I have a feeling I'm going to be making turkey more often after this leftover meal. A nice crisp crust topped with some Thanksgiving leftovers plus brie and seasonings.
Turkey, Brie & Cranberry Pizza
1 thin crust ~ recipe below
6 oz Brie, rind removed
1 1/2 cups turkey, cut into small pieces
1/2 cup cranberry sauce
1 1/2 cups mozzarella cheese
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes
1/2 tsp oregano
Roll out crust and place on a pizza stone. Dot top of crust in this order ~
brie
turkey pieces
cranberry sauce
red pepper flakes
mozzarella cheese
oregano
Bake at 425° for 14 minutes.
Pizza crust (makes 2) ~ recipe from Cook's Illustrated
2 cups flour
1/2 tsp yeast
1/2 tsp honey
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup warm water
1/4 cup canola oil
Place all of the ingredients, except for the canola oil, in a food processor with the chopping blade. Pulse until mixed. Switch to run and pour in canola oil and let the dough knead in the machine. Remove dough and place on a lightly floured surface. Knead for a couple minutes. Cut in half (one half can be frozen for later use). Let dough sit for about 20 minutes or so. This will give you time to get the rest of your ingredients ready. Roll out the dough and place on your pizza stone.
Round one of turkey leftovers and these nachos used both turkey and cranberries. Cranberries and salsa go together remarkably well considering they are complete opposites. Build your own nachos. These are just the ingredients that I threw together.
Turkey Nachos
Scoop nacho chips
turkey, cut into bite-size pieces
cranberry sauce
refried beans
salsa
tomatoes
Cheddar Jack cheese
Layer your nachos as you normally would do ~ chips on the bottom level, beans scattered on the chips (I used a small cookie scoop), cranberries and tomatoes also scattered, drizzle salsa back and forth over everything and top with cheese. Bake at 350° for 10-12 minutes.
Have a wonderful Thanksgiving to all my U.S. followers. Here's the cranberries I made this evening and my house smells heavenly with a hint of orange.
Orange Cranberries
1 - 12 oz bag of fresh cranberries, rinsed and picked through
1 - orange
orange juice to get to 1/2 cup
1/2 cup water
1 cup sugar or 1/2 cup Splenda
Zest orange for 1 tablespoon. Place cleaned cranberries in a saucepan with orange juice, zest, water and sweetener. Bring to a boil. Reduce heat and cook for 10 minutes. Remove from heat and pour into a serving dish. Chill until ready to serve.
I can't believe I did this...well, to be honest I can. Two grocery store shopping trips and yes, I did get everything needed for Thanksgiving dinner but I failed to consider what to do for food for the days leading up to it. A true Minnesota girl at heart knows what that means - hotdish time. The only protein I found in my freezer was some apple sausages so here we are ~
Apple Sausage Hotdish
4 apple sausages - sliced into 1/4" disks
3 tbsp butter
3 tbsp flour
1 cup milk
1 cup chicken broth
4 oz Monterey Jack cheese
1/2 cup peas
1 tbsp parsley
1/8 tsp red pepper flakes
8 oz Cavatappi pasta, cooked and drained
Salt & freshly ground pepper to taste
2 tbsp Parmesan cheese, grated
In a saucepan, melt the butter and stir in the flour. Gradually stir in the milk and chicken broth and stir occasionally until it thickens. Stir in red pepper flakes, parsley and cheese. Stir until cheese melts. Pour into a greased baking dish over pasta, sausage and peas. Mix together. Bake for 30 minutes at 325°. Remove from oven and sprinkle Parmesan on top before serving.
I've always been fascinated by the thought of adding potato chips to a sweet treat to see what would happen to the texture. I do like making chippers (chocolate covered potato chips) and adding those to ice cream worked really good, almost too good so it was time to try making cookies. I didn't want to make an ordinary cookie so I used four different types of chips so no cookie is the same. I did not add in salt since the chips have enough on them.
Five Chip Cookies
1 cup butter, softened
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp baking soda
2 1/4 cups flour
2 cups crushed potato chips (I used rippled)
1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
1/4 cup butterscotch chips
1/4 cup peanut butter chips
1/4 cup white morsels
Cream together butter and sugars. Add in eggs and vanilla. Gradually add in flour and baking soda. Gently fold in the crushed potato chips and baking chips.
Bake at 325° for approximately 10 minutes.
The temperature is dropping outside so it was the perfect evening to make a chicken soup with some leftover chicken that I had roasted on Sunday. I was happy to finally use one of the Parmesan rinds I had tucked away in the freezer.
Italian Chicken Soup
8 cups chicken broth
2 cups chicken
2 cups carrots, sliced
1 tbsp celery flakes
1 bay leaf
1 Parmesan rind
1 tbsp oregano
salt and freshly ground pepper, to taste
1 cup Ditalini pasta
Heat the broth with all the ingredients except for the pasta. When the carrots are fork tender, add in the pasta and cook until al dente.
A large jar of Nutella lasts a long time and mine has come to the last baking project that it was used for. No, it doesn't require a moment of silence because the time can be better used eating one of these moist muffins. If you're into lots of chocolate flavor, these are not the muffins for you unless you add some cocoa to the recipe. These have just a mild chocolate taste.
Nutella Muffins
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1/4 cup butter, melted and cooled
1/2 cup plain yogurt
1/2 cup milk
1/2 cup Nutella
1 3/4 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 cup white baking or chocolate chips (optional)
In a large bowl, combine the top 6 ingredients. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients. Fold in the baking chips. Fill baking cups 3/4 full. Bake for 18 minutes at 325°. Makes 18 muffins.
