Cooking a Whole Turkey in a Pressure Cooker

I've had my pressure canner now for a few months, and have only used it a few times. I have a small pressure cooker, but it isn't large enough to cook a turkey in. Since I've been wanting to try pressure cooking a whole turkey, I defrosted one I had in the deep freeze and got it ready for cooking. I must say, that this is the easiest way to prepare a turkey, with the best results as well. After taking all of the organs and pieces out of the cavity, and rinsing the entire bird, I put it in the pressure canner, filled the cavity with carrots and onion and put about 2 cups of chicken broth in. Put the lid on, got it cooking, put the pressure value on and got it up to 15 pounds of pressure. It cooked for 40 minutes. I couldn't believe how the meat just fell off of the bone! Pug and Luigi were very excited when I got to the point of taking the lid off. The aroma was amazing. I put on a plastic glove, and just picked the turkey off, discarded the bones, and fed pieces of turkey to the dogs here and there. I took my first bite and couldn't believe how tasty it was! Below, see what one 15 pound turkey yielded. I got 8 cups of broth, and plenty of turkey to last us for sandwiches and to serve with the carrots from the pot, left over green beans and mashed potatoes. I am going to stock up on turkeys on sale this fall. This one cost me $5 last December. I might pressure cook the meat, then put the meat into jars and pressure can them. Same with the broth. Try this method of cooking a turkey. I think you'll find this easy to prepare and the clean up was very quick and easy.

I'm a featured blogger at Alive!

Alive! Southern Utah's Online Lifestyle Magazine featured me this month in their Taste section! How cool is that? I'm mentioned toward the end of the great article on Farmer's Markets in the Southern Utah region. There is some helpful information for those wanting to sell items at the markets. Go check it out! I'm really enjoying the great articles written by Rachelle and others. Definitely a site to bookmark and refer to often.

Sliced Tomato Sandwich on Croissant with Balsamic Drizzle

This is officially my favorite summer food right now! I had this sandwich for lunch yesterday, and again for lunch today. Delicious! It is a Tomato Sandwich on Croissant with Balsamic Drizzle. Begin with a croissant. I got a flat of them at Costco. You can find them in the larger grocery stores. Slice it lengthwise, in half. Find some ripe, ready to eat tomatoes, either from your garden or farmers market (or in my case, Costco!)

Slice the tomatoes. I like the slices on the thick side. Layer them on the bottom half of the croissant.

Crack some fresh pepper and salt on the tomatoes, to taste.

Drizzle some balsamic reduction on the tomatoes. I am addicted to this stuff. Low calories and totally delish! I bought mine at Whole Foods. I might start carrying it on my blog for those of you who can't find it in stores. It is perfect on salads instead of heavy dressing.

Yummmmmy! See how fantastic that looks?

There you have it! Enjoy all of those tomatoes this summer. And if you have extra from your garden, share this recipe and a few tomatoes with your neighbor or friend. They'll love you for it!

Awesome Potato Cauliflower Salad

I've been trying to use up the food I have on hand in the refrigerator. I had 1/2 head of cauliflower and some celery. I also needed to use the new potatoes and red onions. So, after googling a bit, I found a recipe for cauliflower salad on Spark People and thought I'd just add that to the potatoes and improvise from there. Look at how yummy it turned out!! It tastes so good, I immediately made it my lunch; a cup full on a bed of romaine!


Check out the red onion, bits of bacon, chopped celery. YUM! And I'm not really a huge potato salad fan.
You can see the mustard seeds also...

I diced a red onion...used my handy dandy dicer thing that you see on TV. Added 1/2 c. diced red onion.

I chopped up about 3-4 stalks of celery, finely chopped.

I boiled 8 medium size new potatoes, diced bite sized. I steamed the bite sized cauliflower pieces in a steaming tray above the potatoes....they cooked up first, then I just took them off and rinsed them with cold water.

I added 4-5 pieces of cooked bacon, diced. You could use bacon bits, about 1/2 c. I used 3/4 c. mayo, 1-2 TBSP of country style brown mustard and 1 heaping TBSP of pickle relish.

