The Food Network

Pretty silly that I am grateful for the Food Network huh?

Heidi got me watching it when we went to her house for Spring Break last year. I didn't even know I had the channel but I discovered it again a couple months ago and I have been watching it.

So, since turkey's were cheap when Sean and I went to the store, we picked up a turkey breast and I decided I would cook it on Christmas Day if we didn't go to his parents house for the traditional ham, but they did have ham so I kept it for today.

My boys (including Sean) were not so thrilled, because none of them really like turkey, they think it is dry. But I assured them that I learned on the food network how to not make a dry turkey. My secret??? I brined it. I mixed together salt, sugar and water and let the turkey soak in it for 5 hours. I then rinsed it, rubbed it dry, and then I rubbed under the skin with a mixture of softened butter and pepper. Then rubbed more butter on the outside of the skin and put it in to cook. The directions said to cook at 450 for 1/2 hour to sear it and make it golden brown and then cooked at 325 until it was done.

It smelled so yummy but everyone was still very skeptical. I also made mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, jellied cranberries, rolls, corn, pumpkin pie, and I made up my own sweet potatoes without a recipe and from scratch (I didn't used the canned ones). Everything smelled great, I dirtied a mountain of dishes and then the moment of truth. Sean carved the turkey and said that it seemed like it was pretty moist. They all ate it........ and then they all had 2nds.......... and then they all said they wanted to have it Sunday for leftovers! It was great. I highly recommend always cooking a turkey this way. The sweet potatoes were also great! In fact, everything was great and we were all too full for pie.

Speaking of pie, I got a tip for it on the food network too! I took my YW to Lucia Newman's a couple of months ago to learn to make pies (mostly for my benefit). Her crust is so light and flaky and I love it! But, I have made it a few times and I am just an uncoordinated dork or I'm doing something wrong because every time I try to put the crust in the pie plate, it ends up falling apart and making a mess. I can get it patched up pretty good and it still tastes great, but it is a good thing there is filling over it because it looks horrid!

So I was watching the food network a while ago and saw this little trick. Make your dough and make the dough into the little lump that you roll out. Put your lump of dough into a gallon size ziploc bag and roll it out to all the edges of the bag. Then cut the bag open. Get two pie plates that are the same size and turn one of them upside down. Peel the bag off one side of the crust and flip it over on the upside down pie plate and then peel the bag off the other side. Put the other pie plate on top of the crust so you have a "sandwich" with two pie plates (both upside down now) with the crust inbetween. Flip them over and take the one pie plate off and then your crust is placed inside the bottom one, with no folding or lifing or patching required. Trim your edges and make your fancy edge. It was so beautiful! I had to take it down to show Sean and the boys how great it looked!

So, then I went to mix up my filling for my pumpkin pies and discovered I was out of evaporated milk. Not so good as I didn't want to run to the store because I had so many dishes I needed to get prepared. So, I mixed 1/2 egg nog with 1/2 milk and used that instead. It still tasted great! No one knew the difference.

So, that is why I am grateful for the food network. Now you know the rest of the story!