Open Face Turkey Sandwich with Cranberry Bread

Well the big day finally arrived, the day when you can eat whatever you want and not feel guilty.  This is the real Thanksgiving, the day when food is king.  The wife and I had our Thanksgiving early this year because she was going back to Michigan to visit the little granddaughter while I decided to stay here and work, really, well not on Thanksgiving but the rest of the weekend.  Like everyone else I too had to plan my Thanksgiving meal but unlike most mine was already half made.  Yep I had leftovers from our Early Thanksgiving Dinner.  Instead of calling this Leftover Wednesday this week we can call it Leftover Thanksgiving it's just a day late and happens to be Thanksgiving. 

Since I am getting tired of posting Thanksgiving meals we are going to cruise through this entire meal in one post.  This is a warning because I have lots of pictures and two recipes down below ready for you to try.  So without further adieu let's roll.....

The first cast of characters we will start with today is the gravy.  Yeah I know I might have just lost some of my family because of their distaste of gravy but this gravy recipe is worth it. 

This is another recipe from the Tyler Florence cooking show we went to in downtown D.C. a couple of weeks ago and once again after I watched him make this I knew I had to try it.  If you read the recipe down below you will notice that recipe calls for roasting the turkey wing first but at his show he used smoked turkey wings, that's what caught my attention.  If you do use smoked turkey wings you don't have to roast them again (just thought I would throw that in there just in case you were wondering). 

The gravy is really pretty simple, start with cooking the veggies and herbs for a few minutes and then after that everything goes into the pot, just like cooking stock.  One other change I should note is when Tyler cooked this gravy at his show he used chicken broth instead of water like the recipe below.  I used some of my special homemade chicken broth I made about a month ago along with a little water.  I wasn't too worried about having extra broth left over because I can always find uses for it.  From here it was time to watch some football and let this simmer away on the stove for about 2 hours.

After a couple of hours I strain all the extras out and then use my gravy separator to get rid of the fat.  Now this can be set aside because we got other things to do and introduce another cast of characters.

I'll admit if you look at the above pic and look at the recipe below you will notice not all the characters are in the photo.  The problem was I had a recipe for cranberry bread I had found on a blog that sounded pretty good but when I got everything mixed together something didn't seem right.  The batter (for all you bakers out there is that what they call it)  seemed real dry.  This was heading for disaster real quick.  What to do, what to do?  Quickly I went to the Food Network website and went to my recipe box (if you don't know you can keep your own recipe box on the Food Network website) where I had saved a cranberry bread recipe from Emeril.  Sure enough Emeril's recipe called for much more liquid than the one I was using.  Time to adapt, overcome, persevere and I did just that.  Like I said above I had already started with one recipe so what I did is combine Emeril's recipe with what I already started.  My recipe below is the results.

When everything was said and done it reminded me of pancake batter.  Hm-mm, I wonder?  Maybe another post for another day?  Let's wait and see.

Doesn't look to bad for a first timer now does it?  With all the drama involving the first batter I made I wasn't too sure what I was going to be left with in the end but so far this is looking like a loaf of bread.

Now that the cranberry bread is made we can get back to our turkey gravy.  We left off with our broth made and now it's time to finish the gravy.  The first thing to be done is to make a roux.  For you first timers out there a roux is nothing more than equal part fat (in this case olive oil and butter) and flour mixed together over medium heat.  Some people think you have to use a wooden spoon but I'm not sure that really matters but what does matter is to keep stirring until you get the color of roux you want (this is really important if you are making gumbo).

Now if you just hang with me a little longer we are almost finished.  To the roux we can now add the broth we made earlier with the smoked turkey wings until it gets to the desired thickness we want.

Here is where the leftovers come into play.  If you remember a couple of days ago I posted our main entree from our Early Thanksgiving Dinner, Sausage and Cranberry Stuffed Turkey Roll.

This is our chance to use the rest of the leftover turkey up.  I gently slide the turkey into the gravy we just made and let it take a 15 minute bath to warm it up a bit. 

We are almost there and this is the fun part, we get to put the whole thing together.  First we slice up some of the good looking cranberry bread up.

