Thanksgiving is next week, and we have you covered: we’ve cooked up a bunch of great recipes we’ll be sharing with you over the next several days so you’re ready for your big meal. First up: turkey!

I’ve been known to spend hours making turkey. My favorite recipe is to smoke a turkey (which takes about 8-10 hours), but only after soaking it in brine for 3-5 days. This recipe, though, is the other end of the spectrum: brine it for a day, then cook it in the oven for a few hours. It’s pretty easy — usually the hardest part is finding a container big enough to brine the turkey in — and turns out a moist, delicious bird that’s almost as good as the smoked ones I used to make. This recipe makes enough to brine a turkey that feeds 12 at 49 cents per serving, plus the cost of your turkey.

Apple Cider-Brined Turkey, adapted from Cooking Light, November 2004
For the Brine:
8 cups apple cider
2/3 cup kosher salt
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon black peppercorns, coarsely crushed
1 tablespoon whole allspice, coarsely crushed
8 1/8-inch thick slices peeled fresh ginger
6 whole cloves
2 bay leaves

For the Turkey:
1 12-pound fresh or frozen turkey, thawed
2 oranges, quartered
6 cups ice
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and divided
salt and freshly ground black pepper

To prepare the brine, combine all of the ingredients for the brine in a large saucepan and bring it to a boil. Cook the brine for 5 minutes or until the sugar and salt fully dissolve. Let the brine cool completely.

Remove the giblets and neck from the cavity of the turkey, and rinse the turkey with cold water and then pat it dry. Trim off any excess fat and stuff the body cavity with the orange quarters. Place the turkey inside a double layer of large oven bags, or trash bags if you don’t have any, and put the bagged turkey inside a large stockpot.

Add the cooled brine with the ice to the turkey in the bag. Tie the bag with some twist ties, and let the turkey brine in the fridge for 12 to 24 hours. During the brining process, be sure to turn the turkey occasionally so all parts of the bird get to soak up the brine.

When you are ready to cook the turkey, preheat the oven to 500¬?.

Remove the turkey from the bags, and discard the brine, orange quarters, and bags. Rinse the turkey with cold water and pat it dry. Lift the wing tips up and over the back, and tuck them under the turkey. Tie the legs together with kitchen string, or leave the plastic tag on the legs so you can easily handle the turkey.

Arrange the turkey, breast side down, on the roasting rack. Brush the back of the turkey with 1 tablespoon of melted butter, and season generously with salt and pepper.

Bake the turkey at 500¬? for 30 minutes. After that initial cooking, reduce oven temperature to 350¬?.

Remove the turkey from the oven. Carefully turn the turkey over using tongs so it is breast side up. Brush the turkey breast with 1 tablespoon of butter; and season with more salt and pepper.

Bake the turkey at 350¬? for 1 hour and 15 minutes or until a thermometer inserted into the meaty part of thigh registers at 170¬?. When taking the temperature of the turkey, make sure to not touch the bone as that can throw off the reading. In case the legs of the turkey start to brown too fast, place some foil over the legs to shield them from the heat.

Once the turkey is cooked, remove the bird from oven and let it stand for 20 minutes before serving as the centerpiece of your Thanksgiving dinner.

Other suggested Thanksgiving recipes:
Back to Basics: Roast Chicken

I read the book Heat: An Amateur’s Adventures as Kitchen Slave, Line Cook, Pasta-Maker, and Apprentice to a Dante-Quoting Butcher in Tuscany, by Bill Buford, recently. Buford is a writer who began working in the kitchen of Mario Batali’s restaurant Babbo in New York City, and ended up staying for a couple of years while going on some other culinary adventures in Italy. I really enjoyed it and definitely recommend it.

The main effect the book had on me was to create an intense craving for pasta — real pasta, with real sauce, not some oversalted red concoction out of a jar. Buford spends several pages talking about his experiences working the pasta station on the line at Babbo, and it put me over the top when he went into great detail about how they get the ingredients to come together into a glorious combination to make their awesome sauces. So I looked over Babbo’s web site, where they kindly post lots of recipes, but I ended up with this recipe, out of the Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe book, which itself is full of great dishes that simply capture the elegance and beauty of Italian cooking.

The end result was a decadent, creamy dish with great flavor from the pancetta and tomatoes that, while forcing me to do a few extra sit-ups, definitely satisfied my craving. This pasta recipe makes enough for 4 meals at $2.06 per serving.

