Turkish Coffee

#butfirstcoffee I used my ibrik to make Turkish style #coffee. It is very muddy and flavorful with the addition of some cardamom and stevia.

It smells and tastes good.

My buddy Bill and I did some coffee talk the other night and his love of Turkish coffee came up.

You need a really fine grind on the coffee (I think a dark roast works best) and you make it in these little pots by heating and cooling the mix. Slowly pour when done and the grounds stay in the bottom.

Stop when they start to try to escape!

Add what you like and enjoy.

There is no exact way to do this. People use different variations of basic ibrik coffee brewing.

Good info at sweetmarias.com and at Illy.com

I Cooked A Frozen Turkey (Not Fake News)

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2018 update: I have now done this about 4 times. Each time I did it the same way. Each time I have had very good results. Oh and FWIW Williams-Sonoma has a read on cooking a frozen turkey and another on cooking a turkey overnight at 200 degrees or less.

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I cooked a frozen turkey. No there isn't a punchline coming. The photo is the end result of what was once a rock solid frozen 14 pound Butterball turkey I bought at Safeway.

The turkey was moist and tasted pretty good. The skin was crispy and browned and with the simple gravy it was a great meal with butternut squash risotto, yams, and apple cranberry chutney.

Here is how I did it.

I just put the frozen turkey in a 325 oven on a lower rack in a rimmed baking sheet like you would use for cookies. That way hot air can get around it to cook. Don't use a roasting pan with high sides. Put a cup of water in the baking sheet. That's pretty much it.

So simple.

About 2 hours in I pulled out the packet inside and everything else. I put some bbq rub inside and outside. I was tempted to put some cut onions and things like that inside the turkey but I think you need to keep it open as much as possible to get the hot oven air inside the bird.

I made sure all of it got to 165 especially down near the bones but not on the bone. The breast will overshoot but that was ok. Have a reliable and calibrated thermometer to check the internal temperatures. Don't use those silly pop up things.

Total cooking time was about 5 1/2 hours. If you use a convection oven maybe a little less but figure about 50 percent longer to cook than normal.

Let it rest for 20 to 30 minutes and it is ready to serve.

My Thanksgiving turkey was done sous vide using this recipe. This was a shot at something a little crazy with a turkey I got on sale a week later.

I give it an 8 out of 10. It was as good as many turkeys I have had but maybe not as good as the best. It was by far the easiest I have ever made. Yes I would do it again.

One thing that I am sure helped is that the Butterball turkey is prepped for cooking.

"Contains up to 8% of a solution of Water, Salt, Spices, and Natural Flavor."

Some think this isn't a good thing but in this case where you are cooking a frozen turkey it helps because you can't do any of this before you put it in the oven.

I made simple gravy with the dripping using this Betty Crocker recipe.

This is pretty cool because for some reason people (including me) have an interest in ways to cook turkey.

On a more serious and useful note I think this "no prep" way to cook a frozen turkey could help people that cook a lot of food for a lot of people like churches, food banks, and soup kitchens.

Here is the guide I followed to do this at kitchn.com

How To Cook A Frozen Turkey

In a comment someone asked me to post a photo of the pan I used in the oven. They were wondering if it would hold all the drippings. I used a sheet with about a 1/2 inch rim around it. Then I put the turkey on a rack that held it up so the hot oven air could circulate around it.

I added a cup of water to that and it did fine holding all the drippings from the turkey. The water I added was gone by the end.

I think that the water from the frozen turkey turns to steam as it cooks and all of that helps keep things moist.

Instant Pot Turkey Stock and Hammers Turtilla Soup

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I made some stock with post Thanksgiving and post Thanksgiving leftovers with what was left of a turkey breast. The ingredients included onions, celery, garlic, and more. It spent 45 minutes under pressure in my Instant Pot and came out great. Find the recipe at DadCooksDinner.com

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Now that I had the stock I wanted to make Tortilla Soup. It is pretty easy to make and you can add things to it based on what you like. In my case the peppers didn't go in the soup but were added after it was done as not everybody wanted it spicy.

I used the recipe in Bob Warden's "Great Food Fast" a cookbook I really like for the Instant Pot. I like making his food and it is all well explained for pressure cooking. It took about 7 minutes under pressure.

This was very tasty. Éxito! 

On Facebook my friend Chuck Hammers said they did the same thing with the turkey leftover leftovers and they call it they call it "Turtilla Soup" so Hammers Turtilla Soup it is! :)

VIDEO: Cast Iron, Leftovers, Eggs, Blender Bottle

What to do with Thanksgiving leftovers? Enough of the sandwiches... :)

I like cooking with my cast iron and the Blender Bottle is a great way to make eggs.

Almond Dust Pork Roast

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Here is my pre-Thanksgiving dinner.

A few days ago I bought a pork loin. They are cheap cuts of meat but can dry out quick and need a little help with flavor.

I had some jars and bags of flavored almonds around and thought that the salt and sugar and flavors in the bottom of the containers should be used for something.

Enter the pork loin! I butterflied it open (I am not very good at that but it is pretty easy) then I added a mix of the almond flavor "dust" and some Bad Byron's But Rub. It is great stuff I like to use on bbq.

