turkey burgers and guacamole

Whoa - it's been a month and I'm sure there are some starving, devout readers out there who have been in withdrawal.  All two of you.  Anyway, with the spring weather comes two of my favorite spring/summer staples:  turkey burgers and guacamole.
First up....turkey
A simple turkey burger is always delish (ground turkey, salt, pepper) but the other day I had been sauteing some mushrooms (because I am addicted to 'shrooms, not in the druggie way, the foodie way....as if I had to explain) - I seriously sauteed a pound of mushrooms (in butter of course) and ate 3/4 of it on the spot like it was a handful of peanuts or something.  Nobody else in this god forsaken, anti-yummy food house will eat them with me.   I digress...I had some scallions leftover from another recipe so decided to toss those into my mushroom mixture towards the end of the saute time.  The result was pure heaven.  Mushroom heaven.  Fast forward a bit as I was preparing the turkey mixture for dinner when I thought I should dice up the leftover 1/4 pound mushroom/scallion mixture and add it to MY portion of the turkey burgers.  Seriously,  it was the best turkey burger I ever had.
Ingredients:
1 lb ground turkey
salt and pepper
1/4 lb mixture of sauteed mushrooms/scallions (up the quantity if you live with awesome people who eat awesome food and you can use in the entire turkey mixture; use the 1/4 lb if you live with taste-bud challenged folk)
bread crumbs (about a 1/4 cup)
egg (I used the egg whites from one egg)
1/8 - 1/4 cup crumbled feta

Get your hands all messy and combine all that goodness (minus the feta) in one big bowl.  Make your patties (mine made about 7 decent sized burgers).  Make a thumb indent into the top of each patty and scatter a little feta into each whole.  Grill.  Add cheese (I love colby jack) just before done grilling.  Garnish.  Devour.
Now for my daily favorite...guacamole!
I seriously make a fresh batch every other day...again, lame house, lame eaters but it is one of the few green items the Reesers will eat with me. So guacamole is our 'thang'. Ryan and Grant don't touch it. Shame on them.
Cast of characters:
2 avocados
1/4 red onion diced
handful of cilantro, cut up
1/4 cup of diced cherry tomatoes
juice from one lemon
juice from one lime
salt and pepper to taste
*cut extra of the onion and cilantro b/c I then tweak at the end to meet the desired taste
mash up the avocado, add the rest and enjoy!
I serve it with pretzel crisps - we LOVE pretzel crisps around here - I found them in the speciality cheese section at the grocery store a few months ago and then the good lord decided "these should be available in a monstrous size for the Stiffs" and lo and behold, I walked into Costco last week and saw them on display.

sweet potato pancakes

I bought Jessica Seinfeld's book, Deceptively Delicious, almost 4 years ago (before Ryan made her grand entrance) and practiced for quite some time on Grant (my first child).  Grant can be slightly anti-veggie so in preparation for having kids, I would puree my veggies, freeze them and then sneak them into his food.  He would approach his eggs with the skill of a trained investigator and I was often asked "do these have cauliflower in them or not".... Fast forward 4 years and I got the book back out last week, bought an assortment of veggies and spent an afternoon pureeing.  This method is very much hit and miss.  Eggs mixed with pureed cauliflower worked fine for Reese (she gobbled them right up) but Ryan, with her keen sense of odor, could smell the difference and thus refused to eat them.  The other morning I thought I'd try her sweet potato pancake recipe:

Servings: Serves 4

Ingredients

• 1 cup water
• 1/2 cup sweet potato puree (steam your sweet potatoes for about 40 minutes, the skin will pretty much fall off, put the potatoes in a food processor and blend till creamy, adding a little of the steamed water if needed, then divide into 1/2 cup portions and put in freezer bags and freeze)
• 1/4 teaspoon cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice (optional) - I used cinnamon
• 1 cup pancake mix
• Nonstick cooking spray
• 1 tablespoon canola or vegetable oil
• Pure maple syrup , for serving

In a large bowl, mix the water, sweet potato puree, and cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice, if using. Add the pancake mix and stir just to combine—the batter should be lumpy.
Coat a griddle or large nonstick skillet with cooking spray and set it over medium-high heat. When the pan is hot, add the oil, and spoon the batter onto the griddle or pan, using 1/4 cup batter for each pancake.
Cook until bubbles form on top of the pancakes and the batter is set, 2 to 3 minutes. Then use a spatula to flip the pancakes and cook them until golden brown on the other side, 2 to 3 minutes.

The girls ate them up - Ryan even said "mmmmmmm" (her ringing endorsement).  Now, will you love them?  Probably not but let's be honest, we moms really only survive on coffee in the morning anyway. 

easy haystack dinner

I found this one on Pinterest and gave it a shot the other night.  It was surprisingly good (considering the picture leaves something to be desired and I like peas as much as I enjoy listening to two toddlers fight all-day-long).  Now don't go making this for some fancy schmancy dinner party you're hosting but do make it when the hubbie is working late one night and you want something relatively healthy for you and the people you birthed.  

Original recipe
4 cups water

2 cups rice 

2 lbs. ground turkey, or beef 

1 - 10¾ oz. can cream of mushroom soup - I used mushroom with roasted garlic soup

1 - 10¾ oz. can cream of celery soup 

2 Tbsp. milk

2 cups (16 oz) cooked peas

Shredded cheese for topping

A few notes:  I halved the entire recipe; I used whole grain rice: I used ground turkey and I didn't have a can of cream of celery so  I just used the whole can of cream of mushroom.

In a large pot combine water and rice; bring to a boil. Reduce heat, cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes, or until rice is tender.

