What do you do with Thanksgiving leftovers

You make Turkey pot pie!

I decided to go old school with this recipe.  I first started out making my own pie crust/dough.  Its not as hard as you'd think and only takes a little finesse and its worth the extra taste.   You start out with about 5/8 of a cup of butter (some say 11 Tablespoons but apprx is okay) and 1 1/4 cup of flour.  Normally one would use unsalted butter and add the salt but I did the opposite.  You dice up the butter into cubes as small as you can go.  Make sure the butter is cold because if it gets too warm it will melt in the dough.

Next you want to mix in the butter with a hand mixer or food processor so that it becomes "lima bean" size pieces within the flour.  Older recipe's call for pea sized butter balls but that, in m opinion goes too far.  Once it is incorporated, you want to add a couple of tablespoons of cold water while mixing so that if forms into a ball.

Once you have the ball formed you want to roll it out.  Now this is where the finesse comes into play.  You have to flour above and below and make sure not to roll it out to hard or too fast.  You want to do one or two go throughs a flip and keep doing that until it gets to be around 12 inches in diameter.  That will be the perfect fit for a 9 inch pie pan.

Once you have it in the pie pan, dont worry about crimping it unless you want to enter it into a contest.  There are no points for style but all points for flavor with this dish in my opinion.  Next you want to lay down some foil and fill it either with uncooked beans, pennies or in my case some uncooked rice.  Lay it in and set the oven for 375 and cook it for 15 min.

Then you want to take out the rice and foil and let it come to a light golden brown for another 5 minutes uncovered.

The finished pie crust

Now that the bottom crust is out of the way we can work on the filling, my favorite!  You first want to saute some vegetables in olive oil.  In my case I used a blend of carrots, peas, lima beans and corn.  Other recipes call for onions and celery but I felt this to be appropriate and it tasted so accordingly.

Next I shredded up what was left of the turkey I had from the other night.  I did this with a fork in order to get it truly shredded...

In the adjacent pot I made a quick rue and then bechamel with about 2 Tbs of butter and three Tbs of flour and a half a cup of milk.  In the big pan I added two bouillons of chicken broth cubes and two cups of water and waited until it came to a simmer.  Once it did, I added the Turkey shreds.

I then added the rue/bechamel to the pot of Turkey and vegetables.  I stirred it good and well until it all came together. I even added a touch of cream to it as well to get it extra creamy.

Once it was all done I repeated the recipe for the pie crust earlier having it rolled out. (FYI if the pie crust seems like a lot you can do it up to 3 days before) Then I filled the botom pie with the creamy goodness that is the filling.

Once covered I simply made 3 slits on the top and lightly crimped the edges.  Simple as pie!

I kept it in the oven for 20 min at 375 (alright maybe 30 min since my mom was on the phone with me hence the slightly darkened edges).  You can even give it an egg wash on the top before baking to get a golden glazed appearance if you'd like but I prefer the rustic look.

And thats how you can turn regular leftover turkey into a delicious pot pie!

The last Thanksgiving in Grenada

So this was a night of giving thanks.  A night of friends gathering in the absence of family to create an experience that feels warm and familiar.  A time to appreciate what you have while others have not and to put away petty differences.  And most importantly eat until any feeling you do have is muted by the fact that you can't move!

To start off this non traditional Thanksgiving meal I made a non-traditional dish at first...Hummus.  Hummus is great for parties and since I have Syrian landlords who feed me delicious hummus I decided to learn how to make some and it turns out to be pretty simple and very tasty. You start out by making your own Tahini, which is simply slightly toasted sesame seeds (2-3 tablespoons) processed with a tablespoon of vegetable oil until it is created into a paste (pictured left).  From there you mash up 2 cloves of garlic as well as two cans of chick peas with some olive oil and then eventually the tahini and a dollop of yogurt.  

Once it is all incorporated spread it out on a plate like so, creating a small volcano of sorts so you can do the next step which is essential for proper dipping.

