Turkey Thai curry soup

Yup, more turkey leftovers posts! In this one, I make a curry. With lots of lime and cilantro. All the other stuff that goes into it is optional, but I recommend going heavy on the veggies, it tastes better and is better for you. Pretty much everything in this recipe is optional except the curry paste, coconut milk, lime, and cilantro. So, go wild...

Turkey Thai curry
Made about three servings

1 can coconut milk
~2tbs Thai red curry paste (I have some Thai Kitchen brand kicking around, used that)
1C turkey stock
1 lime
~1C cilantro
~2C chopped, cooked turkey
1/2 jalapeno
2 cloves garlic
a bunch of mushrooms
1/2 broccoli
1/2 eggplant
1/2 zucchini
1/2 green pepper
Oil
Salt

Heat some oil in a big frying pan. Chop the garlic and the jalapeno, and throw those in. Chop all the other veggies into bite sized pieces, and throw it into the pan, but reserve about 2 tbs of chopped cilantro for garnish. Once its all in the pan, add the coconut milk and curry paste - taste as you go with the curry paste, you might not want that much if you don't like spicy things, but the more you add, the more it tastes like curry. Also, its not on the ingredients list, but I highly recommend putting in some fresh ginger, too. Zest the lime, and put the zest into the curry. Add the turkey broth and the turkey, make sure everything is mixed together, and let it simmer away for 5-10 minutes, until the veggies are at a state where you like to eat them.

Once the veggies are cooked, pull the pan off the heat, and serve over a heap of rice, or just in a bowl as a soup, garnished with some cilantro. Squeeze lime juice over the top. If you want it more soupy, add more turkey broth, if you want it more curry-like, add less broth.


Also, use all your leftover veggies tomorrow, in the hearty turkey lentil stew.

Creamy turkey en croute

Yup, we cooked a turkey, the smallest one we could find (at 13 pounds) for three people. Because Jenny doesn't eat turkey. Needless to say, we have lots of leftovers.

mmm, so good at the time, so not-good as leftovers. But that's referring to the cold type of leftovers. This is totally transformable. I think my hatred of sandwiches extends to cold turkey breast.

We also had some leftover pie dough, enough for one pie. I thought about making another pie, but Ed took the pie dough and made little mini-pie-crust-things, and we put a leftover turkey mixture into those. Actually quite delicious! I will call it, turkey en croute! Sort of.



The shell was a blind-baked pie crust. Roll it out, and cut into squares, I think they were ~4" per side. Stuff those into a greased muffin tin, poke a bunch of holes (with the tines of a fork) into the bottom, and bake them at 350F for ~15 minutes, until they're golden brown. You'll end up with pretty little cups for putting filling into.

Creamy turkey filling
Made enough for four hungry eaters

Olive oil
~2C leftover turkey (white or dark), cut into bite-size or smaller chunks
2 carrots, diced
2 stalks of celery, diced
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, diced
~1/2C turkey stock (optional?)
~1/2-1C greek yogurt
salt and pepper, to taste
~2 tsp rosemary

We happened to have some greek yogurt, so that is what turned into the creamy part of the creamy turkey filling. Greek yogurt is awesome, by the way - tangy, thick, and almost (if you squint your eyes) good for you. Buy the full-fat stuff, by the way, it tastes better. We got ours from the greek place, which means its definitely full fat.

So, heat some olive oil, toss in the onion, add some kosher salt, and let that sizzle away for a few minutes. Add the rosemary and let that sizzle until things smell like rosemary. Add the garlic, toss it around until it smells fragrant, then add the other veggies and the turkey stock. Cook those down until they're basically done, taste one to see how crunchy it is. Add the turkey, toss it around until its warmed up, then pull the pan off the heat and stir in the greek yogurt and some pepper. Taste, and adjust the seasonings as needed.

Lump some creamy turkey into the pie dough shells, and serve while warm. Its delicious!

Nachos!

I'm not sure if I've ever made nachos before. The premise is pretty simple, cover tortilla chips with grated cheese and heat until the cheese melts. But I've always preferred the chips that have way too much stuff on top, sort of like my overstuffed burritos, so just chips and cheese isn't going to cut it. Then there is the consideration that tortilla chips are the best calorie-per-dollar food you can get, which doesn't put them in such a good light in terms of healthiness. I wanted something goopy and cheesy and warm, though; its been a rough week and weekend. I experimented with making some oven-toasted corn tortillas, and those worked well as chips - no deep-frying necessary. And then I loaded up an entire dinner's worth of food on top of those, with a ton of cheese, and voila! nachos. Alex-style.


