Turkey Sausage and Zucchini

So the one night of the week that we didn't have guests I was faced with being rather busy that day (the only day to myself to get a lot of work done) but resisted getting take out for dinner.

I came up with this instead.

Turkey Sausage and Zucchini
This is adapted from Simply Recipe’s Stuffed Zucchini with Turkey Sausage

I was faced with having zucchini that needed to be cooked, but none of them large enough to be stuffed and one that arrived broken in my produce delivery. Certainly could have made a stir fry but I wanted to try something different. I also did not have fresh herbs on hand and so I decided to come up with something that could be pulled from the freezer/pantry.

2 small/medium zucchini, sliced
Drizzle of vegetable or olive oil
1 lb ground turkey
½ small onion, chopped
4 mushrooms, chopped
2 cloves pressed garlic
2 tsp dried basil
2 tsp salt free seasoning (Mrs. Dash)
2 pinches kosher salt
¼ cup grated parmesan or any other grated/shredded cheese you prefer

In a baking dish, drizzle with oil and then arrange slices of zucchini to cover the bottom. Season them with salt, pepper and some salt free seasoning. Place in oven to bake at 350 degrees. While zucchini is cooking, heat a sauté pan with a drizzle of oil, the onion, garlic and mushrooms. When browned, add turkey and then season with basil and salt free seasoning. Combine thoroughly and cook for about 10 minutes or until turkey is cooked through. Remove zucchini from oven, spoon the turkey mixture over the top of the zucchini and top with cheese. Return to oven for 10 minutes.

My 10 year old was skeptical at first and picked out some of the chopped mushrooms, but then asked if there were leftovers to pack in her lunch. We decided that we liked this as a quick, satisfying meal, but maybe not something you’d serve company. We also had an unbaked pre-made loaf of garlic bread (from having company earlier that week) that I added to the meal.
The stuffed zucchini recipe that inspired this is definitely company-worthy, especially with the fresh herbs. The key is making it well seasoned. I think adding either some tomato sauce or even Italian style stewed tomatoes would be good, it would just make it more like a pasta sauce and maybe with alternating layers of the turkey, cheese and zucchini it would be a heavier casserole.

Catching Up

WOW I've let the days go by and didn't get to blogging about my pantry/freezer progress.
There have been some challenges but I still think overall it's not bad. I wish there was a way to not spend a single dime, but I'm kidding myself because we have needed a few things. Plus we had company; over night guests for two nights, then my birthday. So it was a little unavoidable but still pretty good.

I for the first night of guests I made dinner almost entirely from food already on hand. I grilled a pork tenderloin (from the freezer) that I basted with a simple balsamic glaze (just heat some honey and balsamic vinegar on the stove until it reduces). I also made a delicious tomato pie from Simply Recipes. I used the tomatoes I received from my CSA delivery and I made my own crust, which I must say turned out pretty good. Then I just prepared some green beans cooked with a little butter and dill seasoning. (The seasoning is from Pampered Chef, and I love it.)

The shopping I did in preparation for the guests was getting some bagels, juice, milk and some other drink options. Not bad. The next night we had more guests join us, but they insisted I not cook and paid for the purchase of some rotisserie chickens, salad and garlic bread. I baked brownies and some peanut butter cookies. We actually had 2 less people than anticipated and was left with 1 whole chicken uneaten, one Caesar salad kit unopened and 2 loaves of garlic bread unbaked. I contemplated just eating it the rest of the week but instead decided to freeze the chicken and the bread to save for another week.

So it was just 2 nights of guests and it was a lot of fun and I felt pretty good about how I used my resources.

The following night I will post separately and and then the next night after that was my birthday and after much debate I decided to just have people over and we had pizza and the salad we had not eaten from two nights before (it held up just fine in the fridge). Plus we had plenty of leftover drinks and I picked up chips and dip and had a super good cake called Slice of the Tropics. (ACK, no photo!)

A good blogger would have better details. If I was not trying to sneak in blogging and other work between tending to sick children I'd get my receipts in order and determine how much as been spent so far. I'm going to try and get to that soon.

