Notes: Making Turkey Wellington

The in-laws purchased a frozen turkey breast at Tom Thumb (a local grocery store chain) and then took it to the deli counter to have it de-boned the next day. It came back deboned, and cut in two fillets and a small strip of tenderloin.

Ingredients:

2 turkey fillets
stuffing
1 box puff pastry dough, defrosted
vegetable oil
1 beaten egg
Also, cotton string/twine

1.  Make a stuffing of your choice.  I used an apple cranberry walnut stuffing found here.  I mixed all the ingredients and cooked it on the stovetop.  I thought the recipe lacked a little "oomph", so I added a splash of orange juice to the recipe.  Let the stuffing cool a little.

2. Flatten the fillet to about a 1/4" thickness: Place the fillet between two sheets of plastic wrap. Pound it with either a meat mallet, or in this case, a cast iron pan.

3.  Scoop up the stuffing with your hands.  Spread it on top of the turkey fillet.

4.  Pull the ends of the fillet together, so that it forms a circle.  (Close the Pac-Man mouth)

5.  Roll it all up.  Yumm...raw poultry.  (I think the photo looks a little obscene)

6.  We're not done, yet!  Tie the roll in string.

7.  In a large frypan, heat some oil.  Place the rolled turkey in the pan to sear.  Turn it so the outside is cooked all the way around.  It looks like fish!

8.  After the turkey has been seared, remove from the pan and allow to cool.  While waiting for the turkey to cool, roll out one sheet of the puff pastry dough.

9.  Cut the string off the turkey roll, and carefully remove it.  We don't want the roll falling apart.

10.  Put the turkey on top of the the dough.  Bring the edges of the dough up around the turkey, and cut off extra dough if there is too much overlap.  Pinch the edges of the dough together.  Turn the whole thing over, so that the seam of the dough is underneath.  If you want, use a cookie cutter to cut decorative shapes from the extra dough.  Place it on top of the roll to make it look pretty.

11.  Brush the loaf with the beaten egg.

12.  Place in the oven at 350 F.  Bake for 20-30 min, or until internal temperature reads 170 F.

13.  Slice, eat, enjoy.   (Thanks to Mr. Turro for the photo)

It goes well with gravy, and I'm told it does well, and in some ways is better, re-heated.  Just place slices on a pan to warm up.

We didn't eat until 4:30pm...it really was a Thanksgiving dinner.  But!  People were impressed with it.  I had fun making it.  It was a group effort.  The father-in-law beat the turkey into submission, while the mother-in-law tied the turkey rolls.

I've been encouraged to make Beef Wellington for Christmas.

Good thing I know of a place in Metro to buy foie gras.  And perhaps I should go to that queen of gastronomy, Julia Child, for the recipe of  filet de bœuf en croûte ?

Notes: Hemming jeans

A year ago, I got two pairs of jeans during a "buy one get one" sale.  One pair of jeans I hemmed soon after purchase.  The second pair I just got around to hemming last week.  

A Google search on "how to hem jeans" will give you much better instructions than can be found on my blog. However, those instructions show how to re-use the original hem. Instructables has one such method. And last year, when I first searched for how to hem jeans, I used the instructions on Dacia Ray as my manual.

In both these methods, you use/reuse the original hem. In the Instructables entry, you cut off, then re-attach, the original hem. With Dacia, you fold over the extra fabric and sew the hem higher on the leg. Both are good methods. However, I, personally, had some issues. First, I wasn't crazy about having the extra fabric along where you re-stitch the hem. Yes, you iron it flat, so you can't feel it or see it, but knowing it was there still bothered me. Second, I have no sewing machine, and being a fairly inexperienced seamstress, I had difficulty with sewing the perfectly straight line that I wanted. Since I was not intent on saving the original hem, I did my own variation.

1) Measure the desired length of the jeans, pin, and iron the jeans.  Mark the folded edge.  I will call this the Fold Line.

To measure the length on the jeans needing hemming, I laid them down over an old pair of jeans that were the same brand and style, but had a length I liked.  This worked well for me.   However, putting on the jeans that need hemming, wearing the shoes that you want to wear with them, and pinning in front of a mirror, is probably best.

I used washable marker for all markings.

2) Measure the Hem Height.  That is, measure from the outside edge of the hem, to where the hem is folded under.  The stitching should be between these points.  Note the measurement.  Now, from where you folded and marked the jeans, measure two Hem Heights out.  Use a ruler to help mark this 2X Hem Height.

3) Cut the jeans along the 2X Hem Height line.  Turn the jeans inside out.  Fold the cut edge up, so that the cut edge lines up with the Fold Line .  Iron.

4) Fold jeans up again, along the Fold Line.  Iron and pin.

5) Turn the jeans right side out.  Measure the stitch height from the original hem.  Mark the Stitch Height on the outside of the jeans.

6) Sew across the jeans using the Stitch Height Line as a guide.  Since even that, my stitches still come out a little crooked, I use a small metal guide (actually a bookmark) and hold it along the line.  This results in very very straight stitches.

7)  I then went back over the stitches using a Double Running Stitch.
(Just now, I was trying to find out the name of the stitch I was using to hem my jeans.  It took me half an hour to get to "double running stitch".  I have no recollection about how a year ago I found out about the double running stitch, or why I chose it--It's apparently an outdated Elizabethan stitch.  Today, people with any sense use the "back stitch.")  

 8)  At this point the hem looks flat and obvious.  However, once the jeans are laundered, they develop the desired weathering and puckering.

Notes: How to paint a suitcase

I'll be travelling next week, and so yesterday and today, I put finishing touches on my suitcase. The stencils were purchased from Wal-Mart, and I used Krylon spray paint in metallic silver. As noted in my previous post, I had placed a straw onto the tip of the spray can so that I could focus the paint more easily.

There were two designs I wanted to respray: the first flower pattern on the top, and the last pattern on the bottom.  I put masking tape all along the edges of the stencils and used clear plastic trash bags (which I had gotten for free from the rolls offered on the stadium parking lot) to cover the rest of the suitcase.  Starting with the top design, I found that the the straw on the end of the spray can was not useful.  The paint still ended up pooling outside the stencil, rather than inside the cutout shape.  I eventually took a blade of grass, and scooped up the liquid spray paint from the covered part of the stencil, and touching the paint to the inside of the stencil.  That worked MUCH better than the actual spraying.  I applied several coats of paint in this manner.  When I finished and removed the stencil, I found that the spray paint had seeped under the stencil rendering the floral shapes into indeterminate blobs.  When working on the bottom pattern, I used a much lighter hand.

My conclusion is that for ballistic nylon suitcase fabric, normal spray paint and stencils are not a good combination.  I believe that the spray paint is too thin, and just sinks into the fabric.  As mentioned before, the non-porous plastic outline of the stencil had spray paint pooling on it, but very little paint was apparent on the suitcase fabric, even when "brushing" on the paint with a blade of grass.  The paint drops would disappear into the fabric.  Unless I had a large stencil, at least 3 inches across, I don't think I would bother with regular spray paint again.  I have heard that fabric spray paint had a thicker consistency. I would try that next time for my fine stencil designs, if I were to use spray paint. Most likely, if I had a small design, I would just use paint markers. I've found that both Rustoleum and Krylon make paint markers.

After the spray paint dried, I used a DecoFabric fabric markers, bought at Michael's, to highlight the designs. I hope that the paint will not scratch off in my travels--but I get to test that next week.