Leftover Turkey!

This was so good I just had to share!  I'm sure many of you like me have a ton of leftover turkey. The day after Christmas is easy, we just make a plate up again with all the sides, like yummy mashed potatoes, green bean casserole, stuffing, cranberry sauce etc. Then later in the day we'll probably have cold turkey sandwiches. But after that, what to do with the turkey? I decided to search online for some turkey soup recipes - I just felt in the mood for soup ;-) I found this one, Creamy Wild-Rice Soup with Smoked Turkey it sounded pretty good, and although my turkey wasn't smoked, I knew it probably wouldn't make much of a difference.

I didn't follow the recipe exactly, just used it more as an idea. . . here's my soup:

Basically all I did was saute an onion in a large skillet, then instead of adding carrots and celery I added about a cup and a half of frozen mixed veg! After that I added two tbsp of all purpose flour, then added a large carton of chicken stock. To that I added two cups of chopped turkey, and some 1/2 and 1/2 cream I had left over from making the mashed potatoes, not sure how much I used, I'm guessing about 1 cup. I made my Zatarins Long Grain and Wild rice packet seperately, then when it was cooked I added about half of the rice to the soup, turned it low and let it simmer for half an hour.

I have to tell you, the smell in the kitchen was delicious, even Jason shouted from his office "what are you making, it smells so good!"  So, if it's cold and wet, or snowy where you are (or even if it's not!) try making a nice hot batch of creamy turkey soup, it's total comfort food :-)

I'll be back tomorrow with more Christmas Day photos (for you Nenna) :-)

Welcome back PW!

Actually what I really mean is, welcome back to 'cooking with The Pioneer Woman' :-)  I hope you'll join me each week as I continue my way through Ree's wonderful cook book and trying her delicious recipes. 

And of course you can watch along with Ree on Saturday mornings on her new show on FoodNetwork. It airs at 11.30am/10.30c. I saw the first episode last weekend when Ree made her yummy chicken fried steak. I haven't tried this recipe yet, but I will have to make it soon as it's hubby's favorite too. 

This week I chose Maple Pecan Scones from Ree's book. But I'm actually calling mine Praline Pecan Scones. . . I'll explain why in a minute ;-)

Making scones is pretty simple, you start off with dry ingredients, flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Then cut in 2 sticks of cold butter until you have crumbles.  Add in some chopped pecans, and then to that you add 3/4 cup of heavy whipping cream and one egg! Ree certainly can give Paula Deen a run for her money when it comes to butter and cream (and in other recipes, Mayo), that's for sure! You can tell these scones are going to be decadent, can't you?

Once everything is combined, roll the dough to a 10" circle and cut in to 8. Wow, all that butter and cream and I'm only getting 8 scones? I don't even want to think how many calories are in each one!!

Bake at 350 for about 22-26 minutes. Now, here's where I messed up! I set my timer but forgot to hit start - then I popped over to Cheryl's to see if she had any maple extract for the icing. She didn't have any, but she did have some Praline Liqueur! So I used that, hence the reason my scones are called Praline Pecan. But when I got back, probably after 10 minutes, I wasn't sure exactly how much longer to bake the scones, because the timer hadn't actually started. Ree did say not to let the sides get brown, so I had to just guess, and to be honest, I think I could have left them for at least 3 or 4 more minutes. They weren't undercooked, but I just still felt like they could have had longer in the oven.

Once they have totally cooled you whip up a batch of icing (I only used about half the recipe because I didn't have a full 1lb of confectioners sugar, and even then I had too much of it, so I would suggest you not do the whole recipe for the icing, you really don't need it). I sprinkled nuts on some (which was optional) and left the others plain. 

Verdict: These got great reviews from EVERYONE :-)  I tried one myself (actually only half, didn't want to ruin my low carb weekend) and took some next door to Cheryl. Her Dad tried one and said it was 'heaven', and her teenage son tried one and gave me two thumbs up. Jason also thought they were delicious. Kristen. . . . well, she doesn't like nuts so didn't care for the scone, but she sure enjoyed cleaning out the icing bowl!!!

So, if you want to impress your guests this weekend, serve them a batch of these scones. If you don't have the cookbook, check out THIS recipe for Vanilla Bean Scones on Ree's website, I'm sure they will be just as delicious. 

Thank you PW!

I ordered The Pioneer Woman's cookbook :-) I couldn't wait a minute longer, I placed an order at Amazon on Thursday night. It should be here by Tuesday or Wednesday. I was browsing her cooking site the other day and she posted the most delicious looking salsa, you can see her recipe HERE. Can I just say again how much I love ALL the step by step photos she shares :-)

I love fresh salsa but whenever I've made it fresh it's always been a fruity one, like mango salsa or peach salsa, where everything is just 'diced'. I've never really made a tomato one! Her recipe for 'Restaurant Style Salsa' isn't totally fresh because you use canned tomatoes, but the other ingredients like the onion, garlic, lime juice and cilantro give it that fresh taste - it tastes amazing!

I seriously want to try and 'cook my way through' her cookbook when I get it, but I've honestly never tried one of her recipes until now. I thought I would start with this because it looked so easy and I always have canned tomatoes in the pantry.

I won't post the recipe here because you can get it from the link above, but here's all my ingredients ready to be 'pulsed'.

The one thing I will add, is that PW must have a very large food processor, because as soon as I emptied the tomatoes and one can of Rotel in to mine it became obvious that there wouldn't be enough room for the other can. So I scooped some of the tomatoes out, left them to one side with the other can (you can see them in the bowl behind with the ladel), pulsed everything together then emptied it in to a bowl, then I put the remaining tomatoes in the blender and pulsed them then added them to the first bowl and mixed them all together.

The texture of this is just perfect.... not chunky but not totally smooth. I couldn't stop 'tasting' this as I was cleaning everything up even though it is supposed to chill in the fridge at least an hour... I tell you, this stuff is addictive! I finally ladled it in to jars just so it was easier to keep in the fridge (I didn't seal the jars in a hot bath, but I'm sure you could if you wanted to make a ton of this for gifts etc)

I took a jar to my neighbor Cheryl last night and she loved it too. She said her hubby would love it, he uses salsa all the time to put on top of his eggs for breakfast or on top of grilled chicken - yum! I seriously don't think I will ever buy a jar of salsa again. Try this for the big game (or even sooner than that) you won't be disappointed.