Turkey Pot Pie

Still looking for something to do with all of your leftover turkey? We love this turkey pot pie recipe that I got at church a few years ago. It's definitely a southwestern twist on pot pie but it is still comfort food to me! Green chilies, pinto beans, and cumin give your Thanksgiving leftovers a kick!

Turkey Pot Pie
Ingredients:
2 green onions, chopped
3 Tbl. oil
2 (4.5 oz) cans chopped green chiles, undrained (I use frozen green chilies...which gives it a much better flavor but may not be available outside of the southwest!)
1 (2.25 oz) can sliced ripe olives, drained
¼ cup flour
1 ½ tsp ground cumin
2 (16 oz) cans pinto beans, rinsed and drained
1 (14 oz) can chicken broth (Sometimes I use more if I don't want it as thick)
2 cups chopped cooked turkey breast (or chicken)
2 cups shredded cheddar or cheddar blend
1 can refrigerated biscuit dough (or make your own!)

Instructions:
In a large pot or dutch oven, saute green onions in oil over medium heat 1 minute. Add green chiles, olives, flour, and cumin. Cook 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Stir in beans and broth; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, and simmer, stirring constantly, 5 to 7 minutes or until thickened. Stir in turkey. Pour into a 13x9 baking dish. Top with cheese. Top with biscuits.

Bake, uncovered, at 375 degrees for 30 minutes or until topping is golden and pot pie is bubbly.

or 
Freezer Meal Instructions:

In a large pot or dutch oven, saute green onions in olive oil for about 1 min. Add green chilies, olives, flour and cumin.  Cook 1 more minutes stirring constantly. Stir in beans, bouillion, and water and bring to a boil.  Reduce heat and simmer, stirring occasionally for 5-6 minutes or until thickened.  Stir in turkey.  Pour into disposable baking pan and top with cheese. Cover with double layer of foil.  Label and freeze.

When ready to serve, preheat oven to 375 degrees.  Bake for 60 minutes or until completely defrosted.  Top with refrigerated biscuits and bake for an additional 30 minutes or until biscuits are golden and filling is hot and bubbly.

 

Apple and Sausage Stuffing

While I do recognize that onion and celery are pretty much essential parts of the whole stuffing idea...I'm not a huge fan of stuffing that just tastes like onion-y bread! My friend Erica's grandmother had made a stuffing with apples in it one year while I was visiting them for Thanksgiving and I LOVED IT! Ever since I've been searching for a recipe that would taste as good! So after trying a few different recipes I finally decided I was just going to have to make up my own last year! So here it is! I know that apples and cinnamon sound like strange additions to stuffing but my family enjoys it. Plus, my family loves that I make it with the cheap-o bread because it's just about the only time each year that I buy that kind!

Apple and Sausage Stuffing 

10 pieces white bread 10 pieces wheat bread (like the cheap wheat bread) 

1 lb. sausage cooked

1/3 cup chopped onion 

1/2 cup chopped celery 

3/4 cup butter 

1 1/2 cup chicken broth

2 golden delicious apples (chopped) 

1 tsp. salt 

2 tsp. parsley 

1 T. cinnamon 

1/2 tsp. nutmeg 

Tear bread into small pieces and place out on counter on a baking sheet.  Allow to dry out for an hour. Meanwhile, cook sausage and set aside. When bread it dry, saute onion and celery in butter in a large pot until tender. Add chicken broth and bring to a boil. Remove broth mixture from heat. Add chopped apple, sausage and bread (making sure to coat evenly). Add spices and mix thoroughly. Place stuffing in 9x13 pan and bake 20 min. at 350 degrees. You want to bake it enough that it's not soggy but don't over-dry it!

Eggnog Cheesecake with Raspberry Topping

I found this recipe in a Betty Crocker holiday entertaining book. I love eggnog and everyone loves cheesecake. And when you combine the two it's magical :-) This really reminds me of a vanilla bean cheesecake...only just a hint of eggnog! So even those of you who aren't the biggest fans of eggnog might give this cheesecake a try! Plus fresh raspberries in the middle of winter is always a great treat! It's kind of a Christmas-y recipe but since we are always traveling around during December I usually make this for Thanksgiving. It was the first thing I made for this Thanksgiving so that's one dish down...20 to go!

