Scott's Holiday Turkey

Recipe challenge, week recipe forty-five.

Sometimes I feel like a terrible blogger.  Well, maybe not blogger. Instagrammer.  I documented nothing on Thanksgiving, even though I took pictures.  Sometimes I really do wonder what the point of Instagram is....I look at it multiple times a day and it's really just a guilty pleasure. I'm not sure why I don't post more.  I'll chock this up to thing #246 I'm trying to figure out about myself.

Scott came home from 5 weeks away the day before Thanksgiving. It was drizzling freezing rain for most of Thanksgiving so we didn't go anywhere. We took the dogs for two walks. It was 20 degrees out.  He opened some birthday presents (it was his birthday too, so thank goodness he made it home). I ate a lot of pecan pie.  We watched the entire season of Homeland, thus far (#PeterQuinn4ever). I made Scott watch Love Actually (Hugh Grant at his finest).

Scott always makes a turkey and this year, not knowing what time his flight would get in, I decided to take on the task myself.  I bought a 2.2 pound turkey breast because we waste a lot of turkey every year. This is really because I'll eat a few pieces but I don't really like turkey. I'd probably prefer ham. Or beef.

Scott did make it home in time to take over turkey prep and he was disappointed there was no dark meat; if I had known that was what he liked most about turkeys, I definitely would've bought a bigger bird.  Maybe for Christmas.

This is the recipe he used and I was very skeptical.  I was planning on the Creole Butter and the turkey bag, because we do that every year, but he had this other combination of stuff he wanted to inject.  It worked out really well in the end, it smelled amazing, and I don't even mind cooking turkeys now that we have an oven with a perfect turkey button.  It does the legwork for you.

Leg work.  Turkey leg. Ha ha.

We use turkey bags, and the perfect turkey button has a probe that goes into the thickest part of the turkey and that measures the temperature. There's no guesswork and even I can cook a turkey now. I did not stuff it or inject it, but I did cook it. Perfectly.

Scott's Holiday Turkey

Turkey, size of your choice (this was a small turkey, but you can use the same method with larger birds)

1 bottle of Tony's Creole Butter + flavor injector

Turkey bag with plastic tie

Vegetables of your choice: roughly chopped onion, carrot, celery, and garlic.

2 T. sherry + 2 T. soy sauce +2 T. red wine vinegar (mixed together in a small bowl)

1 T. flour

Open up the turkey bag and put 1 T. of flour inside.  Close the bag and shake it up to coat the sides. Place it in a roasting pan and then place the turkey in the bag. Put vegetables into the cavity and/or around the turkey.  

With your flavor injector, inject the bird with the sherry/soy sauce/vinegar mixture (this is the part I was skeptical about). Pick 3-4 different spots.  

Then, inject the turkey with the Creole Butter.  There are instructions on the bottle.  It's one ounce of marinade per pound. 

Let the turkey rest for about half an hour before you bake it, and then again after it's done.

(I'm no expert on turkey-cooking. These are my layman's directions. I just wanted to impart the knowledge about the injectables we use.)

Basically, Scott has taught me: 1. Use a turkey bag. No need to baste then.  2. Use a flavor injector.  You'll notice the difference.

Mexican Stuffed Peppers

"It's the most wonderful time of the year..."

Oh, sorry.

I was just singing my back-to-school song.

Seriously.

There's many reasons to become a teacher.  Of course I want to "help children grow and learn".  But I also want to buy school supplies.  Lots of them.

Growing up, my favorite part of every summer was back-to-school shopping.  By the middle of July, I needed to know what day exactly we were going to Altoona or State College to shop, as that was the day I would be able to have my run of Staples.

I cannot, to this day, estimate how many colorful notebooks I've bought over the years.  My guess?  Around 200. Not including the four adorable ones I picked up at Target last week. 

I saved my money all summer long.  To buy school supplies.

Even into college, I always set aside an extra special afternoon in August to go to Wal-Mart and Staples.  I would browse and buy.  Even now, if I'm in Wal-Mart and I feel stressed out, I can take a stroll through the back-to-school aisle and it relaxes me.  Plus, I always find something I need.  Like a pencil box. 

After working at a school supplies warehouse throughout college, you can imagine my excitement now that I actually get to order from the catalogs.  I got the boxes o' stuff I ordered a few weeks ago.

It was like Christmas.  In July.

Now, for an easy dinner you can do on any school night.  Or, if you're like me and you just really, really need to use up those 7 peppers you bought at Costco.

