Kitchen Messes..and meals!

I pity da fool that is my roommate...because I totally made a monstrous mess in the kitchen today after 3 hours of prepping my meals for half the week. Sorry Heather! And alas, I have no "food porn" to share because I was too busy cooking 5 different things at once that I didn't have time to take any pictures. But just imagine how delicious it looks, ok :)

First up was my apple-tarragon turkey with braised spinach. Super simple and easy. I once made this turkey dish with a chicken breast instead, and I don't remember it having that much of a wow factor. This turkey didn't really wow me either, but it was better than the last time. I think I need remember to let meat get to room temperature first before cooking it because the turkey took a really long time to cook. Here's how it went down.

Apple-Tarragon Turkey
1 lb of turkey breast
1/4 cup 100% apple juice (I'm using the rest of my bottle to make hibiscus-apple tea later this week!)
1/4 cup chicken stock
1 clove garlic, minced
2 Tb fresh tarragon, roughly chopped (I used dried last time...fresh is definitely better!) 
1/2 tsp freshly grated ginger
Salt and pepper
Olive oil

Mix the apple juice, chicken stock, garlic, tarragon, and ginger together to make the sauce. Salt and pepper the turkey, then heat some oil in a medium high skillet. Sear the turkey breast, 2 minutes each side; remove to rest. In the same skillet at reduced heat, pour in your sauce and bring it to a slight boil. Return the turkey to the skillet and cook the rest of the way through. Should have probably only taken about 10 more minutes, but it took much longer for me because I think the turkey was still a little frozen. Your sauce should start to thicken up, but if it gets too thick, add more chicken stock.

Braised Spinach, courtesy Jamie Oliver
1 bag of fresh spinach
olive oil
butter
fresh lemon juice
freshly grated nutmeg

So simple it kills me to even write up the recipe. Wash the spinach leaves (duh). I put some pats of butter in a frying pan on medium-low heat, then topped that with the spinach, drizzle a little olive oil on top, squeezed the juice of about 1/3 a lemon, and grated some fresh nutmeg on top. Tossed it all together and covered with a lid and let it steam for about 4 minutes. Nothing fancy, but it came out pretty tasty!

I also made some beef and broccoli, a la Mark's Daily Apple.

Beef and Broccoli
Beef and marinade:
1 lb beef sirloin, cut into strips
1 tsp tamari
1 tsp dry cooking sherry
(2 Tb of coconut oil for frying)

Actual sauce:
2 Tb fish sauce (or oyster sauce)
1.5 tsp dry cooking sherry
1.5 Tb tamari
1/3 cup chicken broth
1 bunch of broccoli, cut for florets
2 cloves of garlic, minced

First I set the beef to marinate in a Ziploc bag with the tamari and sherry. Then I mixed the sauce ingredients together in a bowl: fish sauce, sherry, tamari, chicken broth. I boiled some cups of salted water, threw in the broccoli for 2 minutes, then drained it. In a deep pan set to high heat, I melted the coconut oil and covered the pan. Then, threw in the beef and let it sizzle and sear for about a minute. Threw in the garlic and flipped the meat to cook the other side, about one minute. Then added the sauce and the broccoli to the pan, brought to a simmer. Done! I <3 easy Chinese food!

Last, but not least, I had to make dessert! I took this chocolate hazelnut mousse recipe from Cosmpolitan Primal Girl, but I threw it in the freezer to make a sort of ice creamy gelato!

Chocolate-Hazelnut Dessert 
6 Tb hazelnut butter*
3 Tb honey
1/2 cup coconut milk
6 tsp cocoa
4 tsp vanilla
6 eggs, beaten

Mix the hazelnut butter, honey, coconut milk, cocoa and vanilla together. Heat on pretty low heat until it starts to simmer. Then slowly stir in the eggs, then beat for 2-3 more minutes on the low heat. Pour into a bowl and refrigerate for mousse or freeze for ice cream! If the mixture starts to get clumpy while you're mixing in the eggs, remove from heat immediately! It means things got to hot or you've been cooking the eggs for too long.

*I had a hard time finding hazelnut butter, so I just made my own. Six tablespoons is about 1/2 pound of raw hazelnuts. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and arrange your hazelnuts in a single layer on a cookie sheet. Toast in the oven 10-15 minutes until the nut shells start to "blister." Pour the nuts into a large enough cloth towel and let them cool for about 10 minutes. Then, fold up the towel and shake/rub/rattle/roll the nuts around in the bag until the skins all fall off! FUN!!!! Throw the de-skinned nuts into a food processor and process until you make a nut butter (about 2 minutes?). YUM!