Nachos, Alex-style
Made enough for definitely more than one Alex

~1/3lb ground beef
3 tbs Alton Brown's taco seasoning
1 red onion
1 clove garlic
some spinach
6 corn tortillas
1 can black beans
1/2 block of cheddar
1/2 avocado
1 jalapeno
~1/4C salsa
~1/4C olives (kalamata in this case)

Preheat your oven to 400F. Meanwhile, set a pan on your stove, and turn it up to medium-ish. Dump in the beef (I used ground sirloin, and it was durn tasty). Add the garlic, half the onion, and the taco seasoning. Let that cook away, stirring occasionally to break up the beef.

Take your six tortillas, stack them, and cut them into wedges. I cut each into eight wedges. Spread them on an ungreased baking sheet, and bake for ~10 minutes. Take them out when they're crispy and just browning around the edges.

Once your beef is done, add the beans, stir that around for some flavor, and put it all in a bowl. Dump the spinach (maybe two handfuls) into the pan, and stir that around until it wilts thoroughly.

Grate the cheese.

Put your "chips" into a smaller baking dish, so that they're a bit overlapping. Sprinkle on the rest of the onion, the chopped jalapeno, and the olives, and cover with a couple spoonfuls of salsa. Cover that with the spinach, and some (probably about a third) of the beef/bean mixture. Put the grated cheese all over that. Put the entire concoction back into the oven, for another 10 minutes or so.

Dice the avocado. I only ended up using half of it, but the whole thing would have been scrumptious, as would have been some cilantro. Alas.

When the cheese is melted and a little brown on top, your nachos are done. You can eat them straight out of the pan, or attempt to transfer them to a plate. Sprinkle with the diced avocado, and enjoy!

Yes, this is how I like my tortilla chips - loaded. Also, yes, I was eating dinner in front of my computer. This is not a rare happenstance, unfortunately...

Rosemary pecans and cranberries

One of the things in my giant Trader Joe's care package from TNC when I left was a pack of these rosemary pecans and cranberries. They were delicious, and I figured they couldn't be that hard to replicate, so, I went ahead and experimented. I think it worked out, although I overcooked them by about five minutes. Basically, you just melt some butter and sugar in a frying pan, add rosemary, let that cook for a while, throw in the pecans and cranberries, toss around until they've absorbed all the fat, toss with some kosher salt, and bake for 10 minutes. Deliciousness!

Rosemary pecans and cranberries
Made about two cups
~1C pecans, chopped
~1C craisins
~1tbs rosemary, dried
2 tbs butter
1 tbs sugar
~2tsp kosher salt

Preheat your oven to 350F. Melt the butter in a frying pan with the sugar. Once the sugar is dissolved, add the rosemary, and let that cook in the hot fat until it smells like rosemary. Should smell delicious. Add the pecans and cranberries, and stir those around until they've absorbed all the fat. It should take less than 5 minutes. At some point, sprinkle with ~2tsp of kosher salt. Once there is no longer anything left on the bottom of the pan, dump your fruit 'n' nuts on a baking sheet. Shake it a bit to spread the mixture evenly, and bake for 10-12 minutes, until the mixture is mostly dry. You don't want to overbake, as the cranberries will get hard, and the nuts will taste burned. No good.

How do you eat this deliciousness? Sprinkle on salads, on mashed sweet potatoes, eat them as a snack, heck, I put some in my oatmeal. They're crunchy and caramel-y and rosemary-y. A good combination.

Oven-roasted broccoli

I roast vegetables in the oven a lot. Usually I don't do broccoli, but I had wanted roasted brussels sprouts, and they were all out of those at the Big Y. So I got broccoli, and pretended it was Brussels sprouts. The result was surprisingly similar, green thing that tastes roasty. Yum. Anyway, if you're sick of doing broccoli in the same old ways of however you normally do it, here is an idea for you.

Chop up the broccoli into bite-sized pieces, and put it in a pile on a baking sheet. Drizzle with some oil - the stuff will soak up oil like that's its job, so be sparing. Then toss with your hands until each piece is reasonably well coated. Sprinkle some kosher salt on top, and bake at 400F for ~15-25 minutes - when it stops making crackling noises, its probably done, so take a look at it. Enjoy!

Sage-butternut squash gnocchi

Tossed in a sage-brown butter cream sauce. Holy richness deliciousness, those were good. I've made pumpkin gnocchi before, but never butternut squash gnocchi. But, its yellow, and has a nice flavor, so I figured that was good enough for me. The gnocchi turned out nice and light, which I counteracted by adding lots of butter and cream. If I'd had booze, I would have added that, too, just to get the trifecta. Anyway, this dish took a little planning ahead to prepare, because first you have to roast the squash, mash it up, and let it drain a bit. Then you add flour and spices, roll into snakes, cut into gnocchi-sized pieces, and boil. At the same time as making the sauce. It all works out, in the end. I meant to take blurry pictures along the way, but I forgot. You're probably not missing much.

