Quatro Frijoles con Pavo Cantaro (AKA Ridiculously Easy Crockpot Meal!!)

As mentioned in a prior post, we have an over abundance of wild turkey in the freezer, so I have been perusing cookbooks and food websites for a variety of turkey recipes.  Many of the recipes I find are based on the traditional, slow-roasted turkey.  I don't want boring...give me something INTERESTING.  Something DIFFERENT.  Besides that,  I'm a busy working mom...I need something I can put together with little preparation, which requires limited monitoring.  Something where I just dump everything in a pot, walk away and come back in a few hours to a great meal.  Okay...do you get where I am going with this? 

It is time we celebrate the Crock-Pot (generically the "slow cooker")...one of the best cooking devices ever invented.  The one challenge of the Crock-Pot is patience.  I am not a patient person, so the Crock-Pot does present some obstacles in that I want to constantly lift the lid to see what is going on in there. However, I have read it time and time again--do not to lift the lid.  So, I've figured out how to rock the lid back and forth to get the water beads off so I can get at least a cloudy look of what is going on in there. 

Okay, so back to my turkey dilemma.  I found a great recipe in a Crock-Pot cookbook for "Quatro Frijoles con Pollo Cantaro".  According to Wikipedia, the Spanish word that is taught in the US for turkey is "pavo", so the title changes slightly for this dish. I also had to look up what "Cantaro" means. Big DUH on me--it means pot/jar (I took German in high school and college...give me a break! )

Quatro Frijoles con Pavo Cantaro was a hit!  I cut up 1 lb of turkey breast into 1" cubes and put into the Crock-Pot, along with a can of each of the following (**drain each can before dumping) : garbanzo beans, navy beans (aka northern beans), cannellini beans, red kidney beans, mild green chilis, diced tomatoes and sliced black olives.  Add 2 cups chicken stock and mix together.

Heat some olive oil in a skillet and saute 1 cup onion, 2 or 3 cloves of minced garlic and 1 1/2 teaspoons of cumin until the onions are soft.  This step FILLS the kitchen with such wonderful aromas!! 

Add the onion mixture to the Crock-Pot ingredients.  Cover and cook on LOW for 4 to 5 hours.

When the time is up, add some salt and pepper to the pot for additional flavor. 

Serve the dish in a deep bowl and top with crushed tortilla chips and Monterey Jack cheese.  By the way, my kids LoVeD the job of crushing up the tortilla chips. A little messy, but I try to involve them in cooking anyway that I can.

The FINISHED DISH

Momma Loves Breakfast!

There is just something about the smell of bacon and the sizzle of sausage!  Add to that the perfectly moist scrambled eggs and a crunchy, nutty piece of toast topped with a dollop of fruity preserves. Hot coffee.  Juicy OJ.  MMMMM....I've always been a lover of breakfast.  I give credit to my dad for passing on this love.  Growing up in Denver, he would create some wonderful breakfast feasts for us...pancakes, waffles, eggs over easy, french toast, and homemade cinnamon rolls.  The cinnamon rolls were a very rare treat.  I remember how he would labor over the dough, creating the perfect spiral, which would be eventually be topped off with a creamy sweet drizzle of icing.  Dad's love of breakfast went beyond the home kitchen. One of our favorite places to stop while traveling was Cracker Barrel restaurants.  Cracker Barrel knows how to make a great breakfast.   As kids, the added fun was playing the wood triangle game they set out at the table, plus to shop for candy in the store afterward.

I woke up today set out to make something new for breakfast.  Touring the freezer and the pantry for inspiration, I came up with a breakfast-style hand-held pizza with a twist on biscuits & gravy.  What makes this recipe even better?  I was able to lower the fat and increase the healthiness factor by using whole wheat bread, low fat cheese, and turkey sausage. 

My freezer ingredients used today were the turkey sausage and scrambled egg patties.  Wal-mart sells the scrambled eggs patties and these are pretty convenient if you are in a hurry.  Normally, I would use fresh eggs, but I'm trying to further the mission of this blog by using items I've hoarded in the freezer.

