Stuffed Turkey Breast

One thing everyone should know about me is I love to shop at Costco for crazy things like toilet paper, paper towels, and poultry. Yes poultry!!! I find that Costco has great chicken and turkey, and at such good prices it is sometimes hard for me not to purchase it when I am shopping.

A few weeks ago I was having coffee with some friends, and we were talking about all the ways we make turkey, from stuffed, to glazes, to fixings with it. Then the turkey breast came up in conversation. I had never thought to make just a breast before. The brain started working. The idea I had was what if I butterflied the turkey breast and stuffed it with stuffing and wrapped it in bacon, and bake it. You know anything in bacon tastes good.

That is exactly what I did. My husband helped me with the butterflying of the meat. When my husband was in high school he was a part time butcher at a small grocery store, where he learned how to cut meat like a pro. After the turkey was cut I pounded it a bit to tenderize it and make it flat. Next the stuffing was added (I used mt own recipe for homemade stuffing with pecans & dried cranberries). This is when it gets tough ... the stuffing must be placed in a log like shape at one end of the breast. Then roll the stuffing inside the turkey.

This was really starting to look good but it needed something to make it really juicy. That would be bacon. I used a half a pound of maple cured bacon to wrap the complete exterior of the rolled breast. We also used skews to hold the roll in place while cooking. A 1 - 1 1/2 cup of chicken stock was added to bottom of the pan for some liquid on the bottom of the pan, and a medium onion diced and added to the bbroth for flavor.

This is what it looked like when it came out of the oven. We let it rest for a few before cutting it so the juices would stay in the meat.

When the turkey was cut it was a perfect pinwheel. The maple flavor of the bacon and the tart dried cranberries in the stuffing give each bit of this pleasing to the palette.

This was the first time I made this dish and was a bit nervous, because I was having a few friends over for dinner that night and was hoping it would be good. As it turns out it was great and one of our guests said "this is something I would have expected to get at a restaurant." that made me feel so good.

Note to Self: Get another turkey breast on my next trip to Costco.

One last thing to mention is that when the turkey came out of the pan and they was "juice" left behind I strained and de-fatted the liquid put it in a small sauce pan, added 2-3 tablespoons of unsalted butter and a tablespoon of flour and whisked to make gravy. The gravy helped to tie the entire dish together.

YUM!!!