I’m getting fed up with the “Kids these days” stuff going around the Internet.
We snark and snarl about them being addicted to video games, having no ambition or drive, having low frustration tolerance, you name it.
I’m telling you right now, that if you’re over 40, it’s not the kids’ faults. It’s yours.*
You bought into a culture of fear that never let your children or the children around you take a risk. You taught them that failure was too painful to tolerate instead of teaching them to deal as part of life. You taught them that following the rules and being good at tests was going to make them successful, when there has never been a truly successful person in this world who did it by the book. Not one.
You got too frustrated with them making messes in the kitchen, so you didn’t have them cook with you. You didn’t think they made the bed neatly enough so you didn’t teach them to clean for themselves. So, tell me. Who has the low frustration tolerance, if you couldn’t stand the mess involved in teaching your kids to be grown-ups?
Yeah…
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* I’m well over 40; this is on me, too. No high horse.
There you are you are faced with leftovers from that enormous bird you bought for Thanksgiving and you just don’t know what to do. You like turkey well enough, but good heavens, you don’t want to eat the same thing for a couple of weeks. Neither do you want to waste.
There’s a secret to enjoying turkey leftovers and I’m going to pass it on to you.
Now, my husband and I were all for a non-traditional Thanksgiving meal, but our son was pretty insistent that we have the traditional meal of turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie. So, being the mean, cruel and overbearing parents we are….
We had turkey, dressing and pumpkin pie.
I’d bought a couple of small pie pumpkins around Halloween, had used one for pumpkin bread and pumpkin muffins. We cooked the last one for the pumpkin pie and had about three cups left over. Some of that is likely to find its way into a soup, but I am seeing pumpkin muffins in our future as well. My son has now learned that making something from fresh pumpkin is pretty easy – chop it in half, scoop out the guts, bake it about an hour, scoop out the cooked flesh and puree. Easy peasy. Nuttin’ wrong with using canned, but we just happened to have a pumpkin sitting there.
Because of my habit of being a tightwad, I had considered buying a turkey breast instead of the whole bird. But at price per pound, the whole bird was an enormously better buy. Even though yes, a 12 pound bird was a bit much for the meal, I know how to make good on leftovers, boy howdy let me tell you what. Even so, we don’t want to get sick of eating turkey, do we?
What’s the secret to enjoying turkey leftovers?
The secret to not getting sick of turkey as a leftover meat, however, is to repurpose it in very flavorful dishes. Sure, sure, a turkey sandwich is delicious, as is turkey salad. But it’s just as easy to use those leftovers in other meals that aren’t quite reminiscent of the American white-bread meal that is Thanksgiving dinner. You want spices. You want strongly-flavored veggies. You want differences in color, presentation and texture.
The bones are going to go for stock, oh yes! If you’ve never tried turkey stock, give yourself a treat. It’s delightfully flavorful and enhances any dish where you’d use chicken stock. We’re not going to do Carcass Soup this year, tasty as it is. Instead, we’re going to use the turkey to make a few freezer meals. We’ll be doing turkey burritos (my family are crazy for burritos), freezing up some bags of diced turkey for stir frys or the (sorta) Puttanesca, and freezing up some bags of diced veggies and turkey for some delicious soups.
Except for the (sorta) Puttanesca, these are great freezer meals as well.
Turkey Burritos
2 ½ c. Turkey chopped fine
1 can chopped green chili peppers
2 t. cumin
1 T. minced garlic
1 small onion, chopped
2 t. pepper
1 t. salt
12 8-inch flour tortillas
1 can refried beans
2 c. shredded cheese (preferably cheddar or a mix of cheddar and Monterey jack)
Sliced Black Olives
Salsa
Sour Cream
Preheat oven to 350 and grease large pan.
Sauté turkey with chili peppers, cumin, minced garlic, onion, salt and pepper.
Spread tortilla with ~2 T refried beans, add ~ 2T meat and 2T cheese. Fold sides of tortilla in, and then roll tortilla, being careful not to roll too tightly and tear burrito. Arrange all 12 in pan, and bake at 350 for ~20 minutes. Serve with salsa, sour cream and gorilla nostrils.
If you intend to freeze them, skip the baking wrap well and freeze. When you intend to use them, defrost and freeze according to directions.
Turkey (sorta) Puttanesca
2 ½ c. diced turkey
¼ c. black olives, chopped
¼ c. pitted green olives, chopped
¼ c. chopped onion
1T chopped garlic
1 medium bell pepper, chopped
1 6 oz. can tomato paste
1T capers
2 tsp. dried red pepper
2 tsp. oregano
1 tsp black pepper
Dash salt
3 T olive oil
Set aside turkey breast. Combine all other ingredients but the olive oil and tomato paste. Mix well and let sit to let the flavors marry a bit. Sauté the turkey breast in olive oil, then add the olive, pepper and spice mixture. Sauté until the onion is translucent, then add the tomato paste. Turn to low and cook for about fifteen minutes. Serve over pasta.
