Category: Cooking

Turkey Injection Sauce

I got this injection sauce from a Bearded Butcher video — it’s a maple/butter based sauce that we used with a smoked turkey. Delicious!

Ingredients

  • 1 cup unsalted butter
  • 1 cup maple syrup
  • 1-2 tbsp … well, they use their seasoning. I used this Magic Dust that looked good

Melt the butter, whisk in the maple syrup, then whisk in the powdered seasoning. Inject it, baste it on, etc. It thickens up as it sits, and I needed to toss the container in the microwave for 30 seconds a couple of times while I used it.

We soaked the fresh turkey in brine (about 2 lbs of salt in 2 gal of cold water) after butchering it — 3AM on Thursday through about 4PM on Saturday — injected it with the butter/maple sauce, then smoked it for hours until it was cooked.

Magic Dust BBQ Seasoning

This is based on a recipe from Mike Mills — who owned a BBQ joint in Illinois — that I used with the turkey injection sauce.

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup paprika
  • 1/4 cup salt
  • 1/4 cup maple sugar
  • 2 tbsp ground mustard seed
  • 1/4 c chili powder
  • 2 tbsp ground black pepper
  • ground hot pepper flakes to taste — about 1 Tbsp for me

I ground the mustard seed and black peppers in the mortar. My maple sugar had some hard lumps, so I tossed the mustard, pepper, and maple sugar into the mortar and broke up the chunks. Then I threw everything else in and ground it around a bit.

To ensure the whole spices were well ground, I passed the mixture through a flour sieve and returned anything that didn’t pass through the screen to the mortar to be ground again.

In the end, I had a nice powder (although it’s kind of salty!)

Another Pumpkin Pie

We grew a lot of pumpkins this year, so I was able to use fresh, homegrown pumpkin for the pie!

Ingredients:

  • 2 cups pumpkin puree (really, really smooth — blender it a lot, push it through a screen to pull out fibers. I also let it sit in the fridge for a few days and dumped off the water that separated out)
  • 3 eggs
  • 1/3 cup maple sugar
  • 1 Tbsp cornstarch
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 2 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2+ tsp ginger
  • 1/4+ tsp nutmeg
  • 1/8 tsp cloves
  • 1/8 tsp black pepper
  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 1/4 cup almond milk

Stir all of the stuff together — it should form a smooth custard. Bake at 375F for about an hour. I used my walnut pie crust (but with almonds instead of walnuts), so I had the crust covered for the entire baking time.

Maple Cream Cheese Frosting

I didn’t use this recipe for Thanksgiving this year, but it’s another one I keep meaning to write down online so I’m not digging out an old e-mail to myself!

Ingredients:

  • 3 Tbsp unsalted butter (room temp)
  • 1 c cream cheese (room temp)
  • 1/4 c maple syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract
  • 1/4 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp lemon juice

Using the stand mixer and whipping attachment — beat butter and cream cheese together until smooth and creamy.

Add in maple, vanilla, salt, and lemon. Beat for about 5 more minutes.

Walnut Cookie Crust

  • 1.5 cup pulverized walnut pieces (also works well with almonds)
  • 1 cup whole wheat flour
  • 1/4t sea salt
  • 1/4 cup butter
  • 2T sugar
  • 2 egg whites (or one whole egg)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Put walnuts into a food processor and pulverize – not just powdered, some 1/8″ pieces should remain.

Measure 1.5 cups of pulverized walnuts. Combine with flour, salt, and sugar.

Melt butter. Using a fork, cut the melted butter into the dry ingredients. Add egg whites and cut together until evenly moist.

Press dough to the bottom of a pie or tart plate (can be lined with parchment – makes removing the pie a LOT easier). Cook for 15 minutes. Crust should be crunchy and brown.

Maple Whipped Cream

I’m saving a few recipes we used this Thanksgiving

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup heavy whipping cream
  • 2 T maple syrup
  • 1 tsp vanilla extract

Put the whipping bowl into the freezer a few hours ahead of time so it’s really cold. When ready to whip, combine cream, maple, and vanilla. Whip — Anya likes to shake it in a jar or use the old-school hand-cranked spinny beater. I prefer a firm peak — when you see peaks and valleys formed as the beater moves through the cream & picking up the beaters leaves behind a little mountain of whipped cream.

Maple Mustard Dressing

Maple Mustard Dressing
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Maple Mustard Dressing

Recipe by LisaCourse: SaladsCuisine: AmericanDifficulty: Easy
Servings

4

servings
Prep time

10

minutes
Cooking timeminutes

Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup maple syrup

  • 1/4 c cider vinegar

  • 1/4 c olive oil

  • 3 T Heinz’s Spicy Brown mustard

  • 1 tsp salt

Method

  • Mix it all together to create an emulsion

Pickled Peppers (not a peck)

We picked up some sweet and hot Hungarian peppers at the farm market — some of the hot peppers, I stuffed and baked. But the rest I added to what’s quickly becoming the normal pickling recipe — 1c water, 1c vinegar, 2T salt, 1/4c maple syrup. These were super tasty, and I stored a lot of seeds to grow lots of peppers next year. Hopefully we’ll be able to pickle a peck next time!

Honey Balsamic Marinade

Ingredients:

  • 1/4 cup dark balsamic vinegar
  • 2 tbsp honey
  • 1/2 cup olive oil
  • 1-2 Tbsp salt
  • 1-2 large cloves garlic

Method:

  1. Slice garlic into thin slices.
  2. Whisk vinegar and honey into oil.
  3. Add salt and whisk.
  4. Add in garlic slices. Coat meat or vegetables and let sit in fridge to marinade.

This worked really well when grilling — the honey vinegar combination caramelized very nicely.