For the longest time I would make the mistake of soaking the beans and then trying to cook them in a crockpot. Often I would end up with beans that would still have a little bit of hardness in the middle of the bean, instead of that perfect soft bean you’d expect.  It would just take way too long to cook the bean all the way through, especially if you were trying to hit a deadline for a meal.

Awesomely Delicious Baked Beans

• 2 cups dry Navy Beans
• 1 cup dry Kidney Beans
• 2 cups dry Black Eyed Peas
• 1 500g package of bacon
• 3 tbsp margarine
• 2 tsp dry mustard
• 1/2 cup ketchup
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2 Cups water
• 1 tomato, diced
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tbsp onion powder
• 1tsp cayenne pepper
• 2tsp paprika

Start the night before you intend to cook the beans by combining all the beans in a large bowl and filling the bowl with water. Make sure to plenty of water as the beans will absorb the vast majority of it. The next day drain and rinse the beans. Fill a pot with water, add the beans and bring to a boil.  Once at a boil turn the element down to medium and let simmer for 30-40 minutes until the beans are tender.  Once that’s done, drain the beans again, then put into a 6 quart crockpot.

For the bacon I divided the pack in half and prepped the bacon 2 ways, if you choose to do it this way, it’s really up to you.  First I cooked half the bacon to what I would call rare, as it wasn’t really browned at all.  I then sliced it up and put it in the crockpot. I figured this would allow the bacon to cook and impart it’s flavour into the beans while slow cooking.  I then cooked the second half to crispy and cut it down to a crumble.  Put this bacon in the fridge for later.

Dice the tomato and add the rest of the ingredients.  Turn the crockpot on low and let cook for 8-10 hours, stirring occasionally.  About 2 hours before they are done add the crumbled bacon from earlier.

Sandra and I generally make this dish on a Sunday because it does take just over an hour to prepare and bake. Usually we will freeze half of the pan, eat one quarter for dinner and have the other quarter for lunch the next day. In effect this recipe makes 8 servings. By the way, Chicken Divan reheats very well and has a very enticing aroma. Let’s get started because I’m craving it already…

HERE’S WHAT YOU’LL NEED:

3-4 boneless, skinless chicken breasts
2 bunches of fresh Broccoli (4 individual heads)
2 cans condensed cream of chicken soup
1 cup shredded cheddar cheese
1 cup Mayonnaise
3/4 tsp mild curry powder (I sometimes put a full tsp in)
1 tbsp lemon juice
salt & pepper to taste
3 slices of whole wheat bread
2-3 tbsp margarine

INSTRUCTIONS:

1) Thoroughly bake the chicken breasts, remove from oven and let cool.
2) While the chicken cools, cut the broccoli up, wash it and then place in a large pot. Bring the water to a boil and cool until slightly tender. Drain and set aside to cool.
3) In a medium bowl combine the mayonnaise, soup (undiluted), curry powder, lemon juice, and salt & pepper and mix together well.
4) Cut the chicken into cubes. Set aside.
5) Shred the cheddar cheese and break the bread into pieces (as when you make stuffing). Set aside.
6) In a 9×13 glass pan, spread the broccoli pieces evenly, followed by the chicken. Pour the sauce over the chicken & broccoli and spread around evenly with a spatula.
7) Melt the margarine and pour over the bread crumbs.
Sprinkle the cheddar cheese and bread crumbs over the top of the pan.
9) Bake in the oven at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until cheese and breadcrumbs are melted/browned.
10) Serve with Minute, White, Brown or Basmati Rice. Makes about 8 servings.

For a lighter dish, use low fat mayonnaise or miracle whip, low fat soup, light cheese and brown rice.

