Turkey Stuff

The other day I was noticing that there are some things I eat that...probably aren't mainstream. I'm not sure where the cut-off is between family and region...I know other people eat this way, too, but is it because we live in the same area or because we're related? Hard to call.

Campbells Tomato Soup and mayonnaise sandwiches. I eat until I'm sick. One slice bread, slathered with Kraft mayo and folded over. Lots of cold milk.

Cottage cheese with mayonnaise stirred in. (There's a fat thing going on here, I think.) And that's not lowfat cottage cheese.

My sister, my dad and my grandparents like/d glasses of buttermilk stirred with crumbled cornbread. I have been trying to like buttermilk for 50 years and it hasn't kicked in yet and...that doesn't make sense. But I don't like it.

But one of my five favorite things on the planet involves leftover Thanksgiving turkey. This just HORRIFIES The Big Boy, who doesn't eat food that touches, but you better believe ONE TIME A YEAR, we're gonna dig in.

Leftover Turkey Hash (a glorified name)

Chopped turkey
2 hardboiled eggs, chopped
Turkey broth
White roux
2 stalks celery
1 medium onion
Sage to taste
Salt and pepper to taste
Mashed potatoes

Saute celery and onion in butter until translucent. Meanwhile, in a small pan mix butter and flour and stir for 2-3 minutes...don't let it brown. Mix roux, vegetables, chopped turkey, eggs and 2 cups broth and stir until smooth. Let simmer to thicken. Add sage and salt & pepper to taste. Serve over mashed potatoes.

Ideally, you have leftover homemade yeast rolls, leftover cranberry sauce and leftover green bean casserole. You don't have to eat the green bean casserole (especially since you didn't eat it Thanksgiving), but it looks good on the plate;)

Better Baked Chicken

OMG, y'all, I made the best baked chicken last night!

Okay, so it wasn't exactly Coq au Vin and baked chicken is as common in the South as katydids and kudzu.

But really GOOD baked chicken is rare as hen's teeth.

Every mother-in-law has some God-awful recipe to pass onto unsuspecting brides.

Ignore them! Follow this recipe, fix it every-other Sunday (alternating with ham, of course) and your husband will love you forever.

That's a money-back guarantee.

Not-Your-Mother-in-Law's Baked Chicken

1 whole chicken, cut into either 8 or 16 pieces

1 stick unsalted butter

1/2 cup all-purpose flour, preferably White Lily

2 tsps kosher salt

2 tsps dried thyme

1 Tbsp sweet Hungarian paprika + additional for color

Fresh cracked pepper to taste

Put butter in roasting pan. Place in oven and preheat to 425. Watch butter to make sure it doesn't burn.

Wash chicken and set aside.

Combine dry ingredients in a bowl. Dredge damp chicken in flour mixture, shake off excess, place on a cooling rack, skin side up. Do this to all the chicken.

Lightly sprinkle tops of chicken pieces on rack with paprika for additional color and flavor.

When butter is melted, place chicken skin-side DOWN in butter. Return to oven and bake for 30 minutes. turn chicken over and bake for another 15-20 minutes or until the biggest piece reaches an internal temp of 160.

Remove pan from oven and transfer beautiful, golden chicken to clean wire rack.

Gravy

Pan juices

1/4 cup+ All-purpose flour

1-2 cups Chicken stock

Place pan across two medium-heat eyes on stovetop. Bring pan drippings to a boil, scraping up bits with a spatula. Add 1/4 cup flour to pan and whisk until smooth. Slowly whisk in stock until desired gravy consistency is achieved. (I like mine thick so I use a little more flour).

Bask in accolades of appreciative family and/or guests.

Chicken and Dressing...sort of

It's homecoming at church Sunday and since I don't GO to church (my mom takes my kids and I DON'T WANT TO HEAR ABOUT IT since I spent a large portion of my younger life in that church and it wasn't good) I'm sort of obligated to go to homecoming. Which means taking a LOT of food because...there's that thing about my kids. And how much they eat.

There used to be a tearoom in the town we lived in 20 years ago, and the house specialty was Poulet de Normandy. Now, I'm guessing if you had ASKED, they'd have told you Normandy was a big car manufactured by Ford, but the point is this worked. Really well with a cranberry salad and homemade yeast rolls. (And something else...but I'm blank.) So I think I'll make a grocery run tomorrow and bake up a dish of this. And then we can eat it all ourselves when we get to the dinner.

Poulet de Normandy

1 16 oz package stuffing mix...your preference, we use cornbread
1-1/2 cups chicken broth (or hot water with bouillon)
1/2 cup butter
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped celery
1/2 cup mayonnaise
2-1/2 cups chopped cooked chicken
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups milk
1 can cream of mushroom soup
Grated cheddar cheese

Combine the stuffing mix, butter and broth and set aside. Mix the onions, celery and mayonnaise well, then add it to the stuffing mix and mix well. Spread half the stuffing in a lightly greased 13x9 baking dish. Sprinkle with the chopped chicken, then layer with the remaining stuffing mix. Beat the eggs in the milk and pour over the casserole; refrigerate overnight. The next day, take the casserole out of the refrigerator at least two hours before cooking. Spread the top with the mushroom soup. Bake in a 325 degree oven for 45 minutes; sprinkle with the cheese and bake an additional 10 minutes.

Hush puppies

The Big Boy kept insisting that the dealer who sent the fish left the skin on the portions to be grilled, and took it off the portions to be fried. I suggested that YOU DON'T FRY red snapper, but he was positive. So last night we took the last two small filets and fried them.

It was awful. TBB ate his, but I took one bite and quit. IT WAS FISHY. Waaay too fishy for me, although in fairness it's highly possible that my redneck self only eats fried catfish. (Redneck has nothing to do with it...that fish didn't taste good.)

What DID taste good were the hushpuppies. So good, in fact, that I didn't mind that hushpuppies were all I had for supper.

Really Good Hushpuppies
1-1/2 cups White Lily cornmeal mix
1 medium onion, diced
1/2 cup corn...I used leftover creamed, because that's what I had
1 large or 2 small peppers...I used banana because that's what was on the bush
2 eggs
Cayenne to taste
Buttermilk
Frying oil

Mix everything together, adding the buttermilk to the desired consistency. I used about 3/4 cup...you want it thick enough to stay on the spoon when you scoop it up.

Heat frying oil to 350 degrees, and keep an eye on it. Too hot, the hushpuppies are raw inside; not hot enough and they're greasy. Using a teaspoon, scoop up a portion of batter. CAREFULLY lower that spoon to the surface of the oil and push the hushpuppy off with another spoon. If you drop the hushpuppy into the oil it will scatter off into smaller pieces that will burn. You want to slide the batter into the oil so it firms up immediately. The hushpuppies will float around, happily cooking in the oil and then on their own...they'll flip over. Cook them another couple of minutes, then scoop out onto a platter lined with a brown paper bag topped with paper towels. Serve with ketchup.

You won't even miss the fish.

(A note: This is best done outside, and in the South everyone has a fish cooker. That's a metal stand with four legs and a burner, that runs off a propane tank. The pan you cook in has a perforated liner, so that you just lift it out of the oil. Keeps the house from smelling like old oil the next day.)