Tag Archives: turkey main dish

Winning 4th of July Grill-outs!

Posted on June 29, 2011 by Lynn Welch | 1 Comment

While summer is often thought to be the season of lighter fare, one look at a typical cook-out proves this conventional wisdom false. Calorie laden burgers, sausages and the cold treats and beverages that accompany them are typical menu items at many back-yard barbecues and neighborhood grill-outs.

For a winning July 4^th grill-out, add tasty options that are not so heavy. turkey burgers and marinated turkey tenders have proven to be real crowd pleasers. There are many ways to customize either dish. Turkey Tenderloin can be grilled alone, or in a festive kabob-style with vegetables of your choice while many flavor enhancers liven up turkey burgers once thought as bland.

For best flavor, use lump charcoal if you’re grilling on a Weber or other charcoal grill. It produces higher heat and gives food a great smoky character. Soaked mesquite wood chips will produce a similar smoky flavor if you prefer to use a gas grill. Both of these are now widely available at many grocers.

Get inspiration with these ideas to create your Best July 4^th Cook out with tasty turkey burgers and tenders:

Food Network’s Dana Angelo gives Tips on Making Flavorful Turkey Burgers including concoctions with sun-dried tomatoes & black olives, and Balsamic vinegar & onions in the Seattle Times.
This Southwest Turkey Burger was a winner in the papers first ever Battle of the Burgers.
Asian Marinated Turkey Tenderloin can be served on a bed of Napa cabbage and rice.
Make a sandwich with Iowa’s Grilled Turkey Tenderloin.
For a showier presentation, try Turkey Tenderloin Kebabs.

Share with us your winning 4th of July grill tips. And Happy July 4^th from all of us at gThankYou!

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Posted in Turkey Gift Certificates, Turkey Recipes

Tagged turkey gift certificates, turkey main dish, Turkey Recipes

Are you a Turkey Traditionalist?

Posted on November 11, 2010 by Lynn Welch | Leave a comment

This year, for no particularly compelling reason, more friends are talking about bucking the traditional Turkey Dinner menu for something completely different. How different? Courses of gumbo and fish have been mentioned.

Guess it depends where you stand on messing with a good thing. But if you’re seeking to put your own signature on this menu or perhaps venture from the hum-drum, I’d argue that you needn’t veer far to add your own splash to a Thanksgiving meal.

As pointed out in this New York Times piece, Chefs’ Tips for the Thanksgiving Meal, “Boredom, in any event, is the enemy of all cooks, and of all successful Thanksgivings. In cooking and serving Thanksgiving meals, restaurant chefs say, they must balance tradition against stasis, their own style of cooking against the desires of the customer.”

Here are some ways how:

1. Take a tip from vegetarians. Yes. You read that right. And, no, I’m not talking Tofurkey. Vegetarians know how to make the best veg dishes. If that mini-marshmallow crusted sweet potato dish and green bean casserole are not your thing, there are many better ways to serve up your veggie sides. The New York Times’ Well blog offers a Vegetarian Thanksgiving Series with great recipes and tips.

If you hate Brussels sprouts, you haven’t tried ‘em roasted with a seasonal sweetener. Try Chloe Coscarelli’s Maple-Roasted Brussels Sprouts with Toasted Hazelnuts.
Or, try some Vegetarian Comfort Food with a Garden Vegetable Gratin
Roasted vegetables are delish and dead simple. Here’s Dr. Weil’s version of Simple roasted Vegetables.

2. Explore your culinary roots, or adopt some with fascinating food history:

Again, from the Times’ Well blog, Joan Nathan offers dishes from the Jewish-French tradition perfect for Thanksgiving. I’m tempted to try the Alsatian Pear Kugel with Prunes.

3. Take a tip from Oprah and do Turkey your way.

Try Oprah’s Turkey Pot Pie
Or if gumbo how about Turkey Gumbo? This version courtesy of Emeril Lagasse.
Prepare your turkey on the grill, a great way to add a twist to tradition. And, yes, this is even possible for a Thanksgiving in Minnesota. I’ve seen proof. The National Turkey Federation has a great how-to.

There’s really no end to how you can customize your Thanksgiving Day menu, without veering far from tradition. Share your favorite ways with us here.

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Posted in Turkey Recipes

Tagged Thanksgiving, turkey main dish, Turkey Recipes

Top Tools for Turkey Day

Posted on November 4, 2010 by Lynn Welch | Leave a comment

Each year, we add one new fancy kitchen tool to our cupboard around Thanksgiving time. It’s when we’re doing a lot of cooking where special hardware can come in handy. Plus, there are things that are really necessary for cooking a great Turkey Dinner that are nice to have around, even if we don’t use them in our every-day meal prep.

I do have some criteria on what is a good fit for a good, new kitchen tool. There are a lot of frivolous gadgets out there that don’t really help much. And thanks to TV chef Alton Brown’s crusade against kitchen unitaskers, there’s a much better idea out there of just which tool is worth your hard earned money, and kitchen shelf space.

Three of the first tools we collected are highlighted in this recent Life360 Thanksgiving blog post.

