Sesame Soy Turkey Breast

Sesame Soy Turkey Breast

Sesame Soy Turkey Breast

Ok, who stole 2016? Yes, yes, I know, I’ve done a lot of whining lately about being glad the hot Summer is past and that the cooler weather and my favorite season, Fall, is here. And I stand by those whiny moments.  It’s just that today, I was suddenly cognizant of the fact that it’s almost November. Freaking NOVEMBER! Wth? I mean, I knew it was this late in the year, logically. I’m that person who starts looking at Thanksgiving and Christmas pins on Pinterest in August, because it’s fun to mentally prepare my menu. it just didn’t really hit me until it occurred to me that I could probably go ahead and post this so that it was up in time for people to use on Thanksgiving. This year has gone abnormally quickly.

I made this turkey breast a couple of weeks ago and we absolutely loved it. The recipe is lightly adapted from one I found in Food & Wine magazine last year.  I’m similar to what I guess most of you are and make my turkey the same way every time because, tradition. But this was a nice twist that I may even be willing to make on Thanksgiving and definitely will use other times of the year because we eat turkey more than just one day a year here, since we love it. My differences from the original are that they used a whole turkey, I used the breast, they melted and then re-chilled the butter mix and spread it under the skin and I left it melted and used it as a baste to make it easier, plus different cooking temps and minor diffs in seasoning.

Sesame Soy Turkey Breast 2

The skin on this gets nice and crispy and if you’re feeling ambitious, you could butterfly the breast and have it 1) cook even faster and 2) have all the skin get crispy rather than have the inevitable bottom skin staying kind of soggy. The flavor here is fantastic; a perfect mix of salty, a subtle sweetness, the richness of sesame oil and butter and a bit of bite from the seasonings. I served this with brown rice, but this would go just as well with noodles or Thanksgiving potatoes.

You know the drill…  🙂

Sesame Soy Turkey Breast

  • 5 to 7 lb turkey breast, rinsed, innards removed, and turkey patted dry
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 -1 teaspoon black pepper
  • 1 1/2 cups (3 sticks) unsalted butter
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 1/3 cup toasted sesame oil
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons onion powder
  • 1 teaspoon garlic powder
  • 3/4 teaspoon ground ginger (please make sure it’s fresh. It loses quality if it has been stored in the cabinet for too long)
  • 1/4 cup dark brown sugar
  • 3/4 teaspoon red pepper flakes (use more or less of this according to your heat tolerance)
  • 1 can (14 ounces) good quality chicken broth
  • Sesame seeds and sliced green onions for garnish
  1. Preheat oven to 400 and line a 13×9 inch baking pan with foil. If you butterfly the breast, you’ll need to use a larger pan plus adjust cooking time.
  2. Make sure your turkey is dry, add to pan and sprinkle it with the salt and pepper.
  3. Melt the butter, then add in the next 7 ingredients (everything but the broth). Stir well to combine and dissolve the sugar and spices.
  4. Using a pastry brush, baste the whole breast with the butter mixture.
  5. Roast at 400 for fifteen minutes, then turn heat down to 375 and add the chicken broth to the bottom of the pan. Baste with more of the butter mixture and continue doing that every fifteen minutes.
  6. Roast turkey until it is golden brown and crispy and has an internal temperature of 165f, about one and a half to two hours, depending on size and whether or not you butterflied it. Be sure you’re not touching the bone when testing. Leave in the pan, very lightly covered with foil, for at least fifteen minutes to allow the turkey to continue to rise in temp and to prevent losing all the juiciness by cutting into it too soon.
  7. You can either serve the breast with the drippings, as we did, or use them to make a gravy. If you have leftover basting sauce, you can use it as a delicious dipping sauce for the turkey. Just make sure to bring it to a boil and let boil for one minute to prevent any cross contamination.
  8. Slice thin and garnish with sesame seeds and green onions.

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Sesame Soy Turkey Breast 3

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Orange Chicken

Orange Chicken

Orange Chicken



My family and  are still on a quest for a good Chinese restaurant. It has to have a buffet, because, for one, we’re feeding two teenage boys, who are simply walking hormonal stomachs. And two, I tend to be a picky and poor eater and I do better if I have variety. So far though, all the ones we’ve tried range from “omg, this sucks”, to the point where I actually left a bad review for it on Yelp and I’m not the type to do that normally, up to “ehhh, it was ok, but I wouldn’t pay for it again.” We aren’t asking much…. just food that is fresh and not sticking to the warming dishes because it’s older than my husband, food that hasn’t been salted to the point where you could use it as a salt lick to lure animals in when hunting and a decent variety of dishes.