Eggnog Cheesecake
1 1/4 cups crushed shortbread cookies
1/4 cup butter (for high altitude reduce to 2 1/2 Tbls.)
3 (8 oz) packages cream cheese
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1/2 cup eggnog
1/4 tsp. ground nutmeg

Raspberry Topping
1 (10 oz.) package frozen raspberries in syrup, thawed, undrained
2 Tbls. sugar
2 tsp. cornstarch
1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. In a small bowl combine crushed cookies and butter until combined. In an ungreased 9 in. springform pan push crumb mixture into a crust. Bake for about 10 min. or until set (it took me about 14 min. before it looked set).

Reduce heat to 325 degrees. In a mixer or bowl, beat cream cheese until soft and creamy. Gradually add sugar. Mix until smooth. Add eggs one at a time on low speed. Mix in eggnog and nutmeg. Do not over beat. (I recently learned that the trick to not cracking your cheesecake is not over beating after the eggs are added. So you really want to make sure the cream cheese is beat smooth BEFORE you add the eggs so that you don't over stir the mixture later.) Pour over crust.

Bake cheesecake for 50-60 min. (1 hr. 10- 1 hr. 20 min. for high altitude). Or until set but center still jiggles slightly. Another great trick for high altitude baking is to put a small baking pan filled with 1 or 2 cups of water in the oven on the bottom rack under the cheesecake while it's baking. This will help it to not crack. Cool in pan on wire rack for 1 hour. Refrigerate at least 6 hours or overnight.

In food processor, place frozen raspberries. Cover, process until smooth. If desired, strain seeds. In 1 qt. saucepan, mix pureed raspberries, 2 tablespoons sugar and the cornstarch. Heat to boiling over medium heat, stirring constantly. (For high altitude boil and stir for 3-4 minutes) Refrigerate sauce 30 minutes to cool. Stir fresh raspberries into sauce. Before cutting cheesecake, carefully remove side of pan. Serve sauce over wedges of cheesecake. Store unused portions covered in refrigerator.

More recipes to come as more food gets made! Happy Thanksgiving week!

Rosemary-Citrus Turkey

Well I'm cheating with this post a little because the pictured Turkey was last year's main course! But it was so yummy...I wanted to post the recipe in time for others to try it! So if you are still looking for a delicious way to cook your turkey...you may just want to give this a try. Oh, and please forgive the picture. It was taken before I became the highly successful food photographer you know today! ;-)

Rosemary-Citrus Turkey (adapted from a Taste of Home recipe that I found in their Thanksgiving edition last year)

15-20 lb. Turkey (yeah, we have a few people coming over so we needed a big one!)
2 oranges
2 lemons
3 Tbsp. minced fresh rosemary
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. onion powder
1 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. pepper
1/3 cup olive oil

Grate the lemon and orange peels into a small bowl. Combine with rosemary, salt, onion powder, garlic powder and pepper. Place turkey in pan breast side up and pat dry. Brush with oil and rub with citrus mixture.

Now, the book says to cook it for about 3 1/4 hours at 325 degrees or until a meat thermometer reads 180 degrees. I like to use a turkey bag which changes the cook times so if you are using a bag make sure to check the directions they have on the box.

Also, since you only use the fruit peels in this recipe you can slice up the fruit and use them as a garnish when you serve the turkey or I think I let my kids eats the oranges and put the lemon down my garbage disposal to make it smell nice after all the other junk I throw down there! In fact sometimes I buy lemons with the purpose of doing that...it really works for a stinky sink...give it a try!

Product Review of MasterCook

Sorry for my lack of blogging the last few days! My family is visiting so we've been busy busy around these parts! I promise there are some good Thanksgiving recipes coming over the next few days!

For tonight, however, I wanted to do a product review of one of my favorite cooking tools! It is a program for your computer called MasterCook 9.0 that has some really awesome features to help you with shopping and cooking! A few years ago my friend Val brought this program to a church recipe night and totally sold me on it! I think I got ended up buying it as a birthday present for myself! It was around $20 dollars at Best Buy back then but I just looked it up on Amazon and it says $8 dollars...so that is quite a deal if you are looking for a great Christmas present for someone (or yourself!).

First of all, it contains hundreds or recipes for you to try...each including the serving size, nutritional information and shopping lists! It also allows you to enter your recipes into an easy to use spreadsheet and create your own recipe books. (Printing and emailing options are even available if you want to give your recipes to someone else).

After you enter your recipes and the serving size you would like to eat, it can calculate the nutritional info and calories per serving for you! Which is really great if you are trying to watch your calories, fat intake, etc! Some of those casserole calories can really add up though...so use with caution because it might blow some of your recipes out of the water :-)

Another great feature is the pantry option. This is awesome for food storage! You can enter all of the contents of your food storage and as you make different recipes it can subtract what pantry items you used and help you to stay on top of what you need to buy each week at the store! You can also pick your recipes for the week and generate shopping lists for you pantry!

