Homemade Fettucine with Creamed Turkey Sauce

Pasta lends itself nicely for a wide variety of sauces.  While tomato and alfredo style sauces are likely the most popular, there really is no end to the types of sauces that can top pastas.  I often pair left overs with fresh vegetables as a pasta topping.  It's quick, easy and oh so delicious plus it is an easy, tasty way to use up left overs.

We have been working on emptying our largest freeze in preparation for our beef on the hoof purchase.  I pulled the last of the frozen left over turkey from the freezer.  It had been frozen with the gravy so I thawed it then used some of the turkey only to make a quick pasta sauce for homemade fettucine noodles.  As an aside, we are loving fresh made pasta.  It is so tasty, beyond dried or store bought fresh!  The fresh pasta stores nicely in the refrigerator too so I can make one batch that will give us two pasta meals for the week.

I cut the turkey into bite sized pieces then stirred into seared mushroom slices and poured a can of condensed mushroom soup over it with almost a full can of milk.  I let the sauce simmer until thickened then topped the cooked fettucine with it.  I garnished with fresh grated Parmesan cheese, sliced green onions, halved cherry tomatoes, shredded carrots and fresh parsley.   It ended up being a rather tasty meal that took almost no time to put together.

Fresh parsley is one of the leading garnishes and for good reason.  Dried parsley lacks the flavour and health benefits that raw parsley has.  Fresh parsley as a garnish is not just for it good looks.  It provides a nice source of Vitamin C, freshens the breath and settles the tummy after a large meal.  Oh and parsley is mildly diuretic reducing water weight gain.  So don't leave it on your plate, indulge in all the health benefits fresh parsley offers.

Turkey Chowder

We had a beautiful, almost 24 lb turkey as part of our Christmas dinner feast.  Turkey is always such a versatile and extremely frugal meat!  Not only does it give a lovely main meal the leftovers can be used in so many ways including creamed turkey casserole, one of our family favourites.   You can be sure there is always a canner full of turkey stock after we have turkey as well. 

There's hot, open faced turkey sandwiches, turkey in salads, creamed turkey casserole, and turkey stock.  This time I decided to make a very quick and easy turkey chowder using leftover turkey.  The end result was a lovely, thick and yummy chowder just perfect for a cold winter's day!

Turkey Chowder
recipe by: Garden Gnome

3 medium baked potatoes
1 medium onion
2½  c cooked turkey
1¾  c turkey stock
2 c niblet corn
2 c milk
2 cans condensed mushroom soup
¼ tsp poultry seasoning
sea salt and fresh ground pepper to taste

Bake the potatoes (or use leftover baked potatoes) then cut into bite sized cubes.  Chop the onion and add to the potato in a large sauce pan.  Add remaining ingredients and warm through stirring often.  Ladle into serving bowls while hot.

Kitchen Quick Tips - Ground Turkey Burgers

Achieve a light texture in cooked turkey burgers by not overmixing the ground turkey when making the patties.  Stir the ingredients until just mixed then form the burgers with a spatula, not the hands as heat from your hands alters the texture of the burger.

Our Thanksgiving Turkey 2011

We hosted Thanksgiving at our new home this year.  There were a total of twenty-five from our family including ourselves.  Larger scale entertaining takes a bit more planning and prep.  This is one time where I do use menu planning.  We were at our vacation home but thanks to email my husband's sister took care of a lot of the menu details.  We provided the turkey and ham as well as our home.  It only seemed fitting especially since both his parents have passed.  My husband is the eldest of his siblings  and since we do a lot of entertaining we have all the extra needed for larger gatherings. 

I am getting used to cooking with natural gas and so far loving it immensely!  The new stove was hooked up just a couple of days before we left for our vacation home so I didn't have much time to experiment.  We've only been home not quite five full days so in total have had less than a week to use the stove.  I made a banana loaf, roasted a chicken, and used the stovetop a bit.

We roasted a 23.7 lb turkey for part of our Thanksgiving feast.  There honestly isn't much difference between roasting a chicken or turkey other than timing.  I always roast both stuffed and covered at a lower temperature until the last fifteen minutes or so when I remove the lid for browning.

