Prudent Foodie

Quick, Easy, Turkey and Rice Biryani

Warning:  the following recipe is not for Indian food purists!  It is for people who enjoy the flavors of the subcontinent, and want a different approach to using up leftover turkey!  Today I made and froze six turkey pot pies, yesterday we had leftover turkey and gravy for dinner, and I still have enough turkey and gravy for at least one more meal.  Just to get a break, I decided that tonight turkey leftovers would grace my dinner table in a quick, easy, indian style dish - biryani rice.  If you look at my other posts on indian food, you'll learn that I am a big fan of the prepared spice mixes you can buy at Indian grocery stores, as I also am of 20 pound bags of basmati rice, bhel puri snacks, whole spices, fresh samosas at the counter, and on and on. So, here's my version of leftover turkey indian style, with apologies to all the real Indian cooks out there who may not like the Prudent Foodie's corner cutting. 

1 cup basmati rice

1 cup frozen peas

1 cup chopped leftover turkey

1/2 cup diced carrots, parboiled or microwaved for 1 minute

1 14 oz. can of diced tomatoes

I small onion diced

1-2 TB vegetable oil

2-3 Tb biryani or pilau paste from your indian grocery according to label instructions (I like Patak brothers brand)

Put the oil in a large skillet that you have a cover for, and warm over medium heat.  Add the onions and saute briefly, then add the rice and stir for a couple minutes. Add the biryani paste, and  pour in 2 cups of water, stirring until everything is well mixed, and there are no lumps from the spice mix.  Add the carrots  and the can of tomatoes.  Turn down the heat to very low, cover and cook for 12-15 minutes.  Check to see if it needs more water and add 1/2 to 1 cup if too dry.  Spread the frozen peas and leftover turkey over the top of the rice, and replace the lid, letting the dish cook for another 5-8 minutes to steam the turkey and peas.  Stir everything together and serve your relieved family something that looks nothing like Thanksgiving leftovers! A nice green salad along side is good too.  Dee Dee.

Pulled Pork and Green Chili Polenta "Terrine"

Oh no!  Not another post about "what to do with pulled pork shoulder"!  But honestly, more people seem to be interested in pulled pork and pork shoulder than absolutely anything else I post, so I guess I have to keep throwing more recipes at them!  In the event that you didn't stumble on this post by googling on "pulled pork" and don't know how to make it, here is a link to a post with that recipe.

The other day I made some polenta to go with wonderful Sparrow's chicken sausages, with a few leeks from the garden and some sauted elm oyster mushrooms.  This was terrific, but as elm oyster mushrooms aren't widely available, I'm not posting on it.  One note about the elm oyster mushrooms though; they are much more substantial and tasty than regular oyster mushrooms, and if you see them at a farm market, be sure to get some to try! If you saute them with leeks, and throw them over some polenta, you won't be sorry :-)

Since I'm always trying to figure out how to make something ahead for the week, I made a double recipe of polenta and came up with this way to use up some pulled pork I had left over from making pulled pork enchilada's  and barbequed pulled pork last week.  I didn't have any poblano peppers to stuff, so here is what I came up with.  Readers will know that I like to put polenta in a pan, chill it and then slice and oven fry it to make other dishes.  Since I had also gotten a whole box of Anaheim chilis at the Farmers Market for a buck, it seemed like a "terrine" of polenta layered with cheese, pulled pork, and roasted, chopped green chilis would be pretty looking and pretty good tasting.   This recipe is a bit fiddly but worth the effort.  I added a tomato sauce that I made from scratch to pour over the polenta, but you could just as easily use a high quality purchase chunky tomato sauce or, if you prefer a more southwestern flavor profile, a good salsa (I like Frontera's salsas, myself). 

I always use the double boiler method for preparing polenta, because I am lazy, and it requires minimal stirring.  I recommend going easy on the water for this particular recipe, as you want a stiff, sticky polenta for the terrine.  If you think that using polenta for a barbeque/southwestern influenced recipe is heretical, you could always use grits or coarse masa harina in place of the polenta.

Polenta in the double boiler

1 to 1 1/4 cup of polenta

4-5 cups of boiling water

salt and pepper to taste

Put an inch or two of water in your double boiler, and bring to a boil. The Prudent Foodie does not actually own a genuine double boiler, so I just put a sauce pan of the size I want inside a bigger sauce pot or a stew pan and fire away. Put the polenta and boiling water into the top of the double boiler, and stir well.  Stir it every 4 or 5 minutes until the polenta is ready, adding more water if you need it. Add salt and pepper to taste.   If you start with boiling water, it should be ready in 12-15 minutes!