Roasting pan (with good rack): Those aluminum pans at your grocery store will do in a pinch. But a solid roasting pan is one of the key essentials to roasting a nicely browned Turkey in your oven. Many high-quality roasting pans come with a good, non-stick roasting rack. If it doesn’t, this is also a must-have.
Digital, remote meat thermometer: Assures a hassle-free, nicely cooked Turkey every time. But research them well and plan to spend money if you can. We went through three name-brand models before finding a digital remote thermometer that has lasted and worked properly.
Fat separator: We make gravy about once (maybe twice) a year. This tool is indispensable to making it well. Plus it has a cool food science look to it. It parts the turkey juice from the turkey fat when you pour off pan drippings from roasted Turkey (or other meat). There’s really no other way I know to get this task done efficiently without getting any of the stuff you don’t want into your gravy boat.

Some tools that we have collected and consider essential are not mentioned. One of them is a mandoline slicer, an indispensible time-saver and the best way to evenly slice squash for the traditional Butternut Squash Gratin we serve. A food mill or potato ricer is also a must for making the creamiest mashed potatoes.

There are many lists out there, some more basic than others. But most have the right idea. For example, if you don’t own a carving knife or large cutting board, and you’re going to be carving your first Turkey later this month, now’s the time to shop for that. Here are a few lists to check :

Turkey Tools You’ll Need from About.com
Martha Stewart’s Essential Turkey Tools
Real Simple magazine’s 11 Trusty Tools for Thanksgiving Dinner

Other lists feature tools I’d skip:

This Old House T urkey Tools to Moisten Meat. If you brine, you have no need for these. (But that’s another post.)
Blisstree’s Top 10 Turkey Tools: A stuffing basket is new to me.

But where kitchen aids are concerned, the value is in the eyes – and hands – of the beholder. We’re on the fence this year about buying turkey lifters resembling small pitch forks. What kitchen tools are essential for your Thanksgiving Day success?

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Posted in Preparing Whole Turkey, Turkey Gift Certificates, Turkey Recipes

Tagged turkey main dish, Turkey Recipes, Turkey tools

Buying the Best Thanksgiving Turkey

Posted on October 29, 2010 by Lynn Welch | Leave a comment

I heard a radio piece a while back on Radio Lab about making choices. In it, I recall there being scientific evidence presented about how the human brain could only handle so many options before self-destructing.

Which brings me to the topic of Turkey. There are many, many options out there. So many, that (thankfully!) there are good choices at a wide variety of price points. Depending on your preference – fresh or frozen, conventional or organic, kosher, heritage, self-basting (get the picture?) – you can get a great bird for a good price.

The Associated Press has already put out good information on this topic. It’s a nice starting point, and reminds that Turkey prices at many grocery stores do not go up around Thanksgiving:

“The average retail price was $1.16 per pound for a conventionally raised turkey, $7 to $10 per pound for a heritage bird and a range of prices in between for free-range and organic turkey, according to the National Turkey Federation, which says Americans consumed some 45 million turkeys last Thanksgiving.”

Figure out how big your bird needs to be and then if price is top-of-mind this year, wait for those deals to appear in the upcoming weeks.

If you choose to spend more, there are plenty of options there, too. But cost is in the eye of the spender. Take, for example, this recent Bon Apetit blog entitled, “Making the case for a $140 Turkey.”

In it, Heritage Foods USA co-founder Patrick Martens explains that a happy, family-farm raised heritage Turkey costs less (in Brooklyn, NY) than dining at Applebees or buying a McDonalds value meal, saying, “It ends up coming out to $8 a pound, or $8 per person.”

Those looking for the best for less might like personal finance columnist Michael Koretzky’s take on turkey. In his recent piece, “7Tips to Save on Thanksgiving,” he advocates frozen over fresh saying that even Emeril says there’s no quality difference, despite his new locavore focus.

Generally speaking, Koretzky says this year’s dinner will cost the same or less than last year’s dinner, gauging current inflation and the cost of last year’s Thanksgiving dinner:

“For the past quarter century, the American Farm Bureau has estimated the average cost of a traditional Thanksgiving dinner – with turkey, stuffing, cranberries, pumpkin pie, and all the trimmings. In 2009, the total was $42.91 for a table of 10. That was a $1.70 drop from 2008, and the first time prices have dropped since 2000.”

The bottom line: Decide which kind of turkey you want to serve based on what’s important to you. Do your homework. Then shop well to get the best turkey for your table to prevent your head from exploding!

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Posted in Preparing Whole Turkey, Trends

Tagged Choosing turkey, Emeril Laggase, Thanksgiving, turkey main dish

5 Dynamite Turkey Main Dish Recipes

Posted on July 24, 2008 by Rick Kiley | Leave a comment

gThankYou! to one and all for a fantastic reception to our posting of Turkey Burger recipes. As you know, the gThankYou Team is a group of turkey lovers, so we’re always saving recipes from the web that strike our fancy. Today, we’ve chosen 5 Main Dishes, All with Turkey.

As always, more recipes are to be found at the Recipes & Free Stuff page of gThankYou.com

Enjoy, post your comments and let us know what you think.

Turkey Saltimbocca with Fennel and Peas, with a gThankYou! to StrumErika.com, “Culinary Adventures & Random Streams of Consciousness”

Smoked Turkey & Stuffed Pork Chops, with a gThankYou! to Life’s a Beach.

Make Ahead Turkey Meatloaf, with a gThankYou! to Make Ahead Meals.

Kung Po Turkey with a gThankYou! to The Scarfer (And check out the beautiful photos, too!)

Creamy Turkey Fettuccine with a gThankYou! to Taste of Home.

Rick Kiley is President of gThankYou, LLC, a Madison, WI based seller of employee gifts best known for gThankYou™ Turkey Gift Certificates.

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