Scroll down for the caramelized onion, and sage-brown butter sauce recipes.

Sage-butternut squash gnocchi
Made enough for 4 servings, or 3 for really hungry people

1 butternut squash
olive oil
1 onion
1/2 packet (a couple sprigs) fresh sage, or dried sage
kosher salt
Flour (~2C?)
Various fall-flavored spices

First, roast your squash at 350F for 30 minutes. I did this by cutting it in half, lengthwise, scooping out all the seeds, smearing some olive oil and kosher salt on the cut side, and putting it cut-side-down on a baking sheet. Then I put the baking sheet in the oven for 30 minutes, until you could poke through the skin of the squash really easily with a fork. Easy peasy.

Once the squash is cool enough to handle, scoop the flesh out of its skin, and put it in a bowl. Mash the flesh with a potato masher, or a food processor, or a fork, or whatever you use to mash things. If you have time, put the mashed flesh into a sieve of some sort and let it drain for an hour or two to get out extra water. If you don't mind just using extra flour, forge ahead without draining.

Add ~1tsp of kosher salt, ~2tbs chopped sage (less if you're using the dried variety), and other spices of your liking. I suggest: cinnamon, black pepper, coriander, cumin, cloves, dried ginger, garlic, whatever you think would taste good. I think I used a combination of cinnamon, ginger, cumin, and pepper. It was tasty.

Stir that around so that its all mixed in. Then add some flour, about a cup, and mix that around. If its too wet to roll into a snake, add more flour. I think I ended up adding about two cups worth of flour.

Once the dough is dry enough to roll, pull out a handful at a time, and on a well-floured surface, roll it into a snake. It'll be loose, but as long as it holds its snake-like shape, you're good. Then cut the snakes into ~1/2" chunks, making sure to not let them stick together. Put about 15-20 pieces at a time into a giant pot of boiling water. The more water you have, the less likely your gnocchi are to stick to each other. When you add the gnocchi to the water, they'll all sink. Give them one gentle stir to make sure they're not sticking to the bottom, and then wait. They're done cooking when they float to the top. This took a little under 5 minutes for mine. Once they're floating, scoop them out with a slotted spoon and toss with the brown butter sauce.

Keep cooking them in batches until you've used up all the dough. Alternatively, freeze some of them - I don't know how this will turn out, but, I put about half the batch into the freezer. I cut them into gnocchi shapes, then laid them on a sheet pan to freeze individually. Once they were frozen, I put them all in a ziplock bag, with the date. Good for next time!


Caramelized onions

1 onion
~2-3tbs olive oil
kosher salt

Peel the onion. Chop it in half lengthwise. Slice across the grain, so that you end up with little half-rings. Heat the oil in a frying pan. Add the onion, and a good dose of kosher salt. Stir around, and let it cook for ~15 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add more oil as necessary if the onions start to stick. When they're golden with brown edges, they're done - taste one. It should taste sweet and delicious.


Sage brown butter sauce

2-3 tbs butter
~1/4C fresh sage (or half that dried)
~2tbs cream (I used light cream)

Melt the butter in the onion frying pan (after taking out the onions). Add the sage, chopped coarsely. Cook for a while over medium heat, until the butter looks sort of brown-ish. Add two splashes of cream, and stir around. Taste. Add salt and pepper if you want. Pour over gnocchi, sprinkle some caramelized onions on top, and serve.

Chocolate chewy everything cookies

A while ago, I made some chocolate chewy cookies, I think following the epicurious recipe. I had mentioned back that that you could also follow the King Arthur Flour recipe, which is basically the same thing, so I tried that one today. Except, I added toasted walnuts, craisins, and white chocolate chips. Which really made things even more delicious. These were the cookies that took three egg whites (from the biscuits that I made with three egg yolks). The only downside, is that I only had the "special dark" cocoa powder, and it made things a bit too chocolately, if that is even possible. Maybe I'll use less cocoa next time. Anyway, these cookies were, as promised, chewy and delicious. The shininess is a bit off-putting at first, but then you taste the cookie, and it doesn't matter anymore that they're shiny.

Chocolate chewy everything cookies
Made 11 giant cookies

2-1/4C confectioners sugar
1C special dark cocoa powder
1/4tsp salt
3 egg whites
2 tsp vanilla
~1/2C white chocolate chips
~1C toasted walnuts
~1/2C craisins

Preheat the oven to 350F. Mix everything together. This made a pretty thick paste for me. Grease the cookie sheet, and plop down some cookies. They spread a little in the oven, but nothing horrible, not like last time when they turned into brownies.

