Leftover Turkey and Seafood Paella

 

I hope everyone had a spectacular Turkey day. I was too busy eating so I unfortunately don't have any photos of the spread. *sadface* And I'm still recovering from my food coma. As for the actual turkey, I've never been too crazy about it the day of but I do love the leftovers. Aside from the always glorious post-Thanksgiving sandwich, the possibilities for the turkey are endless: soups, chilies, stir fries, casseroles, etc.

A paella is a little like a casserole in the sense that it is often served in the same vessel it's cooked in. I've adapted this paella recipe for leftover turkey but leftover roast chicken would work just as well. This recipe is made in a 6 quart Dutch oven because I don't have a paella pan nor do I have a open fire of orange branches and pine cones so I did the cooking in the oven.

Leftover Turkey and Seafood Paella
1 cup chicken or turkey stock
1/2 teaspoon saffron threads, crumbled
1 pound seafood of choice or a mixture of shrimp, peeled and deveined, scallops, or squid
1 red bell pepper, cut into 1/2 inch wide strips
Olive oil
8 or 9 medium garlic cloves, minced or pressed through a garlic press (2 generous tablespoons)
3 to 4 cups leftover turkey, coarsely shredded or chopped
8 ounces Spanish chorizo (can sub fresh chorizo or Portugese linguiça), sliced in half lengthwise then cut into 1/2 inch thick crescents on the bias
1 medium onion, diced
2 cups Valencia or Arborio rice or another short grain rice
1 14.5-ounce can diced tomatoes, drained and chopped
1 cup dry white wine
2 dried bay leaf
Salt and ground black pepper
1 dozen or so mussels, scrubbed and debearded
1/2 cup frozen peas, thawed
1/4 C chopped fresh parsley leaves
1 lemon, cut into wedges, for serving

Adjust an oven rack to the lower-middle position. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Heat the turkey broth in a small saucepan or in the microwave until hot and steaming but not boiling. Add the crumbled saffron to bloom and set aside.

Heat 2 teaspoons of oil in a large Dutch oven over medium-high heat until the oil is shimmering but not smoking. Add the pepper strips, stirring occasionally, and cook about 3 to 4 minutes or until the skin starts to blister and turn spotty black. Transfer the pepper to a small plate and set aside.

Turn the heat down to medium. Add 2 teaspoons of oil in the now empty Dutch oven and cook the chorizo until it starts to brown and fat begins to render, about 4 - 5 minutes. Add the onions and cook until the onions are soft, 3 - 4 minutes. Add the garlic and cook until fragrant, about 30 seconds. Then add the rice and stir until the Dutch oven contents are evenly mixed. Add the drained and chopped tomatoes, white wine, turkey stock and saffron mixture, bay leaf, and 1/2 teaspoon of salt and pepper and bring to boil stirring occasionally.

Cover the pot and transfer the pot to the oven and cook until the rice has absorbed almost all the liquid, about 15 minutes.

After 15 minutes, remove the pot from the oven, mix in the cooked leftover shredded turkey and shrimp. Arrange the mussels hinged-side down into the rice, arrange the bell peppers in a pinwheel pattern. Cover and return the pot to the oven and cook until shrimp are opaque and mussels are opened, about 10 minutes.

Scatter the peas on top, cover, and let the paella stand for 5 minutes. Discard any mussels that haven't opened. Sprinkle with parsley and arrange lemon slices on top or serve them separately.

Thanksgiving 2010

First I told myself I would blog again after spring quarter, then it was after summer exams, pretty soon after that I planned to put something together while I spent autumn in Alaska. Now it’s been over 6 months since my last post, but hey who’s keeping track anymore? But with Thanksgiving being tomorrow (or later today depending on when I finish writing this), I couldn’t let it go unacknowledged.

Thanksgiving to Christmas is my favorite time of year. Two foodcentric holidays flanking a period of butter-filled holiday baking, what’s not to love? Who knows, maybe this year I’ll have enough time to do a third installment of 12 days of Christmas cookies.

But before I get carried away and make promises I can’t keep, I’ll do a quick rundown of the Thanksgiving menu. Steven’s mom usually makes a turkey or prime rib. She also makes my favorite side dish: sticky rice, in lieu of stuffing. Not only do I dislike the texture of stuffing, I’m grossed out by the idea of literally stuffing food into a salmonella laden turkey cavity.

Now my one holiday tradition is twice baked potatoes, which I always make for both Thanksgiving and Christmas for the past few years now. I may even go so far as to say if you make one thing from this blog, make these potatoes.

This year I’ll also make a pumpkin cheesecake (recipe to come), buttermilk biscuits, and mushroom turnovers. In the past I’ve done a green bean casserole but not this year. But now, it’s time to get some rest before the real cooking and subsequent feasting begins.

Carrot Cake with Pineapple and Coconut and Brown Butter Rum Cream Cheese Frosting

I had some flopppy carrots and a half bar of cream cheese that needed to be used up so the obvious choice was a carrot cake. My original idea was to spice things up by adding currants instead of the traditional raisins because I hate raisins. But Trader Joes, my go-to source for quirky ingredients, no longer carries currants and I wasn’t about to go to Whole Paycheck and drop $10 on some fancy heritage currants from the South of France. Instead I got the next best thing, pineapple. I’ve actually never purchased a can of pineapple before or any canned fruit for that matter, so the first step was locating the canned fruit aisle in grocery store, an aisle I avoid like the plague. Who knew there were so many ways you could cut and can a pineapple—crushed, tidbits, chunks, rings? Many recipes call for crushed but that stuff looked a little too beaten up for my tastes, whereas the chunks were way too big. I wanted discernible pieces of pineapple in my cake so the tidbits were perfect. After adding pineapple, the logical next step is to add coconut (another leftover ingredient that needed using up) and of course you can't have pineapple and coconut without some rum.