Meanwhile, cook turkey in a large saucepan until thoroughly browned. Add both cans of soup and milk; stir until well combined and creamy. Cook until warm.

To serve Haystacks put some rice on a serving dish, top with meat mixture, then top with peas and finally top with shredded cheese. If your peas are warmed the cheese should melt over them, if not you can stick the plate in the microwave for about 30 seconds.

turkey sloppy joes

I found this recipe in my latest issue of Real Simple and gave it a try last week.  Delish!  Everyone in the fam ate their fair share, and that, my friends, is saying something.  It also made for great leftovers.  The original recipe from the magazine had it paired with coleslaw, but we skipped that little number and served it with salad and some homemade oven-baked french fries.
picture straight up stolen from Real Simple

Serves 4| Hands-On Time: 15m | Total Time: 15 m
Ingredients
1 tablespoon canola oil
1 pound ground turkey
1 onion, chopped
1 clove garlic, chopped
1 8-ounce can tomato sauce
1/4 cup dark brown sugar
1/4 cup barbecue sauce
1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
kosher salt and black pepper
Directions
In a large skillet, heat the oil over medium-high heat. Add the turkey, onion, and garlic and cook, breaking the meat up with a spoon, until browned, 3 to 5 minutes.
Mix the tomato sauce, sugar, barbecue sauce, and Worcestershire into the turkey mixture; season with ½ teaspoon salt and ¼ teaspoon pepper. Reduce heat and simmer until thickened, 3 to 5 minutes.

chocolate cake with biscoff bites

So the other day, Ryan points to a box of chocolate cake mix and says "mom, I want to make these chocolate cavity bugs for you and daddy" --- no joke, the girl is still obsessed with the dentist's book referencing cavity bugs when you eat sugary snacks. So we decided to make them and lately I LOVE baking everything in my mini-muffin pans so the girls get a bite-size taste of the treats we make, not a full-blown, sugar-high, up for 2 extra hours inducing size.  We made the batter according to the package directions and when I was filling the pan, I thought about adding my favorite find ever, Biscoff spread.  This stuff is crack.  Looks like peanut butter but oh so not.  More like a chocolate/carmel blend.  For awhile it wasn't sold in Missouri so I had my parents bring me back some from a trip to Cleveland and I stocked up awhile back when we were down in Dallas.  But the heavens opened up a month or so ago when I walked into Dierbergs and saw an entire Biscoff display.   I first discovered the spread when I found this recipe for biscoff stuffed white chocolate chip cookies  - those deserve a post of their own.  Next time I make them I will post my photos as well, but they are divine.  Back to the experiment at hand, I decided to add a dollop of Biscoff to my batter to see what would happen:
And after the dollop, I covered with a tiny bit more batter. The result - heaven in a bite sized chocolate cupcake form.

Ingredients
1 box of chocolate cake mix (mix the batter according to package directions)
biscoff spread

Make the cake batter, fill greased mini-muffin pans about 50% full, drop a teaspoon or so of biscoff spread on top, fill with more batter to cover the biscoff.
Put in a 350 degree preheated oven (or whatever degree the box calls for, I threw it away before writing this) for about 12 minutes. Enjoy and use a little self control to limit yourself to only one or two bites at a time. This would probably be even better with a little icing on top, but that's too much craziness for we Stiffs.

beef stroganoff

Guest blogger: Barbara "I'll drink for the kids" O'Neill
This one is a fave at the O'Neill house (and now Peg is on the strog train)
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lb. sirloin tip (cut into strips)- some store even sell "stroganoff meat"
4 tablespoons butter
6 oz. tomato juice
1/4 tsp. garlic powder
1 tsp. salt and pepper
1/2 cup sherry wine
1 can cream of mushroom soup
1 pint of sour cream
egg noodles
Use an electric skillet to make if possible.
Brown meat in butter at 250 degrees for 5 minutes (or brown meat over medium heat until just browned for those of us sans electric skillet). Add garlic powder, tomato juice, wine, salt and pepper. Simmer, while covered, for 45 minutes. Add sour cream and soup. Allow to heat for another 5 minutes. Serve over egg noodles.
Also delicious to add some peas to the mix. Best when served with milk - or some red wine if you're drinking for the kids.

mini cheddar quiche bites

I posted about this way back when but thought I'd re post here because I was searching for the recipe the other day.  These are delicious and oh so easy to make - plus a finger food so no utensils required!  I found the original recipe on www.incredibleegg.org and followed the modification at the end  by frying up a few pieces of bacon, letting it cool, crumbling them up and then adding to my egg mixture.

Ingredients:
1/4 to 1/2 cup panko or regular bread crumbs
4 eggs
1/3 cup half and half
1/4 tsp. salt
1/8 tsp. pepper
1 1/4 cups shredded cheddar cheese (5 oz)

1. HEAT oven to 350°F.  Generously SPRAY 24 mini-muffin cups with cooking spray.   Pat 1/2 to 1 teaspoon crumbs in the bottom of each muffin cup.  Tap muffin pan to lightly coat sides of each muffin cup. 
2. BEAT eggs, half-and-half, salt and pepper in medium bowl until blended.  ADD cheese (and crumbled bacon); mix well.  SPOON evenly into mini-muffin cups, about 1 tablespoon each.
3. BAKE in 350°F oven until just set, 12 to 15 minutes.  COOL on rack 5 minutes.  LOOSEN quiches from sides of muffin cups with a thin knife.  REMOVE from cups; serve warm.

*Leftovers are good cold or reheated briefly in the oven or microwave.  Great for snacking or a quick breakfast on the run.

**For added flavor, add 1/3 to 1/2 cup cooked crumbled bacon, sausage or chopped ham with cheese.