Healthy one pot turkey pilaf

Master weeknight dinner with one pot turkey pilaf: only 30 minutes to a healthy delicious dinner with minimal clean up plus leftovers.

Another busy week means another entry for my list of healthy and easy weeknight meals that anyone can make -- one-pot turkey pilaf.

Lazy me is a big fan of easy, one-pot dishes, as evidenced by some of my favorite recipes, including one-pot tomato basil pasta and healthy one-pot Asian pasta. I mean, seriously, what's not to love?

In less than half an hour, from start to finish, you can have a healthy, delicious dinner on the table. With leftovers for lunch the next day, too.

Skinny taco soup

This skinny taco soup has all the flavor and crunch of a loaded taco but in a healthy, easy-to-make, comfort-food soup.

Does anyone make soup in the summer? Or is it just a cold-weather comfort-food thing? Which it definitely is for me.

And I particularly love a good, hearty soup -- not quite as thick as a stew but still filling enough to be an entire meal unto itself.

This skinny taco soup is just such a soup. It's got all flavors of a taco -- spicy chilis, browned turkey, crunchy tortillas and sharp cheddar cheese --  in an easy-to-make soup. Plus there's a whole load of good-for-you beans and veggies thrown in to make it a healthy weeknight meal.

Carrot and turkey pasta

Enjoy this easy, healthy pasta recipe that features lots of good-for-you carrots, lean ground turkey and dried plums. 

I'm pretty psyched about this carrot and turkey pasta, peeps. Read that sentence again and you'll know why. Carrots. As the main ingredient in a pasta dish.

And -- wait for it -- it doesn't suck.

So much so that it got two thumbs up from Mr. Ninj, and regular readers know that's like having your picky three-year-old eater declare that she is a devoted fan of lentils salads.

Now that you're already reeling from the fact that a carrot-based pasta is awesome, let me turn it up to eleven: There are also prunes in this pasta dish.

Whoops, sorry, I meant dried plums. Apparently prunes got a bad rep as prunes and have now been reinvented as dried plums. The plum formerly known as a prune.

Whatevs. I still love prunes. I mean dried plums.

And I've got 'em in this pasta, adding a little touch of natural sweetness.

Best Thanksgiving leftovers recipes

Enjoy these eight great recipes for using your Thanksgiving leftovers in delicious new dishes the whole family will love.

Happy Leftovers Week!

If you've been reading my pre-Thanksgiving blog posts, you know The Ninj is all about the leftovers -- so much so that I shared new leftovers recipes even before Thanksgiving day arrived!

Now it's time for the leftovers to have their chance to shine. They were delicious on the the big day, but now they can be so much more. Whether it's a healthy salad, a creamy pasta dish or much more decadent tater tots, The Ninj has got you covered:

Turkey cordon bleu pasta

Use your holiday leftovers in this recipe for deconstructed turkey (or chicken) cordon bleu pasta: quick and easy to make, lighter than you'd think.

As I promised last week, I'm continuing my Thanksgiving leftovers posts this week, despite the fact that Thanksgiving hasn't even arrived yet, because I love using up the leftovers almost as much as preparing the holiday feast. So much so that a reader suggested I make two turkeys this year.

An excellent suggestion!

Since there are only so many turkey sandwiches that you can eat before you get sick of the stuff, I like to change it up with different kinds of dishes, such as last week's turkey, apple and fennel bread salad (I'm still eating it regularly, people -- it's that good). Another great one? Today's turkey cordon bleu pasta.

Yes, pasta! You know, because nearly all my favorite comfort foods are pasta, I swear.

Now, this is not quite the same as the chicken cordon bleu you might be envisioning -- there's no pounding, no stuffing, no breading, no layering and nothing at all French-ish (even though traditional Chicken Cordon Bleu, I'm told, is all-American and has nothing to do with France or the similarly named culinary institute -- go figure). So it's more of a deconstructed chicken cordon bleu. But with turkey. And pasta.

Turkey tetrazzini

Use holiday leftovers in this creamy turkey tetrazzini, comfort-food pasta made with homemade, DIY condensed soup.

This recipe for turkey tetrazzini is a first for me: It's one I'm posting at the request of my readers.

Before Thanksgiving, we were having a discussion on my Facebook page about our favorite Thanksgiving leftovers. You know, the ones that you look forward almost a bit more than the turkey feast itself? For me, it's a tie between all-the-trimmings turkey sandwiches and turkey tetrazzini.

Apparently turkey tetrazzini is a favorite among my readers as well, as many of them asked me to share my recipe.

So here it is -- but with a ninja twist: NO CONDENSED SOUP!

Whoot! Yep, you got it -- no condensed soup.

And the extra bonus? Within the recipe you make your own homemade version of condensed crream of chicken soup, which you can use for any other recipe that calls for canned cream-of-whatevs soup.

Perfect: This means that you, like I, can now stop ignoring 80 percent of the crockpot recipes on Pinterest!