Pulled Pork, Green Chile and Polenta Terrine

Polenta made as above

1 -  1/2-2 cups pulled pork

1/2  -  3/4 cups of oven roasted green chiles chopped (this is what I used) or 2  small cans of diced green chiles if you don't want to roast and peel your own

2Tb olive oil or butter

1 cup shredded mexican blend cheese

salt and pepper to taste

Oil a loaf pan.  I recommend a smaller pan; it will give a more terrine like appearance, but a large one is fine too. Be sure not to make the first layer too thick if you use the larger pan.   Stir the olive oil or butter into your polenta, and then stir in the shredded cheese, mixing well and allowing it to melt.  Pour 1/3 of the polenta into your loaf pan, and then sprinkle half of the pork and green chiles over the top of it.  Pour in the second third of the polenta to make  a second layer of polenta and repeat with the pork and chiles.   Cover with the remaining polenta.  Cover with saran wrap and chill well; at least 12-24 hours.  Ideally you will weight the polenta (easist thing is to put another loaf pan full of water, or better yet those floral arrangement pebbles, or glass beads) so that the layers merge around the pork and chiles to become well joined.  You can actually do this 3-4 days before you plan to eat it. 

Set the oven for 400 degrees.  Put a large glass baking dish with 3 or 4 Tb of olive oil or butter (I often mix them half and half)  in the oven and allow it to heat up.  Turn the polenta terrine out of the loaf pan and slice it into pieces 3/4 to 1 inch thick using a thin, sharp knife like a filet knife.   Put about 3/4 cups flour on a large piece of waxed paper, and dredge the polenta slices in it carefully so they don't fall apart at the layer intersections. Pull out the hot baking dish a lay the polenta slices in it.  Return to the oven and bake for 15 minutes, then remove, and using a spatula, carefully turn over the slices.  Return to the oven for 5-7 minutes.  Take out, and arrange the baked slices on a platter, pouring the sauce or salsa over it you choose.  If you have some fresh cilantro to chop, you can sprinkle it on top for looks and flavor.   Enjoy!  Dee Dee

Cod and Root Vegetable Gratin

"Leftover fish"  just the sight of these words may be producing  a nearly irresistible urge to click along to something else in you!  And I admit, leftover fish usually finds its best and highest purpose at my house in the dog's dish.  However, I can't think of anything more Prudent Foodie than coming up with a good tasting way to use good quality fish leftovers.  We'll leave the re-use of fish sticks to those wonderful folks who recycle plastic bottles. 

Last weekend our good friends Dave and Gloria came to dinner and we enjoyed a couple wonderful bottles of wine, a fabulous salad and pumpkin bisque provided by Gloria, along with Nigella's Guiness Cake, and cod en papillotte with turnips and leeks that I rustled up. I'm not providing a recipe for this, because it's really too fiddly for the Prudent Foodie most nights, but here's a link that shows you the technique should you wish to try this at home.  In any event, at the end of a lovely evening we had a whole package of cod en papillotte left over, and I couldn't quite bring myself to give it to the dog.  Plus, I wasn't sure if the leeks qualified as onions, and might make it toxic to her.  So, I felt a moral obligation to come up with something edible to do with it. 

In english and northern european cooking there is a long tradition of fish pies and puddings; dishes that we rarely get here.  I recall as a child being fed a savory pudding made from leftover lutefisk the day after Christmas at the home of my relatives in Skåne.  I know that you, dear reader, are smirking at the thought of a thousand Garrison Keillor jokes, but this in fact tasted just fine, probably because it was cooked with a very rich cream sauce strongly flavored with dry mustard.  So, a fish pudding seemed like the way to go, and certainly, my lovely fresh cod gently poached in white wine, with carrots, leeks and fire roasted tomatoes would be a better jumping off point than leftover lutefisk.  But then, possibly even fish sticks would. 