A turkey this size would have to be in the oven by 10 AM to be ready for dinner at 6 PM, or a total of eight hours when I was using an electric oven.  I put the turkey in at 11:30 AM and discovered it was cooked perfectly by 4:24 PM, for a total of only 5 hours without the need to remove the lid for browning!  The turkey pop-up timer has sprung with confirmation by a meat thermometer at an internal temperature of 175ºF.  Not only are we saving on the price of cooking fuel, the cooking time is reduced.  Now I have to ponder why as the temperature was the same I always use - 275ºF.  Technically, the cook time should be the same regardless of the cooking fuel.

Pictured is the beautiful beast, and doesn't it look delicious?  We roasted the turkey the day before our Thanksgiving feast.  It is a lot easier to de-bone then reheat for larger gathering.  The stuffing is scooped into an oven-proof baking dish for re-heating.  I made the gravy then as well which worked out nicely for defatting.  I kept the carcass for making turkey stock later.  The ham (not pictured) was warmed through the next day.

Tip:  When warming deboned turkey, pour a small amount of water over it then cover well with tinfoil.  This will prevent the turkey from drying out.

My husband and I thoroughly enjoy entertaining our family and friends.  We have a long standing tradition of sending left-overs from larger events home with our guests.  Yes, we could use up the left-overs ourselves but some of our family and friends travel a fair distance to attend meaning they don't get home until after midnight or later yet have to be up for work the next day.  Some of them have little ones as well.  This is our gift to them to help make the next day just a bit easier for them. 

A Stock Making Week

We arrived home from our vacation home to realize my stock supply with the exception of tomato stock that I guard like gold was at rock bottom.  I had to scrounge through the freezer to find enough chicken stock for the comfort meal I wanted to make!  There are two reasons why my stock supply was low.  First our house has been on the market since March of 2010 meaning I've been reducing canning where I can to allow the house to be shown more often.  Second, I took a total of a case down to our vacation home over the last two trips.  I'm used to cooking with my home canned stocks so wanted a taste of home there as well.

I had no choice but to get busy making stocks.  Stock making is always a two day event here.  I prefer making stocks in the dead cold of winter because the stock can sit in the sunporch over night for defatting rather than take up refrigerator space.  First on the agenda was beef stock (far left) with a yield of 12 - 500 ml jars.  Next on the agenda was chicken stock (right) with a yield of 14 - 400 ml jars.  Within 4 days total but nowhere near that time length in work 26 - 500 ml jars were stored safely in my pantry.

That very weekend we were having our belated Christmas celebrations complete with a 22 lb turkey.  I knew I would be canning turkey stock the start of the week.  There is absolutely no reason to let a perfectly good turkey carcass go to waste!

My turkey stock is never nice and clear even if I strain it.  One reason for this is the turkey carcass has bits and pieces of meat and stuffing which affects the clarity of the stock.  I always make stuffing (in the bird) rather than dressing (outside the bird).  Another reason is the turkey carcass has a higher percentage of collagen that causes gelatin to be released so the stock gels somewhat that gives a cloudy appearance when cooled.  My yield for the turkey stock was 16 - 500 ml jars.

As far as cost effectiveness goes, homemade stock is always a frugal choice.  I ended up with 42 - 500 ml jars that if bought in the grocery store at $1.49 each would have cost me $62.48.  My costs for 3 batches cooking for 3 hours each (total time 9 hours),  processing time at 20 minutes each (total time of 1 hour),  24 metal snap 2 - piece lids (18 were Tattler reusable lids) and miscellaneous supporting ingredients (onions, carrots, celery, peppercorns, bay leaves, and etc) came out to a total of $3.40 for a grand savings of $59.08.  Now the beauty of making homemade stocks aside of the huge cost saving is you can freeze them if you don't want to can them.  I can mine because it is then ready to use so more of a convenience product.  I use a lot of stock in everything from soups and stews to bread and muffins!

If you notice on each batch of stock I have used the Tattler reusable lids for some of the jars.  At the moment I have 2 dozen vintage glass inserts,  6 dozen Tattlers and about 70 dozen metal snap lids.  I am reusing my Tattler lids as soon as I empty enough jars to get another canner load.  I plan to buy several more dozen Tattler lids this spring in preparation for the busy canning season.  Eliminating the single use metal lids will reduce my canning costs by 8¢ to 12¢ per jar.  At an average of 1,2,00 to 1,400 jars per year that alone will be a nice savings!