One of my husbands favorite things from a buffet is the Orange Chicken. I’m a General Tsos kind of a gal myself, but I do enjoy a good Orange Chicken. Good being the operative word. And that’s hard to find. So I gave up for now and decided to make it myself. I have to admit, I’m rather glad I did. No, we didn’t have the variety of 17 different kinds of (Americanized) Chinese foods to choose from, but the one dish was fresh, had an amazing orange flavor that was real, not like a cook poured a bottle of orange extract in it to flavor it and I could eat lying in bed watching bad TV. Hey, don’t judge… I wasn’t feeling well yesterday. That I even MADE dinner is to my credit :-p

This is fairly easy to make. As I’ve told you many times before and will many times more, do your prep work ahead of time. have all the ingredients cut and measured, oranges zested and juice squeezed, etc, etc, etc. Doing this saves so much time and hassle. You don’t get to a certain step and suddenly realize “Oh, crap, forgot to do this or that!” and have to put everything on hold. Do. Your. Prep. Work. And you’ll breeze through this.

You know the drill… git to cooking. 🙂

Orange Chicken

  • For chicken-
  • 2 pounds boneless, skinless chicken breasts, chopped into bite sized cubes
  • 1 egg
  • 1 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
  • 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
  • 1/2 cup cornstarch
  • 1/4 cup flour
  • oil for frying
  • For the sauce-
  • 2 tablespoons minced ginger *
  • 2 cloves garlic, minced
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons red pepper flakes (use less if you prefer less spicy)
  • 1/3 cup thinly sliced green onions
  • 1 tablespoon rice vinegar, divided
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
  • 1/4 cup warm water combined with a tablespoon cornstarch
  • 1/3 cup soy sauce (low sodium is a good idea if you have it)
  • 1/3 cup sugar
  • zest of 2 large oranges
  • juice of 3 oranges
  • sesame seeds and extra sliced green onion for garnishing
  • rice and broccoli to serve with the chicken
  1. Preheat your oven to 200 degrees.
  2. Combine the cubed chicken with the egg, salt and pepper. Stir well to combine. Dump in the cornstarch and flour and stir to combine. A wooden spoon works well here. Pour enough oil in a medium pot to go up two inches. Heat the oil to 350 degrees, then fry the chicken in batches of about 8 to 10 pieces at a time, until golden brown and cooked through, about 8  minutes. Set onto a paper towel lined oven safe plate or bowl. When all the chicken is cooked, set into the oven to keep warm while you make the sauce.
  3. In a medium saucepot, combine the sesame oil, tablespoon of vegetable oil, garlic, green onions, rice vinegar and ginger. Stir fry over medium high heat until the onion is wilted and everything is fragrant, about 3 minutes.
  4. As that cooks, combine the soy sauce, sugar, orange zest and orange juice in a measuring cup. Add them to the stir fried green onion mixture. Bring to a boil, then pour the water/cornstarch mixture into it. Stir until the mixture comes back to a boil and thickens up, stirring constantly.
  5. Toss the chicken in the sauce mixture (Or serve the side on the side if you have some people who only like a little bit of sauce and others who like more.), and serve with Basmati or Jasmine rice and steamed broccoli.

*NOTE- For an easy way to peel and grate ginger, just get out a spoon and a fork. Use the edge of the spoon to scrape the peel off; so much easier and much less waste. And then lay the peeled part of the ginger down on a small plate, holding the other end with your free hand. Use a fork to scrape across the ginger. It grates it quite nicely and you can use the edge of the fork to mash/slice up any bits that come off too large.

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Sticky Asian Chicken Thighs

Sticky Asian Chicken Thighs

Sticky Asian Chicken Thighs

My brother in law Phil is a complete Asian food addict. Seriously. It’s a sickness. He is one of our countries beloved postmen (post people… post unisex? Heck, who knows what the PC term is these days.). When his day off was on Wednesday, his unwavering routine was to go to a neighborhood Chinese buffet for lunch. Every. Single. Wednesday.  The rest of us set our calendars by his routine. When he went on a Tuesday recently, we were all fairly sure that the world was ending.

His brother, my husband, is the same way. Say it with me class… anal creature of routine. It freaks me out because I am such a live by the seat of my pants, let life be a surprise sort of a gal. *laughs hysterically* Sorry. I couldn’t even fool myself with that one. I admit it. I too am one of those slightly rigid “don’t mess with my world, I like it the way it is” type of people. I’ve never decided if I admire or feel sorry for those of you who are the spontaneous live on the edge sorts.

I think my BIL would like this one. Marybeth, you need to make this for Phil! This is fall off the bone tender, spicy sweet (can be made more or less spicy depending on the amount of sriracha you add), a little bit salty and nice and sticky.I of course didn’t get sticky because I have those dainty girl manners and used a knife and fork. In reality, I simply hate sticky hands but dainty girl manners sounded cooler.

You know the drill… git to cookin’!

  • 3 lbs chicken thighs
  • 2 teaspoons sesame oil
  • 1 teaspoon olive oil (you want the sesame for flavor but you can’t use too much because it’s quite strongly flavored and you need enough oil to help prevent sticking, thus the olive oil)
  • 1/2 cup soy sauce
  • 2 teaspoons sriracha (more or less as desired)
  • 3/4 cup honey
  • 1/4 cup Thai sweet chili sauce
  • 1/2 cup ketchup (I know… sounds weird but believe it or not, a lot of “authentic” <aka Americanized> lol, Asian recipes use it for tang and flavor)
  • 2 tablespoons minced garlic
  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 13×9 inch pan with foil. Trust me. Line the pan.
  2. In a small bowl, combine all ingredients except for the chicken.
  3. Place the chicken in the prepared pan.
  4. Pour the sauce over it and turn the chicken in the sauce a couple of times to coat.
  5. Bake at 350 for about 75 minutes. Turn the chicken twice while cooking, making sure that you start and end with the chicken skin side up.
  6. Wonderful served with rice and the extra pan juices.

