Sunday: Wild Rice and Spinach Stuffed Pork Loin

Serving this with leftover Carrots and cauliflower tonight.


Ingredients

1 3# pork loin roast
1-2 c prepared wild rice
1/2 c thawed frozen spinach
small can of mushrooms
2 eggs
 Parmesan cheese
salt and pepper.


Butterfly your pork loin.  You can have the butcher do this for you, or  follow the tutorial found HERE.
 Saute  your spinach and mushrooms together in a little butter or olive oil, with salt and peper to taste.  Add the prepared wild rice at the end, just to mix well, and coat the rice with butter.  Allow to cool,  mix in two well beaten eggs and some Parmesan cheese, then spread over the butterflied roast.  Roll the roast back up, and tie with butcher twine and rub with salt and pepper.  Roast at 375 for about 90 minutes, or until internal temp reaches 160.

Sunday- Planned Leftovers- Soup and Sandwiches

Autumn Chopped Salad

OK, I admit it- I don't have a panini press, but I DO have a George Foreman Grill. I love hot sandwiches in the fall and winter.The sandwich filling was inspired by this Autumn Chopped Salad I found on Pinterest

Smoked Turkey, Pear & Walnut Panini

2 C smoked Turkey, cubed
2 pears- 1 diced, 1 sliced
1 C chopped walnuts, divided (If you don't like walnuts, use whatever nut you like!)
Balsalmic vinegar, to taste
Fresh ground black pepper to taste
1/4 tsp grated nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground ginger
sliced cheese- something with some bite
softened butter
bread

• Toss the sliced pears in a little vinegar to prevent them from oxidizing.

• Place the turkey, half the walnuts, the cubed pear and the spices into your food processor.  Process until it forms a thick paste, scraping the work bowl several times.  add about 3Tbsp of Balsamic to the paste, and process until incorporated.
• mix remaining walnuts into paste for texture 
• Butter bread on one side only
• Place slices of bread , butter side down on your hot grill, Spread with paste, top with sliced pear, cheese and second slice of bread, butter side up. close grill, and cook until crisp and golden on both sides, and the cheese is melted.
• Serve immediately with hot soup and cold crisp salad . (Mine will be  Pacific's Cashew Carrot Ginger soup with a Romain salad with cranberry balsamic vinaigrette- what will yours be?)

Cranberry Balsamic Vinaigrette

1/4 c fresh cranberries
1/2 c Balsamic Vinegar
1/2 c EVOO
Salt and white pepper to taste
sugar to taste

• process the cranberries until chopped very fine.  Add Cranberries and 1 tbsp or less sugar to jar,  stir to coat, add Vinegar and mix thoroughly (I processed the sugar and cranberries together)
  
•  add salt, pepper and EVOO, cover and shake until emulsified. Let sit at least 1 hour to allow flavors to combine. Keeps refrigerated for up to 1 week, in a tightly sealed jar.
• for less "crunch" in your dressing, you can microwave your cranberries until very hot, add the vinegar, then allow to cool before you add the oil and spices.

Saturday- Planned Leftovers- Turkey Goalers

So tonight is a recipe from a promotional  Minnegasco Modern Living Center recipe book from my childhood.  Mom says it's from somewhere between 1955 and 1962.  Tonight we're pairing these with baked potatoes, but you can serve alongside leftover veg from Thanksgiving, if you have any!

Turkey Goalers

1 baseball sized sweet onion, diced small
2-3 cups diced leftover turkey, white meat, dark meat or a mixture
3/4 c mayo
3-4 tbsp prepared yellow mustard
1 tbsp sugar
2-3 tbsp milk
1 loaf good bread ( I prefer white for this, because it is what I grew up with)
Sliced cheese.  We always used Velveta, but now I prefer a nice colby or mild cheddar.

In a large bowl, combine the mayo, sugar and mustard.  Add milk a little at at time until it is the consistency of salad dressing. (Do not leave out the sugar- the sugar is what binds with the milk.  There should not be enough in the dressing to make it sweet)  Add diced meat and onion, toss to coat. Refrigerate about 1 hour, to allow flavors to combine.

Lay slices of bread out on a cookie sheet- about 2 per person.  Top with turkey mixture, spreading it to completely cover slices of bread, and then top that with sliced cheese.  Place under the broiler until cheese bubbles, and edges of bread begin to toast.  Serve immedieately.

Time for the Turkeybird......

It's 8:45 am and I'm headed out to the garage to start the grill.  Hopefully WITH the chimney starter. Wish me luck. pics soon.  We're smoking a 20+ lb bird for Thanksgiving this afternoon.  According to Weber, that needs 13 minutes per pound- that's 260 minutes or 4 and 1/3 hours.  Dinner is at Three, so the Bird needs to be off the Grill by 2, so it can rest and get down to MIL's place in the 2:15- 2:30 range.  Counting Backwards- that means bird on the grill at 9:30 at the latest.  Time for Coffee and a cruller, and a grand and glorious washing of pots to make room to make pie fillings. 

The Turkey rub:

• 1-1/12 C kosher salt- Iodized Table Salt Will NOT do for this application.
• 1T onion salt
• 1T Garlic salt
• 2 T Celery Salt
• 2T paprika
• 3T Black ground pepper
• 1/4 c Brown sugar 
• 1tsp Mace
• 1tsp Nutmeg (FRESHLY ground)

The night before, Rub the turkey all over, inside and out with the salt rub.  Be generous, use it all.  Refrigerate, covered until time to grill the bird the next day. At this time, also get our smoking wood into water, if you are using big chunks.  they need to be thoroughly soaked before they go on the grill.  I'm using hickory this year, though I also was gifted some lovely apple-wood.

