Turkey Burgers - Canadian Living Recipe

I had to work this past Saturday so my husband was in charge of sorting out dinner. He prepared me such a tasty meal that I simply had to share it with you. He whipped up some turkey burgers that he served with a baked potato and a side of asparagus. It was absolutely delicious and perfect for a hot summer day. Now this meal was not 100% GI friendly (baked potatoes are red light items) but that is simple to fix. Serve it with some boiled or baked new red potatoes instead.

If you want to make your own turkey burgers simply mix some lean ground turkey with whole wheat bread crumbs, green onions, a little Parmesan cheese and an egg. Then pop it on the BBQ or broil it in the oven.

COOKING TIPS: I haven't got any since I didn't lift a finger on this one.

SERVED WITH: A baked potato with yogurt (instead of sour cream) and asparagus.

RATING: 9. It would have scored a perfect 10 if it weren't for the red light baked potato!

Stuffed Peppers

I have been avoiding this recipe for a long time. I am not a big fan of peppers of any colour. I usually only eat them if they are chopped up really small and hidden in something. Today I was in the mood to try out a new recipe so I choose this one for some reason. It was actually quite fun to make. After preparing the filling of rice, beef and seasonings you stuff it into a pepper and believe it or not pop it into a pot of water and simmer it for 45 minutes. This was a novel way of cooking meat for me.

This recipe made 4 peppers/4 servings. My husband and I felt that 1/2 a pepper was filling enough. We have plenty of left overs to gobble up this week.

COOKING TIPS: I cooked the rice before I mixed it with the meat. You don't have to but I always find grains take forever to cook when mixed with other ingredients.

SERVED WITH: This really a whole meal packed into a pepper. It has your grain, meat and veg all in one. Never the less I felt an extra serving of veggies couldn't hurt so I served it with some broccoli.

RATING: A solid 8. This dish reminded me of a cabbage roll made with a pepper instead of cabbage. It was a lot less greasy then any cabbage roll I have ever eaten as well.

Basque Chicken

This dish is very much like a stew but with Spanish flavours. It is very easy to make. You mix all the indredients up in a pan, add some stock and tomatoes, pop the previously browned chicken on top along with a quartered orange. Then you just cover it up and place it in the oven to bake for one hour. When the time is up your chicken will be cooked through and your rice will be soft.
The amazing things is the entire dish has a subtle orange flavour when it is done.

SERVED WITH: This really is a one pot meal. It has your meat, veg and grain all in one so you don't need to have it with anything else.

COOKING TIPS: I didn't have any white wine so I just added an equal amount of chicken stock.

RATING: 7. It tasted great the next day as well.

A Dash, A Pinch, A Smidgen. (Oh...and a Tad)

A dash, a pinch, a smidgen - they are all the same right? When ever I came across one of these words in a recipe I did the following:

- a dash - well obviously that means giving the salt or pepper shaker a few shakes
- a pinch - was as much as I could "pinch" between two fingers and toss into the meal
- a smidgen - was a little less then a pinch but procured in the same way, by grabbing a small amount between my fingers.

Last Christmas my husband gave me a new set of measuring cups and spoons which included these.



To my surprise one of the sets of measuring spoons had the measurements a pinch, a dash and a smidgen. Oh and I just noticed a tad is on there too. Turns out those little words do mean something. So I did a little looking around and here is what I found out.

A dash is 1/8 of a teaspoon
A pinch is 1/16 if a teaspoon
A smidgen is 1/26 of a teaspoon

But the more I looked around the more conflicting information I found on the true measurements. Seems as though there is a continuing debate on the subject.

While such small amounts may not make a difference in the final outcome of that big pot of chili you are cooking, it may make a difference when baking. So now that I have these handy dandy new spoons I will be sure to use them, that is unless they are too hard to find in my utensils drawer, then I'll go back to my old measuring system. But now I will have to figure out what I think a tad is and how to measure it.

Click here to read a more in depth article.

Beef Cutlets in Mushroom Gravy

I have been sneaking some items into my cooking lately that my husband doesn't enjoy. But since this cookbook is so good he is willing to try it anyways. This weeks meal included olives. Yummy to me, not so much to him. Once we were done eating and I asked him if he liked it his response was "meat is meat". So I took that to mean it was fine. I enjoyed the dish well enough but don't think I will make it again. I would prefer to have the Blueberry Beef Burgers over these ones any time. The flavour of this burger mainly comes from the salty olives and the mushroom and onion gravy overtop.

SERVED WITH: Boiled red potatoes and broccoli

COOKING TIPS: Make sure to chop up your olives small enough. Mine were a little chunky and a few escaped the patty to sizzle in the frying pan.

RATING:6.5. It just seemed like to much work for the end product.

Lentil and Tofu Stew with Mushrooms

Over all this was a pleasant dish. The flavours are basically the same as the chicken rice casserole which I happen to be having for dinner on Thursday. Needless to say I may be sick of Italian seasoning, which is used in both dishes, by the end of the week. As with most recipes in this cookbook it was very easy to prepare and cook and was ready in about 35-40 minutes. The flavours were quite mild. I might try spicing it up a little the next time I make it.

SERVED WITH: I served this stew over a bed of brown rice.

COOKING TIPS: For some reason I just couldn't find any dried mushrooms at the grocery store this week so I had to substitute in some fresh mushrooms. To add a different flavour I choose a mixture of white and cremini mushrooms. As a result I didn't have any soaking liquid left over from re hydrating the dried mushrooms so I used an equal amount of chicken stock instead.

RATING: 7. It was hearty and certainly healthy but no as flavourful as I would have liked.

Coconut Curry Beef

I did not attempted this recipe before because it had a number of odd ingredients in it that I just didn't feel like buying. But this week I sucked it up, purchased what I needed and gave it try. What I am going to do with a leftover jar of yellow curry paste, some coconut milk and and fish sauce I am not sure of yet. The fun thing about this recipe was tasting it to see how what flavour the mixture of ingredients concocted. Also added to the above items was peanut butter, cilantro and peanuts. It was very pleasant. I could even see this sauce working on chicken.

The only down side of this recipe was that some of the ingredients were loaded with salt. The fish sauce for instance has of 1350mg of salt in 1 tablespoon and you need 2 tablespoons in this meal. Add to that the 235 additional mg from the yellow curry paste and we are really getting up there. I haven't even added in the soy sauce either. Just to put that in perspective, the amount of salt an adult needs in one day is 1500mg.

Now to be fair I do purchase lower sodium soy sauce. There is a possibility that low sodium curry paste and fish sauce exist but there was only one grocery store in my neighbourhood even sold those two items and they only offered one type.

SERVED WITH: Broccoli and brown rice

COOKING TIPS: Don't forget to give yourself a good 30 minutes to let the meat marinate before you start cooking it.

RATING: 6.5. The flavour was good but the amount of sodium is not!