Now what makes a P’Zone different from the aforementioned pockets is that it puts all your favourite ingredients inside, but omits the tomato sauce, which is instead served on the side for dipping.  To me this just seems to sort out some of the inherent issues with panzerottis.  I find typically you start eating at one end and by the time you get to the other end all the tomato sauce has squeezed to the opposite end.  If you have any meats in there they typically just add more grease and just make for a pretty soggy mess by the end of your meal.  Taking the tomato sauce out seems to perfectly solve this problem.

Previously I had made baked panzerottis but was never quite happy with the results, so tonight I pulled out the trusty deep fryer and thought I would try my hand and making a deep fried panzerotti.  I’m guessing that the Pizza Hut P’Zones aren’t deep fried, but that doesn’t really matter per say.  I’m a pretty straight forward meatatarian when it comes to pizza, so I kept things pretty simple and given pizza ingredients can be so subjective.

Homemade Panzerotti

• 1/2 bag of fresh pizza dough (either homemade or store bought works)
• mozzarella cheese
• sliced pepperoni (I used Pillers)
• chopped, cooked chicken
• fresh herbs from the garden (rosemary, oregano, basil)
• sundried tomatoes
• tomato sauce
• Frank’s Red Hot Sauce

Heat up your deep fryer to 375f.  Roll out your dough on a cutting board sprinkled with flour.  Make sure to get all the air out of your crust, you can hear the air pop as you roll it out.  I rolled mine into a 10″ circle then added all my ingredients except the tomato sauce.  Best to build a pile to one side of the dough and leave about an inch away from the edges.  Fold over the dough and pinch the edges tightly together.  Make sure there are no holes as your pocket needs to be tight so it won’t let in any of the oil.  You’re now ready to put it in the deep fryer.  Cook for roughly 10 minutes, flipping the pocket as needed until evenly golden brown.  Put the tomato sauce in a bowl and heat in the microwave for a minute.  They you should be ready to serve.

I was really happy with the final product.  If I had ordered that from a pizzaria I would have been satisfied paying money for one of those.  The outside was beautifully crispy, while the inside was nice and doughy without being greasy.  Paired with the tomato sauce it was excellent.  The dough expanded to sizes well exceeding the size of a Pizza Hut P’Zone, but I’m not complaining.

As you can see in the picture I’m not that great at cutting a pie, but this is more of a lifelong struggle.  Still turned out awesome.

Chicken Pot Pie Recipe (Makes 2 pies)

• 1 lb boneless chicken breast, cubed
• 1 can condensed cream of chick soup
• 3 medium sized potatoes
• 1/2 cup chopped carrot
• 1/2 cup frozen peas
• 1/2 tsp basil
• 1/2 tsp summer savoury
• 1/2 tsp parsley
• 1 package of Robin Hood Flaky Pie Crust Mix (Makes 2 covered pies)

Preheat oven to 350ºF.  In a frying pan cook the cubed chicken at a medium heat until no longer pink, drain off excess liquid.  Mix and roll out the pie dough and put the bottoms into buttered pie plates.  With the potatoes I half cooked them for about 3-4 minutes in the microwave, then sliced them into small pieces.  I find potatoes can take a long time, so it’s better to precook them a little bit.  Chop the carrot into thin, even slices so they will cook evenly.  Add cream of chicken soup to the cooked chicken and reduce the heat to low.  Add the potatoes, peas and carrot to frying pan, along with the herbs.  Simmer ingredients on low for 2 minutes, then place mixture into the pie plates.  Add the top layer to the pie and seal the edges by pressing a fork around the outside edge of the pie.

Cook in oven for 35 minutes or until pie crust is golden brown.

Each pie serves 4 people, so potentially serves 8 people.

I pretty much followed the recipe as it was outlined on the site, but the final product definitely didn’t turn out quite as nice as I might have hoped, but it didn’t really take away from it being pretty tasty and generally well received.

I believe the first mistake I made was not getting thick cut bacon. I thought the bacon I had was reasonably thick, but wasn’t actually the thick cut kind. This was an issue as it seemed my bacon weave didn’t hold up very well to being placed on the BBQ. I didn’t have a chance to hit up a butcher this weekend, so I’ll definitely have to source some thicker bacon next go around.

