turkey – Page 2 – no counterspace

More miscellany – betrayed by greens

What happens when broccoli rabe goes off
Broccoli rabe, rapini, whatever you want to call it – it’s pretty tasty. And I picked up a bunch the last time I was at the farmers’ market.

So I’ve had broccoli rabe go off once before, and you could tell because the stems got hollow and squishy.

Well, this one was pushing its lifespan, so I checked that and it was fine… possibly because these had been well trimmed by the woman selling them. I also smelled them because I remembered that there had been a cleaning solution kind of smell to the leaves, and I did not detect anything off.

So I went ahead with preparing a delicious meal.

First, I browned a slice of bacon until is was very crispy.

In a pot of water, I boiled a link of turkey sausage I pulled out of the freezer.

When the sausage was cooked through, I pulled it out of the water and pulled off the casing as soon as it was cool enough to handle. Then I sliced the sausage into 1/2″ thick rounds, and put it in the bacon fat to brown.

I also added an onion (cut in half and then sliced), some sliced garlic, and two jalepeno peppers (cut off the seeds and then sliced). Oh, and some sliced bell pepper, too.

Then into the pot of water, I dumped 2 ounces of rotini pasta and brought it back to a boil.

About 3 minutes before the pasta would be ready, I added the stems from the roughly cut up broccoli rabe.

About 1 minute before the pasta would be ready, I added the leaves and buds.

Splash some of the pasta water over the leaves to help them wilt and to add a little more liquid to the dish.

Drain the pasta and then dump the noodles in with the sausage and veggies.

I cut up and added some fresh herbs: fennel sprig and basil (and there might have been a leaf of sage or two)

I put up one portion for freezing, and I poured the rest into a bowl and sprinkled with cheddar from the farmers’ market.

And then two bites in, I got this overwhelming taste of ammonia. URGH!

This would have been a great dish, if the broccoli rabe hadn’t gone off.

Let this be a lesson: eat your greens, and eat them promptly!

I least I had already nibbled on the bacon while making the dish.

~*~

So there’s pretty much 1 recipe for green tomatoes (fried, fried with cheese and tomato sauce, fried in pie, totally fried), but there are a ton of recipes for tomatillos. And, to me, they taste pretty similar.

Can you think of any reason why I shouldn’t try tomatillo recipes with my green tomatoes?

Cheapass slacker dinner – Meatballs

You all had something really sexy for dinner (especially if you were breaking a fast), right?

I was feeling a little lazy.

So – into a small skillet

1 tsp olive oil
1 small onion, cut in half and then sliced fairly thinly
2 jalepeno peppers, flesh cut off the seeds, and then sliced thinly.

Hold on. Let me take a moment to talk about green peppers. You may have noticed that in my pantry I never ever have green bell peppers, but I am likely to have just about any other color. Yep. That’s true. I love bell peppers in any variety except green. They just taste bitter to me, in not a sexy way like bitter leafy greens have started to. Actually, I lie. I also don’t like any color bell pepper from the farmers’ market. Fresh grown, fully flavored bell peppers taste like ass… or, well, green peppers, really. Plus, they end up being so thin that you can’t even get a happy roasted pepper out of them. So give me some mass produced colored bell peppers from the produce warehouse.

But! Jalepeno peppers. I can use them just like my mother uses green bell peppers. Instead of slicing them, just cut the flesh off of the seeds – there’s no need to do it the hard way. And then then most times the jalepeno isn’t that spicy (depending on the time of summer and how much it was shaded from the sun by the plump pepper a little higher up) so you can use a couple of them. No, really, I’ve started putting jalepeno peppers in almost everything I cook up with onions.

So back to the ingredients

2 cloves of garlic, sliced
6 turkey meatballs, thawed

About those turkey meatballs. I can’t remember whether I’ve given you that recipe yet or not. So my grocery story pretty regularly has a sale on ground turkey meat – 3lbs for $6.99 – so I have started buying lots and then packaging it so I can freeze it. That means hamburger patties or meatballs. There are a pound or two of ground turkey meat, a handful or two of breadcrumbs (or matzoh meal), garlic powder, sausage seasoning (which contains salt), and an egg or two depending on the consistency – and, yes, this is judged my mixing it all up with my hand instead of a fork. Roll into small meatballs – 1 tsp/ball. Bake at 350 for about 15 minutes, drain on paper towels, toss into a bag and freeze.