Crockpot white bean chili with chicken and corn

Need a quick dinner? Try this easy set-it-and-forget-it slow cooker white bean chili with chicken or turkey and corn.

With less than a week to go until Thanksgiving, my Facebook feed is full of nothing but pictures of Thanksgiving dishes.

If I see one more photo of pumpkin pie, I may spontaneously combust.

So, since we've all got our hands full with planning the big meal or getting prepped for the over-the-river-and-through-the-woods roadtrip, The Ninj decided you need a break from all this holiday fallderall.

Get out yer crockpot and make yer life easy: whip up a big batch of chili so you can get on with everything else on your list.

I wound up creating this chili based on one that I tasted as part of a chili cookoff a few weeks ago at which I, The Ninj, was asked to be the "celebrity judge" (their words, not mine).

OMG, peeps, someone considers me a freakin' celebrity. I am so stoked.

At the cookoff, I tasted twelve different chili recipes in about fifteen minutes. Dudes: that's a lot of chili that, frankly, all started to taste the same after about six samples.

Except one.

Sweet and spicy poultry rub

Try this easy recipe for sweet and spicy rub on chicken, turkey, steak, even veggies for tangy BBQ flavor.

I've never been much on rubs. Whenever I see some kind of rub for a steak described on a restaurant menu, I think, "Meh. So what?"

But, as with so many things I have discovered since I started blogging, I didn't know what I was missing.

Well, maybe not on steak -- I'm still pretty much a purist in that department -- but definitely for poultry.

ZOMG, peeps, this is a seriously good rub. Transformational, even. In that it transforms a simple chicken or turkey into a crispy, sweet-yet-spicy bundle of awesomeness.

I don't know about you but, until I started using this rub on chicken, I never ever ever ate cooked chicken skin. Watching other people do it actually grossed me out. To me, it just was NOT something that you ate. It was merely the packaging on the outside that you removed to get to the real food.

As I said, UNTIL I used this rub.

The first time I baked a chicken with the rub, I took it out of the oven to cool and was intrigued by how aromatic and gorgeous the skin was. So I took a little nibble.

SQUEEEEEEEE!

All I can say is that if you like BBQ potato chips, you'll be in heaven.

Chicken and biscuit casserole

Chicken and biscuits: is there really any more perfect comfort food?

OK, well, yes, a boatload of salted oatmeal cookies would be even more perfect in my book, so I should have clarified:

Is there any more perfect dinnertime comfort food?

I'm excited to share this particular version of chicken and biscuits with you for several reasons:

1) It's the result of a little Ninja-like recipe fusion
2) It's the perfect vehicle for Thanksgiving leftovers (because clearly you realize "Chicken and Biscuits" can easily become "Turkey and Biscuits")

And, since today is Thanksgiving for my Canadian friends (have a happy one, peeps!) and our own version is rapidly approaching, it's also very timely.

Fusion-wise, here's the story. Despite my love of bacon, I'm always trying to work more healthy, veggie-packed dishes into our dinner routine. Unfortunately, as regular readers will recall, Mr. Ninj is not a fan of most vegetables: he has texture issues. Tops on the texture issue list is squash. Even yummy squash like acorn or butternut -- even bathed in maple syrup and butter -- get a big thumbs-down.

Sniff: more foods to add to my ever-growing "recipes to make only when Mr. Ninj is out of town" list.

Therefore,  I came across a "turkey pot pie" recipe that included a sweet potato topping, I figured I'd be OK. I mean, sweet potatoes are just potatoes, right?

Wrong. Apparently they are too closely aligned with squash, both in color and texture.

(I know, right? WTF?)

I, on the other hand, loved the recipe and wasn't quite willing to let it go. Since it billed itself as "pot pie" (the only pot pie-ish thing was the filling, though), I realized I could probably substitute a bready or crusty topping and still be able to keep it in the recipe rotation.

So I pulled out my secret weapon: easy-peasy drop biscuits. I made the "pot pie" filling and topped it with some blobs of biscuit dough and baked that bad boy into a rich, comforting casserole.

Folks, we have a winner.

Black Friday turkey sandwich buns

Homemade sandwich buns, perfect for burgers or day-after-Thanksgiving turkey sandwiches.

Sandwich buns

We still have two days to go before the big day and I'm already thinking about the Thanksgiving leftovers.

Via some Facebook chatter, I learned I'm not alone in cooking way too big a bird every year just so I can have tons of extra turkey. Nor am I the only crazy that has actually cooked an entire second Thanksgiving meal after the big day because on the main day I was a guest in someone else's house and needed to create my own carcass to make quarts of turkey stock.

Leftover obsession can become unhealthy, though. True story: a few years ago, one of my friends left her relative's Thanksgiving table starving and had to microwave a Lean Cuisine once she got home because the aforementioned relative had preemptively put "leftovers" aside before serving the meal, leaving not enough food to feed her guests.

Just so we're clear, I'm not that obsessed with leftovers. Cripes, I didn't think anyone could be that obsessed with leftovers. That's just bat-shit crazy, not obsessed.

