52 New Recipes, Week 9 | Pulled Turkey Sandwiches
My new-recipe-trying was right on schedule this week! I thawed a turkey breast from my chest freezer to make these sandwiches.
This called for boneless, skinless turkey breasts, but mine was bone-in. So I just cut the breasts off the bones, froze the bones for stock, and proceeded with the recipe.
You salt the turkey 24 hours in advance and then grill it low and slow with a package of wood chips for a smoky flavor.
I'd never used wood chips before, so that was kind of fun.
The wood chips made the grill smell especially delicious! I bought mine from Ace Hardware in the grilling section, and one bag will definitely make multiple batches of this recipe.
The turkey turned out really well, and all six of us agreed it was a keeper recipe. Sweet!
The recipe calls for making a mayo-based white BBQ sauce, but several of us chose to use regular tomato-based BBQ sauce. Either works.
I also made a batch of coleslaw to eat with our sandwiches, and that was a new recipe from a Cook's Country magazine too. So, bonus points for me!
The only thing is, it made a very large batch. Which means I will probably be eating coleslaw for a lot of days.
On the upside, it used up almost a whole cabbage from my produce box. And I am quite likely to eat stuff like this for a snack or with my lunch if it's prepped and ready to dish up.
So, I'm feeling somewhat optimistic about getting thru the leftovers.
(I hate that it's dark when I take photos of my dinner plate. HATE IT.)
In case you want to look this recipe up in your Cook's Country magazines, this is from June/July 2016.
And it's currently available online here.
Next Week's Recipe
I'm planning to try a recipe from this Simple Recipes book, which I'm currently borrowing from the library.
It's called Chicken with Pesto-Mushroom Cream Sauce, and it's served over rice.
I like pretty much anything with a creamy sauce, and I feel like pesto can only improve a cream sauce. So, I have high hopes.
Your turn!
What was your new recipe this week? And what are you planing to make next week?
I made a new recipe from my Bonne Maman cookbook. It was a simple chicken and rice casserole, done French (white wine reduction). I was out of Herbes de Provence, but it was still yummy and so easy, and everyone liked it. So win.
I used brown rice in the recipe, but I've learned that I can cook brown rice in half the time if I soak it in water for several hours or overnight. The grains plump up, then I can use them like white rice in recipes. 🙂 This also saves on energy costs.
Soaking brown rice is recommended as a way to reduce the arsenic content, so that is a double win.
I am so happy you found a keeper. Thanks to Carrie for the rice tip. I am trying to convince my family to eat brown rice.
I have tried a new recipe this week. We always seem to have left overs. I am trying to be inventive with those.
I wish I had more leftovers but I find it challenging to figure out how much will be eaten at dinner. I keep eating less healthy or starchy stuff because there aren't meaty leftovers to grab.
This looks delicious- I have never used wood chips either! I love that you cook the turkey on the grill, I am always looking for grill friendly recipes. I try to avoid using my oven when it gets too hot outside.
That sammie looks really good! This week is all about living out of my freezer, but I would love to make a bundt cake...it's not something I do very often at all, so I am scouring Pinterest for recipes.
I made your enchilada recipe this week for the first time! I used flour tortillas which I usually prefer, but I think next time I'll use the white corn tortillas as I think they hold up better to baking in a sauce (especially night 2). I used 4 big chicken breasts, and it made 2 full 9x12 pans so my family of 5 ate the first night and 3 of us polished off the leftovers a 2nd night when the other two were out. Win-win!
All riiiight! I'm glad to hear the turkey sandwiches worked out. Mr. Picky Pincher cooks his turkey like this and it comes out super moist and well-seasoned. I used to hate turkey because it was always dry, but I have a newfound appreciation for it. 🙂
I've heard of white BBQ sauce but I'm not quite sure what it would even taste like. Hmmm.
This week we haven't done super well with our menu. We haven't eaten out, though, so that's good, but we've resorted to freezer meals. We were supposed to make barbecue chicken pizza last night but I had gross pizza at work for lunch, so I had a freezer meal. Oops!
On Monday I made a sausage and pepper pasta. I ADORED it, but Mr. Picky Pincher surprisingly wasn't a fan, despite loving sausage. Oh well!
Kristen, I just want to thank you for offering this forum and encouragement for trying new recipes. Just a new side dish for me - waffled hash browns (dump shredded potatoes on waffle iron, cook, eat). I loved it. But, following the theme of these new dishes, the girls (2 and 6) wanted nothing to do with it. Oh well, more for me :-).
I made curried chickpea salad (like chicken salad. but vegetarian). I LOVE it. It was easy, cheap, relatively healthy and made A TON. I've looked forward to the leftovers for lunch every day this week.
I used apples instead of raisins and less mayonnaise and added extra celery and peanuts. Next time I'll probably use red onion.
http://www.simplywhisked.com/curry-chickpea-salad/
I made this Chicken and Potatoes with garlic parmesan cream sauce (http://damndelicious.net/2016/05/08/chicken-potatoes-garlic-parmesan-cream-sauce/) and my family devoured it! It was super yummy and would be nice enough to make for company but still easy enough for a weeknight meal. I'll be making this again soon...
~Jenny
http://www.introvertsguidetosobriety.com/sobriety/making-friends-when-youre-a-teetotaler/
Ooh, I have all these ingredients on hand, except my spinach is frozen. I'll just guess how much, because it seems like volume of spinach is not terribly crucial to success. Thanks for the tip, Jenny!
Thanks Kristin for the encouragement to try new recipes! I made Ranch Cornflake Chicken. The exact recipe is available on Aldi's re pie list, but I just dipped flat chicken in egg then in crushed corn flaks mixed with ranch powder. Baked it. We all loved it!
