5 Ingrediant fix

Once again Ive found a great dinner recipe from the Food Network show "5 Ingrediant Fix." I stumbled upon the episode where she makes really quick recipes, my kind of cooking. I actually wanted to try making some rice with chicken broth and make it a little more interesting. I did try it on my own and it didnt turn out to well. I think its because Im still adjusting to brown rice, turns out the day after I screwed up my rice I watched the show and voila I had a great new recipe to try.

Baked Shroom Rice

Recipe courtesy Claire Robinson, 2010

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 8 ounce shiitakes mushrooms, sliced
• 2 cloves garlic, minced
• 1 cup white rice
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken stock

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.

Over moderately-high heat in an ovenproof saucepan, melt the butter until the foam subsides. Add the mushrooms and saute until golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Add the garlic and stir until fragrant, about 1 minute. Add the rice and stir constantly until the rice is coated and lightly toasted. Season with salt and pepper. Add the chicken stock and bring up to a boil. Cover with a tight fitting lid and cook on the middle rack in the oven until all the liquid is absorbed and the rice is tender, 17 to 20 minutes. Remove from the oven and let stand, covered, 5 minutes. Fluff with a fork before serving.

BYOC: Want to get more whole grains in the kids? Try doing this with brown rice and add a little more chicken stock and a little more time.

Turkey Robinson

Recipe courtesy Claire Robinson, 2010

Ingredients

• 2 tablespoons garlic-infused olive oil
• 1 pound ground turkey
• Kosher salt and freshly cracked black pepper
• 2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
• 1 (5-ounce) bag triple washed spinach
• 1 (15-ounce) can cannellini beans, drained
• Brown rice or pasta, for serving

Directions

Heat the oil in a large skillet over moderately-high heat until hot but not smoking. Add the ground turkey and, using a wooden spoon, break up the clumps and cook until golden brown, 4 to 5 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Add the stock and scrape up any bits on the bottom of the pan. Bring up to a boil, and then let simmer until slightly reduced, about 10 minutes. Stir in the spinach and cannellini beans and heat through. Season with salt and pepper. Serve over brown rice or your favorite pasta.

BYOC: Try adding some red pepper flakes to the turkey for a little spice and finely grate some Parmesan cheese to serve.

Turkey burgers

I dont have a grill and I still wanted to attempt some burgers this summer. I only had feta cheese and lets face it you cant eat a burger without any cheese, especially a turkey burger. So I grabbed some of my neighbors fresh basil chopped it up and threw it in a bowl. I added some ground turkey (about a pound), feta, one egg, salt and pepper.  I was excited how easy it was and how juicy they turned out.  I did have to make them in a pan but I think they turned out just fine. So fine Ive made them twice in two weeks.

Beef Stroganoff

This dish is one of our favorites by far! I'm sure I will be making this for a long time. I tried to lighten it up a bit and swap out some things for healthier ingredients. I'm still getting used to the whole wheat noodles so I decided to mix both together and it was definatly better than just all whole wheat. They do have lower sodium cream of mushroom soup but honestly it was just something I couldn't swap. It ruined it last time.


1 Tbs soy sauce
1 Tbs worcestershire sauce
1/2 C light sour cream
1/4 C skim milk
1 onion chopped
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1/2 C mushrooms chopped
16 oz whole wheat egg noodles
1 package (1.25 lbs) ground turkey

Looks gross but its SOOO good!

Boil egg noodles and start browning your meat. Season with pepper and add in the onions and mushrooms. Once the meat is cooked add in the cream of mushroom, sour cream, soy sauce, and worcestershire. Add milk to your desired thickness. I always add a little more soy or worcestershire to my liking. That's it! Super easy!  

 

Stuffed Peppers

Well soccer practice got cancelled so I had plenty of time to make dinner tonight. Ive been waiting to use my Jennie O hot turkey sausage and decided I wanted to make something with the bell peppers I had in the fridge. I did my normal Allrecipes.com ingredient search and didn't really find anything so I went on JennieO.com and found a stuffed pepper recipe that I used as a guide. I was really excited because I have never made them before.

Ingredients
• Four Six bell peppers, any color or a combination
• 2 teaspoons garlic-infused or extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 package JENNIE-O TURKEY STORE® Sweet Lean Italian Turkey Sausage
• JENNIE O HOT Lean Italian Turkey Sausage
• 1 (15-ounce) can Italian-style or regular tomato sauce
• Tomato paste and can of crushed tomatoes
• 2 tablespoons chopped fresh basil or 2 teaspoons dried basil leaves 
• Frozen basil
• 1 (16-ounce) can great northern beans, drained and rinsed
• 1/2 cup grated Parmesan or Asiago cheese
• 1/2 cup cooked brown rice
• http://jennieo.com/recipes/recipe_detail.aspx?Id=1174

Cut peppers lengthwise through stems keeping stem halves intact to hold stuffing. Discard seeds and veins. Cook in boiling salted water 5 to 6 minutes or until crisp-tender. Set aside.

 Remove the sausage from the casings and crumble in a skillet for about 5 minutes.  Add tomatoes, basil, and cooked brown rice and simmer.  Rinse and add beans and simmer for an additional 5 minutes.  I added tomato paste to thicken the mixture. I was quite proud of myself because I came up with the tomato paste idea all on my own.

 Before and after adding the tomato paste

Scoop the mixture into the peppers and sprinkle with parmesan cheese. Bake in the oven at 375 for about 20 minutes.

Spicy Meatballs

Ive discovered that I'm often inspired by date night dinners. Lee and I went to Buca di Beppos and we had spicy chicken rigatoni. Yum! Ive been trying to play with more flavors in efforts to get away from all the salt and cheese. Roaming through the grocery store I noticed some spicy ground sausage on sale. I picked it up and threw it in the freezer for a rainy day.

My sister bought me the coolest Christmas presents. A year subscription to Martha Stewart's Everyday Food Magazine. Picking through my April issue inspired me to follow half of the 'Siracha marinara and meatballs' recipe and be inspired from our rigatoni. I followed the recipe for the meatballs swapping the ground pork for hot sausage.


Meatballs:
1 lb ground HOT sausage
1.25 lb Jennie O ground turkey
2 C fresh spinach chopped in processor (or 10oz frz)
1/3 C dried bread crumbs
2 large egg whites
3/4 tsp dried oregano
salt and pepper
cooking spray
Sauce- can of crushed tomatoes and
1 jar Prego veggie smart smooth and simple sauce
1lb pasta (your choice)

 Place pork, turkey, spinach, breadcrumbs, egg whites, oregano, 1 1/2 tsp salt, 1/2 tsp pepper in a large bowl. Get your hands clean and ready to get messy. Meanwhile, start cooking your pasta.

 Roll into 1 in balls and arrange on a rimmed baking sheet. Broil until golden brown, 10 minutes, rotating sheet and meatballs halfway through.

Simmer the tomatoes and Prego sauce and then add the meatballs to cook for an additional 5-10 minutes.