Tag: Chicken
Turkey Breakfast Sausage
This Thursday marked a super-serious-big-deal life event for me: after 467 hours of work over 9 months, I completed the nutrition internship leading up to my licensure as a dietetic technician!
I can’t tell you how good it feels to have to have this accomplishment under my belt–and to think that maybe in the near future I might actually get paid for the work I do!
For this third and final portion of my internship, for the last two months I have been working in a hospital kitchen, learning about the business side of food service management, the day-to-day process of feeding 100+ patients, and how to create patient menus that are both healthy and appealing. One of my assignments was to create a new recipe the hospital might actually add to their patient menu. As I assessed the hospital’s menu for nutritional value, it didn’t take long to see that it was a very old school meat and potatoes-type meal cycle. In fact, if you were a patient at this particular hospital, in any given week you would receive 21 servings of meat–8 of them red meat, 7 of them pork, and 5 out of the 7 pork servings bacon or sausage. To me, this is frankly an ALARMING amount of red and processed meats to be serving to patients who actually want to get healthy, amirite? As I’ve written about before on this blog, reducing meat consumption–especially red meat–can have profound effects on both your health and the environment. I am all for it.
With that in mind, I set out to create a potential alternative to the several bacon and pork sausage servings patients receive at breakfast each week. For quite some time, I’ve been a big fan of using turkey in place of pork or beef for its lower fat and sodium content. (See my Mediterranean turkey burgers, turkey taco calzones, turkey shepherd’s pie, and turkey bean chili for some examples!) Turkey sausage seemed like an easy and obvious fix to what I came to think of as the hospital’s “pork problem.” (Which sounds like a comical euphemism, but unfortunately is not. This was a genuine, literal pork problem.)
These tasty sausage patties I adapted from Monica over at The Yummy Life had plenty of flavor for almost 50% less fat and 75% less sodium than ground pork sausage. At a taste test for the hospital’s kitchen staff and dietitians, the finished product received very positive reviews. 80% of employees surveyed gave it the highest rating for taste and appearance and 100% gave it the highest rating for texture. For a breakfast food that comes in at about 100 calories and 5 grams of fat per serving, I consider that a success!
So if you’re looking for a better-for-you switch in the first meal of the day, or just a little something different for a weekend or special occasion breakfast, give this easy, low-calorie turkey sausage a whirl. If you want to make it a true stand-out meal, try a healthier spin on the egg McMuffin with an egg, cheese, and a handful of spinach on an English muffin. First step hospital menu, next step McDonald’s!
Turkey Breakfast Sausage
(Adapted from The Yummy Life)
Ingredients:
1/4 c. unsweetened applesauce
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 tsp. dried sage
1/4 tsp. crushed red pepper flakes
1/8 tsp. garlic powder
1/8 tsp. onion powder
1 lb. 93% lean ground turkey
2 tsp. olive oil
Directions:
- In a large bowl, mix applesauce, salt, black pepper, red pepper flakes, dried sage, garlic powder, and onion powder.
- Add ground turkey and mix with applesauce-spice mixture until well combined.
- Form into 8-10 patties of about ¼ c. each.
- In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium-high heat. Add the patties and cook until browned on one side, then flip and cook until browned on the other side.
- Remove cooked patties and drain on paper towels.
Makes 8-10 patties.
Chicken Parmesan Burgers
I have one (and only one) white shirt I have never spilled anything on. It’s a principle of Murphy’s Law that whenever you wear white, it will end up being a day when you eat spaghetti and meatballs, barbecue pork, or some other food that seems to possess a grim determination to leap from your plate onto your clothing and make it look like you somehow 1.) poo’d yourself in the front and/or 2.) are bleeding internally. But my one lacy-fronted white shirt has somehow evaded all these offenders and managed to retain its purity. I’m especially proud of this feat this week because, when I wore it the other day, I ate not one but two of those foods that inevitably spatter clean whites with kamikaze fury: juicy in-season red cherries and one of these tasty chicken parmesan burgers. I know, putting a chicken parmesan between two buns and eating it with your hands is basically asking for an Oxiclean commercial-level stain, but…… VICTORY!!!
I probably shouldn’t speak of this accomplishment out loud. I’m probably jinxing myself right now.
