November 28, 2010 Leftover Turkey

After Thanksgiving, what happens to all that leftover turkey?  Do you have turkey sandwiches for weeks?  Do you have to incorporate turkey into every meal until it's gone?  Do you feed it to the dog? Do you make soup?


Well, I have found a better way.  Rather than get absolutely sick of that leftover turkey, I took my mom's advice.

I finished taking all the meat off the bones.  Then one at a time I took a square piece of foil, topped it with a square piece of wax paper, then placed a heap of the turkey meat on top. 

 

I folded both layers to wrap around the turkey and folded the edges.

Then I placed the pack into a Ziploc bag.  I did this until the turkey was all wrapped up and put the bag in the freezer.

Just to test it, today for lunch I took one pack out, removed the foil and heated up the turkey to see how it had fared in the freezer.  It was just as delicious as it had been before freezing.  Now I have individual serving sizes of turkey whenever I want it.  All I have to do is take it out of the freezer and heat it up.

Today my job is boiling the rest of the carcass for soup.  I haven't decided yet whether it will be gumbo or plain old turkey soup.  And since I don't believe in wasting, all the cartilage and skin left over after boiling will be much appreciated by my dogs (NO bones; they're dangerous for dogs).

November 22, 2010 Blueberry Muffins

I love to bake.  Going gluten free hasn't changed that.  As a matter of fact, it only made me more determined to bake the most delicious stuff in the healthiest way possible.  I had an envie for blueberry muffins over the weekend, so I made some.  Lucky for me, I had every ingredient I needed in the fridge/freezer/pantry.

*Hint for Bakers:  My oven runs too hot.  I learned this by trial and error (lots of burnt cookies).  So when I bake, I know I have to adjust the baking temperature for my oven.  If the recipe says 400, I set mine at 350.

Blueberry Muffins (gluten free)

2 cups brown rice flour
1/3 cup sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon xantham gum
1 egg
1/3 cup canola oil
3/4 cup rice milk (or almond, or soy, or even real milk if you prefer)
1 teaspoon orange zest (finely grated orange skin--gives it a great tangy flavor)
1 cup blueberries (either fresh OR thawed and rinsed frozen blueberries)
*Large granule sugar (such as Sugar in the Raw or decorating sugar) 

Preheat oven to 400.  Mix dry ingredients together.  Mix wet ingredients together.  Mix dry ingredients with wet ingredients.  Stir in blueberries and orange zest.  Pour into muffin cups full, very close to the top edge.  *Top with large-granule sugar. Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes.  If you use mini-muffins, bake them for less time, regular size or large muffin tins, bake longer.  If you stick a toothpick in the middle and it comes out dry, they're done.  Remove and let cool.  Enjoy.

November 7, 2010 - Perfect Soup Weather

Yesterday while driving around running errands, I was listening to one of NPR's food programs.  They were talking about the first cold snap being the best time to make soup, and a suggestion was made that when making your soup, you should brown your vegetables first, to extract the most flavor from them.  I took that advice.

WHTBITF Vegetable Soup
Ingredients on hand:
1 fresh onion and about 1/4 cup dried onions
1 cup frozen chopped broccoli
3/4 cup frozen green beans (that's all I had left)
1 cup green onions
1/4 cup minced garlic
4 whole carrots, chopped
about 2 cups frozen cabbage stock
2 cups stewed cabbage
12-oz pack of white (navy) beans
7 small red potatoes peeled
1.5 cups cooked brown rice
1 pound smoked turkey sausage
2 frozen chicken breast fillets
Salt, dried parsley cumin and sage

First, I put the frozen stock and cabbage in the pot to get it boiling, then threw in the white beans.  While that was going on, I made sure all the veggies were chopped and put them in a large pan to brown in olive oil.  Once they were all nicely browned, they went into the pot.  I added the potatoes and brown rice after that, and had to add about a quart of water because it was getting very thick at that point.  I sliced up the sausage and threw it in.  I thawed and then seasoned and browned the chicken breasts in the large pan.  When they were cooked, I chopped them up and put them in the pot.  Once everything was in the pot, I just had to stir every now and then and wait for the beans to be thoroughly cooked.  While it was all at a rolling boil, I added salt (I didn't measure, just took the salt canister and waved it 3 or 4 times), cumin (again, about 4 or 5 shakes right into the pot), sage (the equivalent of maybe 3 pinches), and a handful of dried parsley flakes.  The big pot was full up to the rim.

The smell was heavenly once it was all boiling, and once the beans were tender, it was ready to eat.  It was WAY better than I expected it to be, so flavorful!  Come on over and have a bowl.  There's too much for me to finish by myself.