Category: Shabbos

Thankgiving Turkey Roulade with 5-Minute Stuffing

When the “Kosher Connection” Team decided to feature stuffing for the November LinkUp, I was so excited to post this recipe! I also happen to be doing a Thanksgiving demo tonight, so the timing was perfect to develop this dish to perfection. I prefer to make individual turkey roulades using turkey cutlets, but you can also make one larger one using a turkey london broil (essentially a skinless, boneless turkey breast half) that’s been butterflied and pounded. The visual impact is enough to make everyone at the table ooh and ahh. And that’s before they’ve even tasted it.

Now I love a beautiful plate of food as much of the other person, but I don’t like to spend hours in the kitchen. To simplify this recipe, I decided not to sear the turkey breasts (this gives it a nice brown color all around) because that would require me to tie each one up with kitchen twine. Instead, I just rubbed them down with some paprika, garlic powder and olive oil, baked seam-side down in the pan. My 5-Minute (no-joke!) stuffing also keeps things simple, but you can easily stuff the roulades with any store-bought filling (even cold cuts, like in this recipe).

So, if you’re making thanksgiving for a small group, and a whole turkey seems too large for your crowd (or like me, you’re daunted by the thought of cooking the huge bird), give this beautiful and delicious recipe a try!

Gobble, gobble!

For more delicious Thanksgiving stuffing recipes, visit the Kosher Connection Linkup below. Happy Thanksgiving!

Turkey Roulade

1 pkg turkey cutlets
salt and pepper
5 minute stuffing (recipe below)
paprika
garlic powder
extra virgin olive oil
1/4 cup chicken stock

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Place turkey cutlets between two sheets of plastic wrap and pound with a mallet or rolling pin to even thickness. Remove plastic wrap and season with salt and pepper. Place a spoonful of stuffing on the turkey breast and spread out over cutlet, leaving a 1″ border all around. Starting from the shortest side, roll the turkey breast tightly and place seam-side down in a baking dish. Repeat with remaining cutlets (use a second baking dish, if needed). Sprinkle the roulades with paprika and garlic powder and drizzle with olive oil. Lightly rub in the spices. Pour 1/4 cup chicken stock into the bottom of the pan (repeat with 2nd pan, if you are using). Cover, and bake for 15-20 minutes (more for thicker cutlets). Uncover and bake for an additional 5 minutes.

Slice each roulade and serve over cranberry sauce. My mulled wine version works wonderfully with this recipe!

VARIATION: Instead of cutlets, you can make a larger roulade using a butterflied turkey breast (or turkey london broil). Pound out the breast to even thickness and continue as above. Bake for approximately 1 hour, until thermometer reaches 160 degrees.

One taste of this fantastic stuffing and you’d never imagine it took only 5 minutes to make! There are few tricks here! Firstly, instead of sauteing up onion and garlic, I just use onion and garlic flavored croutons! Nifty, right? Then, I add just a touch of poultry seasoning (a little goes a long way!) to give it that been-stuffed-into-a-bird-for-hours quality! Using frozen spinach not only eliminates work, it also adds a beautiful touch of green – so festive and autumnesque!

5-Minute Stuffing

1 10oz. box frozen chopped spinach, thawed
2 tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper, to taste
2 cups chicken stock
1 5.25oz. bag onion & garlic flavored croutons
1/4 tsp poultry seasoning

Method:

Using gloves, squeeze out spinach to remove water. Heat up olive oil in a skillet and add spinach. Season with salt and pepper, and stir until heated through. Add chicken stock, stirring to incorporate, and heat through. Add the croutons and poultry seasoning and stir until croutons soften and soak up the chicken stock.

1 year ago: creamy pareve mashed potatoes

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{Mechshie} Meat & Rice Stuffed Vegetables

Growing up in an ashkenazic home, it just wasn’t succos without my mother’s holishkes (stuffed cabbage). I had never even heard of sephardic dishes like stuffed grape leaves or eggplants until I married into a sephardic family. My mother in law loves to prepare authentic Syrian dishes like mehshie (pronounced mechshie). She stuffs everything from artichokes to onions, each with it’s own unique twist.

After being married for a few years, I finally decided to learn how to prepare some of her signature dishes, so I could make them for my husband. She lovingly shared her family recipes, teaching me how to prepare each and every dish. When two of the recipes seemed similar, I asked her why I couldn’t combine them. I soon learned that the mere thought of combining two types of stuffed vegetables was deemed sacrilegious!