Build a pair of fires in your Weber kettle about 25 briquettes on each side.  Use rails or baskets to contain your fires, and place a disposable aluminum tray in between, with about 1" of water in the bottom.  Place your chunks of wood on the fires.

Back soon with pictures.

11-6-11 Monday- Stone Soup

Remember the fable "Stone Soup?"  A soldier (or two , or three) heading home from the war, stops in a village. The villagers have all hidden their foodstuffs, because they've been raided so often by soldiers.  The soldier is told that the village is starving, and there is no food to spare, so he offers to make the village stone soup.  He boils a pot of water, throws in a stone, and tastes it.  He talks about how wonderful the soup is, but it would be just a little better with an onion.  Someone offers that the might have an onion, someone else has some potatoes, and pretty soon each person in the village has contributed something to the soup.

 Tonight's soup is kind of like that- Thursday's leftover pot roast and veggies looked pretty lean, so I added more potatoes, the leftover BBQ beef , a couple of cans of cream of mushroom soup, and WOW- a lovely , hearty soup, that even a husband could love.  I ate my bowl before I remembered that I should take pictures.  This week is going to be pretty lean on pictues- I'm sewing for TeslaCon, and going to be petty busy.  Tomorrow is dinner out with the Anime crew, so no post till Wednesday.  See you then!

Friday: Slow Cooker Night: Pot Roast.

Friday night we often go out to a friend's house for cards, games or just company.  This means that we often eat out on Fridays, just because there is no time to cook.  So Friday is going to be Slow Cooker night.  I currently have two pots for this- A Rival Cock-Pot (this model) and a Hamilton Beach Stay or Go. The Rival Crock-Pot is a 6qt, and came with two crocks.  A large oval, and one that had two wells for separate cooking of side dishes. It's "programmable" which means it has a button that you use to select cook time.  This is also its down side, because if it gets unplugged for any reason, you have to re-set it, unlike a traditional pot with a knob that will just go right back to cooking when plugged back in.  The Hamilton Beach is a smaller crock- I'm pretty sure it's a 4 qt. It has a knob, which I like better, and a seal-able lid for transport- Also a life saver.  It was a gift- If I had bought it for myself, I'd have gotten the 6qt version.

On to tonight's feature: Pot Roast


Let's see- making two 3 lb chuck roasts, split between my two crocks.
so I need 1 lb of red potatoes cut into bite size pieces.,
1 lb of baby cut carrots
1 large sweet onion, cut into large chunks
Celery, if desired
canned mushrooms
Lipton Onion soup mix, or Hidden Valley Ranch  dressing mix AND Good Seasons Italian dressing mix

I am going rub one of the roasts down with the onion soup mix, the other with the dressing mix (I'll end up using about half of the combined packets) . The big crock has the potatoes, onions and carrots layered in the bottom. That one gets the dressing covered meat.  The small crock will just be meat, for Sunday night. It gets the soup mix, meat, and that roast gets more heavily trimmed of fat and connective tissue.  We'll be having bbq pulled beef sandwiches. I'll add a little water, no more than 1/2 cup per crock.  I'll be setting the pots on low, on separate circuits, as my kitchen wiring is not new, and I don't want to blow a breaker.

11.2.2011 Wednesday: Quick Fix - Mom's Sloppy Joes

My Mom worked as a bank teller before she was married. The bank guard's wife sent mom this recipe as one of her wedding presents.  It has been a family favorite as long as I can remember.  Mom always used straight ground beef, but I've tweeked the recipe somewhat, both to reduce cost and to bump up the flavor.

Today's ingredient bowl

m's recipe is in BOLD, my additions/changes are in italics.

1 lb ground beef ( 1/2 # ground beef 1/2# ground turkey)
1 onion, diced small
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 can Campbell's Vegetable soup (abc's and 123's)
1/4 cup ketchup
1 tbsp prepared yellow or brown mustard
2tbsp bbq sauce
Sliced cheese ( we use cheddar)


butter
buffet buns (small bakery rolls)

This was about the only time we got to have chips with our meal, because the meat already had a serving of veggies in it. but there was usually fruit alongside as well. You can top these with cheese, if you wish, or just have a nice glass of cold milk for your dairy serving.

Brown the meat with the garlic and onions.  Drain the fat.  

In a small bowl, combine the ketchup , mustard and bbq sauce (if desired).  add the soup.  Pour the entire mixture over the meat and stir gently to combine.

yum!

Allow to simmer 5-10 minutes, steaming the buttered rolls over the meat for the last minute or so.  Serve on buns, with chips, fruit and milk.

Just a note- I've doubled the recipe today so that I have leftovers.  This stuff makes a great meat pie filling, and I will be using it to make par-baked pies that Daddy and the Boy can just throw int he toaster oven or microwave for lunches.  I'm cheating, and using Bisquick(R) for the dough.  You can also use Alton Brown's pocket pie crust.

Follow the directions on the box, mixing as for rolled biscuits.  Cut rounds using 3" and 2" circles.  Grease and flour a muffin pan or tart pans.  Stretch 3" dough to fit, pressing down so that there are no air bubbles. Dock dough. (Prick bottom and sides with a fork.)

Fill pans to 3/4 full with sloppy joe mix, Top with 2" circles.  Seal and trim edges, cut a slit in center of top.  Brush with milk , butter or egg wash. Bake 10 minutes at 350 deg.,  remove from oven.  Allow to cool, then freeze in pans.  Once frozen, remove from pans and seal in plastic bags.  To finish, place in 350 deg. oven for 15 minutes, or microwave for 5 minutes on high.  Careful-they'll be hot!