I did discover a way to roll the sausage a little easier then they outline in the recipe.  Once you’re done seasoning your bacon weave, place a piece of tinfoil roughly the same size as the weave over top of it, then place the sausage onto the foil.  Then you can simply roll the sausage with the help of the foil instead of trying to do it by hand and making a big mess.

The second mistake I believe I made was preparing on the BBQ in a rush.  Friends and family started arriving earlier then expected and it didn’t quite get the slow cooked love it deserved.  I tried to cook it with indirect heat directly on the BBQ grill, but since the dinner hour fast approached I had to speed up the browning process and I kinda ruined the bacon weave by having to move it around on the grill.  As you can see below I had a bit of a jailbreak on the one side of the bacon weave.  So when cutting it I didn’t get nice clean slices, more piles of miscellaneous pork.  Either way it tasted delicious.  I figure next time I’ll use a BBQ tray or maybe just cook it with tinfoil underneath.

The one feedback I from people was that it wasn’t quite bacon-y enough and the taste was primarily sausage.  As I don’t(yet!) have a smoker, I figure that would make a big difference in the overall taste.  Plus with additional slow cooking time the bacon flavour probably would have seeped through a little better.

rocky road squares

With my inaugural post I felt that it would be best to talk about something near and dear to my heart – marshmallows. This wonderfully deelish invention is something I really liked when I was a child but absolutely adore as an adult. I’m not much of a coffee drinker but I love a good hot chocolate with lots of marshmallows. I’ll eat them raw, roasted, toasted, melted, in a s’more, in a chocolate bar or a cookie and I love them in Wagon Wheels. I just plain like marshmallows so of course I had to write about a great recipe with you.

Growing up I remember that my mother made these absolutely amazing squares only around Christmas time. Rocky Road Squares or bars if you will and they had a bunch of my favourite things – chocolate, peanut butter and yes, the marshmallow. Now you can make them with plain white marshmallow but my personal favourite is the coloured kind. The Tutti Fruity Mini marshmallow if you will. The squares would melt in your mouth and really you could only eat just one at a time but it was so worth it.

Being in my own home for the first time this Christmas, I wanted to bring a little of those Christmases back by making some rocky road squares myself. I thought this would be an easy thing to do in that I’d seen them all over. But everywhere I looked I couldn’t quite find the right recipe. I decided to mash a few together that sounded good and created my own. And here it is:

Rocky Road Squares, QuirkyCori Style

• 1 cup graham cracker crumbs
• ¼ cup melted butter/margarine
• ¼ cup honey
• 1 cup chocolate chips
• 3 tbsp Peanut Butter
• 2 cups mini marshmallows (rainbow colour preferred)

Part 1: Georgeous Graham Cracker Base
(Seriously wish I had a picture it looked fantastic!)

Preheat oven to 375. In a mixing bowl, mash the top three ingredients together. Pour into an 8×8 square pan. (I didn’t have one so I used some wonderful Corningware – just added a bit more crumbs and honey.) Using your fingers press down so the mixture covers the area evenly and completely. Place in oven for 8 minutes.

While waiting for that to cook begin the next step.

Part 2: The Sweet Stuff
In a small pot combine the peanut butter and chocolate chips. Heat over medium while constantly stirring to ensure nothing burns. (You don’t want to destroy the sweet stuff!) Once the chocolate chips and peanut butter have reached a fairly liquid state and no more chips are visable, turn the heat to low and stir occasionally.

Part 3: Fantastic Finishing touches
Once your timer has gone off, carefully bring your pan out of the oven and place on a cooling rack. (I don’t have one so the top of the stove worked fine.) While still hot, sprinkle the marshmallows evenly over the top of the crust. I know the crust will look great so take a moment and admire your work before covering it in deliciousness. Once the marshmallows are even, quickly stir the sweet stuff and pour evenly over everything. It may get stuck in crevices so you may need to gently push it around with a spoon. This is okay – but be gentle, you may start to get melted marshmallows rather than a rocky road that you want.

