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.....................