Pappardelle with Tomato and Pancetta, adapted from Italian Two Easy: Simple Recipes from the London River Cafe
6 plum tomatoes
5 ounces pancetta slices
2 dried hot chiles
3 1/2 ounces freshly grated Parmesan cheese
4 to 5 tablespoons unsalted butter
2/3 cup heavy cream
16 ounces egg pappardelle
salt and pepper

To easily peel the tomatoes, make a slit in the side of each tomato, and place them in a large bowl and cover with boiling water. Leave the tomatoes for 30 seconds or so, and then remove them into cold water. Once the tomatoes are cool enough to touch, peel them and remove the seeds and roughly chop the flesh. Cut the pancetta into 3/4-inch slices and crumble the chiles.

Melt the butter in a thick-bottomed pan and add the pancetta and chile. Gently cook them until the pancetta begins to colour. Add the tomatoes, and season with salt and pepper. Let the tomatoes gently cook for 10 minutes, and then add the cream and cook for a further 10 minutes.

Cook the pappardelle in boiling salted water according to the package instructions, or until al dente. Drain the pasta and add it to the sauce. Stir in half of the grated Parmesan while tossing the pasta to make sure each piece is nicely coated in sauce.

Serve the dish with a little extra Parmesan on top.

Whenever we are in the UK, we always go and eat at Wagamama (turns out there are now a few Wagamamas on the East Coast too). It is the perfect place to have dinner with a large group of friends, and the noodles are always outstanding.

Carlo was in the mood for some noodles the other day, so we dusted off The Wagamama Cookbook from our cookbook shelf and looked for something tasty to make. Carlo decided on this Chili-Marinated Vegetable Ramen. We kind of tweaked the recipe so it was more veggies and less noodles, but feel free to change up the recipe if you want more of a heavy noodle dish.

The chili-marinated veggies are quite subtle like much of Japanese cuisine, so if you want an extra kick, add tons of extra garlic and chili, or even add a few tablespoons of garlic chili sauce. These vegetable noodles make enough for 4 people at $1.67 per serving.

Chili-Marinated Vegetable Ramen, adapted from The Wagamama Cookbook
2 small eggplants, trimmed and sliced
vegetable oil
2 small sweet potatoes, peeled and sliced
2 zucchini, sliced
8 medium mushrooms, halved
8 baby sweetcorn, halved lengthways
8 green onions, trimmed and cut into 1-inch slices
4 tablespoons light soy sauce
2 tablespoons finely chopped garlic
2 red chilis, trimmed, deseeded, and finely chopped
10 ounces wholemeal ramen noodles
1 quart vegetable stock

Heat a griddle or bbq grill until smoking. Brush the eggplant slices with oil, and put all the other veggies in a large bowl and toss them with a couple tablespoons of oil until everything is coated.

Cook the eggplant first, around 4 minutes on each side, or until tender. Then cook the sweet potato, mushrooms, and zucchini, all of which should take about 2 to 3 minutes on each side. Finally cook the sweetcorn and green onions for 1 minute on each side.

Transfer the veggies to a large bowl, and pour over the soy sauce, garlic, and chili. You can get as crazy as you want with the spices here, so add as much heat as you can handle. You can also use some spicy garlic chili paste too for a bit more flavour as well.

Cover the marinating veggies with clingfilm. It is important to let the vegetables marinate while they are hot so that they absorb the most flavours, and they will soften up a bit more too. Let the veggies sit in the marinade for at least 20 minutes.

Cook the noodles in a large pan of boiling water for 2 to 3 minutes, or until they are just tender. Drain thoroughly and divide between 4 bowls. Bring the vegetable stock to a boil. Once it is hot, pour the stock over the noodles and top with the marinated veggies.

The perfect accompaniment to yesterday’s Hatch Green Chile con Queso is a great salsa. Despite tomato season being over, this Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa from Rick Bayless proves that you can have awesome tasting salsa year round by using a can of fire roasted tomatoes.

Throw in some freshly roasted garlic and chiles with a bit of onion and cilantro to make a salsa that is so fresh tasting that it will make you wonder why you even bother to make salsa from raw tomatoes, or even bother to buy salsa in a jar. This salsa recipe is incredibly easy to make and costs around $1.59 for 1 1/2 cups of salsa.

Fire Roasted Tomato Salsa, adapted from Rick Bayless
1 to 2 fresh jalape?±o chiles
3 garlic cloves, unpeeled
1 15-ounce can diced fire roasted tomatoes in juice
1/4 cup (loosely packed) chopped fresh cilantro
1/2 onion, or more to taste
2 tablespoons fresh lime juice, or more to taste
salt

Roast the chiles and garlic in a small ungreased skilled over medium heat. Turn the spices every so often until they are soft and charred on the outside, about 10 minutes or so. Let them cool and then peel the garlic, remove the stem from the chiles, and coarsely chop them up.