Still…….worth it! These chicken parmesan burgers were a definite hit at our house. For me, it was one of those moments of “Wait, why have I never thought of this combination before?” (For my kids, it was more of a “Bread and meat and cheese! We approve!” moment.) Regardless, we were all happy. Despite loving a good beef burger, I generally shy away from them, per last year’s World Health Organization research and recommendations on red meat. And while I don’t particularly miss the beef in a burger, I know there are a lot of people who do. So why not make the transition from red to white meat a little easier by adding some piquant marinara and stretchy mozzarella–the perfect marriage of classic Italian and American foods? It’s an easy weeknight meal that comes together fast and pairs well with a green salad and a red wine. The only challenge is….
Can you (safely) eat them all while wearing a white shirt?
Chicken Parmesan Burgers
A Love Letter to Food Original Recipe
Ingredients:
1 1/2 lbs. ground chicken (or turkey)
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1/2 tsp. garlic powder
1/2 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried oregano
1/2 c. panko bread crumbs
1/4 c. grated Parmesan cheese
3/4 c. marinara sauce
3/4 c. shredded mozzarella cheese
2 c. arugula or spinach, if desired
6 hamburger buns or 9 slider buns, toasted
Directions:
- Preheat an outdoor grill for medium heat (or plug in your handy-dandy George Foreman grill, like I do). In a large bowl, mix ground chicken and next 7 ingredients (through Parmesan cheese). Form into 3/4 inch-thick patties. Grill 5-6 minutes per side, or until internal temperature reaches 165 degrees.
- Remove patties from grill and preheat oven broiler to high. Spread 1-2 Tbsp. marinara sauce over each burger and top with 1-2 Tbsp. mozzarella. Broil 5 inches away from heat for 1-2 minutes, watching cheese closely to make sure it doesn’t scorch.
- Serve topped with greens, if desired, on toasted buns.
Serves 6.
Chicken Souvlaki
I’m baaaaaaack! Did you miss me? Well, first, I guess I should ask, did anyone notice I’ve been gone? I haven’t actually been gone, just so busy with school, a nutrition internship, parenting, wife-ing, friend-ing, and hosting a house concert and dinner for 40 people (more on that in a future post) that there has been zero time left in the recent past for blogging–blogging of any kind of quality, anyway–if I wanted to, like, sleep and eat. But all that’s changed now! Okay, the parenting, wife-ing, and friend-ing will probably continue. But the school is mostly over for the next month, the hospital internship is definitely done, and the house concert is checked off the list until my husband decides on which weird musician he wants to invite to perform at our house next.
With all that behind me, I actually have time to post a recipe! A really good recipe at that! For some reason I’ve been on a Greek/Mediterranean kick lately. Could be because of attending the 2016 Nutrition and Health Conference last month, where the primary takeaway from Dr. Andrew Weil and other distinguished presenters always seems to come down to “stick with the Mediterranean diet.” Or it could be that in my nutrition internship at the hospital, I ate lunch with a group of dietitians every day and felt a wee bit of peer pressure to bring healthy lunches. Those ladies are the High Queens of Salad Land, I tell you. Or it could just be that Mediterranean ingredients like olive oil, lemon juice, feta cheese, and tomatoes are the John, Paul, George, and Ringo of flavors–destined for greatness together.
This chicken souvlaki really lets those flavors shine…like the Rubber Soul of Mediterranean food. (Taking the analogy too far? Sorry.) It turns out that in Greece, “souvlaki” refers to meat that has been grilled on a skewer, but this version calls for searing the chicken on the stovetop before serving it on warm pita, smothered in a fresh tomato-feta salad and garnished with cool tzatziki sauce. I could eat meals like this for days. In fact, I have been eating meals like this for days, or maybe weeks now.
So, since I’m done with all the responsibilities of the semester…when do we leave for Greece?
