black vinegar
• .5 to 1tsp sriracha
• 1tbsp brown sugar
• 1c water
• 1.5tsp ginger (minced or ground. If you use dried, go for more like .5tsp)
• 1tbsp minced garlic

In a small sauce pan, add the peanut butter and water and cook over medium heat. Whisk together until it forms a sauce. You may need more water - you're looking for something SLIGHTLY thin, because it will cook down. It does an interesting thing where it thickens a lot more than you think it will once the peanut butter is melted.

Once it forms a sauce of the desired consistency, add all the other ingredients, then cook until it reaches the desired thickness. Taste frequently, and adjust the vinegar, soy sauce, and brown sugar as needed. Be careful with the sriracha - it's not that it's so spicy, it's just that a little goes a long way toward overpowering the flavors of the peanut sauce.

Thoughts: We made this recently to put on broccoli, but it goes well on just about anything. Add scallions or cilantro to taste.

Disaster Index: 1/10

Poached Pears

Okay, I guess I have to blog this.
Ingredients

• 2 firm ripe bosc pears
• 1/4c tawny port
• 3c water
• 1/4c sugar
• 1tbsp lemon juice
• 2-4 slices of orange
• whipped cream or ice cream or something?

In a medium-sized saucepan, set the water to boil. In the mean time, peel and quarter the bosc pears, then cut out the stem & seed parts. To the water on the stove, add the port, sugar, and lemon juice. Stir until the sugar is dissolved, then add the pears. Take the rounds of orange and place on top of the pears to hold them under the poaching liquid. Bring to a boil and simmer for 20-30 minutes, until the pears are suitably tender.

Take the pears and orange out with a slotted spoon and set aside. Now bring the liquid to a boil and cook down to make a sauce. This took us another 20 minutes or so. RIGHT before it's done, it foams up because it starts to exceed the boiling point of water, I think. This is a sign that most of the water has evaporated and you have something more akin to caramel. Anyway, take it off the stove. Pour over the pears (or over individual servings). Serve with whipped cream or ice cream or whatever.

Thoughts: I would do this again exactly the same way.

Disaster Index: 1/10