And cook that up real good until it is all getting burny edges.

Take some sprigs of fennel (why do all of the fennel recipes call for throwing away the herb parts and just using the bulb? I am all for using the whole plant), remove any stiff stems, and cut into small piece – drop your scant handful into the meatballs.

Pour off onto a small plate, realize that the meatballs taste slightly freezer-burned, so grate an ounce of sharp cheddar cheese (from the farmers’ market) on top.

The only thing that would have made this tastier (aside from some noodles in a creamy sauce) would have been some mushrooms. The eating kind.

dinner?

What should I have for dinner? I have a lot of points left (24, if that means anything to you), so I can be a little luxurious…

But I have kale.

And a bunch of collard greens so young and tender they are almost like spinach.

And I have some turkey meatballs (or I could thaw some turkey sausage fairly quickly).

Or chicken breasts are on sale this week.

And that’s looking a lot like my dinner Monday and not very extravagant…

so offer me some new ways to season or prepare my kale, so that it will be an indulgence. (Though no dairy-based dishes because I would need to buy most of that special, and I’m about to go out of town for two weeks).

(Dairy in the house includes cheddar, cream cheese, and parmesan)

salad -> pasta

Bought 6 pounds of ground turkey today and turned 2/3 of it into meatballs and 1/3 into 3 ounce patties.

I have two kinds of kale. One looked tasty and mild (and was being sold by the only booth at the farmers’ market run by city kids), and the other one is the kind of kale called for in this NYT recipe. I am tempted, though, to make that hot (instead of a raw salad) and serve it with my meatballs and some pasta. And by serve, I mean eat up all by myself! (Actually, since I think that will let me cut the oil way lower, it might turn out healthier.)

So far today, I have eaten nothing other than 3 peaches and the meatballs I plucked while hot from the oven (to test for doneness, of course… well, that and because I was hungry and they were tasty)… but I might be too hungry right now for more elaborate cooking. Good thing the recipe looks like it will be fairly quick to throw together on a weeknight.

Fowl Chili

I just made (what I thought was) a tasty chili.

Fowl Chili

Soak 1 cup of cow peas (because I had them hanging around my pantry from an experimental purchase – feel free to use kidney or some such)

In soup pot – saute 1 diced onion, 5 cloves coarsely minced garlic, and a dozen diced baby carrots in a little olive oil. Once it’s almost translucent, add 2-3 teaspoons of ground cumin and cook a couple more minutes.

Add the drained peas. And at this point, I added some duck stock because that’s what I had made most recently. Feel free to use chicken stock. Ummm… about 10 cups… well, as much as my pot would hold.

I also added 1 link of turkey sausage (frozen) and one chicken breast (frozen). Then I left that over medium heat while I ran a couple very quick errands. When I came back, I pulled out the mostly-cooked breast, sliced t, and then returned it to the pot.

At the point I added herbs: a few sprigs of fresh fennel, fresh marjoram, and fresh savory – all minced. 2 teaspoons of ground oregano, 2 teaspoons of Penzey’s chili powder (which ended up making it plenty hot because I let the soup cook a long time), 2 generous (but not quite heaping) teaspoons of regular paprika, just a pea-sized amount of smoked paprika, and a pinch of sugar.

I added some leftover dark meat from a roast chicken. And once it was thorought ly cooked and not going to crumble, I sliced the turkey sausage.

I finished the soup off with a teaspoon of flour mixed with lukewarm water (shaken together in a jam jar is the easiest way) – this thickens slightly, but it also really makes the taste smoother.

I had originally planned to add a can of tomatoes, but the soup was very tasty without, so I didn’t mess with it.

Served with fresh bread and a large dollop of sour cream to cut the heat.

(It ended up cooking for 10 hours)