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Rolled Turkey Breast with Pear and Sage Stuffing
Where Have I Been?
20 NovHey Y’All!
I have been in the throws of of the holiday for a month now and I am currently grilling up an awesome Christmas menu for Bull BBQ. I just wanted to keep you posted of what I have been up to. I have had some great food styling gigs lately — a couple noteworthy are a national campaign for a Greek yogurt manufacturer and another one shooting out all the menu items for the online ordering menu for a major restaurant chain. Plus Biggest Loser is back in production and in December I will be the culinary producer for a new cooking show.
While all this is going on, I am developing recipes for Bull BBQ’s blog, Grilling and Outdoor Recipes. I just completed an insert recipe booklet that will be shipped with all Bull grills and have started Bull’s very first grilling cookbook which will be available toward the end of 2013 just in time for Christmas!
Sometime after the first of the year, my Food Crew website is getting a whole new look and this blog will be incorporated into it.
Please sign up to follow the posts by email or RSS feed on the Bull BBQ blog, GrillingOutdoorRecipes.com, to keep up with what I have been cooking up! I promise after the first of the year, my irregular postings will resume.
Here is what’s been cooking at Bull for Thanksgiving:
Rolled Turkey Breast with Pear and Sage Stuffing
-or-
Bourbon and Molasses Brined Grilled Whole Turkey
with Giblet Gravy
Grilled Tri-Color Potatoes
Grill-Roasted Baby Root Vegetables
Corn Muffins with Cranberries and Jalapeños
Bourbon Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars
Turkey leftovers: Grilled Turkey and Asparagus Tartine with Apricot Curry Spread.
Here are a few turkey tips:
- Truss your turkey! No need for complicated French trussing. Just tuck the wings under the bird, use a couple toothpicks or a small skewer to close the skin over the opening to the cavity, and tie the legs together. Trussing keeps the wings and legs close to the body and helps to prevent the meat from drying out and to ensure that your turkey will cook evenly. Plus it makes for a better presentation!
- Remove the all of the meat in sections before carving, even if you are not serving it all. Leaving it sit on the bone, will keep it cooking (carryover heat) and it will begin to dry out. 1- using a sharp knife, remove the leg (thigh and drumstick) in one piece; 2- starting at the breast bone, cut along the bone and rib cage to remove the breast and wing in one piece; 3- cut through the leg joint and separate the thigh and drumstick, cut the wing away from the breast, then slice the breast across the grain of the meat. Repeat with the other side of the turkey.
- If you are brining your turkey, monitor the browning while it cooks. Brined turkeys brown faster.
- Grill set up: indirect cooking over medium-low heat (300° to 350°F). Place the pan so it is not directly over any heat. Close the grill cover and cook until the skin is nicely browned and the juices at the thigh run clear.
- Timing: about 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 hours (12 to 15 minutes per pound).
- To test for doneness, the temperature of the thigh, away from the bone, should be 170°F and the breast should be between 155° to 160°F. Remember – carryover cooking will continue to raise the temperature of the turkey another 5° to 10° after it comes off the grill.
A couple other links:
- Roasted Fresh Pumpkin Purée for your holiday baking
- Post-Thanksgiving Simple Turkey Stock
Photo: Heather Winters
Happy Thanksgiving!
Peace – j
Re-purposing My Best Friends’ Bowls
13 Jun
I could never bring myself to get rid of Winston’s food and water bowls, but could never figure out what to do with them either. His bowls, along with another bowl from Buster (my bulldog that preceded Winston) were gathering dust on my balcony. So I decided to get some easy maintenace succulents and cacti and turn them into planters. A little gravel on the bottom for drainage, appropriate potting soil, plants and voila… constant remainders of my two best all-time buds!
Asian Flavor Photos
28 NovOne of the things I like to do when I have time is to explore ethnic and specialty markets (and hardware stores). I was on my way to do some test shots with the fabulous Heather Winters and stopped by Mitsuwa Marketplace, a Japanese market in Santa Monica. I am always inspired by the vast number ingredients that line the shelves and awed by the fact that I generally have no idea what most of it is! Even the shelf tags are of no help as they are usually a literal translation of the kanji printed on the labels. While checking out the meat and seafood, I found cooked sardines, prepared chicken glazed with soy and miso, and some cool stacked pork satay.
We were also playing around with some harsh lighting to go with the doughnut shot for a promotional collateral piece. Again, I love the starkness of this shot – it tells a definite story.
Peace – J
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Mmmmmm… Doughnuts…
17 NovHomer Simpson had it right! Doughnuts or donuts, whichever spelling you prefer, are one of my all time favorite indulgences. Maybe it’s growing up in southern California where doughnut shops pop up on every corner. Here are some fun shots the fabulous Heather Winters and I did a couple months back. 
When we originally decided to shoot doughnuts, it was going to be a cheeky promotion of ”your bad photography v.s. our fabulous work”. Well, Heather can’t seem to take a bad picture even when she tries to. I love this photo — It reminds me sitting in doughnut shop under the harsh light at the end of a long night of doing whatever! 
