Smoked Turkey

Ingredients:
14-16 lb. turkey
5 gallons of brine
2 T olive oil
Dry meat rub

Brine:
5 gallons of water
5 cups of salt
2 1/2 cups brown sugar

Soak the turkey in the brine for about 8 hours.  Make sure it stays under 40°. Rinse it off and dry it with paper towels.  Rub olive oil and herbs of choice on the turkey. (We used garlic powder, parsley and pepper.) Smoke for 1/2 hour then roast on the Traeger grill breast side up for about 2 hours.  Measure the the temperature in the breast.  Cook until 165°. When you take it off the grill, wrap in foil and let it set for about 20 minutes.

Sourdough Waffles

Sourdough Waffles

When I started making sourdough bread a few months ago, I looked what can be done with the extra starter.  This was one of the success stories!  The waffles come up fluffy and slightly chewy.

1 1/2 Cups milk

1T vinegar

3 eggs

1 tsp. vanilla

1 C sourdough starter

1 1/2 C flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 T Sugar

1/2 tsp salt

Put the milk and vinegar in the blender and let it sit for 5 minutes then add all the other ingredients.  Blend. Pour into hot, greased waffle iron and cook for about 4 minutes.

Creamy Chicken Basil

Creamy Chicken Basil

Ingredients:

3 boneless chicken breasts

1/2 C water

1 tsp Better Than Bouillon (can substitute regular bouillon)

1 can cream of chicken soup

8 oz cream cheese

2 T Italian seasoning

1/8 C fresh basil, ribboned

Instructions:

Cook the chicken, water and bouillon in the crockpot on high for about 4 hours. Take the chicken out.  Dump in the cream of chicken soup, cream cheese and Italian seasoning. Stir all the ingredients together. Shred the chicken and put it into the sauce.  Cook for one more hour.  Just before serving, stir in the basil ribbons. Serve over rice.

Lemon Zucchini Bread

Lemon Zucchini Bread

I actually made this bread with yellow squash to make it look more "lemony" but you can use zucchini instead!

Ingredients for the bread:

4 eggs

1 C oil

2 C sugar

2 C zucchini or yellow squash, grated

1 lemon
2 tsp poppy seeds

3 C flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/4 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

Instructions:

Preheat oven to 325°

Grease and lightly flour two bread pans

Beat eggs, then add oil and sugar.  Mix well.  Add in squash and lemon.  Add flour, baking soda, baking powder and salt and mix. Pour into bread pans and bake for 1 hour (10 minutes less if using convection oven.) Loosen from pan 20 minutes after it comes out of the oven.

Ingredients for glaze:

2 T butter, softened

1 lemon

2 C powdered sugar

About 1/8 C milk

Juice and zest one lemon. Beat butter.  Add a little powdered sugar at a time. Add all the lemon juice.  Add 2 tsp lemon zest. Add enough milk to make a smooth glaze.  Pour glaze over cooled bread. Sprinkle a little zest over the top.

Scrumptious Hot Chocolate

Yesterday, we had one last meal with Alyssa and Jason, Chelsea and Russell, and Brooke home.  I didn't have anything in the house to make dessert so I decided to try homemade crockpot hot chocolate.  It was a huge hit!  I melted the chocolate chips first with a little butter and milk before adding them to the crockpot, but next time I might just try dumping them in with everything else to see how it comes out.

Ingredients
2 C semi-sweet chocolate chips
2 T butter
1 can sweetened condensed milk
12 C whole milk

Instructions
Pour everything into the crockpot and cook on low for several hours, stirring occasionally. I turned ours up to high for the last hour (but then scalded my tongue when I tired it!)

Lemon Bars

Graham and Brooke made this recipe for Saturday's Dessert.  Delicious!

Pat the cookie dough into a glass casserole dish.  Usually the crust just goes on the bottom but the pan was a little small because they tripled the recipe, so they put the crust up the sides. It was still scrumptious!

Pour lemon filling into the baked cookie crust.

After the lemon bars cool, sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into squares.

Pre-heat oven to 350°

Combine:
1/3 C butter
1/4 C sugar
1 C flour

Mix until crumbly. Press into bottom of 8X8 baking pan. (If you double or triple, use a larger pan.) Bake until golden brown (about 18-20 minutes).

While crust is baking, mix together:
3/4 C Sugar
2 T flour
2 eggs
2 tsp lemon peel
3 T lemon juice
1/4 tsp. baking powder
Beat for 2 minutes then pour into baked crust.
Bake for 20 minutes until set and lightly browned at edges.
Cool then sprinkle with powdered sugar and cut into squares.

We learned that when you triple this recipe, you need a little over a half a cup of lemon juice. We had the bars for dessert Saturday night at the cabin. There was enough for 12 people with tripling the recipe.

Baked Halibut with Rainbow Salsa

I bought this halibut not realizing that it still had it's bones in.  It wasn't a huge deal but I had to cook it a little longer than what I have listed here.  Also, the skin was on at is was super difficult to cut through to make steaks.  It was delicious but next time I would prefer it without skin and bones!

Rainbow Salsa

1 med red onion, chopped

3 med tomatoes, chopped

6 small sweet pepper, various colors, chopped

Juice of one lime 

1/2 bunch of cilantro, chopped

1/4 tsp. cayenne pepper

1 tsp. salt

Splash of olive oil

Combine the above all together then serve as a garnish on the cooked fish.

Baked Halibut

Pre-heat oven to 425°

4 steak size pieces of halibut

1/4 C extra-light olive oil

3 cloves of garlic

Sea salt a freshly cracked pepper, to taste

Heat the olive oil in a heavy skillet. Lay the halibut stakes in pan and sear for two minutes each side. Top the halibut with garlic and put in 425° oven for approximately 5 minutes.  Should be flakey when done.

A perfect summer meal!  The day after we ate this, I mixed the leftover fish with some leftover salsa for lunch.  It reminded me of the fresh fish ceviche we've eaten in Mexico.