Turkey Meatballs and Spaghetti

In last week’s article, I called fresh-baked pie a “white shirt” dish because, like a white shirt, it’s a good choice for almost any situation. Today I’m happy to share another can’t-go-wrong meal choice: Meatballs and Spaghetti made, in this case, with lower-fat turkey meatballs (and other reduced fat ingredients) and an easy-to-prepare no-cook tomato sauce.
 



Meatballs, in particular, are worth a close look. Getting the taste right isn’t all that difficult: adjust the seasonings to your taste, and remember to brown the meatballs before cooking them through in the sauce. I’ve always thought the catch to meatballs is their texture. Well-seasoned and properly cooked meat too easily becomes overly tough if not made properly. This recipe avoids that.


As shown in the photo, I served this with a simple Caesar salad and an easy, fresh-baked Italian bread. (I’ll be posting the bread recipe next week as a follow-up!)


This recipe makes four servings as determined by the amount of pasta. You’ll actually end up with enough leftover meatballs for another meal. (Spoiler alert: The last time we had leftover meatballs my wife used them to make a wonderful deconstructed stuffed pepper dinner; I’m hoping to convince her to let me post it here the next time she makes it.)


Prepare 4 cups of tomato sauce using the Easy, No-Cook Tomato Sauce recipe posted here previously. (Click here for the recipe.)




Preheat oven to 400 degrees.


Cut five slices of stale bread (crusts removed) into small cubes to make about 1-1/4 cups. Put these in a bowl and let them rehydrate in ¾ cup of fat-free half-and-half.


Brush 2 ounces (2 – 4 slices, depending on the brand) of turkey bacon strips with abou a tablespoon of maple syrup and bake in the 400 degree oven till cooked, about 15 minutes. When the bacon is done, set it aside to cool. (Hint: If you don’t have the stale bread called for in the steps below, you can crisp up five slices of bread in the oven at the same time to simulate it becoming stale. Just watch it carefully so it doesn’t burn, and turn it over to do both sides.)


While the oven is preheating and the bacon is cooking, add a little olive oil to a sauté pan and, when warmed, cook 2 cloves of chopped garlic till aromatic, about 1 minute. Add ½ cup of chopped onions and sauté till cooked but not browned. When the onions have almost finished cooking, add 2 tablespoons of chopped fresh parsley (or 2 teaspoons of dried parsley. When done, set the onion mixture aside to cool.


After the bacon and the onion mixture have cooled, combine them in a bowl with the other meatball ingredients: 1-1/2 pounds ground turkey; the turkey bacon (chopped into small pieces); ½ tablespoon fresh thyme (or ½ teaspoon dried thyme); 1/3 cup grated parmesan (fresh grated instead of canned if possible); 1/2 tablespoon kosher salt; ½ tsp fresh-ground pepper; a pinch of red pepper flakes; a pinch of nutmeg; 2 egg-substitute eggs; and the rehydrated bread cubes. Mix gently by hand, being careful not to press hard or overwork the mixture; we want to keep the texture of the meatballs light. This handling, although easy, is a critical step to getting the meatball texture right. (You can mix the ingredients with a spatula if you prefer, but if you don't mix it by hand you're missing one of life's great experiences.)
You can test the seasonings by taking a small bit of the meat mixture and cooking it in the pan you used to cook the onions and tasting it. 



Gently form meatballs, each about 2” diameter.








Warm a little olive oil in the pan you used to sauté the onions. Working in batches, sauté the meatballs till browned. While the meatballs are browning, begin heating the pasta water (salted).


When the meatballs have all browned, drain any excess oil from the pan, and add the sauce. Let the meatballs simmer in the sauce till cooked through, about 25 minutes.


When the meatballs have almost finished cooking, drop 1 pound of long pasta into the boiling water (I used fettucine, but any long pasta you like will work) and cook one minute less than indicated on the package.


When the meatballs have finished cooking, set them aside in a bowl and top with some of the sauce. Drain the pasta, reserving ½ cup of the starchy pasta water, and add the pasta and the water to the sauce remaining in the pan. Finish cooking the pasta through in the sauce.


Serve the pasta and the meatballs in separate serving bowls. (Meatballs are a very personal thing, you know!)


Hope to see you here next week for Part II: easy, fresh baked Italian bread to serve with this or any other Italian meal you make! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

"Gobble and Squeak": Pan-Fried Thanksgiving Leftovers Patties

Posting a recipe for enormous amounts of turkey, stuffing, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, green bean casserole, or some other traditional Thanksgiving food might seem an easy choice only a few days before the big day. However, I realized while planning this week’s recipe post that anyone who’ll be cooking Thanksgiving dinner probably already has their recipes in place and isn’t likely to change them at this late date. So I started thinking about recipes you’d want and, truth be told, the choice wasn’t all that difficult.


THANKSGIVING LEFTOVERS!


There are a lot of directions in which one can take Thanksgiving leftovers: sandwiches, of course. Casseroles, pot pies, and hash are just a few more that come to mind. Today I’m happy to give one of my favorite leftover recipes the Thanksgiving treatment.