Bake the cookies for 8-13 minutes, until they're crackly on top. Mine took 13 minutes. Don't overcook these cookies, or they won't be chewy, and that is the whole point.

I make a darn good chicken stew

So the last couple weeks have been decidedly not-normal in the whole $30/week thing. Mostly its been because we've had friends in Amherst, and dinners at Peter and Gail's house, and Ali's house, and eating out way too much, and then a sudden trip to Boston to go vote, and basically, life just got crazy. I have been shopping, last week I bought corn flakes, and this week I bought two boxes of corn flakes (buy one get one free!). Yeah, basically I've just been scrounging around and coming up with food, somehow. Sometimes, its cereal for dinner. I have actually cooked things, and we've cooked things at home too, but with no camera, it just doesn't seem worth writing about. Sirloin tips - get some sirloin tips, those were delicious, and only $6/lb from Whole Foods, when all Ed and I could agree on for dinner was that we wanted something bloody.

Anyway, today I took a photo, and it was actually a very tasty recipe. I had some frozen chicken drumsticks, from when Ed went to the fresh-killed poultry place, and I also had some very floppy and almost dead celery and carrots. So, chicken stew it became. I think this would get a good Ed-rating, but he isn't in Amherst, so all I can do is guess. But its plenty rich (I DO have butter), and a bit spicy thanks to the floppy jalapeno I found in the carrot bag, and quite delicious paired with crunchy-on-the-outside, flaky-and-tender-on-the-inside biscuits. This was a darn good meal!


Chicken Stew with biscuits
Made 2-3 servings, depends how hungry you are

2 drumsticks
3 carrots
3 sticks of celery
1 onion
2 cloves of garlic
olive oil
1 zucchini
rosemary
1 jalapeno
chicken stock (or water)
1 bay leaf
1/2 potato
2 tbs butter
2-3 tbs flour

First things first, get about two cups of chicken stock (or water) boiling in a medium-sized pot. Once its boiling, add the bay leaf, the drumsticks, one carrot broken into 3-4 chunks, and the flowery tops of the celery that you'd normally not eat. You'll pull out the carrot and celery chunks in a bit. Reduce the heat from boiling to simmering, and leave it be for ~30min.

For the veggies, heat some oil in a pan, then add the diced onion. Once that is sweated, add the finely diced garlic and about a tablespoon of rosemary. Stir that around until it smells fragrant. Add the diced pepper, which is totally optional, by the way, but I liked the heat it added. Add the chopped celery and carrots, and let that cook away until the carrots are soft. Then you can add the zucchini. Take that pan off the heat once things are cooked.

As all this stuff cooks, prepare the BISCUITS! Apparently, I've never written about biscuits on this blog, so the recipe I used is below. It loosely follows Alton Brown's biscuit recipe, which I'm sure is much better, but, I didn't feel like looking it up, so I just used this one, which worked.


Biscuits
Made 12 lumpy biscuits

2C all purpose flour
1tbs baking powder
1 tsp salt
1/2 stick butter - grated
3 egg yolks *
1C milk (skim)

*Use 2 eggs, normally. I just happened to make cookies that called for 3 egg whites early today, so I had extra egg yolks, and figured I'd use them up.

Mix together the flour, salt, and baking powder in a big bowl. Using the big holes on a square cheese grater, grate the butter into the flour. This puts it into little chunks, or if you have a pastry cutter, I hear those work, too. Use your fingers and work the butter and flour together with your finger tips, for exactly 37 seconds (this is according to Alton Brown). The butter grates better if it is frozen, but mine was only refrigerated, and it worked out.

In a separate bowl, mix the eggs and milk. Dump that into the dry stuff. Mix just until its combined, no longer. Plop 12 little heaps of biscuit batter on a greased baking sheet, and bake for, oh, 20 minutes or so, at 400F. Keep checking after 15 minutes, and take the biscuits out when they are golden brown, and the chunky bits are darker brown. They'll be crispy on the outside, and flaky and tender on the inside. Delicious!

Now back to the stew. When you deem the chicken to be cooked, take out the celery and carrot chunks, and drop the diced, half a potato into the pot. Meanwhile, make a roue. Melt the 2tbs of butter, and whisk in about 2 tbs of flour. I eyeballed it. It turned into a thick pate a choux, I think that is what its called - looked like batter of some sort. I dumped that into the stew, and whisked for a while, and the broth got thicker. Then I took out the chicken, used two forks to remove the meat from the bones, and dumped in the veggies. Voila! Chicken stew. Serve with biscuits. Perfect for cold, rainy days like this one...