Peace – J If you have enjoyed these photos please hit the ‘Like’ button below and share with your friends!
Homemade Vanilla Extract
4 NovI don’t know why I am always amazed when I go to the store to buy a good quality vanilla extract to find that an 8-ounce bottle costs from $18 (Madagascar) to $35 (Tahitian). Well, it turns out that vanilla is more expensive than any other flavoring or spice, the one exception being saffron. But why you ask? Vanilla is the fruit of a tropical vine that is part of the orchid family. When grown commercially, the flowers of the vine are hand-pollinated and thinned to ensure the quality of the bean. Once harvested it takes around eight months to cure and dry the beans before they can be packed for shipping.
There are primarily two varieties of commercially available vanilla beans – Madagascar or Mexican, and Tahitian. Yes my friends, Madagascar and Mexican are the same species… good to know for my SoCal peeps! It seems those crafty Spaniards snaked (read: stole) some vanilla cuttings on their way outta town and planted them on the island of Madagascar. For hundreds of years, Madagascar had the market cornered on vanilla export and today, along with Mexico, is the major producer of vanilla. Tahiti is the only other player of note in the vanilla game. Tahitian vanilla is a sweeter and more floral bean and by virtue of economics (umm… remember supply and demand), is almost twice the price. Whew, history and economics lessons accomplished!
One of the perks of working on cooking and cooking reality shows is leftover product and equipment. From a recent show, I inherited somewhere in the vicinity of 100+ vanilla beans. Jealous? Thought so. Well, after giving the majority away, I still had quite a few, so I decided to make vanilla extract.
Making vanilla extract is super easy, economical, and will make an excellent holiday gift! It does take a little planning as you need to wait a month or so before it is ready to use.
Homemade Vanilla Extract
6 long, soft vanilla beans
1 quart good quality vodka
Extra vanilla beans for presentation (optional)
Split the six beans lengthwise and then cut into 1/2-inch pieces. Add the vanilla pieces to a clean 1-quart canning jar and fill with vodka. Let steep in a cool, dark place for 30 to 45 days, shaking the jar every once in awhile. Strain through a cheesecloth lined wire mesh strainer. Return to a clean jar or smaller bottles and add a fresh vanilla bean for presentation.
Store tightly sealed. Vanilla extract will keep indefinitely (blessed by the USDA). There you have it, easy peasy.
I did a little experimenting with the recipe substituting Cuban rum and bourbon for the vodka. For straight on vanilla flavor, vodka is the best choice. The rum and bourbon variations are still very strong in vanilla flavor but, also have the underlying characteristics of smooth, sweet rich rum and smoky sweet bourbon respectively. Both the rum and bourbon vanillas I would gladly use in baking for more dimension of flavor, but also in cocktails. Hmm… vanilla scented Manhattan <<slurp>>!
Peace – J
How To Tip: Bag Striping Icing Effect
8 NovThis is (or at least should be) a quick posting that I have been meaning to get up for, oh, about 3 weeks now. I had many requests since posting the Tie-Dyed Cake for Chloe as to how to get the color effect on the icing. The technique I used is called bag striping. Bag striping can be accomplished a couple different ways. One is to use a spatula to place a couple similarly toned colored icings along the sides of a pastry bag. This is best used with subtle color differences when piping flowers. For vivid multiple color differences, like on Chloe’s cake, I used a brush striping technique. The colors are more intense because the color is brushed into pastry bag.
When I did Chloe’s cake, I used a vinyl pastry bag and paste icing colors. The color stayed fairly intense while I piped the top of the cake and didn’t really start to fade until I got to the edge of the cake. For this demo, I made a dozen cupcakes for Halloween using orange concentrated paste icing color and black gel paste color. The gel color (black) faded quicker than the concentrated paste color (orange). Also, I used disposable plastic piping bags so you could see the color. However, the slickness of the plastic bags didn’t seem to hold the color as well the vinyl bag did. Fine by me — I don’t like to use the disposable bags anyway because they hurt my hands after awhile plus, they’re not so great for the landfill.
Apply one or more stripes of the icing color with a small paint or decorating brush. In this case, I alternated three black stripes with three orange stripes. Fill the bag with white icing and as the icing is squeezed past the color(s), whatever you are piping will come out striped.
Okay, so it’s not the prettiest piping I’ve ever done… but you get the point!
Peace – J
Tie-Dyed Cake for Chloe
14 OctLately I have had a few requests for birthday cakes. I LOVE to bake, have taken numerous cake decorating classes, and actually went to cooking school with the idea of becoming a pastry chef. SIDE NOTE: Contrary to Top Chef: Just Desserts, not all pastry chefs are an emotional train wreck… but I digress. A couple weeks ago, best gal-pal Sarah asked if I would make a birthday cake for her daughter Chloe’s second birthday. Sure! Happy to! The kicker… chocolate cake and the theme of the party is tie-dye. Hmmmm….
