Shaved Brussel Sprouts with Carmelized onions and Turnips

Brussel sprouts are often on people's "most hated" veggie lists. They are reviled for their smell, texture, taste etc. I admit that I don't EVER crave them like I do potatoes. The brussel sprouts of my childhood were boiled and stinky and did not taste good (sorry Mom) but today there are so many different ways to prepare them - roast, fried, halved, shaved, grated - that I believe there is a brussel sprout dish out there for everyone to enjoy.

Today's recipe showcases shaved or grated brussel sprouts along with another hated vegetable - turnip! But the turnip is roasted first which caramelizes them to bring out their sweetness. The kicker is the caramelized onions that are also added to complete the dish. The dish brought rave reviews from everyone at Thanksgiving dinner which included a few brussel sprout haters!

Ingredients

2 lbs brussel sprouts, outer leaves removed
Medium turnip, diced into 1 inch cubes
1 cup caramelized onions - see here for recipe
1 tbsp unsalted butter
1 tbsp oil
1 tsp salt, divided

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees.
2. In small bowl add turnip, tablespoon of oil and 1/2 tsp salt. Mix.
3. Place on baking sheet and roast for 20 minutes until caramelized and easily pierced.
4. Remove and set aside.
5. Carefully grate brussel sprouts with hand grater or use a slicer attachment on your food processor.
6. Add 1 tablespoon butter to large nonstick saute pan over medium high heat.
7. Add brussel sprouts & salt and saute for 5 minutes.
8. Add caramelized onions and turnips.
9. Saute for additional 5 minutes.

Serve s 8-10.

Easy Caramel Pumpkin Pie

This dessert is as easy as pie! No, seriously, this pie is simple so even novice bakers will produce a delicious dessert. The addition of dulche de leche evaporated milk gives the pie a sweet side but also a bit of a flavour twist that my husband loved more than a traditional pumpkin pie. The kids loved it too so leftovers didn't last long!

PS - I call it caramel pumpkin pie cause dulche de leche is just too long!

Serving: Serves 6-8

Ingredients

1 can (14oz/398 mL) or 1.5 cups pure pumpkin purée (not pie filling)
1 can (300 mL)  dulce de leche flavoured sweetened condensed milk (I use Eagle Brand®)
2 eggs
2 tsp ground cinnamon

½ tsp ginger

½  tsp nutmeg

Pinch of salt
whipped cream (optional)
9-inch (23 cm) unbaked pie shell (if you want to make your own try the pie crust recipe here.)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 425 ºF (220 ºC)
2. In large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, sweetened condensed milk, eggs, and spices.
3. Pour into unbaked pastry shell.
4. Bake in preheated oven for 15 minutes.
5. Reduce oven temperature to 350 ºF (180 ºC) and bake an additional 35 to 40 minutes or until knife inserted two inches from edge comes out clean. If edges start to burn too early cover crust edges with foil.
6. Cool.
7. Store in refrigerator.
8. If desired add whipped cream before serving.

Gluten-Free Gravy Mix Review and Mini Turkey Meatloaf recipe

Mini Turkey Meatloaf with Mashed Potatoes and Gravy

Did you know 3.1 million turkeys were bought by Canadians in 2012?? That's a lot of gobbling by turkeys and us alike!

Canadian Thanksgiving is officially on October 14th but we will celebrate on Sunday the 13th.  This gives us Monday to relax and enjoy all the leftovers! I love making Thanksgiving dinner and planning the menu from beginning to end. I make home-made rolls, appetizers, desserts, mains, sides ... pretty much everything ...except the gravy! I love gravy but I always find the last 30 minutes of trying to get everything to the table (and keep it hot) very stressful so I decided years ago to cut out the home-made gravy. I have to say that no one has complained. I usually buy it from a local shop, heat and serve.

Of course, when you host a big dinner like Thanksgiving or Christmas you have to make sure everyone's needs are met - extra sides for vegetarians, Uncle Fred's favourite brussel sprout dish and gluten free offerings for friends and family with celiac disease or gluten sensitivities (and don't forget my big glass of wine). It can be a lot of preparation and effort but, of course, it's all worth it when everything is on the table and bellies are pleasantly full (ok... stuffed to the max).

If you are like me and don't want to make gravy and need to ensure it is gluten free, you should try Club House gluten-free turkey gravy mix. I was lucky enough to be offered a stash of samples to review. Club House is part of McCormick Canada. Did you know,130-year-old McCormick Canada is the largest spice, dry sauce and seasoning extract and specialty food operation in the country! The largest of McCormick's brands is Club House which is now the 54th largest brand in Canada. They have launched a line of gluten-free products to meet the needs of the 15% of North American households who are consuming gluten-free foods.


Preparing the turkey gluten-free gravy mix is as easy as opening the package and adding water. That's it. Easy. If you want to gourmet it up a notch, you can add turkey drippings. Today, I used it to top off some mini-turkey meat loaves and mashed potatoes but I will also be using at my Thanksgiving dinner. It was great. What I liked the most was:

• consistency - not goopy or too thin - easily coated my spoon.
• taste - tastes like gravy, not too salty (it actually has 25% less salt than Club House's regular mix), no after taste. 
• ease of preparation - no need to make a roux, season, stir forever etc
• calories - if you just use water (no turkey drippings) there is only 20 calories in 1/4 cup of gravy (leaves room for extra dessert :)

One package makes 1 cup so I'd suggest using one pack per 3-4 people at your table.