Our Christmas Dinner 2011

We spent this past holiday season at our vacation home in the sunny south.  It was a very different Christmas not being surrounded by family and friends.  We have only been away from our home on Christmas day on one other occasion when we took the kids south one year.  It was hard then and it was hard for use to be away this past year.  Prior to leaving we knew a couple of our kids would join us for the holidays but we had arranged to have our big Christmas celebration on January 22, 2011. 

My husband and I were up bright and early full of anticipation.  We sipped on our coffee while getting the turkey ready for the oven.  Then we moved on to making the many appetizers we would enjoy throughout the afternoon (eg. kibbeh, crabmeat dip, hummus, crudites, and etc.) First to arrive were parents of oldest and youngest grandkids.  The kids were extremely excited to see us so there were a lot of hugs and kisses.  Next to arrive were parents of middle grandkid who was excited to see Grandma and Papa as well as cousins.  It is so cute to see these three little ones interact!  We chit chatted enjoying an abundance of snacks while waiting for one of our kids with significant other to arrive for the magic present opening time.  We were all saddened a bit that one of our kids with spouse could not make it.  We had stopped by their place to stay a couple of days before returning home so brough well wishes for the sibs home with us.

I kept the dinner quite traditional this year.  We had turkey with stuffing (not dressing, stuffing), gravy, peas, corn, and home canned cranberry sauce.  I put out freezer pickles and pickled beets in Depression glass pickle dishes.  We had fully planned on making Swedish potatoes, a family favourite but we were enjoying simply being with the family so much that my husband decided to put potatoes in to bake during the last hour of the turkey roasting.  We brought down the large fold-up table to adjoin the dining table so we could all sit together.  In total there were 12 of us.   It was a wonderful dinner filled will lots of laughter and good memories!  That is what it's all about :)

Left-over Easy Peasy Turkey Dinner

Turkey is one of my favourite frugal meats.  Not only can I get several meals out of one turkey I can also get several jars of home canned stock from the carcass.  Any time I cook a turkey I like to put enough turkey for a meal for two along with a cup or so of gravy into a freezer container then freeze for later use.  This makes for a wonderful meal quick start that only needs to be thawed and reheated.

A few days ago I pulled a container of turkey with gravy from the freezer.  I decided to make a left-over meal surrounding the turkey.  I used one jar of  homemade stove top stuffing from the pantry then added left-over mashed squash and cabbage.  The only component of the meal needing actual cooking which was quite minimal was the cabbage that was simply cooked to translucent in olive oil and butter.  It was an easy, low prep and low cook meal that was quite yummy!  Better still the meal was extremely low cost so quite low cost taking less than 15 minutes to put on the table.

This is the type of meal every busy home cook needs to keep on hand.  Using the quick start meat with gravy it is as simple as adding a couple of left-over sides or even adding cooked noodles with vegetables for a very quick, inexpensive meal.  It becomes a sanity saver during the week as you really don't have to think of what to serve with the meat and gravy, just raid the pantry, and at the same time you are saving on the cost and temptation of eating out or ordering take-out.

Cheesy Creamed Turkey Casserole

Last Monday we celebrated our Thanksgiving with a lovely turkey dinner and all the fixings.  There are three guaranteed uses for leftover turkey in our home.  It's a given that creamed turkey casserole and open faced hot turkey sandwiches will be served later that week.  It is also guaranteed that I will be canning turkey stock during the week.  Along with those must makes with leftover turkey I usually put turkey pieces with leftover gravy in the freezer for a later meal as well as slice turkey breast for sandwiches. 

The creamed turkey casserole is a family tradition passed on from my mother-in-law.  The beauty of this dish aside from using up leftovers is its simplicity.  It only takes a few minutes to mix the ingredients together then pop in the oven. 

I tweaked the recipe slightly to use Asiago cheese.  This time I tweaked the recipe to include ¼ cup provolone cheese, ¼ cup mozzarella cheese and garnished with parsley flakes.  The result was a rich, creamy dish similar to a risotto but without the work.  This really is a very easy dish that fits into the comfort meal category.  Serve with bread and a side salad for a complete meal. 

Dinner at the Club House

We were extremely lucky in discovering this location for our vacation home.  The amenities are absolutely wonderful!  There is excellent food right at the club house without even leaving the park.  This worked out quite nicely for use on a working vacation trip.  We ended up eating breakfast and lunch most days at the house working between meals to get the house into shape then we headed down to the club house where we enjoyed very reasonably priced, home style cooked meals.