Mexican Stuffed Peppers
serves 6

1 pound ground turkey
1 1/2 teaspoons cumin
1 t. onion powder
1 t. garlic powder
1 onion, finely diced
3 cloves garlic, grated

1/2 cup salsa
1 can black beans
1 cup frozen corn
3 bell peppers, halved with the seeds and ribs removed
shredded Mexican-blend cheese

In a large stockpot, boil some water.  Put the pepper halves in for just a few minutes to par-boil them.  This will make them a bit softer and easier to cut/eat after baking.

Put them into a 9x13 pan and set aside.

In a large skillet, begin to brown the turkey.  Add the seasonings.  Put in the onion and grated garlic after the turkey is nearly browned.  Cover and let cook over low heat until the onion is soft.

Add the salsa, corn, and black beans.  Stir together and heat through.  Spoon approximately half a cup of the turkey mixture into each pepper.  Top with a bit of shredded cheese.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 25 minutes.  Then, broil for a few minutes to get the cheese golden and bubbly.

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Friday Food 
Simply Delish

Turkey Chili

I never used to eat chili.  I would ladle out the "sauce", minus the meat and beans, and eat that over noodles.

I guess tastes really do mature.  I've almost learned to tolerate beans.  I really, really only like black beans.  And I've almost learned to tolerate ground meat.  It's a process.

So, I've made chili a bunch of times now.  Here is the recipe I've come up with.  I prefer using turkey.  Just because.  I actually wrote this down on a recipe card so I wouldn't immediately forget it. 

Turkey Chili

1/2 pound ground turkey (i suppose 1 pound would work too.  i only had a half.)
1/2 medium onion, finely chopped
1 green pepper, finely chopped
3 cloves of garlic, grated
1/2 packet McCormick Chili Seasoning (mild)
1 cup frozen corn or 1 can corn, drained
1 can Ro-Tel
1/2 can black beans (i had some frozen because i never seem to use a whole can at once.  you could use a whole can.)
1 can Chili Starter Beans and Sauce
1 can tomato soup
3/4 cup water

Brown the meat, adding the onion, pepper, and garlic toward the end of the browning process.  Put a lid on the pot to steam up the vegetables. 
Add the rest of the ingredients.  Cook it all together until it starts to boil.  Don't forget to stir.  It'll burn onto the bottom of your pot pretty easily.

(I didn't take a pretty picture with cheese, sour cream, and green onions on top.  But that's how you should eat it.)
I ate this with brown rice and tortilla chips.  I think that if my mother would have given me tortilla chips to eat with my chili, I would've started eating chili long ago.

Spaghetti Squash Stir-Fry

This is probably the healthiest thing you could ever eat and, trust me, I did not come up with it on my own.  A nutritionist came to my school to do a workshop for parents on healthy, easy weeknight meals.  She made the same dish for the teachers at lunchtime the next day and it was a-m-a-z-i-n-g.  I didn't write down a recipe; just tried to remember it all.  But this is what I came up with. 

This stir-fry has THREE different kinds of squash in it!  I don't remember the last time I ate ONE kind of squash!  The only downside is that ground turkey is expensive.  Being my first experience with ground turkey, I was impressed.  I have a weird aversion to hamburger meat.  I'll only really eat ground meat if it's in tacos.  So if I start using ground turkey, I've potentially solved a life-long problem of mine.
I used half a pound of ground turkey for this and it easily made enough to serve 4.

Spaghetti Squash Stir-Fry

1 small spaghetti squash (olive oil, salt, and pepper to season)
1/2 lb. ground turkey
1 small zucchini, diced
1 small yellow squash, diced
1-2 Roma tomatoes, diced
1/2 cup onion, thinly sliced
salt
garlic powder
onion powder
black pepper
2-3 cloves grated garlic

Cut the spaghetti squash in half and scoop out the seeds and obvious strings.  Place in a baking dish, drizzle with olive oil, and season with salt and pepper.  Bake at 350 degrees for about 45 minutes.  This was the smallest spaghetti squash I could find.  A larger one would take at least an hour to cook.

When it's finished, pull all of the strings out of the squash.  It's much easier than I thought it would be.

At this point, I seasoned it with garlic powder and onion powder.

Meanwhile, in a skillet of some sort, brown the turkey.  Season with salt, pepper, garlic powder, and onion powder.  Then add the zucchini, squash, garlic, and onion.  Cover and let it simmer together for 10-15 minutes.  Then add the tomatoes and stir to warm through.

Top bowlfuls of spaghetti squash with the stir-fry.