Once completely covered put in the fridge to cool. Very important – this must cool completely before cutting. Depending on personal preference, this should make approximately 16 squares.

Pretzel and Chow Mein Clusters

With this recipe I didn’t quite know what to call it.  I’ve heard these referred to as birds nests, haystacks or simply chocolate clusters.  No matter what you want to call them, they’re delicious.  Usually the recipe features pretzels or those crispy chow mein noodles you put on top of won ton soup, chocolate and peanuts.  As is my usual way, I figured why not throw in a bunch of things and see what happens.  So with an idea in my head I headed off to the Bulk Barn, a local bulk food store, to see what I could track down.  Instead of regular peanuts, I found butter toffee coated peanuts and honey roasted peanuts.  There is a fair amount of leeway in the measurements of the ingredients, so feel free to experiment a bit.  It’s good to have a few baking sheets handy and some space available in your freezer or fridge.

Chocolate Pretzel and Chow Mein Clusters Recipe

• 3 cups of milk chocolate wafers
• 3 cups of straight pretzels
• 3 cups chow mein noodles
• 1 cup butter toffee coated peanuts
• 1 cup honey roasted peanuts
• 1/4 cup Skor toffee bits
• 1/4 cup white chocolate (entirely optional)

Melt 1/2  of the milk chocolate in a small sauce pot, stirring periodically.  Melt the white chocolate in another sauce pot.  I did this is 2 batches so as to not have the chocolate harden too quickly on me.   Cover 2 or 3 baking sheets with wax paper.   Once the milk chocolate is melted, add half of the nuts, pretzels and chow mein noodles, then stir until everything is well coated.  Using a set of tongs arrange some of the mixture into small piles, about 3 inches round, on the cookie sheets.  I found you kinda have to sculpt the clusters a bit, making sure that each pile is tightly packed and sticking together.  Sprinkle with Skor toffee bits, then use a spoon to drizzle the white chocolate over top of each stack.  Put the trays into the freezer for 5-10 minutes until the chocolate is set.  Repeat instructions for the second half of the recipe.

The trick to good gravy has a lot to do with forethought and advanced planning.  In my Preparing Awesome Turkey entry from yesterday, I laid out how to brine and season the turkey, which in the end all works toward making good gravy.  Gravy is only as good as the meat juices left in the bottom of the tray once the turkey is cooked.  Adding the bacon on top of the turkey adds to the flavour of the gravy.

How to make great gravy

When starting to prepare a large meal like Thanksgiving, you will accrue a lot of helpful items that will aid you in making great gravy. A good idea is to have a small container handy while you are doing the prep of any vegetables.  If you have any peeled potato, yam or carrot skins, put them in the container.  Some extra broccoli or cauliflower ends? Leftover garlic?  Throw them in too.  You don’t need to put all your skins in there, just a handful of each as you go along, then compost the rest if you have that option.  As I mentioned in the turkey recipe, when you remove the neck and organs from the turkey, don’t throw them out, put them in your collected container.  If you’re doing your prep the day before, close up the container and put it in the fridge for the next day.

The next morning after you’ve prepped the turkey and got it into the oven, pull out your collection of scraps and put them in a small sauce pot.  Add water so the ingredients are submerged.  I had some celery and fresh parsley that I cut up and tossed into the mix as well.  Turn onto low and leave it.  We have a warming area on our stove, which worked well for simmering the ingredients.  Essentially you are cooking a broth for use later with the gravy.

The next step is to collect the boiling water from the mashed potatoes.  Instead of pouring this valuable asset down the sink, collect it into a large bowl.  If you’re boiling stuff like turnip or peas on the stove, collect the water in this bowl too.  The water has the flavour of the vegetables in it, making it a worthy addition to the gravy.