Cod and Root Vegetable Gratin

4-8 oz. poached or baked cod.  If you have some pan sauces, etc. reserve and use in sauce

3 good sized Yukon Gold or white potatoes, peeled and sliced thin

2-4 fresh turnips, peeled and sliced thin (you want nearly as many turnips as potatoes)

1 onion peeled and finely diced (leeks will do as well)

2 cloves garlic minced or run through a pressoptional:

1 carrot, finely diced

2 oz. chevre  (soft fresh goat cheese)

1 pint heavy cream or half and half

thyme, salt and pepper to taste

Preheat the oven to 375F.  Oil or butter a casserole dish.  Put a layer of root vegetables in the bottom of the dish, then put some of the fish in, sprinkle half the onions and garlic over it and crumble half the chevre on it.   The make another layer of vegetables,  fish, onions and chevre.  Add the salt, pepper and thyme. Pour the cream over the whole thing and put in the over for about 20-30  minutes, until bubbling.  If you like sprinkle some bread crumbs and parmesan cheese on the top, turn the oven down to 325, and let them topping brown for 5 minutes.  Serve with a nice green salad (and leftover Guinness Chocolate Cake), and pat yourself on the back for being so thrifty! DeeDee

Butternut Squash Stuffed Cabbage Rolls

As you may have noticed, I eat little or no meat (nothing that knows its mommy) or seafood (stress over fisheries collapse), even though  a lot of what goes in this blog is inexpensive ways to supply meat to a growing daughter and a husband.  However, I do have a some great vegetarian recipes that I love, and now is the season for one of them.  A while back, I wanted an easy, low carb way to enjoy the flavor and texture of butternut squash stuffed ravioli.  Although I've actually made ravioli myself, it's definitely an activity for a Sunday afternoon when you have nothing else to do; something that happens to me once every five years or so. 

So, looking for an easier, and lower carb way to enjoy these flavors, I hit upon the notion of combining the butternut squash with a cabbage roll.  Cabbage rolls can be found in english, german, scandinavian, polish, etc., etc. cuisine, usually stuffed with ground meat and potatoes.  This dish is much lighter and has a more sophisticated flavor.  Like any cabbage roll, you have to fiddle around with boiling or steaming the leaves, but otherwise it is easy.  So, even though the recipe looks long and complicated - just dive in!

Start by baking a butternut squash; cut it in half, scrape out the seeds, and place it cut side down on a baking sheet or pan which is lightly oiled (if you are feeling lazy, line it with aluminum foil, and you won't have to wash it).  Roast at 350-400F for 30 minutes to an hour, depending on the size of your squash, and your oven temperature.  When it's soft, take it out, cool, peel off the skin and mash the squash, and reserved for the following recipe!

Filling 

1 1/2 to 2 cups cooked, mashed butternut squash

1/2 cup ricotta or fresh cream cheese if you can get it (do not use the stuff in the silver package!)  I used Zingermans Creamery cream cheese

1 egg

1/2 cup shredded parmesan cheese

5-6 large fresh sage leaves slivered and chopped fine, or 1 tsp dried sage leaves

1 small to medium onion diced

1-2 cloves garlic minced fine

2 tsp olive oil

salt and pepper to taste

Saute the onion and garlic in the olive oil until golden.  Combine the cooked onion and garlic with the other ingredients and blend everything together well, beating with a wooden spoon or a mixer.  If your squash is a little dry, you will want to use a mixer and may want to add some milk or an extra egg. After you mix up the filling, set aside as you get ready to make the rolls.

To make the rolls

1 head cabbage 

3/4 cup half and half or cream

Oil a glass baking dish large enough for the 12-16 rolls you will get from this amount of stuffing.   Take a large head of regular cabbage, or preferably Savoy cabbage.  It has prettier, more delicate leaves, as well as a slightly more delicate flavor than green cabbage.  Plus, it is a bit easier to work with.  Boil water in a large stew pan, or vegetable steamer.  Fill a large bowl with ice water.  Working three or four leaves at a time, cut the stem of a leaf where it joins the center of the cabbage head, and gently lift from the stem end and the leaf end to remove the entire leaf.  Place in the boiling water, and remove the next leaf, etc.  until you get to three or four.  Remove the first couple of leaves and cool in the ice water, remove, and pat dry.  Open a leaf and place 2-3 TB of filling in it (depending on leaf size), then roll up the leaf creating a nice closed package around the filling.  Lay it seam side down in the baking dish.  Repeat the cutting, steaming, quenching and filling process until all the filling is used up.   Pour the cream or half and half over the rolls, and place in a 350F oven and bake for 20-30 minutes. 

Sauce

1 clove minced garlic

1 tsp olive oil

1 small or medium tomato chopped small

1/2 cup cream or half and half

salt and pepper

Saute the garlic in the olive oil in a small sauce pan, add the cream or half and half, and the tomato with salt and pepper to taste.  Cook gently until you get a creamy tomato sauce.  Pour the sauce over the cabbage rolls when you take them out of the oven.  Serve the cabbage rolls with a whole wheat pasta like fusilli or farfalle.   Enjoy!  It is well worth the effort, and remember, it would have been way more work to make ravioli!  Dee Dee