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Toast 4 whole wheat english muffins halves.  Microwave the scrambled egg patties and cook the sausage links in a skillet per the package directions. 

While the sausage cooks and muffins toast, create a simply white sauce. If you have not made white sauce before, it can be a little intimidating because the "sauce" changes consistency several times.  The key tool for perfect white sauce is a wire whisk. Start out with about 2 tablespoons of butter/margarine and melt in a saucepan. Add approximately 1 tablespoon of flour and whisk into the butter until it forms a paste.  Have a jug of milk handy!  Add a small amount of milk and start whisking.  It will look like a lumpy mess at first, but keep whisking and adding milk slowly until you have a smooth consistency.  As the mixture heats, it will thicken. Too thick? Add more milk.  Too thin? Add more flour. 

Divide the white sauce evenly among the muffins halves and top with a scrambled egg patty. 

Slice the sausage links in half lengthwise.  Add 3 sausage halves to each pizza and top with cheese.  Place in oven for 10-15 minutes until the cheese melts. DELISH!

My Date With a Turkey

March madness takes on two meanings in our house.  Yes, we fill out our NCAA brackets and watch way too much basketball.  But, the other March madness in the Artzer house is turkey season.  March means practicing turkey calls, watching the Outdoor Channel and getting all the camo gear cleaned from deer season.  This is all my husband's doing, of course.  I'm here to roll my eyes, escape to a different room in the house and peruse cookbooks from which I hope to find the perfect recipe to cook this wild bird. 

My freezer is overloaded with wild turkey. For some reason, I have resisted cooking this meat for the past 10 years of marriage.  I absolutely love the Butterball turkey I buy in the store each November. However, the perception changes when you handle a wild bird.  Part of the cleaning is unappetizing.  So, I need to get over that mental challenge.  Hence, the reason for this blog!

But the blog became even more challenging when my beautiful children managed to harvest three turkeys between the two of them.  Now, I have 6 turkey breasts to ADD to the freezer.  Will I ever deplete the supply??

I found a GREAT recipe for the wild turkey...thanks to Rachel Ray's Everyday magazine.    The basic concept was buffalo style burgers.  I ground the turkey using my Kitchenaid mixer and mixed with a handful of chopped celery, chopped carrots and chopped onion, plus salt, pepper, a dash of dill, some buffalo wing sauce and parsely.   Here is a pic of that mix. 

I formed the mix in patties and grilled on the stove top for approximately 5 minutes per side.  The patties are coated with some more buffalo wing sauce and continued to grill for another minute or 2.
At the end of the grilling time, the patties were topped with blue cheese crumbles and some cheddar cheese.  The patties were placed on toasted english muffins along with some shredded lettuce and relish! 

My family loved this yummy turkey burger.  It had a bit of a kick with the wing sauce~ 

Here is the finished product!

I'm ready to do more with the turkey!  A month ago, I ground the turkey and made some meatballs. These are in the freezer, awaiting a future dinner.  The plan for the meatballs is a simple marinara on noodles with a turkey meatball accompaniment.  More to follow.....................

Okay, so I am starting with cheese...

Sam's Club and Costco are dangerous places for me.  Bulk ingredients + cooking inspiration = about $300-$400 per visit.  The best and worst gift I ever got was a Food Saver.  I love the Food Saver because you can freeze so many things.  I hate the Food Saver because I do freeze so many things...and then I forget about them. One of these items was found today...shredded cheddar cheese.  I buy those gi-normous bags, break it up into 2 cup portions, and freeze.  Today, I broke out a package for Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes, which I prepared for tomorrow's Easter dinner.  Thawed previously frozen cheddar is crumbly, so I suggest using it in recipes where you are planning to melt the cheese (or for recipes you are serving your immediate family, because they don't care that it is crumbly).  Check out the recipe section for Loaded Twice Baked Potatoes pictured above. These haven't been "twice baked" yet, but you can make them up to 24 hours ahead of time!  Even better, the recipe is dual purpose--save the tops of the baked potatoes, freeze and use later to make a delicious tater skin appetizer!  Okay, I just realized I took one thing out of the freezer (cheese) and am adding another one in (potato caps)...story of my life.