Is it a Steak or is it a Roast?

When my cousin Khanh from California and I get together, we like to cook.  The day after Thanksgiving, we went to HEB to cook dinner and they had a special on Ribeyes.  Now typically, I ask them to cut me 1 1/2" thick steaks, but Khanh got the bright idea and told the guy to cut us 2-2" thick cuts.  When he handed us our order we realized we may have over ordered (we may have been hungry when we went to the store)

 

Side Story: They had put the 2 pieces of steak on their scale and rang it up and it came out to be $130 for 2 steaks!  I was on the phone with one of the Doctors I work with discussing his office space and my jaws dropped.  The guy had forgotten to put in the sales price which dropped it down to about $50.  I mean i knew it was not going to be cheap, but $130 for 2 steaks! 

 

Anyways, as you can see the picture below, these steaks are the size of a roast and took up a whole pan each.  We had seared it off with a Thyme and Garlic infused butter and finished it off in the oven.  Again, the Red Wine came out to make a Red Wine Sauce.  Side item was Roasted Asparagus and Garlic Bread.

 

Each Piece was a little over 2 1/2 Pounds. 

Thanksgiving 2012

I have been cooking Thanksgiving for my family since I was about 14 years old...the whole dinner!  Typically I would inject the Turkey and deep fry it thinking that it would not dry out the Turkey.  This was true, I always hated buying gallons upon gallons of Peanut Oil to just fry two Turkeys.

Two years ago I soaked the Turkey for about 48 hours in an Asian style marinade.  The Turkey went pretty quick.  This past year, I made a Brine similar to the Brine I made for the Pork Loin in my previous post and let it soak for 48 hours. 

Now, I always heard placing large pieces of meat in a Brine to keep the meat moist, but did not believe it till now!  There was not a dry piece on the Turkey!  This will be my go to option from this point on!

This Years Menu Includes: Turkey, Ham, Pumpkin Pie, Sweet Potato Pie, Almond Apple Pie, Green Bean Casserole, Broccoli Cheese Rice Casserole (made by Crystal), Mash Potato, Corn Bread and Brussels Sprouts.

Overall Spread

Centerpiece

Sweet Potato Pie (Top), Almond Apple Pie (Middle), Pumpkin Pie with an Almond Brittle (Bottom)

 

 

Typically every year there would be a fair amount of leftovers, but when I visited my parents the next day to eat leftovers, majority of everything was gone!  Now, normally I do not enjoy eating leftovers but Thanksgiving is a whole different story.  All and all, Thanksgiving 2012 was a success!





 

Boudin Stuffed Chicken

We had invited our neighbors over for dinner and I may or may not have forgotten about it which meant I forgot to stop by HEB on my way home from work.  Luckily I had a whole Chicken I had just bought that week in the Fridge and Boudin in the freezer and some Brussels Sprout.  This turned into Boudin Stuffed Chicken with Brussels Sprout with a Balsamic Glaze.

What I did with the Chicken is was open it up like a book and deboned the whole bird.  The first and last  time I did this was when I was 15 years old when made a Tur-duck-en so it took me a little longer than I was hoping.  From there I took the Boudin and stuffed the bird.

I did not have any Butcher's Twine on hand so I took a loaf pan and stuffed it in there. It was a perfect fit!