Once the turkey is done and removed from the roasting pan, you are ready to make some gravy.  Remove any meat or stuffing that might have fallen into the pan during cooking, leaving just the juices from the turkey.  Strain the liquid broth from the sauce pot into the roasting pan and discard the neck, organs and vegetables at this point.  At this point you’ll want to judge how much gravy you need to make.  If you need to make it stretch, add some of the boiled water into the mix, though don’t add too much.  Put the roasting pan on a large stove element(or 2, depending on the size of your roasting pan) and bring the liquid to a boil.

In a small mug or container, add 3 tbsp of corn starch or flour.  Add in some water from our boiled water bowl to fill the mug, then stir to mix together until the corn starch or flour is absorbed into the water.  Corn starch/flour is what will thicken the gravy.

Once the liquid is boiling, add in a bit of the corn starch mixture, making sure to mix it in as you add it.  Using a fork or whisk, keep stirring the gravy until begins to thicken.  Once you have some thickened gravy do a taste test.  If it tastes weak, add a few teaspoons of salt.  Typically you want the gravy to have a pleasant salty flavour.  Add some fresh ground pepper as well to taste.  Once you’re satisfied with the taste, it’s ready to serve.

How to thaw a turkey

The first place you’ll want to start is with thawing the bird if it is frozen.  Given these turkeys are frozen solid you’ll want to pull out the turkey 2 days in advance of when you want to cook it.  The first day I set it out on the counter in a roasting pan and let it thaw out, without removing the plastic packaging.  At night I then put it in the fridge until morning.  The next morning take it out of the fridge and remove the plastic packaging, as well as the innards from the bird, which with mine had the neck in the rear cavity, then the rest of it in a wax paper package stored in the neck area.  Do not throw these parts out, they are used to help make the gravy.  Put them in a small container in the fridge for later. You’ll want to clean and sanitize a wash tub, or the kitchen sink and allow the turkey to soak until it is thawed.  You’ll want to check periodically that the water is still cold during this process, as you don’t want the turkey to get too warm.  Check the inside and outside to see if it’s still frozen.  If it’s all thawed, then you can commence with the next stage of preparation.

Brining a turkey

If you’re not familiar with brining, it is essentially the process of infusing flavour into a food item, and in our case a turkey.  You’ll want to do this process the night before the turkey is to be cooked, 10 – 12 hours for brining is ideal.

To brine a turkey you will require either a large stock pot, a food grade bucket or a brining bag.  It is important to have the right equipment for this step, as you don’t want the brine to leak, or to contaminate the turkey.  Another option is if you have a large cooler that will work as well, dependent on the size of your turkey.  Also to brine you will need to have a fresh turkey, not a kosher or pre-basted turkey like a Butterball.

I was working with a 20lb turkey, so I was able to fit mine into a large stock pot.  Put the turkey into your container, then measure out the water you are adding.  Add 1/4 cup of salt per litre, or for our American friends, 1 cup per gallon.  All told my stockpot took roughly 13 litres of water to submerge my turkey, so I added a little over 3 cups of salt to the mixture.

turkey in brine

Brine mixture

• 1/2 cup chicken soup stock powder
• 1 cup sugar
• 5 cloves of mashed garlic
• 3 tbsp chopped fresh parsley

This is where you can get a little creative with adding additional ingredients to flavour the brine.  I kept mine relatively simple, but as you can see there are tonnes of brine recipes.  Throw all the ingredients in and stir them around.

Once prepared you need to find a cold place to store it overnight.  In the fridge is ideal, but if you don’t have the room you could try to putting it outside overnight if it’s cool outside.  If it’s below freezing I wouldn’t advise that though, so check the weather.  Otherwise, maybe consider using the cooler I mentioned earlier with some ice added in to keep things cool.  I have a cold room in my house, so I threw a bunch of ice cubes in with the mix, then places it in there for the night.

