Turkey Meatloaf

I'm not crazy about meatloaf but my family loved this! I actually made it ahead of time and froze it wrapped up in tinfoil. I let it defrost in the fridge over night and then baked it for almost 2 hours.

When making the loaf shape lean towards flattening so that it will cook evenly. No pictures this round! We ate it too quickly :)

If you are freezing the meatloaf I'd suggest the ketchup topping after the loaf has defrosted.

Enjoy!

Turkey Meatloaf
Adapted from Ina Garten
Serves 8-10

3 cups chopped yellow onions (2 large onions)
2 tablespoons good olive oil
2 teaspoons kosher salt
1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1 teaspoon fresh thyme leaves (1/2 teaspoon dried) or oregano
1/3 cup Worcestershire sauce
3/4 cup chicken broth
1 1/2 teaspoons tomato paste
5 pounds ground turkey breast (Optional: use a combination of turkey sausage and turkey breast)
1 1/2 cups plain dry bread crumbs
3 extra-large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup ketchup

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F.

In a medium saute pan, over medium-low heat, cook the onions, olive oil, salt, pepper, and thyme until translucent, but not browned, approximately 15 minutes. Add the Worcestershire sauce, chicken stock, and tomato paste and mix well. Allow to cool to room temperature.

Combine the ground turkey, bread crumbs, eggs, and onion mixture in a large bowl. Mix well and shape into a rectangular loaf on an ungreased sheet pan. Spread the ketchup evenly on top. Bake for 1 1/2 hours until the internal temperature is 160 degrees F. and the meatloaf is cooked through. (A pan of hot water in the oven under the meatloaf will keep the top from cracking.) Serve hot, at room temperature, or cold in a sandwich.

Chinese Rice Soup (Jook)

Oh the wonders of hindsight! This was my first Thanksgiving away from my family and Thanksgiving is not complete without some jook! I took the turkey bones from my fiance's family dinner and decided to make my first attempt!

Jook is Chinese porridge rice soup. In my family we serve it after dessert - around the time when lots of families are having some left over turkey sandwiches.

Once the turkey is served the bones are thrown into a pot withe some rice and cooked in that broth until thick. This is served with some green onions, crispy noodles, and some of the left over meat.

What I did:
Picked most of the meat off the turkey bones. Put the bones into the largest pot in the kitchen. Filled the pot with water until it was covered and then added in 3 cups of rice. This made a TON of soup. I ended having to take some out of that pot and starting a second pot. Once the rice was tended and mushy the soup was done. Carefully pick out all the bones and then we eat!

Next time:
I will make the broth first. Put bones in a large pot, cover with water, let simmer 30-40 minutes. Strain the broth with a sieve to catch all the bones, bone parts, and weird floating things. Pour the broth back into the pot and then add the rice to the broth (1 cup rice to 3 cups broth). Let it simmer until thick, approx 20-30 minutes. Then add the turkey meat and serve!

Update: The steps for "Next Time" worked great!

Cheesy Tomato Sauce

You know when you the cooking gods are smiling and you make something really really tasty? Well this pasta sauce was created on one of those lucky cooking days. It is a simple semi-homemade sauce recipe for when you need to make dinner with limited ingredients!

Cheesy Tomato Sauce
makes 4-8 servings

1 lb ground turkey
1 onion, diced
2 big cloves of garlic, minced
1 Thai chili pepper, small mince
3 shakes of Worcestershire sauce
2 tbsp dried or freshly chopped basil, oregano
1 jar of pasta sauce (I used tomato basil)/Canned no flavor tomato sauce
1 cup shredded mozzarella cheese

Heat oil in large frying pan. Saute onion, garlic, and pepper together. Once starting to soften add the meat. Season with the worcestershire sauce, salt and pepper. Cook meat until done. Add spices and tomato sauce and let it simmer until you are ready to eat. If you want to make it cheesy, stir in the mozzarella until it is combined and melted. Let it simmer for another 10 (ish) minutes then serve over pasta!

Wonton Soup

Are you ready for my Wonton Soup recipe? I know you have been waiting to see when it would be posted.

While the assembly might take a while (maybe about 1 1/2 hours), this will provide you with lots of meals if you eat alone like me *tear* or a big family meal and a couple small meals. If I am making this for dinner for someone or with my family, I convince my brother or whoever is around to help with the folding.

You can buy all the ingredients at the Chinese grocery store, but also at your regular market. These are in the refrigerated section. Stop and Shop has them near the fresh produce area I think. I normally get the white ones. This time I did a taste test and they have a different texture when cooked but both are fine and I don't really have a preference.

Twin Marquis, Wonton Wrapper (Shanghai style)

Twin Marquis, Wonton Wrapper (Hong Kong style)

The recipe is easy to adjust based on your tastes. Add in more or less of things. Add more meat to the dumplings or make them smaller. Since this is a easy to make/time consuming to assemble recipe I make a double batch to freeze a bunch. That becomes my I'm-starving-after-work-and-need-to-eat-right-now dinner.

I will use ground turkey or pork depending what is on hand at the time. If I had a choice I think the pork is a better texture and has more flavor. For the shrimp, cut them into about 4 pieces and close to the same size. The shrimp cooks fast and you don't want it to over cook. Until you know what seasonings you want for ground pepper/soy sauce/ginger/etc, make and cook a test dumpling then add in more of whatever seasoning you are looking for.

I have never have the correct amount of wrappers to filling so I sometimes toss in some of the wrappers in the water with the wontons and eat them as noodles.

