talk, talk, talk
I have so much to tell you about this simple brown, dump, and walk-away turkey chili recipe. It’s so easy that I shouldn’t have anything to share, but somehow…
The first thing is these chips! They are so good that I am never buying them again. I’ve made the chili twice a week and I’ve gone through two bags of these devilishly yummy chips. Five pounds on the hips later and nope, I’m done with them! So take that, Tostitos Hint of Jalapeño.
Next is this cheese. I hope that all Trader Joe’s lovers, like myself, know about TJ’s Unexpected Cheddar. It is the bomb! It makes me unsatisfied with plain old cheddar now. There is just something about this cheddar-Parm combo that makes me happy. The texture isn’t great for slicing, it is a bit crumbly, but I don’t care, I use it on Harmony Boards anyhow just to spread the love.
Now for an explanation as to why I used a slow cooker instead of my Instant Pot for this chili. Laziness is the simple reason. Both my slow cooker and Instant Pot are in this cupboard on the left in my garage. The day before I made the recipe for the first time, I’d bought a bunch of wood for Harmony Boards. The sanded, branded and oiled boards that are ready to go are in the rolling bin to the right. The new wood is stacked against the bin and is blocking half of the cupboard. The Instant Pot is behind that locked door on the right and the slow cooker is behind the unblocked door on the left. That’s the reason. You could easily use an Instant Pot for this recipe and cut out the step of browning the meat in a skillet and brown it directly in the pot.
Lastly, I want to share a “Grandma Tip” that I’ve always assumed everyone knows and uses. And that is when you use canned food, such as the diced tomatoes used here, and you have a liquid that is also added to the dish, such as the water in this recipe, you pour the liquid into the empty can to wash out the can and get every little bit of the food out. You do that, right? If you don’t then your grandma or mom messed up. You need to do that. And in the case of this recipe which uses two cans of tomatoes, you add the water to one of the cans and then pour it into the other can to wash it out and then pour it into the slow cooker.
See, I had a bunch to share! Now on to this delicious recipe! I love it because the addition of tortilla chips at the end gives it a hint of tamale taste. YUM!
[Read more →]June 3, 2019 5 Comments
a torte and a little history
For the first week of my final series of classes at Les Gourmettes, I chose the menu from recipes from the very first series of classes I took from Barbara Fenzl more than 30 years ago.
I’m not sure if I’ve ever shared the story of how I came to work for Barb at Les Gourmettes Cooking School. With these next two weeks of classes being the last, now seems like a good time.
In the fall of 1988, when my daughter, Marissa, was not yet 1-year-old, I first learned that there was a cooking school in Phoenix called Les Gourmettes. Our local newspaper, The Arizona Republic, used to have a glorious Food & Dining Section. It was massive compared to what you find in the paper today. At least once a month, there was a “Food Calendar” and Barb’s school was listed there. It was one of, if not the only, avocational cooking schools in town back then.
We didn’t have much money to spare, but I splurged and signed up for the series of three classes. I loved it! I was hooked! Now I was on the mailing list, so when the schedule for the next semester came around, I not only signed up for Barb’s series again but also for Jacques Pepin’s class.
I adored Jacques. I had several of his cookbooks and Jacques would come to the Scottsdale Culinary Festival in those days and I went to see him whenever he was in town. The series was first, and after each class, I would tell Barb that I was a stay-at-home mom, and if she ever needed anything, I would run around town to get it for her. I assured her I knew how to cook, that I had worked for a respected caterer in town, and that I personally catered on the side. I had a growing cookbook collection and I rarely made the same recipe twice because I loved to create and experiment. Basically, I was not only passionate about cooking, but I was also good at it.
During the time between Barb’s series and Jacques’ class, Barb’s assistant had to leave and get a full-time job. All my offers of help had paid off! Barb called to see if I’d be interested in apprenticing as her assistant, starting immediately. I was over the moon!
Not only was I going to work in a cooking school, but I was also going to assist Jacques Pepin! And the cherry on top – I was going to be refunded the money I had paid for Jacques’ class. That was huge for us back then! We had a new baby, I had recently been in a serious car accident and bills were piling up. Dave had just been made a partner at his CPA firm and we were making very large monthly payments for his buy-in.