Here is my mini turkey meatloaf recipe. Please note that I did not make it gluten free but you could easily substitute gluten free breadcrumbs and other ingredients:

Ingredients

1 lb ground turkey breast
3/4 lb  turkey sausage
1 medium onion, diced
1 tbsp crushed garlic
1 tbsp mustard
1 tbsp sweet chili sauce
1 tbsp garam masala
1 tsp oregano
1 tsp thyme
1 tsp worcestershire 
1 c panko bread crumbs
1 tsp salt
1/2 cup curry bottled sauce (I used yellow curry) + extra for brushing 

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Mix all of the above in a large bowl until well combined.
Press mixture into 12 muffin tins that have been sprayed with cooking oil.
Make a small indentation in the centres of each "muffin".
Bake for 25 minutes. 
If desired carefully spread a bit more curry sauce on top of mini loaves and bake for another 5 minutes.
Make sure the internal temperature of meatloaves reach 165 degrees F.

If desired, pipe smoothly mashed potatoes on top and spoon Club House's gravy over top!


Click for more information on Club House Products or McCormick Spice on Facebook.


This sponsorship is brought to you by The Gluten Free Agency whom we have partnered with for this promotion. 

All opinions and recipes are my own.

Turducken Thanksgiving

So a few weeks ago, my husband and I were thinking about what to serve for Thanksgiving. Usually we do turkey but every now and then we like to try something a little different... like the year we made beef a la mode (thanks Julia!). This year we were batting around the idea of smoking a pork shoulder or ribs but still hadn't made a final decision. The morning after this conversation I received an email asking me if I'd like to try an Echelon frozen turducken for Thanksgiving and then blog about my experience....um, hello, providence, is that you? 

Now, in case you have never heard of turducken, it is a duck stuffed inside a chicken stuffed inside a turkey! That's a lot of bird! This turducken is produced by a Canadian company called Echelon and in between each bird is a layer of Italian sausage stuffing (because we don't want the pigs to be left out of the holiday season). 

Our 12 lb turducken arrived frozen solid so we had to defrost it in the fridge for 5 days - that's right FIVE days! 

It's going into the oven at 10 am so it can roast long and slow. I'll give you the play-by-play as the day goes on...

10:07 am 

OK, it's in the oven. And I have to say I already like that all I had to do was open the packaging, put the bird(s) on the roaster and put in it in the oven at 225 degrees F - no stuffing, no seasoning, no mess!! Well, ok, I did sprinkle a little smoked paprika on it but it's already seasoned so wasn't really necessary :)

11:10 am

It smells yummy already!

Noon

Well, this play by play is gonna be boring cause other than smelling great, this turducken is smooth sailing. I don't have to baste it, foil it, or really even look at it!

2 pm

Turducken is still in the oven and browning nicely. I also have lots of time to peel and dice the veggies I'm going to roast on the barbeque - yams, parsnips, onions, beets, fennel and squash. 

3 pm

Turducken smells great still! And now I'm making the Gruyère mashed potatoes. Once they're done I'll keep them warm by placing them over a bigger pot of simmering water - that way they won't dry out or burn. 

4 pm

I cheated and bought gravy at a local soup shop - as much as I love home-made gravy the last minute prep of it gets in the way when I'm trying to get everything on the table. I made cranberry sauce yesterday so it's ready to go and I bought half baked buns on Granville Island so they can be popped into the oven once it's closer to eating time.

5 pm

The turducken is officially roasted! I've taken it out of the oven and I'm going to let it sit for 45 minutes. From what I've read giving the turducken enough time to rest can mean the difference from a bird that is easy to carve to one that falls apart (no bones to keep it together). With the extra minutes my  MILs delicious creamy carrot dish can go into the oven. 

5:45 pm

Hubby takes off the turkey legs and wings (the only thing that has bones). He then makes a long cut down the turducken to cut it in half. It looks like nothing I've ever seen before! It's easy to see the different birds and there is lots of stuffing between the layers. Hubby says the key to successful carving is slicing the turducken thicker than a normal turkey slice. 




Our 12 lb turducken fed 6 adults and 4 kids with enough leftovers to feed everyone again so I'm sure it would easily feed 10-12 adults. 


The Italian sausage stuffing was amazing! I pretty sure it helped to keep the turducken moist. It was definitely moister than a regular turkey. To be honest, I'm not sure I could differentiate the tastes of each bird and the italian sausage stuffing was quite pronounced. BUT I loved the overall flavour of it. I think a turducken is a great way to impress guests and it certainly is a conversation starter. 

Overall impressions

• I loved the ease of preparation of the turducken - defrost and pop in the oven.
• Moister than a regular bird. 
• Easy to carve - no bones!
• Comes with stuffing - one less thing to worry about!
• Feeds an army!
• Everyone is eager to try it!

The Echelon turducken was a hit with my guests young and old(er) so I definitely recommend it if you are even thinking about trying one. Check out their site to find out where you can buy one for your next special dinner party.

Cranberry Sauce with Dried Cherries

I love cranberry sauce. I have a confession though....until adulthood I didn't know it could be made from scratch...I thought the canned jelly variety was the ONLY variety! Now I make my own because it is soooo simple to whip up a batch and it tastes soooo much better than the canned sauce. In this version, I add dried cherries for extra zing but you can leave them out if you don't have them on hand. If you don't want to use alcohol, substitute orange juice for the cointreau.

Ingredients
1 bag fresh cranberries
1 cinnamon stick
1 c water
1/2 c dried cherries
1/4 c cointreau
1 c brown sugar

What to do

• In medium sized pot, combine all ingredients over medium heat.
• Bring to simmer and continue to cook for 10 minutes.
• Remove from heat and let sit for an hour.
• Remove cinnamon stick.
• If desired, mash with potatoe masher or use an immersion blender to puree slightly.
• Refrigerate over night.