Deep Dish Turkey Pizza

leftover thanksgiving  turkey! no problem!

add to a pizza crust:

diced turkey, preferably thigh meat

diced/sliced onions

some diced turkey skin

salt

pepper

dried thyme

dried oregano

dot with congealed gravy

top with grated cheese

Bake

Black Friday

pre game

  

for a short narrative see https://pmetro.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/turkey-day/

Turkey Day

 

         It usually starts before turkey day, the impending doom that cooks goes through, It seems that in order to earn your star you must cook the perfect turkey. The traditional thanksgiving dinner  features the roasted turkey as the main attraction. Something as simple as roasting a bird turns into a make or break test that your foodie group will take note of.  (well maybe not If you serve enough wine).

        Amid the media blitz of thousands of ways to cook a turkey, or even omit it for a more eclectic dinner, it’s you and the turkey, so this year it’s the same but different. Turkey relaxation techniques come to mind. Be cool and clear the kitchen of distractions and negativity such as  any low or fat free, or over processed food items !  So this is how it goes.

       The butterball was the bird  acquired and meat stuffing was the filling to be. I baked some bread previously and oven dried it to use for the stuffing and a combination of ground beef and and uncased sausage was sautéed thanksgiving eve with some vegetable stock and seasoned, stored in the fridge.

     Dawn….  Keep breakfast in mind as the cook (and the cooks helper) needs the proper nourishment while in the kitchen along side the wine, coffee, and food  tasting, and don’t rely only on food tasting along the way for balance. Possible a bagel an egg with cheese with a crisp bacon shard and fresh grapes will suffice, sounds good and tasty.

      I left the fresh bird out of the fridge for a couple of hours to get it towards room temperature. The bird unwrapped, was placed in the roaster on the rack, remove the neck and the giblets to the stock pot. Next to the turkey as far as importance, I like to make the stock, for the gravy and other uses.

     Carrots, celery, and saved in the fridge scraps from vegetable peelings go in the stock pot with added boiling water, and seasoned as the cook sees fit, goes on the back burner, covered, to simmer and to provide aromatic support and some humidity to the kitchen.

     The stuffing slightly warmed to room temperature to break it up after being refrigerated, was tossed with the dried, hand torn bread. Now lightly stuff both cavities of the bird and truss, this bird was prepared by the purveyor as such so the legs were tucked under the ring of skin and I just  skewered the neck cavity to close. Loosen the skin covering the breast and for flavor place uncooked bacon and thyme under the skin. Off to the oven at about 325 Fahrenheit. I’ll probably have to check it at least couple of  hundreds of times while it’s cooking ! :-p. Really, I’ll baste it even though it’s a butter ball, the bacon and stuffing drippings are flavor full. 

     Checks at the one and two hours marks, the bird was beginning to brown evenly so a aluminum foil  heat shield was added to the top. Also fiddling with the thermostat more towards 350 and then backed off at various times is part of the roasting procedure. An analog bi- metal coil type oven thermometer give a indication of the change in oven temp.  The large thermometer inserted in the front of the bird provided another metric for reference. And just to be anal use a quick read tmometer .  Surprisingly  there wasn’t much dripping as expected and I don’t add any water to the drip pan.

    Started early enough so the turkey would be done before the scheduled sit down time which is also an approximation,depending on if your fellow diners are a  strict schedule (or like to impose on on the cook!) ,experience gained from  single oven meal preparation,  dictates that a suitable sized cooler, or more aptly termed a insulated container is ready to accept the foil wrapped bird when it reaches close to desired maximum temperature. Now the oven is ready to accept the side dishes for cooking. With the turkey removed from the oven, a sigh of relief!!!!!!!!!!! The rest as they say is history.

for more pictures see  https://pmetro.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/pre-game/

shopping

shopping

• recent items

Cube steak $3.59/lb  (about 4 lb package)

Bi color grapes/red/green 3lbs/ $6.99

butter 4 lbs $9.19… $2.29/lb

sugar 10 lb  $6.39

yellow onions, 3lbs,   $1.99 …

2 lbs vine tomatoes  $4.99

“food should taste good” sweet potatoes tortilla chips  20 oz bag $5.99

Coffee, new green beans purchased

Who can pass up a 10% discount that the coffee project offers during your Birthday month.  I roast my own green coffee beans.

Mexican Chiapas  6.80 /lb

El Salvador Cup Of Excellence Hermansos $7.00/lb

Uganda Bugisu AA Organic Sipi Falls $7.00/lb

Also bought Chicory  @$3.50/lb to blend with ground coffee for different flavor profiles to taste, Louisiana Style .

Roasting Notes:

El Salvador, medium dark Roast, about 10 minutes, Clear fruity flavor. Nice change from the other brand of store bought coffee beans.

Uganda, beans turn from green to yellow than to a dark brown, unmistakable first crack sound like popping corn. Have not brewed yet. 

Note: free issue of Roast Magazine SEPT/OCT 2011 has a must see article about the constructing and operation of  solar powered coffee roaster using a mirrored solar array dish to focus sunlight to produce heat to roast coffee.

Multi grain bread

 

(not a good focus on this picture)

 

1/2 cup wheat flour

1/2 cup rye flour

yeast (~4 teaspoons)

white flour (? cups)

sugar, granulated

salt

vital wheat gluten

 

Water ~2cups

honey

1 egg

sesame seeds

dill seed

 

For a multi grain, it was a light loaf, noticing the vital wheat gluten (4 teaspoons per loaf) gives a better rise, structure and crumb .The bread  seems to have an longer lasting texture even though most loaves are consumed within a few days.