Of all my mother-in-laws mehshi recipes, stuffed zucchini’s is my favorite. It’s simmered along with dried apricots in a sweet tomato broth. The apricots become melt-in-your-mouth soft, and together with the zucchini pulp, create a delicious sweet and tangy sauce. Tomato mehshi is treated in the same way, and being my husband’s favorite, I decided to combine the two in one pot. I also opted out of the dried mint, because in my world, mint and meat just don’t mix. Although this dish is a heresy to my mother-in-laws traditional culinary roots, it is a delicious modern twist on a old world custom of eating stuffed foods on the holiday of Succos. So lets get stuffing!

{Mehshi} Meat & Rice Stuffed Vegetables

2 large zucchini, cut into thirds
6 plum tomatoes

Filling:

1.5 lbs ground meat
1/2 cup rice (I prefer basmati)
1 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 c water

Sauce:
1 15oz. can tomato sauce
1/2 can water
1/3 c brown sugar
1/2 tsp allspice
1 tsp salt
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 cups dried apricots

Method:

To prepare the filling, combine the meat, rice, allspice, salt and water in a bowl and mix well to combine (I like to do this by hand, using gloves). Try to handle the meat gently, don’t squeeze it too much as this tends to toughen it up.

Using a paring knife (or a long vegetable corer, known as a ma’vdeh), core the tomatoes and zucchinis. Place all the pulp from the insides of the vegetables in the bottom of a greased wide saucepan. Stuff the vegetables with the meat filling, taking care not to fill them too tightly as the rice will expand during cooking. Place the stuffed zucchini’s and tomatoes in the pot, and place apricots all around.

In a bowl, combine the sauce ingredients. Pour the sauce over the vegetables. Cover the pot and bring the liquid up to a boil over high heat. Lower the flame and simmer for 1-2 hours. If the sauce is still liquidy, uncover the pot and cook on high until it reduces to a thick sauce.

NOTE: If you have leftover meat filling, roll it into small meatballs and place in the pot alongside the vegetables.

VARIATION: For a sephardic version, add 1 tsp of dried mint to the ground meat mixture, as well as 1/2 tsp mint to the sauce. Alternatively, you can use a few tablespoons of tamarind paste instead of the tomato sauce.

Watch me make mechshie with TorahCafe here:


Watch on TorahCafé.com!

Related Recipes:

globe zucchini mechshie with tamarind and prunes
savory baby eggplant mechshie

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BIB Fast Food: Chicken Lollipops

 

Do you have a hard time getting your kids to eat chicken? Well let me tell you a little secret guys. It’s all in the name. If I call chicken, well, chicken, my kids won’t eat it either. But when I serve them up chicken legs and call them lollipops? They gobble them down to the bone! I’m not kidding. Go ahead and give it a try!

Now you might be wondering why I would bother baking the chicken in the skin if my kids won’t go near that stuff. It’s because it keeps the chicken *super* moist (and because the adults can always eat it for them! :). Use you favorite bottled barbecue sauce, or for a sugar free alternative, just sprinkle with your favorite spices and drizzle with olive oil. I like World Harbors Australian Style Bar-B Marinade (purchase here) or Hunts honey hickory (purchase here).

 

Chicken Lollipops

1 package chicken legs
your favorite bottled BBQ sauce

Method:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Clean chicken legs, removing excess fat and feathers. Brush liberally with BBQ sauce. Bake, uncovered, for 45 minutes-1 hour, until skin is browned and crispy.

1 year ago: baked wonton beef empanadas

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Cherries in Red Wine Syrup

Sometimes I feel like a grandma. And not just because I’m always tired from running after the kids or because I like to sit on the glider in my babies room and crochet. It’s because I have that old lady habit of not wanting to throw food away. And let me tell you people. I did not grow up that way. If a tomato so much as had a dimple, my mom would consider it rotten. Me? I go through my fridge and brainstorm about how I can use each and every fruit and vegetable to the last drop. If my fruits are getting too soft, I’ll make a compote. If my tomatoes are mushy, I’ll make a tomato soup. I just can’t stomach throwing food away. Lucky for my family, I don’t serve up Shabbos leftovers passed Monday, but I’ve been know to turn my leftover chicken soup into chicken pot pie. Lets hope I don’t become like one of those Bubby’s who is still serving up their leftover gefilte fish on Thursday!

