Ground Turkey Veggie Rotini

Ground Turkey Veggie Rotini

Amazing. That is all....

Just kidding, that's not all. Granted I say many things are amazing, BUT I could eat this over and over again, it was so good.

I used Hunts Organic Tomato Sauce (traditional), the whole can, used some splashes of organic chicken stock, two handfuls of spinach leaves, 1lb of ground turkey, about 4 vine ripe tomatoes, and typical seasonings: salt, pepper, oregano, basil, etc. I simmered the above at a medium to low temp for about an hr or so to really let everything marry. Then I put it all on some veggie rotini. By the way, you may be thinking wow she posts a lot of pasta... Yeah I do and I won't stop! 

Alana's Review

Ease: 5/5
Taste: 5/5
Comments: When can i make this again?!

Toddler Review:

Loved it. He's like his mana, loves pasta....

Summary: Toddler approved!

Ground Turkey Shell-less Tacos, Take 2!

Ground Turkey Shell-less Tacos,  Take 2!

I finally got around to remaking my Shell-less Tacos described here: Take 1!

I did everything exactly the same, except I made my own salsa! I used the store bought salsa to flavor the ground turkey like before. I just wanted to make sure my salsa tasted good before I mixed it all up in my food. 

Salsa:

Extra virgin olive oil, heated

1 small onion chopped finely, sauteed

1 & 1/2 tsp dried cilantro

Pinches: salt, pepper, garlic powder, chili powder

2tbsp honey (in many recipes I saw people used sugar, so this was my substitute)

A splash of organic chicken broth

While I cut up 3 large Roma tomatoes I threw the squishy insides in the sauté pan.

I threw the chopped tomatoes in at the end and turned off the heat but left the pan on the warm burner while I mixed it all together and then prepared the other parts of the meal

Alana's Review

(salsa)

Ease: 5/5

Taste:3.5/5

Comments: less onions, more spice! 

Turkey Meatball Soup

Turkey Meatball Soup

My favorite thing to do is make a big pot of soup at the beginning of the week and take it to work for lunch throughout the week. Unfortunately, I'm super picky when it comes to soup so I usually stick to some variation of chicken noodle soup. Well, I decided I needed to jump out of my soupy comfort zone and try something new, so I decided on a turkey meatball soup (based off of this recipe: http://chefsavvy.com/recipes/turkey-meatball-vegetable-soup/). I'm not a big fan a ground turkey, but it's so much healthier than beef so went ahead and tried this soup anyways. I made the meatballs like the recipe says to but I also added some garlic powder to the meatball mixture to give it a little more flavor. My motto is you can never have too much garlic. After they were done, I added a head of chopped broccoli and 2 chopped carrots and sauteed those until they were tender. About halfway through I also added 4 big baby portabello mushrooms that I had sliced thin. Once the carrots started getting tender, I added the garlic, sauteed for a minute, then added 4 cups of chicken broth with roasted vegetables*, 1 cup water, and about 2 tbsp dried onion flakes. Once this started simmering I added a few dashes of black pepper, about 1 1/2 tbsp dried parsley, 1 tsp chili powder, 2 handfuls of spinach, and the meatballs I cooked earlier and let this cook until the spinach wilted. I then served with some fresh sourdough bread slices. 

This soup was quite tasty after I first cooked it, but it honestly was way better the subsequent days when I took it for lunch. The meatballs had soaked up more broth and all of the flavors had melded together beautifully. This soup is definitely going to overthrow my usual chicken noodle soup.

*So let me tell you about this broth. One day in Walmart I saw they had these cans of chicken broth with roasted vegetables on clearance, and since they hadn't expired I figured I'd give them a shot. These definitely lifted up this soup way more than normal chicken broth would have. It had a fantastic flavor and little bits of veggies in it. Now, a disclaimer, it's not really "clean" broth, but I'm not about to sit around making homemade broths so it will have to be a cheat. Feel free to add homemade broth to this soup, but I really think this broth is amazing and gave this soup a great flavor.

Sarah's Review

Ease: 3/5

Taste: 5/5

Swedish Meatballs

Swedish Meatballs

So, while scrolling through Twitter last night, I scrolled past a picture of Swedish Meatballs. I scrolled past but couldn't get them out of my head, so I tried to find the tweet to give credit today but I couldn't find it. I had never made swedish meatballs before so I did a bunch of research, threw out my other dinner plan, and put together my own recipe, I also tried to make it clean.  So, here you go! 

Meatballs (measurements are approx.)

1lb Extra Lean Ground Turkey

1 Cup Plain panko bread crumbs with crushed saltine crackers (1. Bc I like to use them & 2. I ran out of panko)

3/4 cup Chopped spinach

1 Tsp Garlic powder

Pinch Salt&pepper

1 tsp Dried rosemary

1 tsp Dried basil 

One small chopped finely onion (I usually use the use the mini chopper, but the babies were sleeping in the other room)

2 Splashes of Worcestershire sauce

2 eggs

Make them into meatballs, and spread them out on a non stick sprayed baking dish

Baked @ 350 for 35 minutes

Sauce

3 cups organic free range chicken broth

1 cup water

1/2 cup soy milk

1&1/2 Tsp rosemary

2 dashes of soy sauce

1&1/2 tsp honey

Salt&pepper

3 heaping tablespoons (the kind you eat with) flour

Mix it up

Put the baked meatballs into a pot, pour the sauce over it. I simmered it for about an hour and a half, but you can adjust to your preference and needs. 

The side was nothing crazy, baked potatoes and green beans coated in olive oil topped with salt, pepper,  and Parmesan

Alana's Review

Ease: 2.5/5

Taste: 4/5

Comment: Use wheat flour instead of white for the sauce, I didn't have any on hand (I know... shame on me) just to make it more clean. Also, while I think the honey did add something special,  I kind of want to try maple syrup, worse case scenario I have to redo the sauce. But I think it turned it really well considering I've never made it before  (and actually only have eaten it once, maybe twice? But for some reason I just HAD to have it). It was a great first attempt and my toddler kept asking for more, so it must have been pretty good! 

Stuffed Bell Pepper

I am all about using left overs and excess ingredients, so be prepared to see a lot of that in this blog! So this is a meal of left overs/excess!

Stuffed Bell Pepper, lunch

Ground turkey (from dinner last night), corn, cheddar cheese, stuffed in the green bell pepper (half of one because that's what I had on hand), topped with salsa with a side of cucumber. 

I originally was going to bake this but I had exactly 20minutes to cook and eat before I had to head out the door again (while feeding two kiddos). So I just microwaved the left over meat and corn.

Alana's Review

Ease: 5/5

Yum: 5/5

Suggestion:Use homemade salsa (again) but other than that, it was amazing.

Ground Turkey Shell-less Tacos

Ground Turkey Shell-less Tacos

Incl: Ground turkey (cooked with 1/4 cup salsa, pinch of pepper, 1 tsp chilli powder), shredded cheddar cheese, sliced green bell peppers topped with extra salsa (store bought) over a romaine heart leaf. Plain corn on the side. 

Alana's Review

Ease: 5/5

Yum: 5/5

Suggestion: This was delicious, I was concerned because I hadn't had ground turkey before, but adding the salsa while cooking kept it moist and gave the meat a lot of flavor. I loved this meal, my only change would be using homemade salsa.