You just can't go wrong with fried chicken!  I ordered the fried chicken dinner that came with a garden salad, mashed potatoes green beans and dinner rolls ($9.99).  The chicken was some of the best fried chicken I've tasted!  It was nice and crispy on the outside, moist and tender on the inside and just a lovely flavour.  The potatoes were real mashed potatoes not instant and the green beans were cooked southern style.  I've heard a lot about southern style green beans but had not had them.  Southern style green beans are cooked a lot longer usually in a little bacon fat.  They have a lot of flavour.

My husband ordered the Turkey Manhattan.  The meal included turkey breast on bread slices served with mashed potatoes and gravy ($8.25).  It looked like there was a thin layer of dressing between the turkey breast and the bread as well.  The meal got two thumbs up from my husband.  He said it was just like homemade!  Now this would be an extremely easy meal to duplicate at home and a perfect way to use up left-over Thanksgiving turkey.  As such I've put the meal idea into my easy uses for left-overs folder. 

Sometimes just a little sweetness is needed to end a meal.  We are not huge dessert eaters by any stretch of the imagination.  We very seldom have dessert at home unless there is a special get-together or if I'm doing a bit of experimenting in the kitchen.  When we are eating out my husband will occasionally order a bowl of vanilla ice cream.     Instead of plain ice cream he finished this meal of with a slice of cherry pie topped with French vanilla ice cream.  Doesn't it just look like a scrumptious way to end a meal?  

Turkey Club House Sandwich

We have spent the last several days at our vacation home.  We left here in the wee hours of the morning after a night of entertaining so we were both exhausted when we arrived.  The discouraging thing was we arrived to basically an empty home needing cleaning and with no kitcheware, not so much as a glass.  Somehow after being up for well over 24 hours neither of us were impressed but that really is when it hit home this place was ours.  We headed down to the club house for a quick bite before going shopping for the necessities.

The club house menu has been reduced to mainly sandwich.  Quite frankly eating much more than a sandwich would not have sat well on tired tummies.  We each ordered the turkey club house sandwich on honey whole wheat. This is a very easy summer sandwich to duplicate at home. 

You will need homemade 100% whole wheat bread with honey substituted for the sugar.  Spread each slice with a little mayonnaise then top with turkey (lunchmeat or thin sliced cooked turkey breast) slices, tomatoes, fresh spinach, and a little salt and pepper.  Serve with a side of potato chips for an easy, low cost, 15 minute summer meal.

Turkey and Mushroom Pie

Quite often the starts of a casserole is inspired by an ingredient that catches my eye when I'm in the pantry. One of my purchases in my recent foodie finds was Nishiki rice. This is a new medium grain rice variety that is ideal for sushi. As things sometimes happens with foodies, I was pouring the rice into a mason jar for vacuum sealing when a strong craving for sticky rice came over me. I was off on another tangent. I set up the rice maker to make 3 cups then waited patiently for my sticky rice. When the rice was cooked I scooped out a cup, added a pat of butter and just a dash of salt. While I was eating my delicious little snack I got a what if moment for using up the rest of the sticky rice. Here's what I came up with.

Turkey and Mushroom Pie

Sticky rice is called sticky because the higher starch content causes it to stick together, a rather desirable trait when making sushi. Based on that same principle I reasoned that sticky rice could be shaped into a crust then filled. I decided to use left-over turkey from the freezer in keeping with using something from the freezer daily. The end result was a lovely, casserole type dish that had a lot of flavour!

Turkey and Mushroom Pie
recipe by: Garden Gnome

2 c cooked sushi rice
3 tbsp butter
2 c cooked turkey
½ small onion
½ c frozen peas
½ tsp garlic/onion seasoning
½ tsp Old Bay Seasoning
2 cans condensed mushroom soup
⅓ c milk
1 c sliced sautéed mushrooms

Cook the sushi rice. Mix 2 tbsp of the butter with the rice while still warm then press into glass pie plate. Set aside. Chop the onion then caramelize in the remaining butter. Remove from heat and drain. Sautée mushroom slices in a little butter. Remove from heat and set aside. Cut turkey into bite sized pieces. Pour turkey pieces into mixing bowl then stir in onions, seasonings, soup and milk. Stir in peas last. Pour the filling into the prepared rice shell. Top with sautéed mushrooms. Bake at 180ºC/350ºC until centre is hot. Remove from oven. Serve.

