Here are some tips to get you ready for the big day of turkey roasting.

*The preferred way to prepare a turkey is to brine it first.  This will make for a super moist bird and decrease your cooking time by at least 30 minutes.  Click here to get our recipe.

*Leave the turkey out of the oven for at least 3 hours before cooking.  This will allow the bird to cook more evenly.

*Even though it looks pretty, stuffing a turkey is dangerous!  To cook the stuffing to a safe temperature, the turkey would overcook.

*Rather than using a roasting rack, lay a bed of mirepoix (carrot, celery and onion) down in the bottom of the roasting pan.  Also include the neck and wing tips of the turkey. This will keep your pan drippings from burning and flavor them well for the gravy.

*Don’t play the guessing game!  Keep an instant-read thermometer handy to check the temperature of the thigh joint.  Be sure that the thermometer probe is not touching the bone because this will cause a false read.  The dial will register at 165 degrees when it is cooked through.

Check out our full recipe for Roasted Turkey with Pan Gravy.

It’s always really nice to see those commercials featuring a family around the Thanksgiving table where the turkey is being carved and a single drop of juice drips down the side of the perfectly roasted bird when it is cut into.  You, too, can roast a turkey this moist but it’s going to take a little advanced preparation.  Brining the turkey will not only produce an exceptionally moist result, but the meat will also be seasoned throughout.

Turkey Brine

This brine is for a 14-16 pound  thawed turkey.  For a larger bird, increase the recipe.

2 gallons water

2 cups Kosher salt

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup peppercorns

2 heads of garlic, halved

2 bay leaves, crumbled

Combine all ingredients in a large container.  Stir until the salt and sugar are dissolved.

Rinse the thawed turkey and reserve the neck and giblets from the cavity of the bird.  Place the turkey into a large zip-top bag and pour the brine into the bag.  If there is room in your refrigerator, place the bag onto a baking sheet and place on the bottom shelf.  If there is no room for the turkey, place the bag into a cooler and ice the bagged turkey with several pounds of ice.

The turkey should be brined for no less than 4 hours and no more than 8 hours.

When you remove the turkey from the brine, rinse it well and then pat it dry.  You want the turkey as dry as possible so that it will brown instead of steam in the oven.  Check back tomorrow for roasting tips!

Although it’s a little early to start your holiday cooking, there is one thing you can do to get ready.  You can clean out your refrigerator!  It’s not just so that you will be able to fit a turkey in there either.  Here are some tips to keep your family and friends safe by keeping a clean fridge.

*Clean your fridge with a mild detergent and a clean sponge.  Harsh chemicals will hang around and possibly harm the food.

*Keep the temperature of the fridge below 40 degrees.  Small thermometers are relatively inexpensive at a hardware store.  Harmful bacteria flourishes at temperatures between 40 and 140 degrees.

*Don’t overcrowd the shelves.  Storing gobs of stuff in the fridge may be necessary; but, if the items are not properly spaced the air flow through the fridge can be cut off.  This will cause the temperature of the food in the main  section and the door to rise.  Muy Peligroso! (Very Dangerous!)

*You should be storing your items in this order-
Top shelf - fruits and vegetables - They will be the first thing you see when you open the door and they will be the furthest away from any meat.
Middle shelves - dairy and leftovers - The spot for milk, yogurt, sour cream, etc.  All leftovers should be marked with the date the item was prepared.  This will help you keep good food in and bad food out.  The “wait until it grows legs and walks away” method is not as effective.
Bottom shelf - raw meat - This is where your turkey will go.  Anywhere else and you run the risk of your turkey leaking out harmful bacteria onto items below.  As an extra precaution, we put a cookie sheet or casserole under all raw meat in the refrigerator.  This shelf is also the perfect place for eggs.  They should be stored in their original carton rather than the door compartment.  This spot keeps a more stable temperature.
Meat drawer - cured/cooked meat - Sandwich meats and cheeses should only go here.
Crisper drawers - leafy vegetables - These drawers are ideal for storing vegetables in because it traps the moisture inside and the harmful bacteria out.

Have you ever found yourself looking down at a sushi menu wondering what the difference is between fugu and unagi?  You certainly don’t want to get those mixed up!

Have you ever been baking and found out that you are 1 cup short of powdered sugar?

Have you ever planned a menu and been stuck on what wine to serve with it?

You can find all of these answers and more in our collection of charts under the “Guides” section of LearningHowToCook.com!  “How does that help me at a sushi restaurant,” you ask?  Our charts can be viewed via most PDA’s and Smartphones (BlackBerry, iPhone, etc).