As they say, the rest is history. I’ve been with Barb for 30 years. Working there lead to me opening my own children’s cooking school, to dozens of articles in the newspaper, in national parenting magazines, local TV appearances, starting this blog, meeting and working with the likes of Julia Child and Emeril Lagasse, teaching Larry Fitzgerald to cook and so much more. So yeah, I have a lot to thank Barbara Fenzl and Les Gourmettes for, including this recipe. Enjoy.
[Read more →]May 6, 2019 1 Comment
new Thanksgiving recipes… for next year
I don’t know how other bloggers get recipes up for the holidays before the holiday! I suppose I could write up this recipe and date it to post in early November 2017, but that seems like much more forethought than I ever want to have to think about!
Instead, I’ll post this and another Thanksgiving recipe, along with my Thanksgiving tabelscapes this week and remind you about them next year, that sounds more reasonable and realistic to me.
Two notes: The first concerns the brine bag in this recipe: While shopping, I was in a hurry and could not immediately find a brine bag at the grocery store. Instead of asking for assistance, I spotted slow-cooker liners and thought, “They’ll work!”
Yeah, not so much! The liner was a smidgen too small. I could barely gather it all up and seal the bag. I was paranoid about the bag opening and leaking, so I put it into another bag. I still wasn’t secure in the leakage possibilities, so I put that into another bag. By then, I’d used 3 of the 4 bags in the box, so I thought, “What the heck!” and put all that into another bag! All ended well, as the four bags held and not a drop escaped.
My advice – for peace of mind – search out and use a true brine bag!
Second: I was at Cost Plus World Market the Wednesday before Thanksgiving and I found a yummy brine mix. I used 1 ¼ cups of it in place of the salt, peppercorns, and Italian seasoning in the recipe below. If you come across a good-looking mix, you can do the same or just follow the recipe as written.
November 29, 2016 1 Comment
slow cooker pasta and turkey meatball soup
I’m doing my best to not just make all of the “week’s worth” of slow-cooker recipes into soup recipes. But it’s hard! I love soup!!! Especially this one. It is so lite, so lemony, so satisfying, so M-mmmm good!
My brother-in-law, Roger, is visiting for the week. He, Dave, and Connor devoured it. Which is a good thing I suppose, since I’m running out of room in the fridge. The thing is bulging at the seams with the ingredients for the upcoming recipes and with all the leftover baby back ribs and beans from the other night.
Connor had the day off work, so Roger, Con, and I went to a couple of breweries yesterday afternoon and tasted some beer flights. Our favorite stop was the Sleepy Dog Brewery which has a Groupon promo going on right now. If you go, you have to try the Wet Snout Milk Stout, it is out-of-this-world good! I found out they have it on tap at Hopdoddy right now too. Guess where else we’ll be taking Roger before he heads back to the Illinois snow?! Ah, snow, this soup would be the perfect remedy for a snowy day, pretty great for a sunny day too!
Lemony Turkey Meatball and Orzo Soup
As the meatballs brown, transfer to a slow cooker and continue making meatballs and transferring as they are browned until all the turkey mixture is used. You should end up with about 30 to 32 meatballs.
Sauté the onion and carrots in the same skillet, just long enough to bring up the brown bits on the bottom of the skillet, for a minute or two. Scrape into the slow cooker with the meatballs. Add the garlic and broth and cook on HIGH for 2 hours.
January 29, 2016 2 Comments
Sweet ‘n Spicy Meatballs
Some people may think I was crazy to host two bridal showers in as many weeks. Crazy like a fox is what I say!
The shower that Abigail, Kaley, Alyse, and Marissa threw for Lindsey left me with a bounty of items and ideas to use for Megan’s shower, two weeks later.
Kaley did such a beautiful job with the chalkboard art that I immediately knew I’d be using it again!
Abigail left behind a wonderful bulletin board where she had guests write words of sage advice for the bride-to-be, Lindsey.
I just had to recycle it for Megan’s shower, as seen on the left edge of the photo below.
Then there were the “Welcome” and “Presents” banners that Abigail made.
Yes, I reused them as well.
So, as you can see, hosting two versions of the same sort of party in a short amount of time is easier than hosting just one!
Here is another appetizer from Megan’s shower.