Bon Appétit!

Christmas Eve 2009

The holiday season brings a wealth and abundance of food! We are very, very blessed that in our family there is considerable diversity which is reflected in the culinary offerings. Christmas Eve is enjoyed at the home of one of my husband's siblings. Everyone gathers mid-afternoon to visit then we have a large meal followed by the little ones opening up a few presents. The get together breaks up around 10ish just in time to get to Midnight Mass.

Kibbeh

My MIL was the official kibbeh maker in her family. She passed on the tradition to me so I am now the official kibbeh maker in our family. Kibbeh is a traditional Lebanese dish originally made with ground lamb but we use beef. Now this isn't any ground beef! I deal with a local butcher who still prepares the meat for me the the way my MIL had it prepared. The raw meat is then mixed with seasonings and crushed wheat. The meat is formed into a round loaf shape and refrigerated a couple of hours before serving. Kibbeh is eaten raw on pita bread with a splash of good quality extra virgin olive oil. Any left over kibbeh is baked the following morning to be enjoyed for lunch. Pictured is the kibbeh I made for Christmas Eve and yes that is a dinner plate with a little over 3 lb of kibbeh to be enjoyed.

Turkey Dinner

It's funny how traditions start then get modified over generations. When I was growing up we enjoed Pork Tourtière (French Canadian Pork Pie) and butter tarts on Christmas Eve. The gathering was always small and quiet. We were tucked into bed early drifting off to visions of Chrismas Day which was also very small, cozy gathering. One thing for sure there would always be an orange waiting for us Christmas Day. I kept that tradition :)

My new in-laws on the other hand had a very large gathering on Christmas Eve complete with a huge meal followed by Midnight Mass then we gathered after mass to open presents. That tradition has been modified to a large meal followed by presents then those who want to go to Midnight Mass do so. Our holiday traditions encompassed those from my in laws and my family as well as those we have created ourselves over the years.

Lemon Meringue & Pumpkin Pies

Christmas Eve was spent with my husband's side of the family. Dinner was turkey with stuffing (cooked in the bird), mashed potatoes, seasoned corn niblets and sweet potatoes. Dessert was delicious homemade apple, lemon meringue and pumpkin pies along with a large variety of homemade cookies and other goodies.

What is rather interesting is my extended family no longer gives me strange looks when I do a photo shoot of my plate or of any of the wonderful food we share. In fact others have started doing this as well especially to use for scrapbooking. So I've started a bit of a tradition of my own :)

Turkey Run

Any Canadian living within an hour drive of the US border has more than likely heard the term turkey run. Now why would that be interesting? The simple reason is in Canada the turkey prices are regulated so getting any kind of a bargain is very difficult. This week one Canadian grocery store has turkeys on for 99¢ per pound which is a fantastic Canadian price. However due to the US Thanksgiving yesterday turkeys were on for as cheap as 29¢ per pound at some US grocery stores making a turkey run even with the price of gas well worth it!

We did our turkey run on Wednesday. Kroger had turkeys on for 49¢ per pound with an additional $10 purchase with a limit of one per customer with their store card. We shopped separately and each of us used our store cards so we were allowed 2 turkeys coming in a $10.86 and $10.39. Our next stop was a grocery store where turkeys were on for 29¢ per pound, limit one per customer with an additional $25 purchase. My husband insisted we get a turkey each even though I tried to tell him we didn't have room in the freezers for 4 turkeys. We paid $5.37 and $5.68 for the turkeys here. The total spent including the extra groceries and the 4 turkeys was $110.53. Considering the turkeys will give a yield of at least 28 L of stock and at today's sale price for stock of $1.63/500 ml would cost $91.28 it's easy to see how a turkey run saves considerably!

Turkey Dinner

As I told my husband we didn't have room for 4 turkeys in the freezers. He had alteriour motives though claiming he wanted his Thanksgiving feast Thursday night. I reminded him he wasn't American and he had had his Thanksgiving feast on our Canadian Thankgiving to which he responded with those puppy dog eyes and a bit of a pout so one turkey was put in the sink to thaw overnight.

Thawing Method: Place plug in sink then put the turkey in the sink. Place two t-towels over the bird and fill to almost covering the bird with cold water. Let sit overnight. The next morning remove the bird from the sink. Remove packaging and prepare for roasting.