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Sweet And Sour Pork

Sweet And Sour Pork-001

When I was young, my mom was a waitress. Heck, when I grew up, my mom was still a waitress. She was the typical divorced woman of her generation. She was undereducated yet street smart from years of living on the south side of Chicago. That in itself was rather a feat considering she was a child of the depression who grew up in very rural Alabama. She never had a “good” job but always managed to keep us fed. It may have been mayo sandwiches or ketchup sandwiches at times, but we ate. The restaurant she worked at for over 20 years was fairly popular and well known in the Chicago area. It was named the Tropical Hut and was known for it’s Polynesian food, which was a big thing back in the 60’s as people were expanding their foodie taste buds beyond burgers and baked potatoes. Thing is, other than a duck dish they had that I loved (we of course went there for every family event. Why do people do that anyway? Work someplace and then go back then when NOT working? :-P) the main food I recall from there was their club sandwich. Mom would bring it home cold at night to eat but half the time it ended up going to one or the other of us kids. I loved them.

Point being, when I was young, my main experience with food from other cultures was a club sandwich from a Polynesian restaurant in the Midwest. Go figure. While my taste buds have grown a bit more sophisticated as I’ve aged, I have to confess that I still love all the Americanized versions of Asian foods, from which some of the Polynesian foods can branch off. One that I love that you will never find on the menu of any authentic Chinese restaurant is Sweet & Sour Pork. Deep fried pork thrown together with an overly sweet yet tangy sauce with pineapple in it, then put on rice. Sounds rather gross, ehh? But in reality, it’s soooooo darn yummy. I mean, the words deep fried should tip you off right away. I’ve said before; you could probably deep fry a shoe and it would taste good.

This is the version I’ve been making for years. Authentic? Nope. Just mine. Though like I said, what is authentic with this dish ANYWAY? Back when I first started making it, I honestly didn’t even know there WAS such a thing as sweet and sour pork lol. I just took the sauce recipe from some meatballs I loved, chopped up some pork, battered it, fried it and thought it seemed Asian enough to deserve rice as the base. Isn’t it amazing what we come up with, thinking we are so original only to find out later (or sooner now that you can google a recipe in 3 seconds) that many others have been making it for years?

This is a good version, mine though it may be. Nothing weird, nothing unusual, fairly standard as it goes. But I wanted to post it for those who may be thinking that this is a hard dish to make. It’s not. If you can fry food and combine sauce ingredients, you can make Sweet And Sour Pork.

Sweet And Sour Pork

  • Batter-
  • 2 eggs 1 egg yolk
  • 3/4 cup cornstarch
  • 3/4 cup flour
  • 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1 cup milk
  • 2 teaspoons soy sauce
  • 3 pounds boneless pork loin, cubed into about 1 inch pieces
  • about 4 cups canola or vegetable oil, heated to 355 degrees
  • Sauce-
  • 1 20 ounce can pineapple chunks in juice, undrained
  • 1 8 ounce can pineapple chunks in juice, undrained
  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 2 tablespoons cornstarch dissolved in 3 tablespoons water
  • 2 tablespoons soy sauce
  • 2/3 cup vinegar
  • 2/3 cup chopped green pepper
  • 2/3 cup chopped onion
  • 1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes (optional)
  • 3 cups cooked rice (I like this served with Jasmine or Basmati but use your favorite)
  1. Start your sauce first- In a large pot, combine the pineapple with it’s juice, brown sugar, vinegar, soy sauce and cornstarch mixture. Bring to a boil, then cover, reduce the heat to low and simmer for about 15 minutes, stirring frequently.
  2. Add the green pepper and onions and simmer covered for another five minutes. Set aside and keep warm
  3. Start your oil heating while you prepare the batter, which is easy peasy.
  4. Combine the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Whisk in the eggs, egg yolk, milk and soy sauce.
  5. While your oil heats (large pot), take about half the pork cubes and put them into the batter. Stir around to get them well coated.
  6. When the oil has reached 355 degrees, carefully toss in (make sure your hands are fairly close to the oil… tossing from far up because it seems safer actually isn’t. It will just make the oil splatter all over you.) pieces of the pork. Do about 12 pieces at a time. You don’t want to overcrowd or the oil temp drops and you end up with greasy pork.
  7. Cook for about 4 minutes or until a nice dark golden brown. You’ll probably have to stir them around to get both sides browned.
  8. Using a wide slotted spoon or even better, a metal skimmer, lift out your pork and lay in a paper towel lined bowl.
  9. Keep cooking until it’s all done then you can either toss it with the sauce or, as I prefer to do, serve all the components separately so everyone can fix it the way they like it. Like here, my daughter loves a lot of sauce, I prefer less.
  10. Garnish with sliced green onions and serve with soy sauce

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