So!  We’ve made the big announcement that our labor of love, LearningHowToCook.com, is live on the web.  One of our favorite features is the Techniques section of the site.  Here you will find tips on everything from cleaning different vegetables to basic knife cuts.  The step-by-step pictures display at the top of the pictorial in a quick and easy flip book; but if you need a little more guidance, there are detailed instructions under each picture below!  You will find links to these techniques next to ingredients in recipes as well.  For instance, if a recipe calls for “cleaned artichokes”, there is a link that says “learn how”.  Simply click on that link and presto! The site will take you to the step-by-step instructions on how to clean the artichokes.  Browse the technique pictorials…you may learn something new.

So!  We’ve made the big announcement that our labor of love, LearningHowToCook.com, is live on the web.  Here are a few hints on using the Shopping List function on the site.

*When you are browsing our delicious recipes, you can automatically populate a shopping list by hitting the brown and orange pan icon at the top of every recipe.

*Check the ingredients you need to buy at the grocery store.  This will fill the lines of “My Shopping List”.

*You can also add items you need that aren’t in the recipes (i.e. cat food, paper towels, juice).

*When your list is complete, save it!  This will enable you to go to a print screen that is black and white so that you don’t use up all of your color cartridge.

*You can add multiple recipes to the shopping list whether you are a member of the site or not; but, if you want to save your favorite recipes for easy reference you can create a user login on the Home page!

*When you have multiple recipes on your list, the print screen will display all of the ingredient types together.  This way, when you are in the produce section of the grocery, all of the fresh vegetables will be grouped together for a more organized shopping experience.

There are a few “wow” inducing skills that you can learn for putting on a bit of a show while you’re cooking.  This one just happens to be as cool looking as it is effective.

Tossing Food In a Pan

The best way to learn to toss food in a pan is to start with a cold, slope-sided saute pan and  some dry rice.  Put the rice into the pan.  You can put the pan onto the stove to make it more realistic; but, you may want to practice outside for easier clean up.

* Start of by shaking the pan back and forth.  When you have oil and “real” food in the pan that will ensure that all of the food is loose from the pan.

* When you’re ready to perform your first flip, push the pan straight out.  Stop the pan with a jerking motion while lifting the lip of the pan and pulling it back toward yourself.  This should be performed in a fluid motion and will take on a hook-shaped movement.

That’s all there is to it…Once you get the movement down without spilling the rice, try it in a pan with oil and food.  Start slow and work your way to a full flip.

Save this date!  This coming Thursday, November 20, 2008, is the release date of the Beaujolais Nouveau wines.  It happens every year on the third Thursday of November.  The release couldn’t come at a better time.  These  are among the top recommended wines for Thanksgiving dinner.  The wine is made from Gamay grapes so, although it is a red wine, it is light enough to pair with the heavy meal.  Grab your Beaujolais Nouveau on Thursday, but only get enough to drink for Thanksgiving or soon after.  The wines are NOT meant to cellar and will turn in as little as six months.

Slow cooker season is upon us, folks!   Here are a few tips on cooking tough cuts of meat to make them turn out restaurant quality.

*Brown your meat in a saute pan before you put it into the slow cooker.  This will induce the Maillard reaction.  That’s just a fancy term for: “Browning meat” which makes it taste better.

*Cook your vegetables a bit, too.  When you saute vegetables (especially onions), they release the oils inside.  This is a huge flavor booster!

*Add some red wine and/or a couple of tablespoonfuls of tomato paste.  The acid in these items breaks down the connective tissue in tough cuts, resulting in a fall-apart piece of meat.

*Use low sodium stock!  It is always best to make your own so that you know what’s in it.  But, if you have to use store bought stock, at least be in control of how much salt you are putting into your dish.  Remember, these tough cuts will cook for hours.  You definitely don’t want them to be sitting in a stock that is full of salt.  It will toughen the meat and make it dry/stringy.  Ick!

We know that, with these tips, they’ll be clamoring for short ribs instead of ribeye!   And, who would even dream that they are half the price?

Don’t you just love it when you go to pull some plastic film from the box only to end up with the whole roll dangling from one hand and the empty box in the other.  Or better yet, when you just need a sheet of foil to hurry up and get dinner in the oven, you pull and….there goes your foil rolling across the kitchen floor.   The simple solution:  there are tabs that you can push in on the ends of the boxes that will lock its contents in place!  They are easy to miss, so don’t feel bad if you’ve been left holding the wrap a time or two.