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Monthly Archives: January 2015

Roasted Turkey Breast – It’s Not Just For Weekends and Holidays

With all of the cooking I have done recently you would think most of it was just for big holiday dinners where things would be fancy with lots of courses. While it is true that that involved a lot of the recipes that I tried, I also wanted to make some things just to have at home for the 3 of us for a weeknight meal. We all really like to have turkey around here but finding a turkey that is a reasonable size for just the 3 of us is never an easy thing. Luckily this time of year you can usually get a turkey breast that is a decent size so that you can get a good meal out of it and have some leftovers to do some other things like turkey pot pie, turkey sandwiches, turkey soup or a wide variety of other things. When I made the roasted turkey breast, I used a recipe from Williams-Sonoma. It is a pretty basic recipe and a lot easier than roasting an entire turkey. This recipe takes about 2 hours so you are able to get it done during the week if you wanted to have something different for a weeknight dinner.

Roasted Turkey Breast

1 large onion, halved

2 large carrots

2 large celery stalks

1 large parsnip

1 garlic clove

1 bone-in full turkey breast, about 6 to 8 pounds

1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature

1 teaspoon kosher salt

1/8 teaspoon freshly ground pepper

3 to 4 cups chicken broth

Position a rack in the lower 3rd of the oven and preheat the oven to 450°. Place the 2 onion halves next to each other in the center of a roasting pan. Line up the carrots, celery and parsnip on either side of the onions. Place the garlic cloves in among the other vegetables.

Pat the turkey breast dry with paper towels. Working your hand carefully under the skin of the turkey to avoid tearing it, separate the skin from the meat on both sides of the turkey breast, but do not detach it. Pat the meat dry with a paper towel. Rub the butter over the turkey meat under the skin on each side of the breast. Season the turkey breast with salt and pepper. Pull the skin down to cover the meat. If necessary, stick toothpicks through the skin and the ribs to secure the skin. Set the turkey breast, skin side down, on top of the vegetables. Pour in 3 cups of the chicken broth. Roast the turkey breast for 30 minutes.

Reduce the oven temperature to 325°. Turn the breast to rest on one side and baste with the liquid in the pan. Roast the turkey breast for another 30 minutes. Turn the turkey breast to rest on the opposite side and baste it again with the pan liquid. Roast the breast for another 30 minutes. Turn the breast skin side up and baste it again with the pan liquid. If the liquid has begun to evaporate, add the remaining 1 cup of the chicken broth to the pan. Roast the turkey breast for another 30 minutes, baste and then continue roasting until an instant-read thermometer inserted into the thickest part away from the bone registers 165°, about 2 to 2 1/2 hours total cooking time at approximately 20 minutes per pound. If the top of the turkey breast begins to over brown, tent it loosely with aluminum foil.

Remove the turkey breast from the oven and transfer it to a cutting board. Allow the turkey breast to rest for 20 minutes. The internal temperature of the meat will rise to 170° during the 1st 10 minutes of resting, and the juices will settle. Carve the turkey breast into slices and serve immediately.

While this particular recipe does involve a little bit of work since you have to turn in baste the turkey every 30 minutes, it is certainly worth the results. You get a really nice crisp skin on the turkey and the turkey meat itself is very moist and tender. The drippings that were left in the pan make an excellent gravy as well. Of course, with just the 3 of us a 6 pound turkey breast meant there were plenty of leftovers so there will definitely be some turkey sandwiches in our future.

That’s all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. Until then, enjoy the rest of your day, and enjoy your meal!

A New Year, New Posts, New Stuff and a New Recipe – Peppermint Brownie Ice Cream Cake

05 Jan

I took most of last week off from blogging and doing any work so that we could spend some time together as a family and do some things around the house, including taking down all of the Christmas decorations and ornaments that were around the house. So now that Christmas and New Year’s are complete, it is time to get back to regular blogging. I did get a number of things for Christmas this year that are related to cooking, including a couple of great cookbooks that I hope to go into detail about in a future blog post. I also got a great new bread maker that I had wanted for a while and I will do a blog post about that as well as I have already used it a couple of times and I have been very happy with the results. But for now, I have lots of recipes to share as I tried out a number of things and did a bunch of cooking between Christmas and New Year’s, including stuff I made for Christmas dinner. One of the items we made for dinner that day was a special dessert based on a recipe that I found at the blog Life, Love and Sugar. It is for a very easy peppermint brownie ice cream cake that makes use of some quick ingredients so that you can easily put together a fantastic looking dessert in no time at all. The original recipe does call for use of cream cheese to help create a type of ice cream for the filling of the cake. We decided it seemed better to actually use ice cream in the cake itself so we substituted some mint chocolate chip ice cream as an alternative. The recipe that I am posting here is the one that we altered a little bit to make use of the ice cream.

Peppermint Brownie Ice Cream Cake

1 box brownie mix, plus the ingredients required for the recipe on the brownie box

1 pint mint chocolate chip ice cream

2 teaspoons peppermint extract

1 10-ounce bag Andes peppermint crunch candy

1/2 cup chocolate syrup (plus a little more for drizzling)

2 cups whipped cream (homemade whipped cream or store-bought)

For the brownies, make the brownie dough according to the instructions on the back of the box. Grease two 8-inch cake pans and line the bottoms of each pan with parchment paper to allow for easy removal of the brownies. Bake the brownies at the temperature listed on the box, reducing the baking time to about 20 minutes. When the brownies are done baking, allow them to completely cool.

For the assembly of the cake, removal of one of the brownies from the 8 inch pan and place it on a large platter, springform cake pan or cake holder. Spread half of the mint chocolate chip ice cream mixture on top of the brownie. Add the 2nd brownie layer on top of the ice cream. Cover the brownie with 1/2 a cup of chocolate syrup. Top the 2nd brownie layer with any remaining peppermint ice cream. Place the brownies with the ice cream in the freezer. Allow the ice cream cake to freeze completely, about 1 to 2 hours. When the cake is frozen remove the cake from springform pan, if using. Mix the 2 teaspoons of peppermint extract in with the 2 cups of whipped cream. Frost the ice cream cake with the whipped cream and.the top of the cake with the peppermint crunch candy. Drizzle on more chocolate syrup if desired and served.

This is one of the easiest cakes you can put together because you are really using everything pre-made other than if you decide to use homemade whipped cream or perhaps you want to use homemade ice cream instead of store-bought. We could not find a particular peppermint ice cream to use for the cake so he went with mint chocolate chip, but if you can make peppermint ice cream at home or find some of your local store it would fit perfectly. The picture I took of the cake is before we added any of the chocolate syrup, but it is really up to you if you want to add it or not. You really need to make sure that you let the cake set up in the freezer for an hour or 2 before you put the frosting on to make sure that the ice cream is nice and firm in the center. Everyone seemed to really like the cake and it was gone right away so it is certainly one worth trying again since it is so easy to do.

That is all I have for today. Check back next time for another recipe. I want to thank everybody for a great 2014 as this blog hit all-time highs in the number of visits and followers for the year and I cannot thank you enough for following along and checking things out. I hope 2015 it is just as good and I will continue to work at the blog and make improvements to make things even better than before. Enjoy the rest of your day, and enjoy your meal!