I’ve posted on a traditional Bubble and Squeak before. Briefly, it’s a style of cooking that originated in England during World War II, when the British mainland was being hit hard and food shortages made it necessary to make the fullest use of everything they had. One result was made by chopping up whatever meat, potatoes, and vegetables were left over from the previous night’s meal, mixing them together to form a patty, and pan-frying it. Mostly likely as a result of the sound the patties seemed to make in the pan, the dish came to be known as “Bubble and Squeak.”


This week’s recipe takes a similar approach with typical Thanksgiving leftovers: turkey, vegetables, mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, stuffing, and cranberry sauce. Appropriately (I hope), I call it, Gobble and Squeak. And if you don’t have all the ingredients exactly the way they’re described in the recipe, feel free to improvise. This is more of a general method than a recipe calling for precise measurements. (In the photo above, I've served it with a simple Caesar salad on the side.)


So have some fun with this tasty, and just a bit different, way of serving those leftovers.


This recipe makes about 8 burger-size patties.


In a bowl, stir together 1-1/2 cups of leftover vegetables; 1 clove of minced garlic, 2 tablespoons of mustard (I used spicy brown mustard); 2 tablespoons fresh chopped (or 2 teaspoons dried) sage; and 1 tablespoon fresh (or 1 teaspoon dried) tarragon. Let the mixture rest for five minutes while the flavors blend.


Chop 1 pound of turkey into small pieces and mix with the other ingredients in the bowl till combined.



Stir in mashed potatoes, sweet potatoes, and stuffing in equal amounts, starting with ½ cup of each and adding more of each in equal amounts until the mixture has a texture that can be formed into patties. (For 1 pound of turkey I used a total of 1 cup of each.) Add salt and pepper to taste.


Optional step: If desired, mix in 2 egg substitute eggs and let the mixture rest in the refrigerator for 15 minutes before forming the patties. (This will make the mixture a little more cohesive while it’s cooking.)


Divide the mixture into 8 burger-size patties.









Coat a large skillet or grille pan with olive oil. Working in batches, cook the patties on both sides till browned. (I cooked mine about 3 minutes per side.)


Serve on a plate or a bun, topped with leftover cranberry sauce and optional cheese, add a salad or favorite side dish, and you've got a delicious meal that's easy to make!


Bonus Recipe: Just in case it turns out you do need a recipe for your Thanksgiving dinner, click here for a delicious Pecan Pie with Cranberries and Bourbon recipe I posted a while back.




Visit again next week for another good-tasting, kitchen-tested recipe using ingredients that are easy to find! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and kiss somebody you’re thankful for. After that, always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)

Turkey Hash Pie

My first exposure to the simple pleasure of a good hash was the corned beef kind I used to get at McSorley's - New York's oldest and most glorious ale house - during my senior year of college. Served hot with pickled red cabbage and some good rye bread, it quickly became my favorite item on the menu. (That I spent so many lunch breaks at McSorley's explains a few things about my senior year, but that's a story for another time and place.)

From that humble first impression, hash took on a new respectability for me years later when I learned chicken hash was served at Truman Capote's famous "Black-and-White Ball" at the Plaza Hotel in 1966. That was it; hash was now the big-time.

This week's recipe uses ground turkey, but using leftover cooked chicken or turkey would save a bit of cooking time and would work nearly as well. The list of ingredients looks long, but that's both the nature of hash and part of its charm.

You'll also need a 9" pie crust. Buy one if you like, but an earlier post on this site gave a recipe for a very good (I think) reduced fat pie crust. You make the call. This recipe makes one 9" pie, about four servings.


Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. When the oven is ready, blind-bake the pie crust to completion, then set it aside. While the crust is baking, prepare the other ingredients, checking the crust periodically to keep it from burning. 
After the pie crust is finished, increase the oven temperature to 450 degrees. Toss four medium, cubed potatoes and ½ tablespoon of minced garlic with 2 Tbsp of olive oil to coat. Place the mixture on a baking sheet in a single layer, season with salt, and place in the oven for about 30 minutes till browned, turning occasionally for even browning. When the potatoes have finished browning, set them aside and lower the oven temperature to 350.
While the potatoes are baking, mix 1-1/2 pounds of ground turkey and ½ large grated onion, place in a large oiled skillet, add ¼ cup fat-free half-and-half and 1 tablespoon Worcestershire, and cook until the turkey is browned. When the turkey is done, set it aside.
Adding a little more oil to the same skillet, sauté ½ red pepper, chopped; ½ green pepper, chopped; 4 ounces of sliced mushrooms; and ½ cup diced celery. Add ½ cup dried cranberries, a pinch of cayenne, ½ Tbsp salt, ½ Tbsp pepper, ½ tablespoon paprika, ½ teaspoon dried sage, and the cooked turkey and cook until warmed through, about 4 – 5 minutes.
Add ¾ cup low-fat chicken broth and 1 tablespoon of chopped, fresh parsley, and simmer for a few minutes.
Place the turkey mixture into the pie crust and top with the browned potatoes. Cover the edges of the crust with foil and bake at 350 degrees until heated through, about 10 minutes. Serve hot.


As always, for a cookbook-style, notebook-ready copy of this or any other recipe on the site, just drop me a line and I’ll get it right off to you.


See you next week! Till then, stay well, keep it about the food, and always remember to kiss the cook. ;-)