Inspiration from my other meals!

I know my challenge is to eat at a different restaurant, and then make the meal at home... but I thought I would write about some of my other meals, that were in some way inspired by the meals I've made so far, or by the great Williamsburg Cookbooks that I bought to make my tavern meals.

I had a turkey breast in the freezer, so I defrosted it, seasoned it like I normally would do a turkey for my special "Canadian Thanksgiving" meal, and popped it on the grill.  I did the tavern potatoes as well, slicing small potatoes into wedges, coating them with oil and seasonings, wrapped them in foil and put them on the grill as well.  For my vegetable I chose corn on the cob from the farmer's market.  I made biscuits from scratch (using a recipe in a Williamsburg cookbook) and a gravy in the other Williamsburg Cookbook.  I really enjoyed this meal.

My turkey was wonderful!  Nice and juicy, full of flavor from the thyme, rosemary and sage (all fresh from my garden).  It was skinless, but the outside was grilled nicely and had a bit of a crunch from the herbs.  The potatoes came out perfect... the way I wish they would have come out when trying to replicate my King's Arms Tavern meal.  They were very flavorful from the olive oil, sprig of thyme, salt, pepper and onion and garlic powders.  They had a nice crispy outside, with tender potato inside.  My biscuits were pretty good.  I liked the taste, unfortunately I should have watched them a little more closely, or removed them from the oven while I went out to the grill.  I stayed by the grill for just a moment too long and when I came in, my biscuits were quite brown, but not burnt.  I was disappointed in the corn I bough from the farmer's market.  We were not the first to feast on it, and there were many kernels that never developed properly.  I was kinda shocked by this, since all the other produce I get from that vendor is usually perfect.  I guess that's why they had the little sign "please do not open the husks."  Only the very top was damaged by corn worms.  The rest of the corn that was edible did taste pretty good.  I just boiled water, and then applied butter and salt once they were done cooking.  The gravy was really good.  I really thought about cutting down the recipe to make less, but the book said it was to be served with a pound of turkey... I had a piece of turkey that was just over a pound.  I had enough gravy to feed a small army.  It was very flavorful.  I have to admit though... when I warmed up the chicken stock, I did add the same herbs I used on the turkey to add some flavor to the stock.  I could taste the thyme later in the gravy and I'm happy I did that.  Overall, a very successful meal.

After my failed attempt on Friday, I wasn't in the mood to cook Saturday.  But I was back into it on Sunday.  I decided to use leftovers up... mostly the chicken and the gravy from turkey.  Low and behold, a Williamsburg Cookbook had a recipe for "King's Arms Tavern Chicken Pot Pie."  Hum... chicken, gravy... all I had to add were the potatoes and some carrots and peas.  I pre-cooked all the veggies, and then made a nice pie dough (also found in the Williamsburg Cookbooks).  Put them all together and I had two beautiful pies, ready to be eaten.  We ended up having these for two nights because they were so big.  You'll notice in the pictures that one has an R and the other has a D... well, I prefer the dark meat, and Darryl likes the white meat, so that's how I made each of ours.  They were wonderful and tasted so much better than the ones in the freezer section in the store.  I bet they even had a lot less sodium!

Well, hope you enjoyed this distraction from my normal restaurant/cooking stuff.  I had lunch at a cool little place in Downtown Fredericksburg that I'll be writing about soon, and tonight, I'm headed to Park Lane Tavern with some friends.  Wow... I'll have a bunch of writing to do.