I've talked about how I roast turkeys so there is nothing really new there and I've talked about how I make stuffing as well using homemade poultry seasoning. What is a bit different is the gravy and potatoes. I find corn starch makes a nicer textured gravy than flour does with a lot fewer lumps.

Gravy Method: Pour any liquid from the roasting pan into a large sauce pan. Deglaze the roasting pan and pour that through a strainer into the liquid. Make a slurry using about 2 tbsp cornstarch and enough buttermilk to make the slurry pourable. Bring the resulting mixture to a slow boil. Stir in about ¼tsp browning. Slowly pour in the slurry while stirring constantly. Let thicken while stirring then remove from heat.

Rustic Potatoes: Wash and cut unpeeled potatoes into bite sized pieces. Steam until tender. Place potatoes in bowl of stand mixer. Pour in about ½ cup buttermilk. Add about 1 c sour cream, a tbsp butter, 8 oz cream cheese and 2 tbsp roasted garlic. Beat on low to mix well but don't over beat.

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.

Left Over Turkey

Anytime we have a turkey dinner there are left-overs. It's a given there will be lots of left-overs and always, always a batch of turkey stock. One of the biggest complaints I've heard about turkey left-overs is they are dry. If the turkey was moist to begin with the left-overs will be moist as well however the reheating process can dry out the meat. I like using moist reheating methods for left-over turkey. One of our favourite left-over turkey dishes is creamed turkey casserole.

Creamed Turkey Casserole

A lot of recipes are tweaked or created then handed down from generation to generation. This is a recipe handed down to me from my late mother-in-law. Coming from a large family and raising a large family she was an excellent and frugal cook. What was so impressive was her cooking was never just a recipe; it was I'm making this come and see how I do it. It was very much a hands on learning opportunity! I am extremely lucky that she shared some of her wonderful cooking expertise with me. I will be forever grateful for that.

Creamed turkey casserole is a quick and easy yet frugal meal that we usually make the day after the turkey meal. This is one recipe that I have not really tweaked. It is very much a homey, comfort meal.

Creamed Turkey Casserole
source: Garden Gnomes MIL

2 cans condensed mushroom soup
2 c cubed cooked turkey
2 c cooked rice
1½ c cooked niblet corn
½ small onion
1 c half & half
½ c Asiago cheese

Chop the onion. Mix all ingredients except the cheese in a large mixing bowl. Pour into an oven proof baking dish. Grate cheese. Top with the grated cheese. Bake at 180ºC (350ºF) until warmed though and lightly golden.
Serves 6

Turkey Stock

Every turkey carcass is turned into turkey stock here. Now I have a confession some will find a bit odd. I love the flavour of turkey stock and having a number of jars of turkey stock on hand but I seriously hate the smell of turkey stock cooking! It is one of the very few foods that just don't agree with me while they are cooking. At any rate, I made turkey stock ending up with 16 pints canned and 1½ L for the freezer.

Homemade stock is one of the most frugal products you can make in the kitchen. My turkey stock is never clear and that is because I stuff my turkey so when the bones go into the stock pot there is a small amount of stuffing that stuck to the bones which causing clouding. This is fine with me. I also add the neck bone to the stock pot and cook the giblets separately adding the liquid to the stock. The stock is defatted and strained twice before canning.

As always never put up any food by one method only. In this case most of the stock was canned but some was froze. Using two or more methods of preservation ensures you always have a back-up in the event one method fails. If you do not home can then freezing stock is your alternative. It is not as convenient as opening a jar and using but it still useful and frugal. Just take a container out of the freezer to thaw in the morning.

Thanksgiving 2009 Highlights

The Canadian Thanksgiving is celebrated on the second Monday of October. We normally have our big family Thanksgiving meal on Sunday before on years we are at home. If you recall we arrived home the previous Wednesday after being away for 6 days. The following couple of days I was busy processing corn so I had Saturday to do the menu and prep work for the meal. The meal highlights were the roast turkey and apple pie.

Roast Turkey

I decided to keep the menu simple relying on my freezer and pantry supplies since this was going to be a smaller family gathering. The turkey had already been taken out to thaw and I had plenty of potatoes on hand. The stuffing as in most turkey meals tends to take the place of bread even though I usually make a loaf. Saturday was quite cold and rainy so grocery shopping didn't sound like a very appealing endeavour to either of us so shopping the home supplies worked well.