February 11, 2015 3 Comments
Skinny Stuffed Peppers
When you live in the restaurant world, you work late at night and all too often eat fast food, late at night, after a long shift. After years of working with chefs and seeing the burger wrappers and French fry containers in their cars, I know this all too well. My son, Connor, is now in that very position. He gets off sometime between 10 and 11 PM and picks up the drive-thru on his way home.
Even though there was often a plate ready for him in the fridge, for whatever reason, he would eat the fast food at night and save the plate for lunch the next day. Eventually, he got sick of it and finally asked for a healthy, vegetable and protein-heavy, but still light “something” for dinner. Sometimes, it takes time to realize what the body really wants.
These colorful stuffed peppers fit the bill.
Since I saw no reason to use half a package of turkey, half a can of beans, half a can of chiles, and so on – the filling makes enough to fill at least 6 peppers, or 12 servings, which is a lot of servings. Instead, this is a wonderful “cook once, eat for two days” recipe. With some lettuce or taco shells, the filling is perfect for a main dish salad, lettuce wraps, or tasty tacos for lunch or dinner the next day.
June 3, 2014 5 Comments
turkey gumbo
I usually use the leftover Thanksgiving turkey to make enchiladas, chili, or tacos. This year… Turkey Gumbo!
The thing about gumbo is that you have to start with a roux. The thing about roux is that you have to stir constantly … for a long, long, long time! And the thing about stirring constantly is that I hate having to do that!
Several years ago I received an automatic pot-stirring thing-a-ma-jiggy, called the StirChef Saucepan Stirrer. It has sat in the box and never been opened … until yesterday when I made this gumbo. I’ve had it so long that the batteries that were included – were corroded.
Guess what, I should have left it in the box. It was useless. It only fit into the smallest of my saucepans and the paddle turned so slowly, seriously ridiculous!
Here are some of the reviews I found on Amazon:
“I spent one dollar on this at a thrift shop and I still feel like I was ripped off. It is no surprise they are already out of business. The thing doesn’t even fit on all but one of my saucepans.”
“I just set this up for the first time to make a roux… what a joke!
It fit the pan and that is THE ONLY thing that was a positive. As soon as those worthless paddles hit that hot oil and flour, they began to dissolve!”“Attaching the StirChef to my new 4qt saucepan, I turned it on to stir some chopped vegetables for 10 minutes at low heat. After about 4 minutes the flimsy plastic blades began to melt, adding an interesting but unwanted taste to the vegetables.”
Evidently this lame product is a collector’s item of some sort. On Amazon, it sells for nearly $90 new and $60 used. Mine has only been used once. I’m willing to sell it for a mere $45.99.
Are any interested buyers out there? No? OK, maybe you’ll be more interested in my Gumbo recipe.
November 30, 2013 1 Comment
Thanksgiving leftover trio – part one
If you watched the live Food Network Thanksgiving show last week, you might have seen the round-table discussion at the end of the show. I didn’t see it live but caught a bit of it online.
Some of the leftover ideas the chefs tossed around sounded fabulous – Thanksgiving Eggs Benedict” w/Gravy, Sweet Potato-Cranberry Shortcake, and Turkey Gumbo. Since this was a rapid-fire sort of affair – as in “everyone was talking over everyone else” – there were no recipes given.
Those were the three dishes that caught my fancy, so I thought I’d use their suggestions and create the recipes myself.
Today, is the “Benedict” breakfast.
Tomorrow, the gumbo.
The shortcake is on Sunday.
Get those leftovers out and make these recipes along with me…
November 29, 2013 No Comments
skinny homemade turkey sausage
It’s easy and healthy to make your own sausage at home. Begin with lean ground turkey and you’re halfway there. You’ll yield about a dozen sausage patties with this recipe, and you only need 4 for the salad. Save the rest for another couple of meals… maybe to accompany your eggs the next morning.
March 26, 2013 1 Comment
… with a chance of meatballs
You gotta love the versatility of your basic meatball. Thrown into pasta, stuffed into a sub sandwich, or tossed with a little sauce for the perfect toothpick-ready party food – all options are delish!
And when you substitute ground turkey for the usual beef or pork… you can have your healthy meatball and eat it too.
August 31, 2012 4 Comments