November 19 Meal: Turkey Dinner Take 2

There's certainly no way we could make it out of November without our fair share of turkey. The Friday night after I got back from a business trip it was time for a mini Thanksgiving menu: Masa Cornbread Stuffing with Chiles, Maple-Braised Butternut Squash with Fresh Thyme, Roast Turkey Breast with Potatoes, Green Beans, and Mustard Pan Sauce, Vanilla-Spiced Caramel and Pear Tart, and an Italian Manhattan, for good measure.  It actually wasn't as crazy as it sounds, but it was a lot of food!

Masa Cornbread Stuffing with Chiles

This was my favorite stuffing of the whole month.  The cornbread and chiles provided a lot of great flavor.  To make the cornbread, you use masa, which is what you use to make corn tortillas.  You can get a huge bag of masa foronly $2.50 in the Mexican section of your local grocery store. For the cornbread I only used a lit bit of the bag, so looks like I'll be trying my hand at homemade corn tortillas in the future.  The rest of the ingredients for the cornbread (which you have to make first before the stuffing recipe) were vegetable oil, buttermilk, eggs, cornmeal, flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt. 

When you finally have the cornbread ready just chop it in chunks and mix with suateed onions and garlic, chiles (Anaheim, jalapeno, and poblano),  spices, cilantro, Monterey Jack cheese, egg, and chicken broth.  Bake for an hour.  The outcome is perfectly spicy and gooey with the cheese.  If you like cornbread and chiles, this is a recipe for you.

Yumminess: 10 out of 10
Cost: Approx $6 for 4 servings
Time: Cornbread - Bon Appetit said 30 minutes for prep and 1:45 hours total.  It took me about 10 minutes of prep and 45 minutes total.  Stuffing - Bon Appetit said 1 hour for prep and 2 hours total.  It took me about 15 minutes of prep and about 1:15 total.
Was it worth it?: Definitely.  This is a good side, even without a Thanksgiving meal.

Maple-Braised Butternut Squash with Fresh Thyme

I just can't get into butternut squash.  This was a decent recipe for the vegetable, but I just think it's not one that I'm ever going to love.  Shaun liked it, though.  Just cut up the squash into small chunks and saute with butter.  Add shicken broth, maple syrup, fresh thyme, salt, and pepper and cook for 10 minutes.  Once the squash is done cook the liquid a little loner to thicken up.  That's it.

Yumminess: 5 out of 10 (because I don't care for butternut squash)
Cost: Approx $3.75 for 3 servings
Time: Bon Appetit said 35 minutes for prep and total.  It took me about 10 minutes of prep 25 minutes total. 
Was it worth it?: Good try, but I won't make it again.

Roast Turkey Breast with Potatoes, Green Beans, and Mustard Pan Sauce

This was a nice little Thanksgiving meal.  Everything gets cookes at once and together.  The turkey breasts are rubbed with a mixture of honey mustard, fresh tarragone, and olive oil.  They are cooked for about 45 minutes, then the mixture of potatoes and leeks is added to the turkey pan to cook longer.  Then, the green beans are tossed with olive oil and tarragon and roasted on a seperate pan from the turkey and potatoes.  Everything comes out warm all at once. 

Yumminess: 8 out of 10
Cost: Approx $18.50 for 6 servings
Time: Bon Appetit said 25 minutes for prep and 2 hours total.  It took me about 15 minutes of prep 1:30 hours total because the turkey cooked faster than the magazine said. 
Was it worth it?: Yes, this was an easy meal.

Vanilla-Spiced Caramel and Pear Tart

It was nice to have an easy pie crust for a change.  This one was just puff pastry (half of a 17.3 oz. package).  The filling is Anjou pears, which are cooked in butter, sugar, cinnamon stick, star anise, whole cloves, and vanilla bean.  The half-pears are so pretty as the carmellize in this mixture.  The rest of the fillings is similar to the ingredients above (minus the pears), as well as flour and egg.  The outcome is similar to a breakfast pastry.

Yumminess: 8 out of 10

Cost: Approx $10 for 10 servings

Time: Bon Appetit said 1:20 hours for prep and 2:50 hours total.  It took me about 30 minutes of prep 2 hours total, including cooling. 

Was it worth it?: Yes, this was a good pear dessert.

Italian Manhattan

This cocktail missed the boat. It tasted like cough syrup.  The ingredients were bourbon, Amareto, orange blossom honey, lemon juice, and thyme sprigs.  The Amareto was supposed to be amaro liquer, which was not available in the ABC stores in NC.  One of the challenges of cooking in the Bible belt is that specialty liquors are not readily available.  In order to get it I would have had to buy an entire case, special ordered from ABC.  No thanks.  I'm not really sure how much this changed the intended flavor.  We added a little extra lemon juice, which cut down on the cough syrup flavor.

Yumminess: 4 out of 10
Cost: Approx $4 for 2 drinks
Time: No times reported in Bon Appetit.  It only took a few minutes to mix the drinks. 
Was it worth it?: No, this was not a good cocktail.