Turning leftovers into do-overs recipes:

curry chicken salad
turkey pot pie
salmon pasta salad
chicken pot pie
black grape and plum compote
Bubby’s cabbage soup with flanken

Last week, I had some cherries that were on their way out. I thought about making cherry clafoutis, but I wasn’t really in the mood of baking (am I ever?). So I googled “leftover cherries” and I found my way to David Lebovitz’s cherries in red wine syrup. I’m a sucker for anything in red wine, so I knew I just had to make it. I’ve poached pears, figs, and prunes, but never cherries. My only issue with David’s recipe is that he uses cornstarch to thicken the sauce. I did not see a need for that at all. If you let the wine reduce enough, it will thicken into a lovely syrup. I served it over vanilla bean ice cream and pound cake, but I could eat it plain, straight out of a bowl.

More red wine recipes:

poached pears
mulled wine
Rosh Hashana roast
london broil with red wine reduction

 

Cherries in Red Wine Syrup
adapted from David Lebovitz

1 pound fresh cherries, stemmed and pitted
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/4 cups red wine
1 tablespoon balsamic vinegar
1/4 teaspoon almond extract

Put the cherries, wine, vinegar, almond extract and sugar in a large saucepan. Bring the mixture to a boil, reduce the heat and simmer, stirring occasionally, for approximately 30 minutes, until the cherries are wilted and the sauce has reduced and thickened.

Serve over ice cream.

1 year ago: fried fish sandwich

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Bubby’s Challah Kugel

With just 3 weeks left until Pesach, I’m sure you’re all scrambling to use up your chometz. While the boxes of pasta, bags of rice, and cans of beans get stored on the top of the pantry, all that extra bread  in the back of the freezer has got to go. And what about all those bags of chips from shalach manos? And the gazillion types of crackers you have leftover in the closet? Well instead of throwing them all to the birds, I’ve compiled a list of some ideas to help you turn your leftovers into delicious pre-Pesach meals.

If you’ve got more ideas for using up chometz before Pesach, please share them with me in the comments below!

Leftover wraps (tortillas):

– quesadillas
– breakfast burritos
– tortilla chips
– thin crust pizza
– tacos (soft-shell or toasted)
– cigars (spread with cream cheese and jelly or mayo and turkey and roll up like a cigar)
– taquitos (like cigars but baked or fried and filled with meat)
– chicken avocado wraps

Leftover challah or bread:

– french toast
– bread pudding
– challa kugel
– croutons
– stuffing
– grilled cheese
– meatball filling
– garlic bread
– panzanella salad
– toasted bread sticks to dip into soup
– bread cups for quiches (roll our flat with a rolling pin and place in muffin tins and fill)

Leftover cereal:

– marshmallow cereal bar treats
– breading for french toast
– mix into cookie batter
– coat fish or chicken

Leftover chips or pretzels:

– coat fish or chicken
– add to chocolate chip cookie dough
– crush and sprinkle on mac ‘n cheese
– add chips to cold cut sandwiches
– sprinkle over stuffed mushrooms

Leftover crackers:

– use in stuffing in place of bread
– add to salads in place of croutons
– use in meatballs in place of breadcrumbs
– use as coating for fish patties
– crumble on mac ‘n cheese or any casserole

Leftover puff pastry:

– pinwheels
– cheese straws
– franks in blanks
– pot pie
– pizza
– deli roll
– asparagus and cheese tart
– knishes
– turnovers
– rugelach
– croissants
– napoleon
– palmiers
– cinnamon or chocolate twists
– strudel
– apple galette

Bubby’s Challah Kugel

Growing up, we would relish a piece of Bubby’s challah kugel on erev Shabbos. This recipe is made using leftover challah, but is completely different than bread pudding. Here, the challah is soaked and then squeezed to remove the water. The result is a sweet doughy kugel that kids really enjoy!

1 large leftover challah
2 eggs
1/4 cup oil
1/3 cup applesauce
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 tbsp vanilla sugar (optional)
1/3 cup golden raisins (optional)
cinnamon-sugar

Method:

Peel or thinly slice the crust off the challah and tear into pieces. Add to a large bowl, cover with water, and soak for several minutes. Remove the challah from the water and squeeze it out thoroughly. Mash the dough and add remaining ingredients. Pour into a greased dish and sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar. Bake at 350 degrees until browned around the edges.

1 year ago: leftover cereal bar treats

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