Mid- week still doing well

Wednesday is taco day.
Really it sounds better when it’s Tuesday Taco Day, but we are busy on Tuesdays and so it’s easier for us to do it on Wednesdays. So last night I made use of 1 lb of the 5 lbs of ground beef I have and fixed tacos. We also had a few of these great flour tortillas I had purchased from Costco earlier in the month. They are uncooked; all you do is heat them in a pan to cook. But we also like crispy shells, so I made some of those using corn tortillas. When the tortillas come out of the frying pan, I sprinkle them with grated parmesan cheese. It closely resembles one of our favorite taco places, Jim Boy’s. Not nearly as good, but it’s pretty good. Many nights I cook dinner solo, but on Taco Night I have my oldest help me, this time she cooked the flour tortillas and she sprinkled the cheese on the corn shells, plus she helped set out the table when we were ready to eat. Other times she has grated cheese or watched over the taco meat. She has even helped with frying the shells and has done a good job with that. I used up 2 of the 10 avocados I have making guacamole and I’m happy that all the others are still semi-firm (the fridge is so helpful for delaying the ripeness) and not going bad yet. All I did was put 2 out on Monday and they were nice and ready by Wednesday morning, so I put them back in the fridge and they were chilled for the guacamole that evening. I remembered to take photos of our tacos after we ate and my attempt at taking photos of what was left turned out ugly, so I will spare you. I used leftover meat and cheese to pack for lunches for my girls. They each had some in containers and then my older one packed a bag of leftover tortilla chips and a container of salsa, plus a leftover taco shell. The little one I packed the meat and cheese and a baggie of chips. For the older one, I popped her thermos in the microwave in the morning and it stayed warm until lunch (she said the taco shell isn't as yummy the next day) and for the toddler, her preschool heats up lunches that need it.

For Thursday (another busy night) I fixed teriyaki chicken wings and a salad. Plus there was leftover chicken soup which my kids ate and my husband had a little helping as well since a pile of wings and salad wasn’t quite enough after a long day of work where he barely ate all day. Chicken wings in the oven often work well for us on busy nights because they don’t take a lot of tending to and allow me to multi-task. I check them periodically to be sure they get mixed around and properly coated, but then I can leave them and set the oven to just turn off, which allows me to leave the house to pick up from soccer practice and when we come back they’re ready to eat. The crock pot can certainly play the same role, but I don’t know that it provides the same sticky-crispy results that I get with the oven. I’m happy that my romaine hearts are staying fresh in my crisper, and I had 1 pear left from my CSA delivery last week, so our salad was composed of romaine, chopped pear, feta cheese, crumbled bacon (I have a big bag of pre-crumbled real bacon purchased at Costco), corn kernels (frozen), avocado with a strawberry vinaigrette.
Here’s my recipe and a photo.

Teriyaki Chicken Wings
1.5 lbs chicken wings
Drizzle of olive or vegetable oil
Drizzle of sesame oil
¼ cup teriyaki sauce (prefer Aloha brand)
2 tbl soy sauce (prefer Aloha brand low sodium)
¼ cup pineapple juice (mine came from the juice I saved from a can of pineapple chunks)
Garlic powder or any garlic seasoning (fresh crushed garlic is great too if you’ve got it)

Heat oven to 425 degrees.
I did not defrost the wings. I take the frozen wings, place them in a baking dish (I like my Pampered Chef deep dish round stoneware baker) and place them in the oven while it’s still pre-heating. After about 10 minutes I then season them with the garlic, drizzle them with the oils and mix them around to get evenly coated. Then I put them back in for about 10 more minutes. Meanwhile mix the teriyaki sauce, soy sauce and pineapple juice. Pour all of this over the chicken and mix to coat. For me, in my pan when combined with the liquid being created by the cooking chicken, it was quite a bit of sauce but the long cooking at the high heat will cook it down into a sticky glaze.

This is the point when moved the dish from being in the middle of the oven to the rack on the bottom to be closer to the heat and then I set my oven to shut off in 15 minutes. They sat in the hot oven after it turned off for about 10 more minutes.

I think they turned out very pretty. And rather yummy. I didn't count, but I think I had about 20 or so wings and I still have quite a lot left in the enormous Costco bag of wings.