He Said - Ground Turkey

If you have been following this blog you will know my husband and I hold special cooking contests calle He Said/She Said. This month's recipe contest was for each of us to find one ingredient we had not cooked with then use that ingredient to make 2 dishes. That sounds simple doesn't it, but trust me it is a bit more challenging than it first appears.

My husband took the KISS approach to this contest of which I called him up on that. He reminded me the only criteria was to use and ingredient and make 2 recipes using that ingredient. So essentially I could not complain about him keeping it simple. His ingredient of choice was ground turkey. Now here the stores if we are really lucky might have ground turkey but not very often. Anything other than ground beef is rather iffy which is one reason we have a meat grinder attachment for the KitcheAid® stand mixer. A few days ago we stopped for groceries and he spotted ground turkey so that was it.

Three Meat Meatloaf

You certainly cannot get much simpler than meatloaf. The thing with meatloaf is everyone makes it different and there are as many variations as there are cooks. My husband used ground turkey, ground pork and ground beef to make this yummy variation of meatloaf. Paired with Old Fashioned Chili Sauce and an oven baked potato this meatloaf was wonderful. It has a firmer texture than all beef meatloaf but it slices just as nicely the following day for meatloaf sandwiches.

Three Meat Meatloaf

1 lb ground turkey
1 lb ground pork
1 lb lean ground beef
2 eggs
¼ c Heinz 57® sauce
¼ c Diana® sauce
½ c dry bread crumbs
garlic pepper
garlic salt

Mix the ingredients well with your hands. Form into a loaf and place in a loaf pan or baking dish. Bake at 180ºC (350ºF) until golden brown and interior temperature reads 22ºC ( 72ºF). Remove from oven. Drain any grease and let sit 10 minutes before slicing.


Bacon Wrapped Turkey Rounds

His second dish using ground turkey was even simpler yet it didn't look simple. He made bacon wrapped turkey rounds topped with a little cranberry claret jelly served with oven baked potatoes, oven baked acorn squash, home canned green beans along with apple and avocado wedges topped with cream cheese making this a a lovely Sunday dinner. The bacon wrapped turkey rounds while simple were delicious! The bacon kept the rounds nice and moist while adding extra flavour.

Method: Mix garlic pepper and a little onion powder into the ground turkey. Form into for thick patties. Wrap a piece of thick sliced bacon around each patty. Place on Silpat® lined sided baking sheet. Bake at 180ºC (350ºF) until interior temperature reads 22ºC ( 72ºF). Remove from oven and plate.