Smoked Turkey Breast and Sweet Potato Stripes | Fit to Eat | MPB

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Well hi, I am chef Rob Stinson
and this is Fit to Eat, a new series
about eating healthy and living better.
Mississippi is at the bottom of national studies
of health and nutrition.
Diabetes, heart disease, hypertension and obesity
run rampant in our great state.
I am here to demonstrate how little changes in diet can
make a big difference in health.
Making those changes doesn't mean you have
to sacrifice flavor to get rid of fat.
Taking fresh, local ingredients,
I'm going to teach you to make meals that are healthy
and delicious without spending a fortune.
And as always, you can find my recipes with all the
nutritional information on our website.
Sweet potatoes are one of the healthiest vegetables around.
Vardaman, Mississippi is the
sweet potato capital of the world.
That's right.
Today we are going to be making sweet potato strips and
roasted turkey that's been smoked with mesquite chips.
It is absolutely incredible.
What we are probably going to start with,
they need to bake so they may actually take a little bit
more time and that's going to be our sweet potatoes.
Let's take a good look.
Everyone has seen sweet potatoes.
It's a beautiful healthy vegetable and when
you look at it, the one thing I've always done,
you notice I've cut these in strips.
It allows them to cook a little bit quicker and I love
when they get crispy on all the edges.
So how do you cut in?
Sweet potatoes are tricky because they are
hard and the knife will slip.
I use a serrated knife and as I come across,
you can cut that beautiful potato in half,
file it into strips and you've got these wonderful,
delicious strips the way we are going to prepare them.
So let's have a little fun with this.
How I'm going to do these will be on a baking pan.
Were going to take and coat each of these potatoes
with a little bit of our honey.
We talk about honey in a lot of different ways.
Honey is an incredibly great health aspect in your diet
if you take it and realize it helps against allergies.
So honey, a tablespoon a day, might keep you away from the
doctor because it builds up local antigens against those
allergies you might have.
So I love to use it.
We're going to take a little spoon and just coat
the sweet potatoes with that honey.
You want to try to get it as even as you can,
as light as you can so that they are each going to absorb
and allow the cinnamon and nutmeg that we
are going to put on top to stick.
This is really a nice treat to have along with your turkey.
The way I look at it, if you are going to eat roasted,
smoked turkey and you know you're going to be really
healthy, having something that makes you feel like you're
having a beautiful dessert is the way to treat yourself.
And the beauty of this is it is healthy.
You have to enjoy that.
In a restaurant that I had years ago,
we developed a sweet potato bread pudding
that is absolutely to die for.
It was just thin layers of sweet potato that we would put
in between layers of typical bread pudding mix and bake.
There's really no end to the use of sweet potatoes.
They can come in as a dessert, they can be a side dish,
they are great at breakfast.
What a wonderful variety you can have when you are using
them and you see they are very simply placed on the pan
with that honey and at the end when we go to get
that out what we will do is take a spatula out from under
so that they don't stick too badly.
Now, nutmeg and cinnamon.
It's a great mixture that you use.
Nutmeg should be used about one part
to four parts of cinnamon.
Nutmeg is a much stronger flavor,
so we're only going to sprinkle
a little bit of our nutmeg.
I love the combination of both.
You're going to find that it is in just about every dessert
recipe that uses cinnamon, you are going to use
a little counterpart of nutmeg.
So now we are going to take that cinnamon
and again a little bit more cinnamon.
Sprinkle it on these and have a great time when
these come out because it is almost like
having a nice dessert side dish.
You see, we really have used so little of it that
it is not a problem.
So we are going to go ahead.
Follow me over to the oven and I have taken the liberty
of heating the oven up to 400°.
I'm going to turn it at hair down just so I know
it is up to temperature.
So right at 370°, these are going to take
10 minutes to cook.
We are going to check them in 8 minutes.
Get a nifty timer in your kitchen.
If you don't have one, it makes all
the difference in the world.
I always suggest to people, rather than making mistakes
and not knowing how long something is cooking,
go ahead and get your timer working.
Let's get these out of the way because we've got
a fun project coming in right now.
We have this big roaster.
Obviously you know what's coming.
Beautiful turkey.
A whole roasted turkey and all I'm going to do
is cut the breast section off the turkey.
As you pull that breast off, slice it across.
I want to show you how to make turkey strips
the way I am going to smoke them.
We'll slide that in front, move another cutting board up.
You always want to try and keep your proteins off of the
same cutting board that we are going to do vegetables on.
Move this roaster right back where it was.
We'll cover that up so the turkey stays nice and fresh.
As good as it is, and we all know the skin is incredible,
you might have that one really thin relative who can enjoy
eating it, but I'm actually going to peel that skin off.
I know it makes you cry
thinking we're not going to eat that.
As you get a little bit further into watching our
series, you are going to realize everyone of these
dishes that we are preparing our on our website:
You'll have all the details as to how these are prepared.
We will save that.
I don't want to be mean and get rid of that
because it is so delicious.
Now, when you have your turkey breast,
you want to look at the grain of the turkey.