Prepping the turkey for cooking

Remove the turkey from the brine and discard the water.  In the sink you will want to rinse the turkey off using cold water, then pat dry using paper towels. At this point I stuffed the bird using the instructions from my sourdough bread and rice stuffing.

Get some butter or margarine and put some in its own bowl.  Using paper towel, rub the margarine onto the body of the turkey, inside and out, getting the legs and wings as well.

turkey ready for the oven

Turkey seasoning rub recipe

• 1 tbsp ground mustard
• 1 tbsp paprika
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp pepper
• 1 tsp onion powder
• 1 tsp garlic powder
• 2 tbsp chopped fresh parsley
• 8 strips of bacon

Combine all the ingredients except the bacon, then rub all over the bird.  Place the turkey breast side up in your roasting pan  Once the rub is applied you can add the piece de resistance, some bacon.  Lay the strips across the top of the bird to cover the skin. Wrap the wings in tinfoil as they are prone to burning during the cooking process.  You will also want to put tinfoil over top of the turkey while cooking, or just use the roaster lid should you have one at your disposal.  The bird is now ready for the oven.

Cooking the turkey

Heat the oven to 325ºF and cook for 20 minutes per pound of turkey.  Since mine was 20 pounds x 20 minutes = 400 minutes.  400 divided by 60 minutes = roughly 6.5 hours cooking time.  I would check the turkey about every 40 minutes and baste the turkey using a handy turkey baster. I also sprinkled some fresh ground pepper and salt on the turkey a couple times as the basting rubbed of some of the seasoning.  For the last half hour, remove the covering tinfoil to allow the turkey skin to brown up a bit.

The final product

While it was a lot of work, this produced possibly the best turkey I’ve ever had.  It has so much juice and flavour that you could easily enjoy the taste without gravy, though with the awesome gravy this bad boy produced, why would you want to do that?:)

If you like to know how I made the gravy, read my post on how to make great gravy for tips.

Sourdough and Rice Stuffing Recipe

• 1 loaf of sourdough bread (makes 4 cups)
• 1 cup uncooked brown rice (makes 3 1/2 cups cooked)
• 1 carrot
• 3 celery stalks
• 10 cloves of garlic
• 1 can of cream of chicken soup
• 2 tbsp fresh parsley
• 1/2 tsp paprika
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp pepper
• 1/4 tsp tumeric

Stuffing in the food processor

To start your stuffing you’ll need to lay out the sourdough bread on a large turkey roasting pan.  These usually have tall sides that enable you to lean the bread against the sides so none of them are really overlapping.  If they are stacked or overlapping it typically takes longer to dry the bread out.  You need to be able to get the bread sufficiently dry and crunchy to be able to use it.  I had it out 5 days beforehand, but I think it can be prepped in as little as 2 days in advance.  Using pretty much the same process as I did with my previous blog post about making your own breadcrumbs, once the bread is dried up, break up into smaller pieces, then toss it into the food processor.  With this recipe we’re not aiming for breadcrumbs though, so only blend until all the bread is down to pea sized pieces.

Stuffing before it's cooked

Cook the brown rice as per the instructions on the bag the night before, then toss it into the fridge. Chop the carrot, celery, garlic, parsley, paprika, salt, pepper and tumeric in the food processor, then store the mixture in a separate container in the fridge.

On the morning you are preparing the turkey, combine the bread, rice, vegetable mixture and the cream of chicken soup in a large bowl right before you are ready to stuff the bird.  Fill the rear and neck cavity of the turkey with stuffing, making sure not to overstuff, as this can create problems during the cooking process.  With this recipe I was able to fill a 20 lb turkey front and back, and have additional dressing to cook in a side dish in the over.

I was pretty happy with how the dressing turned out, though I would possibly add some ground sausage into this recipe the next go around.  Have to experiment a bit.