Dilled Cucumber Yogurt Salad

This is a healthier version of the traditional yogurt dill salad with cream. It calls for a slice of onion. This means a slice from the widest part of a white onion. I use yellow onion and just eyeball it. This is adapted from Laurel's Kitchen cookbook.

DILLED CUCUMBER YOGURT SALAD

INGREDIENTS:

1 cup water

¼ cup vinegar

1 T fresh dill weed (1 tsp dry)

1 slice raw onion, (see introduction.)

2 cucumbers, thinly sliced

1 cup plain yogurt I used homemade.

½ tsp salt

dash pepper, white pepper if you care about the salad having black specks

Combine first five ingredients and let stand ½ hour or more. Drain. Mix salt and pepper with yogurt. Combine with cucumbers. The yogurt will get watery (the cucumbers release water) by the following day. It looks bad but still tastes good.

S'mores variations

My cousin's variation on s'mores is to replace the chocolate bar with a Caramello bar. This adds some carmel into the mix. I do like this, but it is quite sweet.
My sister's s'more variation replaces the marshmallow. She puts a banana that is still in it's skin into the coals of the campfire until the skin is black. Peel the banana and use the hot banana in place of the marshmallow. I've never tried this since I don't like cooked bananas.
My variation is to add coconut. It's best if you toast it before you pack it to take camping. I also make a s'more where I add peanut butter.

Summer Drinks

These are a few of the drinks I've been enjoying this summer.

Leinenkugel's Summer Shandy. It's like a lemonade beer. But in a good way.

Cave Creek Chili Beer. My new Uncle brought it back for me from Wisconsin. It's a lager with a chili pepper floating in it. It's got quite a kick. Most people drink it with tomato juice, but I personally don't like red beers. Both beers are great in the heat.

All of the Celestial seasonings fruit tea sampler flavors are good iced. They don't need a lot of sweetening either. I've been adding a 1/2 c of the corresponding juice to each quart of iced tea to sweeten. There are enough tea bags of each flavor to brew a quart. Raspberry zinger, country peach passion, cranberry apple zinger, tangerine orange zinger, black cherry berry. Another variation is to replace some of the water with mineral water. It makes a nice fizzy drink. I got my fruit tea sampler at Target.

Turkey on the Grill

Yum. Smoked turkey on the grill. I made this for Thanksgiving a few years ago. A friend of mine who had been to several Thanksgivings that year said my turkey won. Woo-hoo! I won. I even had the last turkey of the day, when he should have been absolutely sick of turkey.

O.K. Here's how you do it. First, make sure you choose a turkey that fits on your grill. Small to medium turkeys are your best bet no matter how you are cooking your turkey. It's better to cook two small turkeys then one huge one. The huge one is much more likely to be dry before it's completely cooked. I have a small Weber grill. On my grill a medium size turkey fits fine. However, I like to choose one that is short from breast to back and wide from leg to leg. If it is long from breast to back there is a chance that it could hit the top of my grill. It's a weird thing to keep in mind while shopping...turkey shape. In the picture, I rubbed sage herb butter on the turkey in a attempt to make it even better. At some point the butter must have made the turkey catch on fire. The bottom of the turkey was totally charred. I don't think that was better after all. I plan on skipping that step in the future. Because of the apparent turkey fire, my turkey turned out a bit dry. It was still very good though. I had planned to have leftovers for future salads and sandwiches. I grilled this only yesterday. But, friends and family taste testers have almost cleaned me out of turkey already. I made carrots and potatoes to go with the turkey. With about 1/2 hour of the turkey cooking time left, add potatoes. I sliced my potatoes in half. Then I inserted a slice of onion, sage butter (or regular butter), and salt and pepper. I double wrapped the potatoes in foil. In a separate foil packet add sliced carrots, sage butter (or regular butter), and salt and pepper. When you take the turkey off the grill, leave the potatoes and add the carrot packet. They will finish cooking as your turkey rests. The potatoes are really good and get a bit of smokey flavor. They are almost like potatoes cooked on a campfire.

TURKEY ON THE GRILL

INGREDIENTS

1 turkey (mine was 11 lbs)

2 gallons of water

2 C table salt

sage herb butter (only if you want to set your turkey on fire)

pepper

1. Rinse the defrosted turkey inside and out. Remove neck and giblets.

2. Dissolve salt in water and place turkey in the salt water and place in the refrigerator for 4 to 6 hours.

OR

Place turkey in a 2 1/2 gallon Ziploc bag. Place that bag in a cooler. Mix 1/4 c salt with 1 quart of water until dissolved. Add the salt water to the turkey. Mix another 1/4 c salt with 1 quart water and add to turkey. Continue to do this until the turkey will be covered with water when the bag is closed. (about 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 gallons water) Add ice around the outside of the Ziploc bag until the cooler is full. Place in a cool place for 4 to 6 hours. Why should I brine my turkey and what's a brine? Note- I added more ice after I too the picture. I didn't want the ice to obscure the turkey in the bag.

3. Soak as many wood chips as will fit in a disposable Weber grill pan. About 1 quart. Make sure they are completely covered with water. They only need to soak for about 1 hour, but it is a good idea to start the wood chips soaking as soon as you finish step two so you don't forget to do it. It makes no difference if they soak longer.

4. Obsessively clean your sink.

5. Drain wood chips and place in the disposable grill pan. Place pan over the front burner, put under the grill grates. Do this before you preheat the grill. O.K. Now you can preheat your grill. If you heat the grill first, you'll be sorry. It's the voice of experience.

6. Close all your windows near your grill so your house doesn't smell like smoke for days. This is also the voice of experience.

