Best Recipes Evar

I want to say right off the bat that I am not a big turkey fan but this recipe and the way I prepare it, make it very tasty. The main part of of this recipe is the brine. After you brine it you can cook the turkey whatever way you want. If you have never brined a turkey or chicken or whatever, the brine makes the meat super moist and juicy. Now the way you cook the turkey, like I said, is up to you. Now that said, I know you are going to laugh at me for this, but I use my Ronco Rotisserie to cook the turkey each year. I’m not as fortunate as some awesome people to have a double oven so this is my way to keep the oven from being monopolized by a huge turkey. The oven can be used for other things like rolls and scrumptious apple pies.

Here is my baby in action…isn’t she a beaut’.

Super Moist Turkey

Adapted from Good Eats

Ingredients

• 1 (14 to 16 pound) frozen young turkey
• For the brine:
• 1 5 Gallon Bucket with lid
• 1 c. kosher salt
• 1/2 c. light brown sugar
• 1 gallon vegetable stock
• 1 T. black peppercorns
• 1 1/2 t. allspice berries
• 1 1/2 t. chopped candied ginger
• 1 gallon heavily iced water
• For inside the bird:
• 1 red apple, sliced
• 1/2 onion, sliced
• 1 cinnamon stick
• 1 cup water
• 4 sprigs rosemary
• 6 leaves sage

Directions

2-3 days before

1. Begin thawing the turkey in the refrigerator or in a cooler kept at 38 degrees F.
2. Combine the vegetable stock, salt, brown sugar, peppercorns, allspice berries, and candied ginger in a large stockpot over medium-high heat. Stir occasionally to dissolve solids and bring to a boil. Then remove the brine from the heat, cool to room temperature, and refrigerate.

Early on the day or the night before you’d like to eat

1. Combine the brine, water and ice in the 5-gallon bucket. Place the thawed turkey (with innards removed) breast side down in brine. If necessary, weigh down the bird to ensure it is fully immersed, cover, and refrigerate or set in cool area for 8 to 16 hours, turning the bird once half way through brining.
2. When you are ready to cook the bird, remove the it from brine and rinse inside and out with cold water. Discard the brine. Once thoroughly rinsed pat dry with paper towels
3. Combine the apple, onion, cinnamon stick, and 1 cup of water in a microwave safe dish and microwave on high for 5 minutes. Add steeped aromatics to the turkey’s cavity along with the rosemary and sage.

Now if you are going to use an oven, I would suggest following the instructions below, you can also see the video on how to cook it here.

1. Preheat the oven to 500 degrees F.
2. Place the bird on roasting rack inside a half sheet pan.
3. Tuck the wings underneath the bird and coat the skin liberally with canola oil.
4. Roast the turkey on lowest level of the oven at 500 degrees F for 30 minutes. Insert a probe thermometer into thickest part of the breast and reduce the oven temperature to 350 degrees F. Set the thermometer alarm (if available) to 161 degrees F. A 14 to 16 pound bird should require a total of 2 to 2 1/2 hours of roasting. Let the turkey rest, loosely covered with foil or a large mixing bowl for 15 minutes before carving.

I don’t know if you noticed but recently I updated my WordPress theme. It’s responsive. Whats responsive you might ask. Well lets do an experiment. Grab that handy dandy little smartphone out of your pocket. Got it? Good. Now open up the browser so you can surf the web, in the address bar up there type in bestrecipesevar.com. Okay now the let the magic happen, I will wait here til you are done.

Done now? Good. I don’t know if you noticed or not but this site is now much more readable on a smaller display. This is the responsive part I mentioned earlier. The site will shrink and grow according to the size of the screen or browser window you have open. You can try it on your desktop computer too. Make it big… now grab the corner or the side of the window and make it smaller. It’s like magic!!

Now the reasoning. I don’t know about you but I am increasingly using my phone to read recipes. This way we don’t have to squint or try to shrink the page our my browser to see the recipe. It’s all there in an easy to read format. I have also done some minor design tweaks that make things better all around. Yes for now the image slider at the top is missing but I promise, it’s coming back. Internet Explorer users may see some weird things for a bit, but those are getting fixed. Also if you see any weird things that I may have missed just let me know in the comments of this post.

Now for the other fun things. Super Moist Thanksgiving Turkey recipe is coming down the pipe soon. So is Hawaiian BBQ Feast. Hellfire and Damnation Chili too, among others. I pledge to be more posty. I just need to get over the fact that not so great images are alright to have on here instead of perfect ones.

Now let me tell you a story. My wife found this recipe a few years back somewhere on the internet and copied it down to a recipe card. I love this potato salad so much I wanted to put it on here so you all could partake of its goodness. So I took that card and had it on my desk at home for a long time, meaning to add it.

Well Labor day comes around and I decide to get it up here. Well guess what, it disappeared. I looked all over for it, even at work on the off chance I took it there. No luck. So it has been a month and still there was no sign of it. I was really sad that I couldn’t find it.

Well the other day my wife sent me a text to check my email and that I would be super happy. So I took a look and low and behold she had found it in her email. She had sent the recipe to a friend so it was in her sent messages folder. GO WIFE!

Now about this potato salad. It’s awesome, really its the best potato salad I have ever had. I’m, not joking. Usually potato salads are kind of bland, and either over egg-y or overly potato-y. This one is perfect, and that is why I was sad that I couldn’t find the recipe. Oh and did I mention it has bacon. Yes I said bacon! Tasty tasty bacon. I could go on forever about bacon, but I won’t I will let you get to making this awesomeness.

Best Potato Salad Ever

Found somewhere on the interwebs.

• 6 hard boiled eggs
• 10 potatoes (boiled)
• 1 C. mayo
• 1/2 C. ranch dressing
• 1/3 C. dill pickle relish (i just slice up pickles and add a bit of juice)
• 2 T. mustard
• 1 1/2 t. salt
• 1/2 t. pepper
• 1/8 t. paprika
• 1/8 t. celery seed
• 1 lb. chopped cooked bacon (crunchy)
• 1 onion chopped (browned in the bacon grease)

Directions

1. Chop the eggs and potatoes to the sizes you like and put them in a large bowl with the cooked onion and mix.
2. In another bowl mix together mayo, ranch, relish (pickles), mustard, salt, pepper, paprika, and celery seed.
3. Pour the the mayo/ranch/spices mix in with the eggs and potatoes and mix to combine.
4. Right before you serve it mix in the bacon. This will ensure the bacon is still crispy.