Am I the only person on the planet that doesn’t “like” Crock Pot Girls on Facebook yet? Then there’s a “Skinny Crock Pot” too. I need to get on board this ship and quick. I love my Crock-Pot and I will confess, that I have three: small, medium and large.
I have many many friends that are petrified of the Crock-Pot meal. It conjures up memories of meals with the same soupy chicken and rice or drippy beef. It doesn’t have to be this way people. I RARELY add any liquid to my Crock-Pot while cooking — seriously, it does not need the extra cream of something soup. It makes the best meat dishes — it’s like a smoker without the smoke: fall off the bone chicken, short ribs, turkey breasts, brisket, pot roast, and pork butts. You name the animal and I’m putting it in the Crock-Pot.
Today we are going to cook a Thanksgiving teaser dinner. This time the turkey is done in a crock pot all day long. I will issue an advance warning. Once you cook this, you have rendered yourself in contention for cooking a big Thanksgiving dinner, so you might want to keep your cooking on the down-low for this one.
Thanksgiving Teaser
MENU
Turkey Breast
Sweet Potatoes
Fresh Corn
Ingredients:
Frozen turkey breast, thawed (leave it overnight in your sink, should do the trick.)
Cavender’s Greek Seasoning (making another appearance for this meal)
Sweet Potatoes– one per person or a 1/2 per if for a child
Corn, 4-5 ears fresh with husks on (or one per person)
Directions:
You will start your dinner first thing in the morning. (So get your biggest Crock-Pot out of the box, take off the tags and get it ready to go the night before.) Take your thawed turkey out of the packaging.
Turkey thawed and still in packaging
Take a deep breath, reach in the cavity and pull out the plastic bag of guts. Throw this away.
Bag of guts. Please discard.
Rinse off your turkey and put it in the Crock-Pot. Rub it all over with Cavender’s Greek Seasoning (both sides).
My basic seasoning for everything. Covers all bases of salt, pepper, and herbs.
I have given this the Cavender’s rubdown.
Lay the turkey breast on its side. It probably will NOT fit in your large Crock-Pot, DO NOT PANIC. It will cook down and the lid will go down eventually.
The turkey is too big for the Crock-Pot. Matters not. Put the lid on and walk away.
Set the Crock-Pot to cook on the lowest temperature for the longest amount of time. This will either be the LOW setting or on mine it says 10 hrs. Put the lid on the best you can and leave it for the rest of the day. If you are feeling super ambitious, you can flip it over about half-way through.
Half-way through the day, it looks like this. All better.
About an hour and a half before dinner time, heat your oven to 400 degrees. Just like a regular baked potato, you will need to wash and prick the sweet potato with a knife before cooking. I do highly recommend cooking them on a foil-lined baking sheet rather than putting them directly in the oven.
Prepped and on a foil-lined baking sheet.
They tend to ooze during cooking and it can be a big mess in your oven. You will cook these for one hour and fifteen minutes, possibly a little longer if they are really big.
Now for your corn. You could start this with about 30 minutes left on the clock for the sweet potatoes.
Take the corn in their husks and put them straight in the microwave. Do simple math and for each corn cob, cook for 4 minutes. So I cooked 5 corn cobs for 20 minutes. I know, I never told you there would be math in this test. I apologize.
They are fine to cook just like this. Don’t touch the husks.
Put them straight in microwave. No wrapping or plates. They are in their own little husk just made for cooking.
When the corn is finished, let it cool for at least 10 minutes. Then with your hands, standing over the garbage can, start peeling off the husks and the strings that are also attached. These should all come off easily.
Start peeling the corn.
Cutting corn off cob.
Get a large ceramic bowl and place a ramekin or a smaller bowl upside down in it. Stand your corn cob on that ramekin and cut off the corn. It should fall right into the bowl.
When you are finished cutting all of your corn put a couple pats of butter on the top, season with salt and pepper and mix.
Fresh cut sweet corn.
Cover this dish with foil or put a lid on it to keep it warm. Get the sweet potatoes out of the oven and let them cool off. Here’s what they will look, all oozy.
The sweet ooze from the potato.
Let these sweet potatoes cool and let’s get that turkey.
Take it out of the crock pot. This is a little difficult. I usually take a sturdy wooden spoon, put it in the cavity of the bird and lift it out really quick. Place on a cutting board and get to work. You can cut off chunks with a knife and fork or use two forks and shred it. It should be falling off the bones at this point and not hard to do.
Turkey’s done!
Shredding.
Now look in your Crock-Pot. There should be some turkey juice in there. Do not throw this out! This is where the turkey will get all its flavor.
Put all the shredded meat back in your juice and toss.
Put your shredded turkey meat back in the Crock-Pot.
Plate up your turkey, sweet potato and corn. Be sure to put a pat of butter and a sprinkle (or a boulder like my family does) of brown sugar on the sweet potato if you wish.
Eat this and then go watch football and take a two-hour nap.
This can also be served with green beans, green salad or anything else you love to eat on Thanksgiving. I thought that the meat and two sides was plenty for today.
I would love to hear your feedback on your Thanksgiving teaser dinner experience.
Next week: PASTA.