After 2 trips to the grocery store and a few hours later, I was standing in my kitchen frosting a cake at nearly midnight and realized my quest to use up 3 leftover ingredients had yielded an enormous 2 layer cake probably weighing close to 5 pounds. Funny how things turn out sometimes. It was way too much cake for Steven and me, but we had plenty of people to share it with. I have yet to meet someone that does not like cake, especially homemade cake. Not to mention, cake for breakfast is a truly glorious thing.

If you can’t find the tidbits, crushed is a good substitute or if you really want to go the extra mile you can cut up the pineapple chunks into smaller pieces. A food processor would come in handy for shredding the carrots but grating by hand is not impossible. Next time I might try to bump up the carrot content to a full 1 pound.

Carrot Cake with Pineapple and Coconut
3/4 pound carrots, peeled and finely grated
8 oz. can pineapple tidbits or crushed, drained
2 C (8.8 oz.) unbleached all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp clove or allspice
1/2 C brown sugar
3/4 C granulated sugar
4 large eggs
1/2 C (4 oz.) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
1/2 C canola or vegetable oil

Cream Cheese Frosting
Recipe follows
Approximately 1 C toasted, shredded and sweetened coconut to decorate the outside, optional

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Butter and flour 2 8 inch cake pans. A 9 inch cake pan would also work but baking time will be shorter.

Add the drained pineapple to the shredded carrots and set aside.

In a blender, add the 4 eggs, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Blend on a low speed for a minute. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and oil and blend for 4 more minutes.

Meanwhile, in a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices. After the liquid mixture has finished blending, pour the blender contents into the dry ingredients, add the grated carrots and pineapple, and gently fold the batter with a rubber spatula until no streaks of flour or chunks of carrots remain.

Pour the batter evenly between the two cake pans and bake at 350 for 30 – 35 minutes or until a skewer inserted in the center of the cake comes out clean. Start checking the cake after 25 minutes.


The completed cake before going into the fridge. Breakfast the next day.

This frosting is absolutely magnificent. Like pineapple and coconut, browned butter and rum is one of those combinations that just works. This is a great all purpose frosting and can be used for other cakes, not just carrot cake. After browning the butter, the milk solids can be strained out for a clean looking frosting but I like the freckled look. The specks of milk solids also camouflages any cake crumbs that falls into the frosting, something I appreciated as I was frosting a cake in a sleep deprived state at 11pm.


Brown Butter Rum Cream Cheese Frosting
Enough to fill and frost an 8 inch 2 layer cake, but easily doubled
4 oz. cream cheese
4 oz. or 1 stick unsalted butter
2 1/2 – 3 C powdered sugar, sifted
2 - 3 Tbsp dark rum

Have a heat proof bowl resting in an ice bath ready.

In a small saucepan, melt the butter medium low heat. Cook the butter slowly and stir occasionally. First it will look like melted butter, then it will start to bubble and sizzle, and after a while it will start to clear and the milk solids will start to separate out of the fat. Slowly the solids will turn golden and then a light golden brown and the butter will smell nutty and caramely. When this happens, take the off heat and pour it into the bowl in the ice bath to cool it down quickly. If you let it sit, it solids will continue to cook and may burn.

Cool the butter to room temperature. Meanwhile, take the cream cheese out and bring it to room temperature.

After the butter has cooled, beat the cream cheese and 1 cup of the powdered sugar. Slowly drizzle in the melted butter and add another cup of powdered sugar. Add more sugar according to your tastes. I added 3 cups of powdered sugar total and the frosting was the tiniest bit grainy at that point but it wasn’t a deal breaker. Next time I'll stop with 2 1/2 cups. Slowly drizzle in rum to your tastes, starting with 1 tablespoon. I like my frostings on the boozy side but too much liquor and the frosting will be too runny. A good rule of thumb is 1 tablespoon of liquor for every cup of powdered sugar you add. Continue beating the frosting until it is fluffy and pillowy. It will have a consistency similar to whipped cream but have more structure.

Banoffee Bread

jump to the new blog for banana bread recipe



Banoffee Bread

3 large overriped bananas.
1/2 C packed light brown sugar
6 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
1/4 C plain yogurt or sour cream
2 tsp vanilla
2 C all purpose unbleached flour, (8.8 oz)
3/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp table salt
3 1.4 oz. Heath bars roughly chopped (or other toffee candies, like Almond Roca)
Optional coconut topping: 1 tablespoon of cream cheese and 1/2 C of sweetened shredded coconut

Preheat the oven to 350 deg F. Adjust the oven rack to the lower middle position or one level below the middle. Butter and flour a loaf pan or line it with parchment paper.

Optional - making the coconut topping: mix the cream cheese and sweetened shredded coconut until it is evenly mixed (I just used my hands). Set aside for later.

In a large mixing bowl, mash the bananas until a few chunks remain. Mix in the melted butter, sugar, eggs, yogurt/sour cream and vanilla until smooth and evenly mixed.

In a separate bowl, whisk the flour, baking soda, and salt together and evenly mix and aerate the ingredients. Add half of the dry mix to the banana mix and fold the batter with a rubber spatula a few times. Then scatter the chopped toffee and the remaining flour mix. Continue to fold the batter gently until there are no more streaks of flour.

Pour the batter into the prepared loaf pan. Scatter the coconut mixture on top if using.

Bake at 350 deg F for 60 – 70 minutes, or until a skewer stuck into the banana bread comes out clean. Rotate the loaf pan 180 degrees about 30 - 40 minutes into the baking time. Keep an eye on the coconut topping, if it starts to get too brown, cover the top of the pan loosely with a piece of foil. I did this and rotated the pan about 30 minutes in.