And the BEST feature is the "What can I make" button. Once you've added all your pantry contents and recipes, you can click the button and it will search through all of your recipes (and the included recipe books) and tell you what you can make with just the ingredients you already have! I love it! With little kids, I don't always get to the store on the day I planned so it is great to find out what recipes I already have on hand. I mean hopefully I'm not alone here, but I can totally look into a full pantry and think to myself "I don't have anything to make for dinner!" This one little button proves me wrong time and time again! Plus when you plan menus around what you already have it really saves money!

Well, those are the features I use the most but there are plenty more! It's an awesome program and $8 dollars is an awesome price! There is also a newer version available for $19.99 (which is probably why the older version is only $8). I have the MasterCook 9.0 so I can only review that, but I'm sure 11.0 is going to be awesome too! For more reviews you can visit its Amazon listing by clicking here! Hope you all enjoy!

Juli's French Onion Salisbury Steak with Cheese Toast

As promised, tonight is the second recipe in our two part series from my friend Juli! Since the zucchini soup didn't have any meat in it, I decided to cook some beef to make it up to my husband! For those of you who like french onion soup this is really the same kind of idea. Toasted bread with Swiss smothered in warm onion-y soup goodness! Enjoy!

Juli's French Onion Salisbury Steak
1 1/4 lb. ground chuck (if you cannot find chuck, buy a hamburger that has more fat like an 80/20 variety, ground sirloin is also good)
a little bit of parsley
2 T. green onions, minced
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
2 T. flour
1 T. oil
1 onion thinly sliced
1 tsp. sugar
1 T. garlic minced
1 T. ketchup
2 cups beef broth
1/4cup cider vinegar

Combine chuck, parsley, scallion, salt and pepper to make patties. Flour patties. Heal oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Add patties and saute until brown on each side. Remove patties from pan. Add onions and sugar to pan; saute 5 minutes. Stir in garlic and ketchup, saute 1 minutes or until paste begins to brown. Stir in broth and vinegar. Return meat to pan and bring all to a boil. Reduce heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer 10 minutes. (Though the recipe says 10 minutes, I cook it longer, like 30 minutes). Serve over cheese toast.

Cheese Toast
French Bread
Butter
Garlic powder
Paprika
Swiss cheese
Parmesan cheese

I sliced the bread into slices and then topped each slice with butter and toppings. If you are planning on using the entire loaf you could probably just cut the loaf in half lengthwise and then top with butter and toppings. Broil Low for about 5 minutes or until cheese is melted and bread is toasted. Top with beef patty and smother in onion soup!

Thanks to Juli for both of these awesome recipes! If anyone else has a recipe that would make a great blog post let me know! I will gladly make it and taste test it with my family! They are always grateful for new yummy recipes :-)

Juli's Zucchini Soup

My friend Juli is an awesome cook! I'm going to be blogging about two of her recipes this week...so make sure to try both! She made this soup for lunch a few weeks ago and I have been craving it ever since! It was so delicious and I knew that my girls would love it too so I finally asked her for the recipe. I was surprised to find out that it was also really easy to make! My kids love any food that they get to put toppings on. This soup is topped with crumbled bacon, sour cream and shredded cheese.

This soup is also really hearty!! Just bread and soup was enough to fill up my whole family (husband included)! I served it with roasted garlic french bread tonight and it was great with a little garlic flavor on the side.

Here's the recipe:

Juli's Zucchini Soup

1 cup chopped onions
2 Tbl. butter
3 cups sliced zucchini (This was about 4 small zucchini or 2 regular sized)
2 cups chicken broth (I used 2 cups water and 2 chicken bouillon cubes)
1/4 tsp salt
1/8 tsp pepper
1 cup half and half cream
1 cup grated cheddar cheese (to top)
1/2 cup sour cream (to top)
4 slices bacon, cooked until crisp, then crumbled (to top)

In a large saucepan, cook onions in melted butter until tender. Add zucchini and chicken broth and bring to a boil. Simmer until tender (about 15 minutes). Add salt and pepper. Cool slightly. Pour mixture into blender and puree it. Stir in half and half. Reheat, but do not boil. Garnish with cheese, sour cream, and bacon bits. Serves 6.

I hope you all enjoy this soup as much as we did! I'm definitely going to have to plant some zucchini next year so that we can eat this soup all the time! :-)