Chicken Souvlaki
(Adapted from Real Simple)
Ingredients:
2 medium tomatoes, diced, or 1 c. grape tomatoes, halved
3/4 c. feta cheese, crumbled
1/2 small red onion, thinly sliced
1/4 c. sliced black olives (or halved kalamata olives)
5 Tbsp. olive oil, divided
2 1/2 tsp. red wine vinegar, divided
1 Tbsp. + 1/2 tsp. fresh lemon juice, divided
1 1/2 tsp. dried oregano
1/4 tsp. black pepper
1 lb. boneless, skinless chicken breasts or tenderloins, cut into 1-inch chunks
1/2 c. plain Greek yogurt
1/4 c. cucumber, finely chopped
1 1/2 Tbsp. fresh dill, minced (or 1 1/2 tsp. dried)
1/4 tsp. garlic salt
4 pieces naan, flatbread, or pita, warmed or toasted
Directions:
- In a medium bowl, combine the tomatoes, feta, red onion, and olives.
- In a large bowl, whisk together 4 Tbsp. olive oil, 1 1/2 tsp. red wine vinegar, 1 Tbsp. lemon juice, oregano, and black pepper until well combined. Pour 2 1/2 Tbsp. of this vinaigrette over the tomato salad and toss.
- Season the chicken pieces with salt and add them to remaining vinaigrette, tossing to coat. (You can leave the chicken in the vinaigrette to marinate for a few hours for deeper flavor, if desired.)
- Heat remaining 1 Tbsp. olive oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Add chicken pieces (but not the marinade) to the skillet and cook until golden brown and cooked through.
- Meanwhile, make the tzatziki sauce: in a small bowl, combine Greek yogurt, cucumber, dill, garlic salt, remaining 1 tsp. red wine vinegar, and remaining 1/2 tsp. lemon juice.
- Assemble: warm pita + chicken + tomato salad + tzatziki, any which way you like!
Serves 4.
Mediterranean Turkey Burgers
Here’s a little scenario that recurs every time I meal plan over the weekend:
“Anthony, anything you want me to make for dinner this week?”
“Pretzel buns! Anything with pretzel buns…could you go to Costco and get some pretzel buns?”
The man is obsessed.
I get it. Pretzel buns are freaking awesome. Ever since they first showed up at our Costco a year or two ago, we have succumbed to their siren song of chewy, salty deliciousness on a semi-regular basis (though not as regularly as Anthony apparently would like). When we initially bought the mega-pack of a dozen or so buns, I figured I would freeze about half of them for future use, but no, we have consistently used the ENTIRE bag in a matter of days. We even took them on our recent trip to Disneyland to eat as snacks throughout our day in the park. And yeah, they were gone in the first 24 hours.
So when Anthony repeated his request for meals involving pretzel buns last week, I decided turkey burger sliders sounded like a tasty way to incorporate that all-important ingredient. But plain ol’ regular turkey burgers? Never! Special buns call for special burgers! Besides, unadorned turkey burgers can be pretty blah. That’s where this concoction of Mediterranean burger flair comes in. Yes, I am aware that “Mediterranean” + “burger” may be a contradiction in terms…I can’t think of any Mediterranean nations that are known for their signature burgers–the Lebanese Burger? the Croatian Burger?–but, you know, go with me on this one. You can’t go wrong with adding flavors like garlic, sun-dried tomatoes, and basil to meat, in my opinion. (Additional evidence here.) Topped with a piquant garlic-feta aioli, these were a slice of Mediterranean meat heaven…or should I say a pretzel bun of Mediterranean meat heaven? Either way, I will absolutely be making these again, probably for company, and probably very often, if our bun consumption continues at its current rate.
P.S. These can be made into regular-sized burgers as well as sliders, of course.
P.P.S. Aren’t you proud of me for not making any jokes about buns throughout this entire post?
Mediterranean Turkey Burgers with Garlic Feta Aioli
(Burgers A Love Letter to Food Original; Aioli from from Cooking Light)
Ingredients:
For the burgers:
1 1/3 lb. ground turkey
1/2 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. pepper
1 tsp. dried oregano
1 tsp. dried basil
1/4 tsp. dried parsley
1 egg
3/4 c. Panko bread crumbs
4 cloves garlic
1/2 c. sundried tomatoes (not in oil)
5 oz. frozen spinach, thawed and squeezed dry
6 whole wheat buns for regular-sized burgers or 12 pretzel rolls for sliders
For the Garlic Feta Aioli:
1/2 c. crumbled feta cheese
1 garlic clove, minced
2 Tbsp. mayonnaise
2 Tbsp. plain Greek yogurt
1/4 tsp. black pepper
Directions:
- Preheat a grill for medium-high heat.
