Mostly poultry

Here’s a look at the real food that’s been cooking in my kitchen this week.  I didn’t realize we were eating so much poultry until I put this post together! Ha!

Turkey breast

Curried Turkey Over Rice

Turkey Stock

Greek Roasted Chicken and Potatoes

Fresh Tomato Soup

Marg’s Sandwich Spread

Roast turkey – I cut the legs and wings off one of our homegrown fresh turkeys, put them in the freezer for another time and roasted the rest, breast side down. Cooking it breast down makes it very moist. I removed the breast and sliced it for a meal and for sandwiches.

Curried turkey – We loved this! It’s also a good way to use bits of meat you get from different parts of the turkey. It can be made with any kind of leftover meat. The way I used to cook it called for canned cream of mushroom soup, but this time I made it with real ingredients only and it was so much better! I served it over brown basmati rice.

Turkey enchiladas – not pictured. This was a new recipe I tried and it was very good! Filling too and we hardly knew it was turkey. Which was nice since we’ve been eating so much of it lately. 😉

Turkey stock – The bones were so big, I had to cook it in my canner! It made lots of yummy broth.

For a turkey that had the legs and wings removed, it fed us for a lot of meals. I picked the last bits of meat off the bones, (another pound!) and froze it for another meal at another time. Hopefully that’s the end of it for a while!

Greek Roasted Chicken and Potatoes – I make this fairly often. It’s a family favourite. I especially like it because you can adapt it for feeding more or less people.

Fresh Tomato Soup – A soup made with chicken broth, from the leftover roast chicken. I used up the last of my tomatoes from the garden. The picture doesn’t show that there are chunks of tomato, green pepper and chicken. I also used up the last little bit of cream I bought earlier in the week even though it didn’t call for it.

Sandwich Spread – I won’t buy Miracle Whip anymore and mayonnaise isn’t zippy enough for my family so I’ve been experimenting with a sandwich spread recipe. I don’t want to call it Miracle Whip because I’m not trying to copy the taste but make my own. This one turned out pretty good. They’re eating it in their turkey sandwiches so I guess it’s okay. 🙂

This post is part of Tuesday Twister hosted by GNOWFGLINS.com

Real Food Rustling

Phew! It’s been a busy week of trying new things!  The only diet restrictions my family has is with hubby and his sugar, high glycemic index intake.  I really have to give credit to my family for trying all these new things.  They did so without a complaint and even if they didn’t love it, they still ate it.  When I asked them for their opinion, they were honest yet sensitive.

Here’s a look at what real food has been rustling in my kitchen.

chicken broth

cold rice salad

cold barley salad

mesclun mix salad

souffle omelette with mushrooms

baked peppers with egg and lentils

Chicken broth –  I’ve been processing our home-grown chickens this week so I’ve got giblets for making broth, which I’m freezing in quart sealers for using later.  After the broth is made, I’ve been giving the giblets to the dogs but I’m looking at making chicken liver pate.  What do you do with chicken livers?

Cold Grain Salads – Honestly, it never occurred to me to make salad with cold grains but cold pasta was once a foreign idea to me too (long time ago when I was a kid).  Since I’ve discovered them, I’ve been having fun trying different kinds of cold grain salads on my family.  Some are hits, some are misses and some come close.  Here’s the two I tried this past week:

Cold Rice Salad – Leftover brown basmati rice inspired me to create this cold rice salad.  I mixed in carrots, tomatoes, green peppers, onions and tossed with a simple homemade vinaigrette.  The vinaigrette was apple cider vinegar, olive oil, crushed garlic, sea salt and fresh ground black pepper.  Final vote: 2 hits, 1 miss and 1 came close.  I’m not worried about the “miss”, he’ll come around. 😉  I voted “came close” but I’m more of a critic with my own food.

Cold Barley Salad – This is an altered version of a favorite Greek pasta salad.  I mixed barley (soaked and cooked), green peppers, tomatoes, onion, mixed beans, black olives and fresh parsley.  The dressing is olive oil, lemon juice, a little sea salt and fresh ground pepper.  Final vote: 3 hits, 1 miss (still holding out on the “miss”).  In my opinion, one thing that could have made this salad better was some feta cheese.

Mesclun mix salad – I have lots of lettuce coming out of the garden.  I planted a mesclun mixture which makes a very eye-pleasing salad.  We’re having a tossed salad almost everyday!  I rounded out the salad with whatever I had on hand… and lots of dill! Always a HIT!

Souffle Omelette with Mushrooms – You know I have to include an egg dish when I’ve got my own hens!  This is another new recipe I tried this week.  The egg whites are beaten separately from the yolks and folded in for a very fluffy omelette.  The mushroom sauce with fresh parsley is very simple and together it was a delicious, filling and very satisfying meal!  I liked it so much I had it twice this week.

Baked Peppers with Egg and Lentils – Okay, this one might be pushing it with my family.  The ingredients aren’t foreign to us.  We’ve all had green peppers, lentils, and eggs… but together?  It was good, everyone ate it. I didn’t mind it but it was nothing to write home about and as pretty as it presents itself,  I don’t think I’ll be making this one again.

With all the new recipes I’ve been trying this week, (which is not usual for me) I have made one huge observation.  Real Foods are much more filling. 

This post is part of  Tuesday Twister hosted by GNOWFLGINS.

The Farmers’ Market

I went to the Farmers’ Market this morning.  I try to go every Saturday to see what produce they have that I’m not growing.  I picked up a 1/2 lb of organic blueberries.  That’s about it for this week.  There was lots of other stuff I enjoyed browsing.  Though I have to question whether all that packaging is really necessary?!  I have an aversion to plastic and I wish it was used a lot less! 

There is one booth that sells homemade skin creams, lip balm and soap.  Really nice stuff!  A few weeks ago I bought a jar of her cream and have been really enjoying it.  It’s lightly scented with jasmine and vanilla.  Hubby sneezes at most scented products but things naturally scented he seems okay with.  It’s nice cream but I’d like to learn to make some for myself next time.  The ingredients are simple enough.  Maybe this winter… the jar I bought should last a while.

I’m still plugging away at butchering my chickens.  I got 8 done on Thursday with my son’s help.  Today I did another 5 by myself.  My son was helping his dad with another project.   I noticed farm raised chickens were going for $2.69/lb at the Farmers’ Market.

Greek Roasted Chicken & Potatoes

 

Call me anxious but we had a chicken for supper last night.  It was one that I had cleaned on Monday so it had 2 days of rest in the fridge.  I made Greek Roasted Chicken & Potatoes.   This recipe is one of our favorites but I hadn’t made it in a while.  The ingredients are so simple,  the sauce you get is SO good!  Whether it’s truely Greek or not, someone Greek will have to answer that. 😉  Enough about the recipe,  you want to know how the chicken was right?  Let me say, I was not disappointed!  It’s nice to get excited about a simple chicken again.