Next you are going to want to drizzle some extra virgin olive oil and some paprika and optionally some parsley as well.  Then set it in the fridge and you've got yourself some hummus!

Next dish on the docket was my gourmet mac and cheese.  It started out with great Italian pasta...

Next I cooked the pasta to a little before 'al dente', so pretty much half cooked and set it in the tray.  I actually did this the day before to save time in prep.

Next I assembled the triumvirate of cheeses that I hand picked to go into the dish.  They included Gruyere, Gouda and Cheddar.  I put them in my food processor to get them to equal parts.

This was the test batch the night before

This is the rue, equal parts butter and flour

Then I added 2 cups of whole milk and 1/4 cup of heavy cream for the bechamel.

Next, I added half of all the cheese I had chopped up and stirred it into the bechamel to get a creamy, cheesey deliciousness consistency.  

And then it was time for the layers.  Oh I almost forgot...to start off I buttered the pan and had it coated with breadcrumbs.  I then added the pasta then layers of sprinkled cheese and coatings of bechamel.

In total it came out to two layers of pasta/cheeziness goodness.  Don't forget to sprinkle some more breadcrumbs at the top for good measure and extra crunch!

Hop it in the oven at 350 for 35-40 minutes and at 450 for the last 5 to get that extra crisp.

And then here was the lineup of all the other fixings, which included green bean casserole  stuffing, another cornbread, my cornbread muffins, and 2 different types of mashed potatoes and yams to name a few (not to mention two 22 lb turkeys we had and carved up).  It was glorious!

And the rest is eating history

As part of my family tradition I mandated that the Turkey be given one slap before it went into the oven...those are the rules...

Many thanks to everyone who made it an amazing dinner...we were very fortunate to have everyone chip in to create a classic meal we wont soon forget.

Cornbread and all the fixin's

So on this edition of the Med Chef I give you my cornbread recipe and plenty more to follow as I finish the Mac and Cheese tomorrow along with all of the other delights my friends are making for our pot luck Thanksgiving in our home away from home.

And I actually wrote out the ingredients this time.  Reason being is that baking is not like cooking, you need to get all the measurements down or else it can come back to bite you.  For those of you who can't see that it is:

1 Cup of Cornmeal

3 Cups of AP Flour

1 1/3 cup of Sugar

2 Tbps of Baking Powder

1 Tsp Salt

2/3 Cup of Vegetable Oil

1/3 Cup Melted Butter

2 Tbsps Honey/Brown Sugar

2 1/2 cups Whole Milk

and 4 Eggs (Whole and scrambled)

So whenever I bake I make sure to get all the ingredients together and right.  Plus I felt like Paula Dean by pre-sorting them and putting them in containers to make for an easier snapshot and actually an easier recipe.  One thing to note is I let the eggs come to room temperature (which isn't hard in the Caribbean) along with most of the ingredients.

Next I incorporated all the dry ingredients first and it reminded me of those bottles I used to have as a kid with the different colored sand.  Less I digress...

Then I sifted it all to make it homogenous

 Next I mixed all the wet ingredients together in my fancy container, like so...

And then Finally mixed it all together making sure  there were no lumps or bumps along the by using my cake mixer.  Best 4 bucks I ever spent!

Now the recipe called for me to bake it at 350 F for 45 minutes in a 9 by 12 inch pan.  Since there are about 20 of us getting together I figured making them cupcake style would best suit our needs.  So I simply took some cupcake trays and filled them 2/3 of the way up.  They won't plump up out of the tray too much but they'll try.

Now the thing was that the recipe was different for the way I made them.  Since I   essentially reduced the size of the cooking space (or maximized it depending on your interpretation)  the cornbread cooked in only 17 minutes and looked like this!  A smaller second batch I did I lowered the heat at about 300 F and it came out perfect in 20-25 minutes.  That would be my advise for how to get them exactly the way you want them.  

And thats it for now as the prelim cooking is over and tomorrow the real cooking begins with turkey and the rest of the fixins!

Of course you have to have it fresh out of the over with some butter....yummy!