The easiest way to cook a thanksgiving turkey

Healthy Thanksgiving Recipes Part 2: Easy Turkey
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Click here to watch video.

This recipe is dedicated to those who love Thanksgiving turkey, but don't have the time, skill, or patience to roast a whole turkey.

Last week I showed you how to make healthy stuffing using Ezekiel bread or sprouted grain bread. You will need to make up a small batch of it for this recipe.

The easiest thing - turkey-wise - is to stuff and roast a breast. You can buy boneless turkey breasts at your local grocery store. They are big, and can serve 3 to 4 people on average for a 2-3Lb breast. 

The breast that I prepared for this recipe was even cooked in a toaster oven at 400 for 40 minutes, and took under 5 minutes to prepare. Easy!

Yields: 4 servings

Ingredients:
- A 3Lb boneless turkey breast (skin-on)
- 1 to 2 cups of Ezekiel bread stuffing (see recipe)
- Goya brand Adobo seasoning

NOTE: If you're in the habit of cutting down on fat by removing turkey or chicken skin from your breasts, you may want to wait until just before eating it to remove the skin. Taking the skin off before cooking, will cause your meat to become dry in the oven. So you want to leave the skin on during the cooking process so that the meat will retain more moisture.

Instructions:

1. Put the breast skin-side-down on a cutting board. You should see the tenderloin of the turkey breast, which is a big tongue-shaped flopply piece of meat which is connected to the breast on one side. Just flop that over to the side without disconnecting it. Cut a pocket along the other side of the turkey breast (opposite from the tenderloin) so that you create a pouch. 

2. Fill the "pouch" with stuffing. As much as you can fit, without over-doing it. Tuck it in there. Then flop the tenderloin over the stuffing and place the breast skin-side-up on a non-stick baking sheet.

3. Rub the skin with a little olive oil and sprinkle with Adobo seasoning. 

4. Bake at 400 for 30-40 minutes or until internal temperature is 165-170.

5. Let it rest for a few minutes before carving into slices and serving! 



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The Easiest Way to Roast Turkey

The Easiest Way To Roast Turkey
By: Chef Cristian Feher
www.tampabaychef.com

Why do you need an excuse to eat turkey? You can have a whole roasted turkey whenever you want. No, I’m not practicing hedonism. I’m just stating a fact - a delicious, crispy, fact. We’re so used to having turkey as a celebratory holiday meal that we forget it’s also a regular every-day food.

Aside from the obvious pleasure of a roast turkey, there are many more practical reasons - it’s delicious, it’s cheaper than chicken (I picked up a 22Lb turkey in the frozen section yesterday for $0.98/Lb), and it provides you with leftovers for the next few days: Turkey noodle soup, turkey sandwiches, turkey salad, turkey stir-fry, pasta with turkey and pesto, turkey Caesar salads, did I mention turkey sandwiches?

You’ve read this far, but you’re still skeptical. If memory serves you right, turkey dinners take a long time to make. So how can that be easy? Well, yes, turkey does take some time to roast. But preparing good turkey is the easy, and with my method, you won’t have to baby-sit it throughout the cooking process. Here’s how:

Thanks to modern science and technology, there is such as thing as a plastic roasting bag. If this is new for you, hold on to your pants because the roasting bag is the greatest thing to come along for turkey since corn on the cobb.

Roasting bags are made of a special plastic that won’t burn or melt in your oven. You simply season your bird, stick it in the roasting bag, tie it up and roast. The bag holds in all the heat and moisture, making for a really juicy and tender roast turkey. The best part is, even if you over-cook it, it will still be juicy - the moisture doesn’t escape from the bag. No basting. No turning. Crispy skin. Great results. You can find these bags at most grocery stores, and they come with instructions for cooking times on the back of the box.

Thaw your turkey, rub it all over with a bunch of corn starch and adobo seasoning (or your favorite all-purpose seasoning), stuff it with a couple of peeled onions and some garlic cloves, stick it in the bag, tie it up, put in a roasting pan and cook in the oven. The instructions on the box tell you cut slits into it, but I find it better not to do that, I just let it puff up. My 22Lb turkey took 4 hours to roast to perfection and during that time I was able to surf the net, clean up the house a little, and get an oil change. No baby-sitting required.

I used the last hour before the turkey was done to make a batch of garlic mashed potatoes, chicken liver, pumpernickel and onion stuffing, gravy, and corn. But if you’re feeling lazy, just toss a couple of foil wrapped potatoes next to the turkey in the oven during the last hour and twenty minutes (to make baked potatoes) and whip together a quick green salad.

All that turkey sure made me sleepy. But I won’t have to do much cooking for the next few days. And I love leftover turkey sandwiches.