honey & ollie

It’s a miserable cold day here at Casa Fabulous. I am really sick with lurgy, and have possibly flunked a test, so more grateful than ever for the advent of shabbos. Two and a half hours and it will be upon us. And it is also the first night of Chanukah, so I needed to make something special for dinner. Because I lack the energy to do anything remotely like work today, I am attempting something new. I have terrible luck roasting turkey breasts, because they always dry out. However, I had such great luck doing crock pot roast chicken a few weeks ago, I thought I’d try it out with turkey.

I got one large boneless turkey breast (don’t ask me how big, I pointed, the guy at the butcher’s counter wrapped it, and I paid – I was too busy trying to ignore the fresh Dungeoness crabs that I can’t eat anymore to pay attention to what size) and rubbed it down with a lemon infused olive oil, then rubbed it all over with an herb and fleur de sel blend from O&Co. Popped that into the crock pot on top of a bed of coarsely chopped shallots, crushed garlic, and half a chopped onion. Threw some white wine into the pot, enough to cover the bottom, and we shall see. I’m cooking it on high for an hour, and then on low for 5. When it is done, I’m going to pop it under the broiler for a few minutes and crisp up the skin.

The plan is to saute some mushrooms and a little more shallot, strain the juices from the crock pot, and add that and a little bit of flour/water mixture to the pan to make a mushroom gravy to ladle over the slices of turkey when we serve.

There shall also be squash kugel, though I intend to cut the sugar in the recipe by at least half, and throw in some Chinese Five Spice. And, of course, latkes. I’m making two kinds, regular and sweet potato. Which will be served with apricot-applesauce, and 2% lowfat Greek yogurt in lieu of sour cream.

Epic noms. And yeah, I have pretty much given up trying to keep meat and dairy separate for the time being. It is very hard. I think I’m waiting until after the holidays to give it another go. The no pork/no shellfish thing is hard enough, though getting a lot easier. Unless there is fresh just in from the Northcoast Dungeoness Crab in season taunting me at the fishmongers. Then, you know, there might be a little bit of whining.

There will also, of course, be presents. Though I haven’t decided whether or not to give the kids their loot all in one go, or dole ‘em out over the 8 crazy nights.

Have a good one, y’all.