Freeze them on a flat cookie sheet for a couple hours. Then feel free to put into a freezer Ziploc baggie or in a container of your choice!

I made a video of how to fold them but it didn't save properly... I'll make another one next time. In the meantime here is a YouTube video (sorry, music is really loud): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJ33n10ht88. There are many different ways to fold them, as simple as a triangle or really fancy folding techniques. The only problem with the triangle is when you freeze them, the corners may break off.

Put it all in the bowl!

Between a tsp and a tbs of filling, wet two connecting edges
with water, fold into a triangle

Be sure to press out all the air and seal the edges well

Hold triangle flat, middle tip facing you. Wet the top of the right
corner. Fold straight outwards and place the left
corner over the right corner, press to seal.

If you layer them separate with plastic wrap, parchment paper,
or wax paper to prevent sticking

Enjoy!!

Wonton Soup
Makes 1 package of wonton wrappers

1 lb ground turkey or pork

3 - 6 stems of scallion (green onion), chopped

5 - 10 shrimp, not cooked, chopped into fourths (optional)

1 can water chestnuts, chopped

Square Wonton wrappers

1 egg

Ground black pepper
1 - 3 tbsp Soy sauce
1/2 tsp sesame oil
1 tsp rice wine
1 big can Chicken Broth
Optional: Green Veggies

Mix everything but the chicken broth and green veg until just combined.
Use a spoon and put the tsp of filling into the middle of each wonton wrapper.
Wet 2 sides of the wrapper with water and fold into a triangle. You can leave them like that or hold the triangle flat, with the point facing you. Place one edge of the right corner over the left edge and pinch together.
Boil water in one pot and heat up chicken broth in another. Cook the vegetables in the chicken broth.
It takes about 4 minutes to cook the wontons if they are fresh. About 6-8 minutes if they are frozen. Cut one open and see if the meat (no pink) and shrimp (pink) are cooked through, if so, serve up! (Bigger ones take a bit longer and smaller ones will cook faster!)

Turkey and Spinach Stuffed Shells

I was making dinner last night and decided to attempt my cousin's Stuffed Shell Recipe. It had been a while since I've made this, so I made it up as I went along. I decided to stuff it with turkey, spinach, and ricotta. I used mushroom pepper jar sauce and covered it in mozzarella.

From start to finish this recipe took about an hour to prepare and cook, but makes about 30+ stuffed shells. Depends on how much filling you put in each one, mine were fairly hardy. We ate about 6 each. The filling could be used for Lasagna or Raviolis as well.

I used my food processor (still awesome!) to dice/chop up the onion and the garlic. Put it in a hot frying pan and let it get soft. I added in some seasonings here. Oregano, red pepper flakes, salt, and pepper. I stirred this around for about a minute. Then I added the meat. I used ground chicken but turkey or beef would be fine too.

Once it cooked through there was a lot of liquid in the pan. I drained it then added in the spinach leaves. I was rushing around the grocery store and just grabbed a bag of spinach. Not all bags of spinach are created equal. This bag had spinach with stems and I had to pick through it. Next time I'll make sure I get baby spinach leaves just for making this dish a little easier. However it made no difference to the taste. I wilted the spinach in the meat mixture. The meat was very chunky and not the texture I was looking for so I dumped it all in the food processor and pulsed it a few times until it was coarse sand texture.

Next I added in the container of ricotta cheese. YUM!

Meanwhile, I cooked the jumbo shells and had them drained and waiting to be filled. I under cook them a two minutes because I am against soggy pasta and it is going to bake in the oven more too.

I put some sauce in the bottom of the pan and started to stuff the shells and place them in the baking dish. I used a jar of Mushroom and Pepper sauce. Nothing super fancy.

Next I covered it with the rest of the sauce and then a bag of mozzarella cheese. Baked it uncovered at 375 for 20 minutes or until the cheese is melted and starting to get a little golden.

Changes for next time? Well, we didn't think it had enough flavor. I think I might try it with chicken sausage (out of the casings), or double/triple the herbs when cooking the meat. And for those who don't like ground turkey, it didn't taste like there was any meat in it, and because I pulsed it in the food processor there wasn't any meat texture either.

All and all a tasty meal and not too intensive. It can be changed easily for your food preferences or whatever ingredients you have in the house.

I made Molten Lava Cakes for dessert!

Turkey and Spinach Stuffed Shells

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

Jumbo Shells

1 med/small vidalia Onion

5 cloves Garlic

1 tsp Red Pepper Flakes

1 tsp Oregano

Salt & Pepper to taste

1 lb ground turkey 

16 oz (ish) of fresh spinach

16 oz part skim ricotta cheese

1 jar of sauce (or homemade sauce)

2 cups of mozzarella cheese (it is 1 package)

Directions

1. Heat pan with some olive oil and add chopped onion and garlic.
2. Add red pepper flakes, pepper, oregano. Stir.
3. Add meat and continue to stir.
4. When mostly done cooking add in spinach until it wilts (about 30 seconds).
5. Pulse in food processor until everything is about the same size.
6. Let mixture cool.
7. Boil water and cook shells a few minutes shorter than the recommended package directions.
8. Add in ricotta, salt, pepper, any more seasonings, and then egg to the cooled meat mixture.
9. Put some sauce in the bottom of the baking dish, stuff shells, top with rest of sauce and mozzarella.
10. Bake at 375 for about 20-25 minutes.

Enjoy!!