7. Drain turkey and pat dry. Pepper the chicken, but DO NOT SALT. The brine will make the turkey salty enough.

8. Place turkey in the center of the grill. Turn the burners down until the interior temperature of the grill is 375-400 degrees. Check the temperature often at the beginning of the grilling process to make sure you are grilling at the correct temperature. You can check it every once in a while after that. DO NOT OPEN THE LID OF THE GRILL. Every time you open the grill two things happen. First you lose smoke, and therefore lose flavor. Second, the grill temperature drops and it takes longer to grill the bird. If you must open your grill, be quick. Note- my turkey had a broken wing, so I couldn't bend both of the wings toward the bottom of the bird.

9. Roast the turkey. (times are for an unstuffed turkey cooked at 350 degrees)

6-8 lbs 1 1/4-2 hours

10-12 lbs 2-3 hours

14-18 lbs 3-4 hours

10. Clean kitchen obsessively. Realize that you could have cleaned you sink a little less obsessively before, because you just have to clean it again. Make sure you wash your cooler really, really well. Clean it with disinfectant or bleach. Make sure it is absolutely completely dry before you put it away. If you are concerned about disinfectant, let it dry. After it is really, really dry, you can rinse it out.

11. When your turkey is about a half hour from being done, add the potatoes. At this point your dog will be running around the grill and whining like he's completely lost his mind. What makes you think I'm grilling for you dog? Has it ever been for you? No. Just give is a rest already. Seriously. Knock off the crazy. You're driving me nuts.

12. When the thickest part of the turkey breast reaches 165 or the thickest part of the turkey thigh reaches 170-175 the turkey is done. Transfer it to a cutting board. Add your carrot foil packet to the grill if using. Tent the turkey loosely with tinfoil and let it rest 30 minutes. Why should I let it rest?

13. Now you can carve your turkey and eat it.

Cakewrecks

Even if you don't decorate cakes, check out the hilarious blog, Cakewrecks. Here are some examples. The James Bond Wedding Cake , the Anber "We will miss" you cake, and the creepy cute newborn cake (Eye ate a ba-bay), and the glad we hired a professional cake decorator cake. And that's just on the first page. Too funny. I've already added it to my google reader. The very first cake on the blog totally cracks me up, And underneath that write we will miss you. Did I mention that all the cakes are done by professional cake decorators?

Lora's Barbecue Sauce

I flirted with the idea of making this recipe my "secret recipe". I had this idea at one time that all cooks should have one secret recipe. The possibility of making this a secret recipe lasted until someone asked me for the recipe. I realized how stupid the idea of a secret recipe was. 1. The idea of keeping the recipe to myself seemed greedy. I like to share. You taught me well mom. 2. Like I can really keep a secret. This is great on barbecued chicken or mixed in with hamburger before you grill your burger.

I did some experiments this year, but it looks like the original recipe will stay the same. This recipe is from Gourmet Magazine in May 1994, page 38. (I took really good recipe notes at that time I guess.)

LORA'S BARBECUE SAUCE

INGREDIENTS

2 cups chopped onion

1 cup brewed coffee

1 cup Worcestershire sauce

1/2 cup cider vinegar

2 T chili powder

1 cup ketchup

1/2 cup firmly packed, dark brown sugar

1/4 cup chopped canned green chilies (I use the whole can)

1 T chopped garlic

2 T salt

In a large saucepan simmer all ingredients, stirring occasionally, 25 minutes. Cool. In a blender puree sauce in BATCHES until smooth. Seriously. Warm sauce will shoot out the top of your blender. Alternatively, you can use an immersion blender to puree the sauce. Makes 4 cups.
I use this to make Barbecue Chicken Pizza on the Grill.

Lemon Tart Parfait

I've given up on pie crust. I think even really good pie crust is only kind of good. To me, it's just not worth the calories. And, my pie crusts are terrible. I also don't quite get meringue. It's just not for me. I do like the lemon part of the pie however. My Aunt went to visit her cousin in California. She brought me back this lemon from her cousin's (or maybe her cousin's daughter's) tree. It's was huge. I thought it deserved a bit more reverence the just being squeezed into iced tea. So, I made half a recipe of lemon curd and made that into parfaits. I didn't strain out the zest, as called for in the recipe. It's still fine, but you might want to. People with texture issues will want it strained out. This recipe is adapted from "Cooks Illustrated The New Best Recipe". My sister gave it to me for my birthday. She refers to that cookbook as "the dictionary". It's 1,026 pages.

Lemon Tart Parfait

INGREDIENTS

7 large egg yolks

2 large eggs

1 C plus 2 T sugar

2/3 C lemon juice (from 4-5 lemons)

1/4 C lemon zest

pinch salt

4 T butter, cut into 4 pieces

3 T heavy cream

gram crackers

berries

In a medium non reactive bowl, whisk together the yolks and whole eggs until combined, about 5 seconds. Add the sugar and whisk until just combined, about 5 seconds. Add the lemon juice,zest and salt. Whisk until combined, about 5 seconds. Transfer the mixture to a nonreactive saucepan, and add the butter pieces, and cook over medium-low heat, stirring constantly with a wooden spoon (or a silicon spatula or a silicone whisk), until the curd thickens to a sauce like consistency and registers 170 degrees on an instant read thermometer, about 5 minutes. Immediately pour the curd through a fine-mesh stainless steel strainer (to remove the zest) set over a clean non reactive bowl. Stir in the heavy cream. Cool in the refrigerator. To serve: layer the lemon curd, berries, and gram cracker crumbles in a martini glass.