 Lay a couple of pieces (or more depending how hungry you are) on the plate and top with the warmed up turkey and gravy (pretty simple eh?).  Of course I am not done there I got a little side to put with it.  Remember Part I of our Early Thanksgiving Dinner?  If you need a reminder here it is....

Yep it's Jock's Cranberry Sauce, what a better way to compliment and Open Face Turkey Sandwich with Cranberry Bread.  Now everything is in its place and here is my Thanksgiving Dinner...

Mmm, mmm, now that's good grub. 

As far as ratings go I am giving Tyler's Turkey Gravy a hearty 5 out of 5 forks.  Simply put this is the best gravy I have ever ate.  The smoked turkey wings added a whole new depth of flavor to the gravy, something that just can't be duplicated by roasting the turkey wings.  If you ever decide to make this definitely find smoked turkey wings it will be worth it.

Now for the cranberry bread, it gets a 4 out of 5 forks only because I need to go back and follow Emeril's recipe a little closer next time.  If you notice I made the cranberry bread with raw cranberries mixed directly into the batter, Emeril cooks his cranberries first in his recipe and I think this may take out a little of the bitter taste my bread has when you bite into a cranberry.  It is only a slight bitterness so it really isn't too bad.  (And yes dear, I still have some cranberries left over so I can make you some cranberry bread when you get home because I know you will want to try it.) 

That pretty much does it for this Thanksgiving year and I think it is time to move on to other things.  I'm not sure where we will head but I have a couple of ideas like one more thing with cranberries and possibly something to do with pumpkin.

Stay tuned.

Jock's Cranberry-Pecan Bread

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1/2 cup fresh squeezed orange juice

1 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon cloves

1 1/2 cups fresh cranberries (or defrosted if frozen)

1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

2 large eggs

1 cup of unbleached flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup buttermilk

1 cup chopped, toasted pecans

1 teaspoon orange zest

1 teaspoon grated ginger

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly grease a 9 1/4 by 5 1/4 by 2 1/2-inch loaf pan.

Combine the all the dry ingredients in a bowl and mix thoroughly. Add the wet ingredients together and mix thoroughly. Pour the wet ingredients onto the dry and mix together. Fold in the cranberries and toasted pecans.

Pour into the prepared loaf pan. Bake until a tester comes out clean, 55 to 60 minutes.

Turn out onto a wire rack to cool. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Turkey Gravy

(Printable Recipe)

Recipe courtesy Tyler Florence

Prep Time: 10 min

Inactive Prep Time - Cook Time: 2 hr 45 min

Level: Easy

Serves: 5 to 6 servings

Ingredients

2 pounds turkey wings

5 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, halved
4 carrots, chopped
1 head garlic, smashed
2 sprigs fresh sage
2 sprigs fresh thyme
2 sprigs fresh rosemary
8 black peppercorns
2 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper

Directions
Heat the oven to 375 degrees F.

Put the turkey wings (also backbone and neck if you have it) into a small roasting pan and roast them until they are golden brown, about 30 minutes. Heat 3 tablespoons olive oil in a large stock pot over medium-high heat. Add the onion, carrots, garlic, herbs, and peppercorns and cook for 5 minutes. Add the turkey wings. Pour some water into the roasting pan and scrape up all the browned bits on the bottom; add this to the pot. Cover everything in the pot with cold water by 1-inch and bring to the boil, skimming any foam that rises to the surface. Reduce the heat and simmer for about 1 1/2 to 2 hours.

Strain out the solids and discard. Wipe out the pot and put it over medium heat. Melt the butter with the remaining 2 tablespoons olive oil and add the flour. Cook this roux, stirring frequently, until it is golden brown. Slowly whisk in the strained stock being careful to work out any lumps. Cook until the gravy has thickened, about 10 to 15 minutes.
Printed from FoodNetwork.com on Thu Nov 26 2009
© 2009 Scripps Networks, LLC. All Rights Reserved

Honey Wheat and Rosemary Rolls

Part II of this years Early Thanksgiving Dinner Episode begins with Big Sis's Rosemary Dinner Rolls, which she borrowed from Pioneer Woman web site, with my twist.  I really didn't want to put my own personal twist to this recipe since it looked simple and looked like it would taste good but I didn't have a choice.  You see for reasons unknown to me we can't find frozen dinner rolls around here.  For that matter we can't even find frozen bread dough around here, go figure.  So what do you suppose I do?  How about make them myself and while we are doing that we might as well do something different.