All we are going to do at this point is slice
what I call turkey strips.
You may wonder what are we going to do?
The recipe is actually smoked turkey strips.
I'm going to show you how at home you can
have a great natural smoker.
You don't have to spend hardly any money to make one.
You can do all of this in your own kitchen.
When it's all said and done, you have a natural smoked
product that has absolutely no preservatives.
What we are going to do, keep these
turkey pieces on the side.
I want to show you where we are going on this smoker.
This is the easiest thing you will ever see.
You take your foil pan and inside there I've got a little
grate that I'm going to put my turkey on.
These are mesquite chips.
You can use hickory, pecan, whatever you enjoy.
I soak them in water so that when they get hot,
they are going to smoke.
How we actually do this is place those in the end
where you do not have the food.
It's a great idea and what I want to do,
I'm going to bring this over so our camera
can get a good view of it.
You got all of your chips right here
and now we are going to take the turkey
and layer the slices right on this grill.
Really simple process.
We are only going to show a few because we have
some that are already done.
That is it.
Now you put the foil pan back over the heat.
We would turn that front burner up on high under those
chips and you can immediately see
the smoke that's coming out of that pan.
Because it is a foil pan, it will heat so quickly.
You cover it just like so and leave it there
for exactly 6 minutes.
I think anyone could do that.
The beautiful part about it is you end up with a natural
product that is totally healthy.
There are no preservatives.
You have perfect flavor of the smoking that you like
and I think it is a great way to do it.
So remember that.
It is so simple and it's also affordable.
You are not going to the store to buy some
expensive smoker that you've got to take outside.
When you take the lid off of that pan,
you might want to take it outside because
the smoke will envelop your kitchen.
You might have the fire department come
and everything else.
So we are not going to actually fully smoke
this product here today.
I happen to have another smoker that we can use that's
got the turkey already finished and it really made it
much easier by doing it that way.
So let's go ahead and peek at what
the finished product looks like.
When you take this out, remember if you have it
full of smoke, open it away from you like this.
And inside you'll see you've got your chips that will have
burned on the side and your turkey slices should have that
light golden brown that you see in front of me.
I tell you what, that is incredible.
That's exactly what you are looking for.
And then you just take those turkey strips,
move them onto your plate.
I take these and put them into a resealable freezer bag.
You can freeze them, you can keep it in the refrigerator.
When I do a whole turkey like you just saw,
I will do the whole turkey, some of it smoked,
some of it not and I bag it accordingly so that
I've got it portioned because my children love when
I make our own homemade turkey stock,
brown rice and this smoked turkey.
Totally healthy for the kids and it's almost like eating
a natural chicken soup, but I like turkey.
So remember, it's got versatility as to
what you can do with it.
That's the part that makes it fun.
I'm going to get all of these out of here,
move the smoker down below, and have a little bit of fun
knowing that we are actually using the finished product.
I'm going to put it here so you can see.
Now, what do we have here?
We have about 5 ounces of turkey.
Remember, we are eating a totally balanced meal.
I'm trying to work with everybody out there when you
watch these recipes to really balance in a lot of different
flavors so that you don't have that.
Any time you have questions about what I
was doing on TV, go to our website.
You've got the recipe right there.
So anytime you have a question,
what a great resource.
From this point on, we are going to
get a pan hot in front.
We can move all of this off to the side.
Now we are going to work on some great organic vegetables.
Anytime I try to make a week's worth of food,
I know I've got a farmer's market in my area
that's there every week.
I go there to see what is fresh,
what is current, what do they have
that's just been harvested.
Right now, it is the tail end of the squash
and zucchini season.
Look at these, these are incredible.
That is as fresh as you get.
And the beautiful part about this dish is it is going
to look as if it were a pasta dish.
But the pasta, in reality, is vegetables.
So you may think what is he talking about?
We are going to make a light skim milk Alfredo sauce.
We are going to flavor it with a touch of garlic.
We are going to use gluten-free flour in a very
small amount and have a healthy Alfredo sauce.
That sounds really good.
Top it with this beautiful variety of julienned
vegetables which are kind of designed to look like pasta.
Let's have a little fun with this.
This is such a large squash that we don't
need the whole thing.
What we are going to do is take this knife.
I love the cleaver.
Everybody has their own favorite knife.
But I take this squash, cut it in half.
When you've got it, you can take it
from that point on and slice it down.
Leave the skin on it.
One important thing, so many nutrients are in the skin
that you don't want to cut that skin off.
I see a lot of people peeling them and I think that
is a shame because that, to me, is the best part.
As you're coming down, thinly slice that squash.
When you're done, look at that.
It almost looks like pasta noodles.
Isn't that great?
It's a really fun, healthy way to eat.
We're going to do exactly the same thing with the zucchini.
Same thing, cut the end, cut it in half,
put the remainder we are not going to use,
slice it and after a while you're going
to become a pro at this.
Then we are going to take it and do exactly the same.
Slice it down.
It just got to be careful as you cut.
If you have a sharp knife, you don't want to have any
problems where you've cut your self.