Put the roasted garlic and chiles in a food processor and whiz them up. Add the fire roasted tomatoes with their juices, chopped onion, and cilantro to the food processor and pulse until you have a nice coarse puree. Squeeze in enough lime juice to taste and season with a bit of salt.

Ask any displaced Texan what they miss most about the Lone Star State, and I bet you anything that queso is in their top five. Nobody can live in Texas and not fall in love with the ubiquitous cheesy dip that acts as the perfect appetizer with chips and salsa, or even better when poured over french fries or enchiladas.

Whenever we go back to Texas, we always get queso wherever we go because you simply just can’t find it anywhere else in the country or world, or at least anything that tastes remotely similar. Even my sister Alison who left Texas for Europe seven years ago can’t resist the siren call of queso, even though she says that she has learned to live without Tex-Mex in Scotland.

Vegas is a queso wasteland. We’ve got some good queso fundidos here, but it just isn’t the same. Whole Foods used to carry a fresh queso made in Austin that was pretty satisfying, but unfortunately they stopped carrying it. Now that the college football season is in full swing, there is nothing more satisfying than sitting down to cheer on the Longhorns with a ton of queso, salsa, and chips accompanied by a frosty Shiner Bock.

Last weekend, I made this incredibly simple Hatch Green Chile Con Queso for the Texas game. Carlo and I devoured the entire batch in the first quarter, I think. I’m not promising Magnolia Mud ecstasy with this recipe, but for any displaced Texan out there looking for a little taste of home, make the queso. I don’t think you will regret. This recipe serves 2 queso fiends (more if you aren’t pigs like me and Carlo) and is priceless for anyone missing Texas.

Hatch Green Chile Con Queso, from Central Market
1 medium tomato, seeded and chopped
2 Hatch green chiles, roasted, peeled, deseeded, and chopped, or one small can of roasted Hatch green chiles
1/8 teaspoon garlic powder
1 1/2 cups grated sharp cheddar cheese
1/4 cup sour cream, plus more to thin out the queso as needed

In a saucepan, melt the cheese over a low heat. Add the sour cream and stir the queso continuously to prevent it from scorching. Stir in the tomato, chiles, and garlic powder. Keep on a low heat until everything becomes gooey and is well combined. If you need to thin out the queso, add some extra sour cream until you find the perfect consistency. I just kept on adding in some extra cheese and sour cream until the queso was how I like it.

I just “celebrated” my 8th month anniversary of being unemployed. While I knew that it was going to be hard to find a job, I had no idea that it would be as exhausting as what it has turned out to be. Thankfully, cooking–and by default this blog–has become my unemployment therapy.

I’ve always enjoyed cooking (and of course eating), but since getting laid off, I have become the primary chef in the house after Carlo taking the lead for the last 8 years. Thinking about what I’m going to cook, grocery shopping, and then actually cooking takes up a large portion of my unemployed life, which helps add some structure and significance to days that are largely indistinguishable from one day to the next. Cooking makes me happy, and I love making something that Carlo enjoys. Plus I like sharing my cooking adventures with y’all too.

On Monday when I was super down in the dumps about not getting this job that I wanted, I knew that I had to get into the kitchen and cook something even if we did have Beef, Guinness, and Cheese Pie leftovers for dinner. I decided to make this Mexican Pumpkin Soup that my old friend Tina from Wales was raving about and which is in the great cookbook that she gave me last month when she visited Vegas.

The meditative process of chopping vegetables and pureeing made me forget about my crappy afternoon. Instead I focused on the delicious soup that I was making and how it would nourish me and Carlo, both literally and metaphorically. Making the soup made me think of my friend Tina and all of the good times we had together at the UEA Union Bar all those years ago, and it made me wish that I had more friends and family in Vegas with whom I could share this soup.

I’m a firm believer that any food that you put love into tastes great, but this soup was a knockout winner with its spicy sweet flavour and the crunchy flavorful topping. Plus it seemed to have magical powers in chasing the blues away. This Mexican Pumpkin Soup recipe makes enough for 6 bowls at $1.40 per serving.

Mexican Pumpkin Soup, adapted from the Riverford Farm Cook Book
1 pumpkin or butternut squash (about 3 pounds), peeled, deseeded, and cut into 1-inch cubes
3 tablespoons olive oil
2 onions, finely chopped
1/2 teaspoon smoked paprika
5 garlic cloves, crushed
2 red chillies, deseeded and finely chopped
14 ounce can of chopped tomatoes
1 quart chicken or vegetable stock
14 ounce can of red kidney beans, rinsed and drained
1 cup frozen corn, defrosted
1 tablespoon sweet chilli sauce or garlic chilli sauce
juice of 1 lime, or more to taste
1/2 chopped cilantro
sea salt and freshly ground pepper

To garnish the soup:
tortilla chips, crushed
grated cheddar cheese
2 ripe avocados, peeled and diced

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place the pumpkin or squash cubes on a roasting tray and toss them with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and generously season with some salt and pepper. Put the pumpkin in the oven and let the cubes roast for 40 minutes, until they are slightly golden.