Since I know little to nothing about baking my first task is to find a recipe I can follow or at least get started with.  My choice was to go the King Arthur Flour web site and see what I could find there.  After a long search through their recipes I finally found one I could use or at least adapt to the ingredients I had on hand.  I decided on King Arthur's Honey Wheat Rolls.  Since I am trying to get more wheat flour in my diet I thought these rolls would be a good place to start, besides honey in anything can't be a bad thing.  I did say adapt because if you look at their recipe it includes instant potatoes and dry milk, a couple of items I don't have on hand and don't intend to have on hand.  So I adapt, overcame and conquered and this is what I came up with....

There is one odd ingredient, at least to me, and that is the orange juice.  Orange juice?  I am just as surprised as you are.  In the comment section fore the recipe in King Arthur's web site someone said the orange juice takes out some of the bitterness of the wheat flour and you won't taste the orange juice in the rolls either.  Hm, since I really don't know I'll take their word for it.

I probably don't need to go through all the motions on the hows and whys of bread making but if you really need to have better directions I suggest you visit the King Arthur web site, a real fine web site for breads, rolls and many other good foods.

I will say I always sift my flour regardless of what I am making.  It helps to get rid of any flour "balls" that seem to show up in bags of flour.

I also use our Kitchen Aid mixer with the bread hook for kneading the dough too.  Once the dough in kneaded I goes in a lightly oiled bowl to take a nap for a couple of hours.  This is the part I like because I get to sit down and watch some football, hard to beat that.  I probably don't have to preach the virtues of cast iron either, you have all heard or read it before.  So if you are wondering how they came out I would have to rate them a 4 out of 5 forks.  For my second time every baking rolls I know I can improve but I think I am on the right track.  I like the wheat flour mixed in with regular white flour, and of course the honey doesn't hurt either.  The rosemary on top adds something a little different which I like because after all rosemary is my second favorite herb (with basil being number 1).

And just in case you can't find those frozen rolls this is an easy, good, alternative to the frozen rolls.

Honey Wheat and Rosemary Rolls

(Printable Recipe)

Ingredients:

1 packet "highly active" active dry yeast, or 2 1/4 teaspoons active dry yeast, or 2 1/4 teaspoons instant yeast

1 cup lukewarm water

1/4 cup orange juice

1/4 cup (1/2 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 6 pieces

3 tablespoons honey

1-1/2 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour

1-1/2 cups Whole Wheat Flour

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

2 tablespoons chopped fresh rosemary

¼ cup unsalted butter, melted

Sea salt

Directions

:Dissolve yeast with lukewarm water. Let the yeast and water sit at room temperature for 15 minutes.  Combine the dissolved yeast with the all of the ingredients except rosemary, sea salt and melted butter. Mix and knead everything together until you've made a smooth dough.  Place the dough in a lightly greased bowl. Cover the bowl, and allow the dough to rise, at room temperature, until doubled in size about 90 minutes to 2 hours.

While the dough is rising, lightly spray a 10” cast iron skillet with olive oil.

Punch dough down and divide into equal balls, approx. 16.  Place the 8 rolls in the 10” cast iron skillet, spacing them evenly so they won't touch one another.  Cover the pans with lightly greased plastic wrap, and allow the rolls to rise for 1 1/2 to 2 hours. They'll become very puffy, and will reach out and touch one another. While the rolls are rising, preheat the oven to 350°F.

Brush with melted butter and sprinkle with rosemary and sea salt.  Bake the rolls for 15 minutes, and tent them loosely with aluminum foil. Continue to bake until they're mahogany-brown on top, but lighter colored on the sides, an additional 10 to 13 minutes.