Turkey au Vin + future projects (suggestions welcome)

My roommate and I had a turkey we just didn't know what to do with--so, following my mom's suggestions, we decided to make turkey au vin.  We used this recipe based off of Julia Childs' recipe.  The only big differences are that we:

• added diced carrots 
• used peach brandy for the flambe step--some parts of the turkey did have a bit of the peach flavor, but was otherwise ok.  Weirdly, it didn't flame very much, even though we tried twice (a letdown)
• used a generous amount of parsley--we cooked the mushrooms with parsley

We served it with rice.  I may have gone a little overboard with the salting of the turkey, but our joint effort was otherwise a success!  Here's a pic from my Blackberry camera.

There's something about chopped-up vegetables that seems very pleasant.

Future projects: 

We have a lot of parsley, some of the mushrooms, and some of the bacon left over and I'm still in a French mood, so I'm thinking of making savory crepes.  It depends on how much time I have on Sunday.

We also have a lot of the turkey blood left over, so any suggestions you have would be welcome.  After looking at a site with blood recipes, I'm considering:

• blood pancakes, 
• blood bread, 
• sanguinnacio dulce, and
• cabidela 

I'm too lazy to get sausage casings, so no blood sausages.

Still thinking thinking!

Tomato-beef-rice

At long last, one of my Cantonese/HK recipes that I made awhile back.  To be honest I think this is a HK dish, but I grew up eating it in Cantonese joints, so what the heck...

Tomatoes and Beef With Rice (番茄牛肉飯)
Tomatoes
Beef (I didn't have any, so I used chicken--it still works)
Soy sauce
Cornstarch
Ginger
Scallions
Garlic (optional)
Onion (optional)
Sugar (optional)
Scrambled eggs (optional)
A touch of worcestershire sauce (optional)
Fermented black beans (optional)

Marinate beef in soy sauce and corn starch; sprinkle sugar if desired.  Cook tomatoes first with ginger, garlic,  onions, and scrambled eggs (if you have those); add cornstarch if you like the sauce thicker.  Add beef and cook until to satisfaction.  Throw in scallions last and serve with rice.

Really simple, really yummy :)

I didn't have a camera, but this is what it's supposed to look like:

Meatloaf

Meatloaf is a great way to make a meat dish that you can keep in the fridge and munch on for lunches.

Here is a slightly unorthodox method for making it that I learned from my mother.

Take a pound of ground beef (try to get relatively lean beef if possible). Add two or three hot italian sausages and an egg. Squish it all together with your hands--the only way to do this!

Add oatmeal (this serves as a high fiber replacement for bread-crumbs). Squish it in.

Add half an onion, black pepper, and various herbs that strike your fancy like oregano and sage.

Also add a few spoons of sour cream (a special touch from Anna de Bakker's family).

Finish squishing. It should hold together pretty well. Shape into a loaf and put in a brownie pan.

Bake for about half an hour in a 350°F oven. It should be firm and with relatively clear juices.

Serve either warm or cold.

My (Healthy) Variation of Steamed Pork and Salted Egg

For those of you who know your Cantonese food (::looks around and realizes it's me::), you may have encountered the steamed pork and salted egg dish.  I loved it as a child when we used to go to Mandarin Court, one of the best Cantonese restaurants in NYC, until I realized that it's a bit on the heavy side--the fat parts of minced pork + salted duck yolk = lots of calories.

But I encountered a recipe here and varied it up a bit, and it turned out to work quite well.  Here are the healthy variations:

• Use ground chicken or ground turkey (the latter is a bit sweeter)
• Use one egg--instead of beating the egg, just use the egg white.  Keep that yolk, and use that as the salted egg yolk on top of the pork (and actually salt the yolk).  Make sure the yolk doesn't break; otherwise it spreads over the surface of the meat and looks less pretty.

If you don't have rice wine, sherry can do; I haven't tried rice vinegar, but I imagine it should be fine.

Other things you can add:

• Cut some shiitake mushrooms and throw it into the mix prior to steaming
• Add scallions to the mix
• Add dried shrimp (info here) into the mix
• On top of the mix: Cut some small pieces of ginger to give it a tiny kick

It's a very low-maintenance dish--as it steams, you can do other things.  In particular, if you've a rice cooker, you can cook rice on the bottom and steam the meat on the top.  

Sure, it's not as fatty-tasting as the original, but it worked for me!