While the pumpkin is cooking, heat the rest of the olive oil in a large pan and add the onions. Cook the onions for 20 minutes until they are tender and slightly caramelized. Stir in the paprika, garlic, and chillies and cook for 3 minutes. Add the tomatoes and let them simmer for 15 minutes or until the base is reduced and thick. Stir in the roasted pumpkin.

Add a little bit of the stock and begin pureeing the soup using a hand blender. Slowly add the stock and continue to puree until everything is well combined. Bring the soup to a boil and add the kidney beans and corn. Season well, adding the cilantro, chilli sauce, and lime juice to taste. Let everything simmer for 10 more minutes.

To serve the dish, top with crushed tortilla chips, grated cheese, and diced avocado.

This blog may give the false illusion that everything is always perfect in our kitchen and that our dinner is always delicious and served at 7:30 on the dot. This is not the case at all, and last Thursday night proved that some nights chaos often rules our kitchen.

I had found some really great beef stew meat on sale at Whole Foods last week, so I spent all week trying to figure out what to make with it. I eventually decided on Jaime Oliver’s Beef, Guinness, and Cheese Pie because we have been largely eating vegetarian and healthy lately, so I was really craving something meaty, cheesy, and topped in puff pastry!

I had quickly glanced over the recipe in the morning to see how long it would take and whether I needed to start stewing the beef before I went on a job interview in the afternoon. I decided that this wasn’t necessary and that I had more than enough time when I got home to make the pie.

Fast forward to 6 pm when I start making the pie and notice that it takes 2 1/2 hours to braise the meat and then an additional 45 minutes after that to cook the pie. D’oh! Thankfully Carlo brought home a baguette and some cheese so we could have a snack while we waited for the pie to cook. Even though we ended up eating around 10 pm, the pie was excellent with a light crispy topping and a thick stewy filling. In fact, it even tasted good reheated last night and played its role as comfort food superbly after I learned that I didn’t get the job after all.

I highly recommend this pie as a tasty fall treat, but do yourself a favour and stew the meat during the afternoon before you make the pie, or even make the filling the night before. This Beef, Guinness, and Cheese Pie makes enough for 6 large dinners at $3.17 per serving.

Beef, Guinness, and Cheese Pie, adapted from Jaime Oliver
olive oil
3 medium red onions, peeled and chopped
5 cloves of garlic, peeled and chopped
1 ounce butter
3 carrots, peeled and chopped
3 sticks of celery, trimmed and chopped
8 mushrooms, peeled and sliced
2 1/4 pounds stewing beef, cut into 1-inch cubes
2 sprigs of fresh rosemary, leaves picked and chopped
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
1 can of Guinness
2 heaped tablespoons plain flour
6 ounces freshly grated aged Cheddar cheese
1 pound frozen puff pastry, defrosted (you could halve this if you want to lighten the dish a little)
1 large egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 375¬?F. In a large Dutch oven, heat up some olive oil over a low heat. Add the chopped onions and gently fry them for about 10 minutes without adding too much colour. Turn up the heat to medium, and add the garlic, butter, carrots, celery, and mushrooms. Mix everything together before stirring in the beef, rosemary,¬† salt, and pepper.

Let everything cook for a few minutes and pour in the Guinness. Stir in the flour and add just enough water to the pot so that all of the meat is covered. Bring the dish to a simmer, then put the cover on the pan and place it in the preheated oven for 1 1/2 hours. After this initial cooking period, take out the pan and stir the stew. Then put the dish back in the oven for 1 additional hour, or until the meat is very tender.

If when you take the stew out of the oven after 2 1/2 hours of cooking the stew is quite liquid-y, place the pot on the stove and let the sauce reduce. Once the stew is at a nice thickness, stir in half of the grated cheese and season to taste.

Take both sheets of the defrosted puff pastry and roll them out together with a floured rolling pin on a dusted surface to form a sheet of pastry that will cover the top of your dish. Pour the stew into a large baking dish and sprinkle the remaining cheese on top. Roll the sheet of puff pastry over the top of the dish and fold the overhanging pastry around the dish to make a nice lid. Lightly criss-cross the pastry with a sharp knife and then brush the top with a beaten egg glaze.

Bake the pie on the bottom of the oven for 45 minutes, or until the pastry is cooked, and all puffy and golden.