I make a pesto cream sauce we put over chicken and pasta. The pesto itself is from a simple recipe Nonconsumeradvocate has written abou--kale, nuts, garlic, and olive oil. I make it and freeze it if we have kale starting to get not-so-fresh. I cook it in heavy cream to make it a sauce. Our boys are the pickiest of picky children ever, and they love it. Feeding my children kale that they like makes me feel like I've done my mom duty of the day.
It'll be light soon enough-spring is coming!
I didn't try anything new this week, but I am most definitely going to try the pulled turkey. It looks so good!
We'll see tonight how it turns out, but I prepared my own corned beef brisket and it's cooking in the crock pot right now. I made it using Wellness Mama's recipe, but I left out the sugar and added a little whey to it, a la Nourishing Traditions. It will be interesting to see how (I refuse to say "if") it turns out. I'll serve it with cabbage, carrots, potatoes and onions, of course.
I know, I'm too early for St. Patrick's day, but I hear the Irish don't eat it on that day either. It doesn't matter to me, because I'll eat it anytime.
I've never used wood chips either, but have a few recipes to try some day. Did yours recommend soaking them for 30 minutes or so first? Seems to be a recurring theme in the recipes I see.
This week I decided to make up my own thing, which is far more rare than trying something new. I seared some pork chops that were sprinkled with a salt blend, transferred them to a plate, then caramelized a bunch of onions. Once they were how I like them, I poured out a combo of sherry and vermouth that came to about 1.5 cups and stirred a few tablespoons of Dijon mustard through it. That went into the onions, stir and scrape, return pork to pan, and cover to finish cooking. Not bad!
My recipe just had me soak them for 15 minutes, and that seemed to work fine. I suppose that helps them smoke instead of just burning.
Heh, the things that make sense *after* having coffee...
Interesting article-
https://markmanson.net/america
An excerpt on American food-
"But this isn’t really getting into the real problems of our health. Our food is killing us. I’m not going to go crazy with the details, but we eat chemically-laced crap because it’s cheaper and tastes better (profit, profit). Our portion sizes are absurd (more profit). And we’re by far the most prescribed nation in the world AND our drugs cost five to ten times more than they do even in Canada."
I feel obligation to point out that US drug costs are not related to US eating habits. US drugs cost more because (simplifying somewhat) the US doesn't regulate drug costs, whereas many other countries do. In effect, the US subsidizes both research and other countries' drug costs.
I made this: http://reciperunner.com/slow-cooker-broccoli-cauliflower-cheese-soup/
It was so good I happily ate the leftovers every day until it was gone!
Hi Kristen, this week I made two, new to me, meat free recipes, this first one was a pumpkin, feta and spinach feta pie and the other one was a sweet potato and zucchini fritters which were both delicious, I also made a new salad using Choy Sum, carrot ribbons and a red capsicum the dressing was sesame oil, lime juice, garlic, ginger, red wine vinegar and Dijon mustard. All new dishes were given the thumbs up. Yeh!! Have a lovely weekend,
Fi
I made 2 new recipes this week! The first was a Mexican cream cheese chicken crock pot recipe which made a very tasty filling that would be good in nachos, tacos, burritos, or even as a dip. And because the cream cheese made it so rich, I didn't need extra cheese or sour cream on my tacos.
The second recipe was the Golden Coconut Lentil Soup from the Budge Bytes blog. I think someone might have mentioned this recipe a couple of weeks ago. It was deeeelicious!
We didn't try anything new this week yet. On the weekend we will be trying a pulled pork recipe in our smoker. I am adding the pulled turkey recipe to our list to try as I love "pulled" anything and I love turkey!
I tried a new chili recipe for my pressure cooker. It was a little soupier than my normal recipe, but cooked from start to finish in 30 minutes.
https://www.dadcooksdinner.com/pressure-cooker-quick-chili-with-canned-beans/
I made steaks using my usual method (not that we eat them all that often) but made a mushroom marsala sauce that was new to me. I found it at No Spoons Necessary: http://www.nospoonnecessary.com/mushroom-marsala-cream-sauce-for-steaks/#
They were fantastic!!
Oh YUM! I love things with a smoked flavor. A friend sent me a small package of alder-smoked salt--it is dark brown and very flavorful. I added it, along with curry powder, to a red lentil stew this week.
I also made cardamom cookies using my mother-in-law's recipe. Very crumbly and tasty.
Our new recipes this week was :
Mine : mac and cheese, but what's new is that the sauce was made of carrots, squash, cauliflower and cheese instead of just cheese. It was ok but I would not do it again
My 4 yo decided on rolled lasagna, so basically it's just lasagna noodles with the stuffing on it (ricotta and spinach), and you roll them and add sauce and cheese on top. So not new to us, but new recipe for her.
And green curry. Did not like it. Hubby loved it.
I tried a Chicken Stroganoff on Wednesday from Cooking Light. It was edible...but that's about it. It was very bland, I poured hot sauce on mine to bring some life to it. I am still trying to get through the leftovers because I am not going to throw away perfectly edible food...but this is the last time I'll be making this version of Stroganoff!
Thanks Kristen for the info on magazine used. Definitely will try the turkey. I love reading the responses and getting more recipes to try from other readers. Just finished leftover corn beef soup from last week. Now for some new recipes, preferably ones I can freeze for leftovers.
If you do this again, I HIGHLY recommend using bone-in turkey and keeping the bones in while cooking. Remove the meat from the bones after cooking and use the smoked bones for stock to use in soup.
I have made both a smoked turkey noodle soup, and smoked turkey wild rice soup and both were good, but the wild rice soup was out of this world with the bit of smokey flavor.