Tie-dye. How in the hell am I gonna make a tie-dyed cake? A couple friends, including Sara, said just make the cake, put it on a colorful plate and call it a day. Since many of you don’t know me that well, those who do will tell you that that is not how I roll.
The cake itself wasn’t the issue. White cake or yellow cake sure, easy. Just color the cake batter different colors and spoon it into the pans, bake it off, et voilà multi-colored cake! Although an easy out, I couldn’t bring myself to do that to her. You see, I had a traumatic experience with colored cakes as a kid. My mom had purchased cake pan inserts to make a checkerboard cake for my birthday. She asked what kind of cake I wanted and thinking out of the box, I said a blue and yellow cake — I must have been a Cub Scout. However, when the cake was sliced at my party, there was no way in hell that I was going to eat it. What kind of unnatural thing is a blue and yellow cake?!
I Googled images for “tie-dye decorated cake” (go ahead, try it) and found a bunch of seriously ugly cakes worthy of the blog Cake Wrecks. The cakes that I liked had used an airbrush for the effect and I don’t own an airbrush or know how to use one. There was also a lot of chatter on the interweb about an episode of Cake Boss where he created a tie-dyed cake using fondant. All I could find was a paragraph on the TLC website that explained how he did it, but no images of the final product. I love you Chloe, but I ain’t spendin’ $30 on a tub of fondant, which btw tastes nasty, to try and figure it out.
Using different colored icings wouldn’t do for two reasons: 1) the colors look flat and more like a jigsaw puzzle, and 2) if you’re not really careful the colors become muddy when they start to blend. The cool thing about tie-dye, if tie-dye were to be cool, is the visual texture. That texture happens because of gradation of color and the white showing through (where the rubber band was, duh).
A couple days later I remembered an icing technique called brush striping where instead of coloring the icing, the food coloring is painted in stripes top-to-bottom inside the pastry bag. (Sorry, I forgot to take pictures.) This technique only works with gel paste food coloring and not the liquid coloring from the grocery store. So I painted a single stripe of each color: blue, purple, hot pink, orange, yellow, and green on the inside of my pastry bag and loaded it up with white butter cream and started piping swirls on the cake.
All-in-all, I was pretty happy with the way the cake turned out. Sarah was happy, Chloe was happy, and the cake was delicious! Mission accomplished. Oh yeah, Chloe’s cake was double dark chocolate with peanut butter and chocolate ganache fillings, YUM.
Peace – J
Special Treats for the Best Boy EVER
21 Oct
Today I found out that Winston, my 12 year old English bulldog, has to have some pretty serious eye surgery. Bulldogs and anesthesia aren’t always the best of friends, but he is seeing the best eye vet in Los Angeles and I expect only the best outcome. Also, befitting a dog of his age living in Hollywood, he will have a little eye lift during the surgery! I have had Winston since he was 10 weeks when I was living in Dallas and he is a Texan – Loud and Proud – and my pride and joy. So to cheer him up… okay… so to cheer me up, I made him some special treats. And since it’s so close to Halloween, I used 1 1/2-inch pumpkin and ghost cutters!
Carrot-Almond Doggie Biscuits
Makes dozens
6 cups organic whole wheat flour
1/4 cup wheat germ
2 Tablespoons nutritional yeast
2 Tablespoons dried parsley
1/2 cup organic almond butter
3 carrots, finely chopped in a food processor
1 1/2 cups less sodium organic vegetable or chicken broth
1 egg, lightly beaten
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Blend together the flour, wheat germ, nutritional yeast, and parsley in a large mixing bowl (preferably for a standing mixer). Add the remaining ingredients and mix using the dough hook attachment until blended. Keep kneading dough for another 3 to 5 minutes. (Note: if you do not have a standing mixer, blend ingredients together to form a stiff dough. Transfer to floured surface and knead for 5 minutes).
Divide dough into two balls. Roll out dough on a lightly floured surface to 1/4- to 1/2-inches thick depending on the size of you cutter and/or dog. If dough shrinks back too much while rolling, cover with a clean dish towel and let rest 10 minutes. Cut biscuits using a dog bone cutter or a cleaver seasonal cutter and transfer to an ungreased baking sheet. Biscuits can be placed pretty close together as they are not going to spread. Bake in preheated oven for 30 minutes. Turn biscuits and continue baking for another 15 minutes. Turn off oven and let cool completely inside the oven. Biscuits can be stored in an air-tight container for up to 1 month or in the freezer for 6 to 8 months.
(Adapted from a recipe floating around the internet)
Best of luck to the Best Boy!
Welcome!
I often have BIG ideas about food, my business and life in general. Ideas and thoughts that I need to get out of my head, but seem to get bogged down as to whether or not it these ideas are showcased in the appropriate venue. So I've decided to just put it all out there. I've redesigned this site and now (hopefully), I will release into the interweb the ramblings of my mind.
Peace.