Turkey Pot Pie
For pie crust:
2 c. flour
1/3 c. shortening or butter
1 t salt
1/4 c. cold and I mean icy water
For Filling:
2 ½ c. shredded turkey, cooked
2 ½ c. mixed veggies (or one can of Veg-all)
2 cans of cream of mushroom (or celery) soup.
To make the Pie Crust:
Combine salt and flour. Cut in butter or shortening until fine. Add cold water slowly until a stiff dough is formed. Divide dough in half. Roll each half in a 12″ circle. Use one circle to cover the bottom of deep 9″ pie plate. Do not trim edges.
For Filling:
Combine turkey, veggies and cream of mushroom soup. (Gosh, that was hard, wasn’t it?). Dump it all in the pie dish, cover the mess with the remaining circle of pie crust dough, fold the edged together and pinch together around the edges. This is a chance to make it look pretty, if you want. Cut a vent for steam to escape in the top of the pie. (I usually use a fork to poke the words I and You in it and cut a heart out in the center –nauseating, ain’t I?).
If you intend to freeze it, wrap well, label and do so. Then defrost and cook for about 1/2 hour at 425 o or until a nice light brown. If you don’t intend to freeze it ahead, just cook it according to previous directions.
Turkey Curry
2 ½ c turkey, diced
2 medium potatoes, diced
1 c. milk
1 c. plain yogurt
1/4 c. raisins
1/4 c. cashews
1 c. peaches, mango, or apricots
1 15 oz can coconut milk
Olive oil for sautéing
1 large onions
3T garlic
3T sliced fresh ginger
4 T curry powder
4 T. spring water
If you intend to freeze for later, toss all the ingredients but the coconut milk in a gallon freezer bag and freeze flat. When you want to serve it for dinner, defrost, toss in a crock pot for 6-8 hours and serve over rice.
Otherwise, toss in crock pot for 6-8 hours. Serve over rice.
A friend of mine pointed me to the cargo scarf as a possible project some years ago. I’d always intended to make one and I guess tonight was the night.
I love scarves and wear them all the time. I also do not particularly love purses, though I do carry them. While I like pockets, the reality of women’s clothing is that if you buy it, you often cannot find any with good pockets.
This is an excellent compromise.
This is just a very long scarf that you can wrap around your neck (or drape around your neckline in my case, as I do not like anything close to my neck) and just wear as if it is a normal scarf. The pockets don’t show on the outside.
The instructions in the link I give encourage you to make custom pockets to fit the gear you intend to carry, which I did. I have a pocket for a phone, keys, iPod Nano, and thin wallet.
I was dubious, but after I tried it on, I really like this. I have some jackets and skirts that have no pockets, so the idea that I can have a scarf that’s essentially pockets makes me unutterably happy. It drapes well, and lies neatly. You’d never guess that the scarf has stuff in it when you wear it.
It was fairly easy to make. You’ll want to buy basic 45″ fabric – half a yard in your fashion fabric and half a yard in your backing fabric. The original instructions encourage polar fleece or some other warm fabric. I just used quilting cotton, as I’ll likely wear this indoors quite a bit. Then you just design patch pockets for the gear you want to carry. I suppose given that it is two layers of fabric, you could do welt pockets, but I then the outline of your stuff would show through the single layer of fabric, I think. As it is, it’s hard to tell you’re not wearing just an ordinary scarf.
The original instructions also called for making a pen holder and adding a d-ring for keys. I was uncomfortable with the key on the outside design, so made it with a pocket for keys, instead.
What I didn’t do, and I’m going to have to go back and do, is have pocket closures. I think I’m merely going to get some iron-on Velcro to hold the pockets shut, but you could design the pockets with almost any closures you wanted.
It’s also comfortable to wear. While I do own some pocket intensive jackets of various sorts and love them, I also like this as a purse alternative. I expect I’m going to make several to suit various outfits I have.
In the fall of 2012, I had a peritonsillar abscess. This is an extremely painful bacterial infection of the tonsils. Think strep throat gone wild and partying in a single tonsil. You can’t speak clearly, you can’t breathe well, and swallowing is incredibly painful. Treatment? You slice open the tonsil to let the infection drain, then give the patient antibiotics and some reasonably heavy duty pain drugs. If you’re lucky, this treatment is on an outpatient basis, but people are often hospitalized due to complications.
It is painful enough that you welcome the relief of the incision, by the way.
It used to have another name – quinsy. While it can still be fatal, people die of it less frequently than they used to. (Elizabeth I and George Washington are thought to have died of it).
While I do think modern medicine has its problems, I get upset at people sneering at it. I really, no kidding, would be dead by now if it weren’t for modern medicine and antibiotics. That peritonsillar abscess was the most recent of a series of infections (I used to be prone to strep) and illnesses that I’ve never really mentally tagged as serious. After all, I got better, didn’t I?
But looking at them from the lack of modern medicine perspective, and friends, I’m quite lucky to be alive.
