Bourbon Turkey Bourbon

After a weekend of somewhat adventurous cooking, I decided to try something simple for Monday evening. A green bell pepper in the fridge got me started on a plan, along with Bourbon Street Style marinated turkey tips that I had added to our weekly dairy delivery.

The first step in this non-recipe recipe was to start thawing the turkey tips as soon as they arrived. About an hour before dinner, I put the tips -- with their brine -- into a small bowl. The print was too fine on the ingredients label for me to be certain, but the brine has little if anything to do with actual bourbon. Fortunately, this is Casa Hayes-Boh, so I reached into the Gilligan (our kitchen island cum liquor cabinet) and grabbed the bourbon I had picked up at Stroudwater Distillery last summer. I poured this over the turkey and brine, and topped it off with a few tablespoons of (Saint) Newman's Own honey barbeque sauce.

Not a green bell pepper.
Photo credit: this very blog!

Once the enhanced marinade had been underway for about a half hour, I started to heat a pan of water for pasta and then started to fire-roast that pepper. (See my Busy Kitchen post for details.)

While the pepper was sweating, I heated olive oil in our indispensable cast-iron skillet and chopped an onion. I sliced up the pepper and added it to the onion, simmering (med-high) until the onions were translucent.

Meanwhile, I put penne in the boiling water and shredded some parmesan.

I then used tongs to remove the turkey tips from the marinade and added them to the hot pan. Some of the "tips" were about double the size of others, so I cut them in half right in the pan. I continued cooking until browned, adding a bit more of that honey barbecue near the end.

The pasta was al dente just as the turkey was cooked through and the sauce slightly reduced. The result was a very nice sweet-and-sour entree that paired well (as we often notice) with Malbec.

It tasted far better than it photographed.