The star of the show was the turkey accompanied by baked potatoes, niblet yellow corn, stuffing, gravy and freezer pickles. It was a simplified version of our normal Thanksgiving meals but still quite enjoyable. That bird tasted every it as good as it looked!

Apple Pie

The kids brought an apple pie from Chudleigh's in the spring so I pulled it from the freezer for dessert. These homemade style pies simply need to be reheated in the oven. Pictured is the ready to serve warm pie sitting safely in the homemade ceramic pie keeper.

There are pies and then there are pies. Homemade pies are wonderful! Places like Chudleigh's are selling homemade-style pies that really are about as close to homemade as you can get. They use fresh fruits to make the filling and the pie crust is made from scratch. Just like most homemade pies they can be frozen until you want to use them. This is an excellent and tasty alternative for those who don't like making pies or find themselves in need of a quick homemade quality dessert but don't have the time to make them.

Kitchen Quick Tips - Turkey

Don't buy turkey with added ingredients or already stuffed. It is cheaper and fresher to add these ingredients yourself.

A Burger With Attitude for Canada Day 2008

Happy Canada Day

Many people celebrate Canada Day by having get-togethers that include grilling hamburgers and hot dogs. In our neck of the woods we are hoping that the latest trend of raining almost daily will end. Today we woke to more rain and winds out of the north so the temperature had dropped quite a few degrees. We are planning to do a little boating tomorrow depending on the weather. Grilling will likely be part of our celebrations if we don't stop at one of our favourite haunts while boating. Later in the evening weather permitting we will sit on the dock to enjoy the fireworks. We don't set them off ourselves but don't mind enjoying seeing various displays. I do hope the rain holds off and it warms a bit!

Burger With Attitude

I've mentioned before that my husband makes the most fantastic homemade burger patties using fresh ground beef. However, there is no reason that a burger always has to be made using ground beef. Saturday he decided to make burgers but with a twist. Instead of using just ground beef he added ground pork and turkey to the beef. Then end result was a flavourful, juicy burger with a noticeable but pleasant difference in taste.

The following recipe is for a large batch of patties with about a third used to make meatballs. We were entertaining that evening so the meatballs were cooked then went into the slow cooker with sauce for later. The burger patties freeze nicely either raw or cooked as does the cooked meatballs. This is something we regularly do when cooking for stocking the freezer with homemade convenience foods. It is a frugal use of time and the energy source used to cook the food.

Toppings: iceburg lettuce, aged sharp cheddar cheese, tomatoes, dill pickles, onions, jalapeno peppers
Condiments: Miracle Whip®, ketchup, mustard, relish

Combination Burger Patties

5 lb lean ground beef
2 lb ground pork
2 lb ground turkey
2 ½ dry bread crumbs
6 eggs, slightly beaten
1½ tbsp garlic pepper
¼ c Heinz 57 steak sauce

Combine all ingredients in a large mixing bowl using your hands. Form into large patties* about 5 - inch diameter and ¾ - inch thick or form into 2 - inch meatballs**.

Grilling: The most important thing when grilling burgers besides having your grill set to the correct temperature (medium) is to never press the patty to flatten. Flattening forces all those lovely juices out of the burger and increases flare-ups. The second most import thing when grilling is to only flip the burger once. Use a large barbeque flipper to flip the burger to prevent the patty breaking. Flip when the patty is nicely browned with defined grill marks. Grill on the other side until the burger is nicely browned with well defined grill marks and the interior registers at least 71ºC/160ºF*** on an instant read thermometer***.

Frying (meatballs): Heat 2 to 3 tbsp extra virgin olive oil on medium in a fry pan. Place meatballs in a single layer on the bottom of the fry pan. Fry until browned. Turn and continue cooking until browned through. Remove from fry pan using a slotted spoon. Repeat until all meatballs are cooked. If freezing allow to cool then flash freeze in a single layer and package into freezer bags. If using the same day, place in slow cooker, add sauce then set on low until ready to use.

* The patties will shrink in diameter and thicken while grilling. Alternately you can use a burger patty press if desired.
** A meatballer can be used for this.
*** The old advice to cook until no longer pink is no longer recommended. The inside can still look pink depending on whether the ground beef was fresh or frozen and how it was thawed when cooked to the proper temperature however, depending on where the ground meat was purchased can look brown before it is safely cooked. Therefore it is best to use an instant read thermometer to ensure your burgers have been cooked to the proper temperature.