Turkey and black bean enchiladas

What to do with a package of ground turkey? ($2.99, on sale!)

I considered turkey burgers, but didn't have any burger buns. Then I thought about turkey meatloaf, but I wasn't feeling it. So I decided to go for turkey and black bean enchiladas.

From skinnytaste.com:

1 lb ground turkey
15.5 can black beans, drained
4.5 oz can chopped green chiles (I used two fresh jalapenos, chopped)
14.5 oz can diced tomatoes
2 cloves garlic
1/4 cup chopped onion
1/4 cup chopped cilantro
1-2 tsp cumin
1/8 tsp chili powder
salt
8 flour tortillas
1 cup shredded pepper jack cheese

For the Enchilada Sauce:
2 garlic cloves, minced
1-2 tbsp chipotle chiles in adobo sauce
1-1/2 cups tomato sauce
1/2 tsp chipotle chili powder
1/2 tsp ground cumin
3/4 cup chicken broth
kosher salt and fresh pepper to taste

In a medium saucepan, sauté garlic. Add chiles, chili powder, cumin, chicken broth, tomato sauce, salt and pepper. Bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to low and simmer for 5-10 minutes. Set aside until ready to use.

In a large skillet brown the turkey and season with salt. When the turkey is browned,  add onion, garlic, black beans, cilantro, green chiles, diced tomatoes, cumin and chili powder. Mix well and simmer on low, covered for 20 minutes. Remove lid and simmer an additional 5-10 minutes to reduce the liquid.

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Put 1/2 cup turkey mixture into each tortilla and roll it. Place on 9x13 glass baking dish seam side down. Top with enchilada sauce and cheese. Cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven on the middle rack for 20-25 minutes. Top with low fat sour cream, cilantro or scallions if you wish.

It's almost Thanksgiving! Brine vs. no brine, plus how to cook a turkey

I just looked up from all my packing/moving and realized it's almost Thanksgiving. I'll be celebrating with my fam in Virginia--it'll be my only holiday celebration this year, since I'll be working for Christmas and New Year's.

We'll probably eat fresh venison all week long--why buy a turkey when there's a freezer full of meat? But for those of you planning to be all traditional and stuff, here's a great article about brine vs. no brine for your turkey.

Also, here's how to cook a turkey.

How to cook a turkey

Just in time for Christmas!

The most important thing about cooking a turkey is this: don't get all worked up about it.

People put way too much pressure on themselves, and a picture-perfect turkey, during the holidays. Really, it's just a turkey. Whether or not to brine it, whether or not to stuff it, whether or not to blast it with high heat at the beginning or the end, whether or not to put foil on the breast as it cooks: ultimately, none of these things really matter.

Really.

A turkey is just a big chicken. If you've cooked a roast chicken before, you can cook a turkey.

Here's how you do it.

1. Thaw it. Completely. Either on the counter overnight, or in the fridge 2-3 days before you want to cook it.

2. Get a roasting pan. Put some things in the bottom of it--I put in a roughly chopped onion, carrot, and a few stalks of celery, along with a bag of small potatoes, halved. Pour in some broth--maybe 1-2 cups. If your turkey comes with a neck/giblets, put those in the bottom too.

3. Wash off your thawed turkey. Pat it dry, then rub it all over with butter. If you want, you can separate the skin from the breast and shove a bunch of butter in there, too. Put salt and pepper all over the turkey.

4. If you're not putting stuffing inside the turkey, put some aromatics in there. A halved onion, a halved citrus fruit of some kind, some fresh herbs, any/all of the above. You can put stuffing inside there too--I like my stuffing crispy, so I usually cook it outside the bird, but if you like moist stuffing, it's perfectly safe to cook it inside the turkey.

5. Tie the legs shut with twine.

6. I usually blast the turkey with high heat at the beginning of the process. Put it in a 500-degree oven for 30 minutes or so, then back it down to 350 degrees. Cook at 350, basting every 30 minutes or so, until the button in the turkey breast pops out. You can reverse this process, with no discernible difference in color or texture or taste, by high-roasting the bird for the last 30 minutes, but it's harder to accurately predict when the last 30 minutes will be. So I do it at the beginning.

7. LET THE BIRD REST. Take it out of the oven and just let it sit for a half hour or so. If you don't, all the juice will run out the instant you cut into it and you'll have a dry bird. (Also it will be too hot to eat.)

The biggest thing about cooking a turkey is that you have to plan your oven usage around it. I had a 12-pound turkey, a smaller one ($6 on sale!), and it took a good four hours of dedicated oven time. Fortunately, most holiday desserts/breads can be made ahead of time.

That's all there is to it. Once it goes in the oven, it's pretty low-maintenance. I forgot to baste for long stretches of time and the turkey still didn't dry out or anything. (There wasn't enough juice left over for gravy, though.)

So, coming up: recipes for stuffing, cranberry sauce, sweet potato pie, and gravy.

Turkey meatloaf

Since we have to be out of our apartment in less than two weeks, I find myself in the position of having to eat away the entire contents of my freezer/refrigerator. Step one: the five pounds of ground turkey in the freezer. Which makes two nice-sized turkey meatloafs. (Meatloaves?)

1 chopped onion
A few chopped cloves garlic
2 tablespoons each Worchestershire and ketchup
1/3 cup broth (any kind)
2 lbs ground turkey
1 1/2 - 2 cups breadcrumbs (I used panko)
2 beaten eggs
salt and pepper

Saute the onion and garlic in a little olive oil until soft. Add the Worchestershire, ketchup and broth, let cook another minute, then let cool. Preheat oven to 375. Add the rest to the onion mixture and combine. (It will be wet.) Spread some foil on a cookie sheet and spray it down with some nonstick spray, then arrange the turkey in a meatloaf shape on the foil. Top with barbecue sauce, and cook for one hour. Let rest a few minutes, and serve with more barbecue sauce.

I know that picture doesn't look too appetizing, but boy, was it tasty.

Things you can do with leftover turkey

I'm sure everyone is tired of turkey by now. But here are some things you can do to utilize all that leftover turkey.

1. Freeze it, and eat it in March when you're no longer sick of it.

2. Use turkey instead of chicken in common dishes--turkey salad instead of chicken salad. Turkey noodle soup. Turkey nachos. Add turkey to green salads and pasta dishes and pizza.

3. Be sure to turn the carcass into quarts and quarts of turkey broth, which you can use instead of chicken broth in future soups, risottos, etc. (You can freeze this too.)

4. Sandwiches. Duh. But try making the sandwich with thick pieces of homemade bread, layered with all the leftover mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, and green bean casserole. It's like Thanksgiving dinner all over again.