- In a large bowl, combine ground turkey, salt, pepper, oregano, basil, parsley, egg, and Panko until well mixed.
- Place 4 garlic cloves, sundried tomatoes, and thawed spinach in the bowl of a food processor. Process briefly until tomatoes and garlic are chopped fine. Add to turkey mixture and stir well to combine.
- Using your hands, divide the mixture into 6 large patties (for burgers) or 12 small patties (for sliders). Grill 3-4 minutes per side for sliders, 5-6 minutes per side for regular-sized burgers.
- Prepare the aioli: blend all ingredients with an immersion blender or in a food processor.
- Assemble burgers and top with aioli.
Serves 6.
How to Make Chicken Broth with a Deli Chicken
Happy Boxing Day! Just kidding, who the heck celebrates Boxing Day? (Well, except for most of the rest of the non-American English-speaking world.) For us Americans, the day after Christmas is better known as Christmas Cleanup Day. I spent the morning gathering up used bows and itty bitty scraps of wrapping paper ground into the carpet, cleared the dining room table of Christmas dinner remnants, and finally caught up on an item that had sat on my to-do list all week. As written in my day planner, that item was “Strip Chicken.” Yes, I still keep a day planner like a Melanie Griffith in the 1988 classic Working Girl, and yes, “Strip Chicken.” What am I doing stripping chickens, you may ask? Sounds a little illicit, like…
Okay, not that kind of Chicken Strip….wah wah wah. Rather, the kind where you strip all the meat off a rotisserie chicken in order to use its carcass to make chicken broth. In my fridge for almost a week there has sat what I recently heard referred to as an “astronaut chicken”–you know, the kind encased in a plastic capsule that looks like it’s ready to be blasted off to the moon. A little bit like…
Okay, done with my terrible cartoons. I was pretty enamored of the idea of deli chickens as astronauts, so I was tempted to call this post “How to Make Chicken Broth with an Astronaut Chicken,” but somehow I don’t think that would be great for my search engine optimization.
Annnnnyway, let’s talk about the real reason for this post: to give a quick and easy tutorial of how to use an astronaut/rotisserie/deli chicken to make delicious homemade chicken broth. I try to do this every time I buy a deli chicken, and I’m never sorry I went to the effort. You can’t really beat a deli chicken for convenience, as well as providing enough cooked chicken to use in at least a couple of meals during the week. And once the meat has been used up in chicken divan, chicken tetrazzini, or chicken pot pie, you have a friendly carcass awaiting your use for broth to use in white chicken chili, lentil sausage soup, or broccoli cheese soup (shameless self-promotion, sorry). So grab your nearest astronaut poultry and let’s get started.
Homemade Chicken Broth with a Deli Chicken
A Love Letter to Food Original
Ingredients:
1 deli chicken, stripped of all usable meat
1 carrot
1/2 onion
1 stalk celery
1 clove garlic, peeled
about 15 whole black peppercorns
1 sprig fresh rosemary
2 sage leaves
3 sprigs fresh thyme
8 c. water
Directions:
1. Place stripped chicken carcass in a large stockpot (if you have a pot with a strainer, use it–it makes things easier).
2. Assemble all other ingredients: 1/2 an onion, 1 carrot (no need to peel, just wash), 1 stalk celery, 1 peeled garlic clove, about 1 tsp./15 whole black peppercorns, and an assortment of fresh herbs. If you don’t have a variety of fresh herbs, feel free to use a single kind. (I don’t recommend using dried herbs for this recipe, though, since they are harder to strain out later.)
While we’re on the subject, did you know that most fresh herbs freeze extremely well? I for one almost never use up an entire container of herbs before they go bad, so I pop them in Ziploc bags and store them in the freezer. FYI.
3. Place prepared vegetables and herbs on top of chicken in the pot. Pour in 8 c. water.
Press any herbs or vegetables down into the water if the water does not already cover them.
4. Bring to a boil over high heat, then reduce heat to low and simmer, partly covered, for 60-90 minutes.
5. When liquid is golden brown and reduced by about half, carefully strain out all solids. Cool broth completely and store in the refrigerator for up to 1 week or in the freezer for up to 6 months.
Makes 1 quart.