Stack them.
Cut them.
And what you have ended up with are some beautiful
julienned zucchini and beautiful julienned squash.
We've got everything already set on this so what we are
going to do is move these off to the side.
Do a quick table cleanup.
One of the most important things,
and we talk about this in our restaurant,
is to clean as you go.
Don't get in the habit of letting everything sit around
because when you need it the most,
you are going to have trouble.
Let's go ahead.
We've got a good hot pan on this side.
We are going to heat this pan in back because it is going
to be the pan that I build the Alfredo sauce in.
Where do we go from here?
I want to work on layering this dish so that when it's all
said and done and we go to put it in the plate,
you're going to have a little Alfredo,
your vegetables and your turkey.
The only thing we haven't discussed,
fresh herbs.
Fresh herbs are so great.
The Farmer's market is where to get them and you can buy
a beautiful pound of basil for next to nothing.
I love the fact that grocery stores have
those great packages.
It's not local.
Buy local.
Try and find some basil that you can buy local
and let's talk about how you cut it.
Really simple.
I take these big leaves.
Some people like the small basil,
they say it's a little bit sweeter.
To me, I buy whatever is available.
Then you take them and layer them so that you
got them all in a roll.
Then I roll them up as best you can,
take my knife and I slice it on the bias.
When you do that, you end up with
what look like julienne strips of basil.
I wish you could actually smell.
As soon as you start cutting that basal, look at it.
Here is our prepared basil.
It will hold well.
When you go and ask how do you hold fresh herbs,
the best way that I've ever done is I take them,
I put them in a resealable freezer bag
with a damp paper towel.
I roll the paper towel around those fresh herbs
and I put them in my refrigerator.
They will last that way twice the length than
if you leave them out where they will dry.
It's that water that will keep them fresh
and you need it airtight.
So it is a great way to keep fresh herbs.
Any time you're curious about the recipes or watching how we
do that, go to our website.
You will get all of the answers you are looking for.
We're getting ready to have a little bit of fun.
Let's go ahead and get our oil in our pan.
Excuse me one second.
Check our potatoes.
Just about done.
I'm going to give them about another 2 minutes.
We've got our pan hot.
This is kind of quick from this point on.
What I have put in there, less than half a teaspoon.
Remember, the oil is the heaviest portion
of the fat in the dish.
We are going to take almost all of the garlic,
put it in the pan along with our onions.
Crushed red pepper, this is up to your taste.
I like it spicy, but I am not going to put all
of this in there because it really is hot.
Get your bell peppers in there.
You can tell that pan is hot by hearing that crackle.
Throw in your zucchini and your squash.
At this point, take and toss that.
Everybody who watches me on TV says how do you
toss the items in the pan the way you do?
The easiest answer to that, practice with a piece of toast.
I know it sounds crazy, but you put a piece of toast
in there and you can flip it and it works out just great.
That looks wonderful.
Now, in this pan on the other side we are going to put
a little bit of oil, throw our turkey in and warm
these smoked turkey strips.
Keep tossing your veggies.
This is the only part where it gets a little tricky because
you want to keep these veggies crispy.
You don't want to over cook them.
You want to get them in there just right.
When this goes on the plate, I want these
to have the turkey on top.
So now we will turn our turkey over
and it is getting juicy again.
I can see all the natural juices
coming out of that turkey.
Looks incredible.
I wish you could get the aroma.
The aroma is so good and believe it or not,
these veggies are just about done at this point so what we
are going to do is take our turkey and layer it
across the top, turn heat off because this
is going to go directly on the plate.
What a feast!
You think you have to starve to eat healthy?
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
This is a feast of a king.
Don't forget, I will keep going through this with you.
All of those recipes are available on our website.
So, hot pan, a little margarine, gluten-free flour.
We're going to move it off of that heat
because the heat is a little intense.
What we've done is literally made up a roux.
Add our skim milk and when it's all said and done,
you end up with a beautiful Alfredo.
You can see how hot it is.
We are about ready to throw this dish together.
I love the flavors of getting a dish and knowing
it's healthy and you get all of this great flavor.
Let's go ahead and get that plate set.
I tell you, you see how it's bubbling?
That is the test.
We're going to go ahead and pullout or sweet potatoes.
Which are perfect!
Set those right here for right now so we don't burn ourselves.
We are going to place this sauce on the base of the plate.
Beautiful, light, healthy Alfredo.
Take the beautiful mix of veggies and turkey
and let that sit directly on top.
A little bit more on each side.
And then the final addition, guys.
Tell you what, I like to put these around the edge
of the plate so that you know you've got a little goodness
to go with that great, healthy dish.
And the last touch for me is a little bit
of this fresh julienned basil so that you get
that great fresh herb flavor.
Scatter them around the plate.
And I tell you what, it is a beautiful,
healthy approach with naturally smoked turkey,
no preservatives.
Totally healthy vegetable like pasta
and it's just outstanding.
Remember, you can find all of our recipes on our website:
I'm Chef Rob Stinson.
Thanks for watching Fit to Eat!