This recipe is so easy to make. You can add more cauliflower, and less potatoes if you want. Give it a try, and tell me how you like it! Click on the pictures, and you can see all of this deliciousness up close and personal!

Pug loves tomatoes, too!

Here is my little patch of garden happiness! The two lemon cucumber plants are going crazy. I put my vintage garden gate behind the planter and the plants have almost completely covered it! Off to the right I have pots of heirloom tomatoes, green onions and herbs.

This morning, I decided that it was time to pick the tomato that was nearly perfectly ripe. I have been checking the cucumber plant daily, only to find 1" cukes. Well, hello! Today look what I found. That little lemon cuke took me by surprise! EXCITING!

Everything was WONDERFUL! I had taken the dogs for an early morning walk up the canyon, I picked a tomato, leaving another behind so I could pick it tomorrow. I found and picked a lemon cucumber. LIFE IS GOOD! Enter, our fun dog, PUG ......

Can you see that he is looking guilty???!!! FYI, they already had their first meal of the day. Pug is on weight control dog food to keep his boyish figure. Well, below, note the tomato that I left on the vine. Waiting for another day of 104* weather to get it to full ripeness. Yep, I was going to pick it tomorrow. Just ONE.MORE.DAY! I went in to put my cuke and tomato on the counter in the house. As I went back outside, who do I see chomping on a tomato??? Yea, you know the answer...hmmmmppp!

Here is a picture of Luigi, smelling the borage and nasturtiums. He isn't food motivated like PUG, just an Italian Greyhound, enjoying a good smell!

At least I have a cucumber and more on the way...

And I have a tomato, and some more green ones *going to find something to keep Pug out of them today*.

If any of your produce is missing from you garden, better keep an eye on your dog!

Awwww, he's just a little guy after all. Guess I'll forgive him, after I put up some chicken wire!

All American Pressure Cooker/Canner

Here is a picture of my latest kitchen purchase. It is the All-American 21-1/2-Quart Pressure Cooker/Canner! Isn't she a beauty? I bought it from Amazon...truly a great price! I am going to use this baby for the first time tomorrow morning. I am going to make Italian Wedding soup, and pressure can it to use later. I have some spinach I need to use up, some vegetable broth in the freezer, and some frozen mini meatballs that I can defrost. I'll take pictures and show you how nice the jars look afterwards. Making and canning soup is more nutritious and tastes better. I joined a canning group on yahoo. These people sure know their canning! I have the latest copy of Ball's Blue Book, so I'm ready to go. I get so much produce each week from Bountiful Baskets, that I want to use it all, and not waste any. Do you put up your own food? What are you doing these days to stock your pantry?

Bountiful Baskets Pick-up and Strawberries

I've been trying to keep up with all of the produce I get from Bountiful Baskets . Every spare minute I have, I'm peeling, cutting, dicing and otherwise getting the produce ready to use. After I finished peeling, slicing and storing the cucumbers, son #4 comes into the kitchen and asks if we have any. Of course, I directed him to the proper container. There is no excuse for not eating veges when they are ready-to-eat!

Today was another pick-up day for produce. I got 2 flats of strawberries. Tonight, after son #4's chamber orchestra performance, I am going to get them washed and freeze them in a single layer on cookie sheets, then, when frozen, will put them into ziplock freezer bags. We like to use strawberries for smoothies in the morning, and these were such a great price at $8/case (8#).

I made some vegetable soup stock yesterday using some wilted celery, a couple of carrots, some zucchini and seasonings. I made 3 quart containers of soup stock, and it smelled and tasted fantastic. Making soup stock is a great way to use vegetables that are a little past their prime. Those are now in the freezer. It will come in handy for making risotto, soup, or for using in other recipes.

I also froze a bunch of greens for smoothies. They were washed, put into my lettuce spinner and then packed into ziplock freezer bags.

Finally, I baked all of the yams I had, and am using them tonight for a yummy sweet potato casserole. I'll share the recipe for that later tonight. I'm making mini turkey meatloaf to go with the casserole. I'll probably include a green salad.

Hope that you are having a fantastic Easter weekend!