After that I rolled it back up and used butchers twine to tie it up. I am also not too good at that but this video is how I learned to do it. Real chefs and butchers do it so fast it is hard to see how it is done but this explains it well.

Flavored and tied I put the pork loin in the fridge for a day. I simply roasted it fat side up in the oven at 350 for about an hour. When the internal temp got to 140 I took it out and let it rest for 10 minutes.

It smelled great. There was a roasted nutty almond/bbq/pork smell filling the kitchen.

It sliced well and I used a couple of interesting sauces on the side. The Fat Cat Papaya Pequin Passion was new to me. It has a really interesting mix of flavors but isn't HOT hot. The 1st 4 ingredients are papaya, onion, pineapple, apple cider. It has pequin pepper for a little heat. It has a very Caribbean kind of flavor. A great pairing with the almond-y pork.

The Soy Vay Toasted Sesame was exactly what you might think it would be. I really like it and again it worked well with the pork loin.

 I paired it with Steelhead Vineyards 2012 Red a North Coast California red wine blend.

The final result was really good! I eat a lot of almonds and I'll keep a container to save all the almond dust for projects like this.

Sharon Tate's sister "I said a prayer for his soul" The Tough Part Of Being A Christian

Thanks Debra Tate for doing this

“I said a prayer for his soul,” Sharon Tate’s sister Debra tells PEOPLE of the moment after she received a call from a prison official informing her of Manson’s death Sunday evening.

She says she never wished ill of any of the convicted killers. When Atkins died from cancer in 2009 Debra prayed for her soul — and vowed at the time she would do the same for Manson.

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“My cross in my bedroom still has the flowers that I slipped into Jesus’s feet when Susan died,” she says. “I cried a tear and I asked for forgiveness on her soul. I’ll do the same thing when Charlie dies.”


Among the radio listening I like these days is 1260 am part of the Relevant Radio network. They have really good shows. Yesterday I heard them doing some prayers and they said a prayer for the soul of Charles Manson.

I said "wow" out loud in the car. What a statement of faith to hear on the radio.

As a Christian I know that's the right thing to do but it is so much the opposite of everything else I had seen and heard about him (and others like him) for so many years.

It isn't always easy to do but...

Be devoted to one another in brotherly love.

Honor one another above yourselves. Never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.

Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.

Share with God’s people who are in need.

Practice hospitality.

Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.

Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn.

Live in harmony with one another.

Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position. Do not be conceited.

Romans 12:10-16

more at prisonfellowship.org

Video - Sonoma Bicycle Ride

This was a beautiful day a couple of years ago. I did a bicycle ride from Jimtown to Healdsburg and back. I'll have to do it again soon.

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The route was

Jimtown Store

Alexander Valley Road

Lytton Station Road

Lytton Springs Road

Dry Creek Road

Grove Street

Chiquita Road

Lytton Springs Road and back to Jimtown Store

Thanks Ethiopian Coffee Growers For These Cool Beans! (cool videos)

Having some coffee? Me too. I am having some Ethiopian Natural Yirgacheffe (yer -gah - cheff - aaa). You can't get much more old school than Ethiopian coffee. It's where it all started. Here are my home roasted Yirgacheffe beans.

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Not all coffee tastes the same. It does has different flavors. While these beans make a very nice cup of coffee they do have some brighter flavors that you can detect. Burman Coffee Traders describe it as "...strong notes of melon and strawberry. Accompanied with a bit of blueberry in the aromatics. A bit of citrus acidity upfront at the lighter roasts but all in all pretty mellow in the acidity which gives it a very jammy body. Very clean cup which gives it a nice lingering finish that is not dry and earthy like some." That's pretty accurate just don't think "strong" means it tastes like a smoothie. It is still coffee but there these other notes in the flavors. I also taste a little mocha and the brewed coffee is very fragrant. I really like it!

It is a fascinating process to see how we end up with a cup of coffee. I respect the hard work and time that it takes to have that smile on my face when I take that first sip of brewed coffee.

Check out this video from Sweet Maria's. You can buy beans from all over the world and roast them yourself with what you can buy at Oakland's Sweet Maria's.

Here is an entertaining coffee crazed guy from Old Bisbee Roasters doing a review of a brewed cup

This is a longer video about the coffee trade in Ethiopia

Ska Ska Ska Do The Ska

I've been listening to almost nothing but ska the last few months. The music just makes me happy. It is timeless. From an interview with trumpet player Adam Birch at reggae-steady-ska.com where he was at a festival playing with The Pietasters.

You’ve been involved with ska the bulk of your life. What is it that keeps bringing you back?

You know what, it’s this music. I’ll be honest with you. It never, ever dies. I tried to run away from it. I really believe this—this music is spiritual and I know you might not believe it, but you cannot stop listening to it. You try, you go away from it, you listen to other stuff, you always come back to it. The music just keeps reforming and it multitudes and it multiplies and it comes back third-wave ska, fourth-wave ska, fifth wave. It’s just this root of the music, but it changes and it progresses. That’s the beautiful thing about ska.

The Trellis Became A Fellis

rotten never sleeps