Anyhoo...

Crockpot turkey chili with butternut squash & apples ... and best-evah cornbread!

Easy crockpot turkey chili with black beans, butternut squash and apples -- plus the best-evah cornbread muffins!

Turkey chili and cornbread

Cold, rainy days just scream out for a big pot of chili.

What makes that pot of chili even better is when it's cooked in a crockpot all day long so you can go off and do other things.

Winner!

Speaking of winners, I made this chili a few years ago for an employee chili cookoff when I was working at a large security software firm (they called it the "Super Bowl of Chili" -- yeah, that's what passed for funny and clever to software developers). I did not win (so I guess the "speaking of winners" segue was a bit misleading -- sorry) but believe me when I tell you that I taught that group of geeks a thing or two about food presentation.

I like this chili recipe because it is loaded with veggies and the rest of the ingredients lean a bit to the lighter side; it has plenty of spice and flavor without promising to give you heartburn ... or worse.

Strawberry-rhubarb chutney: a recipe

Strawberry-rhubarb chutney, not compote

I've been calling this recipe a compote all week but then had a second thought.

It could be a chutney.

(I honestly didn't know what makes them different.)

Hello, Google.

Here it is: chutney is made of cooked fruit and vegetables (not just fruit) and contains vinegar. A compote, on the other hand, is simply fruit cooked in sugar syrup.

So this strawberry-rhubarb bad boy is in fact a chutney.

I stand corrected. And so does the title of my post now.

This strawberry-rhubarb CHUTNEY is very easy to prepare and so perfectly seasonal right now. I served it with some roasted chicken breasts (it cooks while they do): absolutely the perfect accompaniment. I'm sure it would also be fabulous with pork tenderloin.

Detox January, Week 1: Fruity Israeli couscous

Fruity Israeli couscous with chicken

Detox January does not, I repeat, does not involve eating miniscule portions of carboard and kale.

Well, we eat kale but usually with some kind of snappy salad dressing, rather than cardboard.

Really, I'm just trying to point out that you don't have to go on a hardcore diet or cleanse to eat a little better and be a little healthier to feel a little better, which is the goal of Detox January.

(Sidebar: What the hell is up with the cleanse craze right now? It's like the hair shirt of eating. I mean, doing penance for a few weeks is not going to help you get healthier in the long run. As Jason Gay wrote in his recent humorous article in the Wall Street Journal, "There is no secret. Exercise and lay off the fries. The end.")

Enter this lovely pasta dish, which started out life as a side dish (perfect with roast chicken or pork tenderloin) but makes a wicked awesome main with the addition of some cooked chicken or turkey.

Turkey and bean gratin: a recipe and a revelation

Turkey, bean and potato gratin with kale, un-Photoshopped

Maybe it was the flurry of Thanksgiving food creation -- planning, shopping, prepping, cooking and eating -- last week, but this week I've been feeling menu- and motivation-challenged.

Honestly, I sat with all the December foodie mags for hours and couldn't come up with a single thing I wanted to make this week.

It nearly gave me a panic attack.

Once I calmed down, I decided to wing it with some leftovers and wound up creating this hearty and yummy turkey, bean and potato gratin with kale. Quick, easy and very satisfying, and I even managed to get a couple of photos of it before we ate it.

But my near-panic attack made me stop and take a breath. Am I wound that tightly, I thought? Crap, I hope not. I mean, this isn't even a paying gig!

In fact, I've recently been feeling a bit depressed by the whole blogging adventure, which you may know I took on not only to give myself a creative outlet but also to get back to my writing roots with a goal of taking on some freelance projects. (As I said to someone recently, it's only "freelance" if someone pays you, otherwise, it's just free.) And it has been fun, no doubt. But the more I get involved in the food blogging community, the more inadequate it can sometimes make me feel.

Let me explain.

Baked apple, smoked turkey and cheddar strata: a recipe

Foliage, not strata

We've been through this before, but some dishes simply don't photograph well.

Just in case you were wondering why there's a picture of some lovely fall foliage rather than some strata.

I tried, really I did. I even bought a cool new blue plate to add a pop of color. But three shades of beige are just three shades of beige -- albeit on a cool blue plate.

So you get foliage instead: colorful rather than colorless.

However, don't discount the strata itself. I decided to make it last Monday, as a tip o' the hat to Canadian Thanksgiving, and it didn't disappoint. Fall flavors wrapped up in baked custardy goodness: perfect for either dinner or brunch.

I'm happy to report also that it comes from Melissa Pasanen's and Rick Gencarelli's Cooking with Shelburne Farms, so it's a recipe right from my neck of the woods. As regular readers know, I'm lucky enough to have recently moved to Vermont, which is handily helping me fulfill my goals of eating locally daily.

What we ate this week: Detox January Week 1

Me with Elvis tribute artist Keith Henderson

Happy Elvis' Birthday!

Well, actually, it's tomorrow (January 8), but I don't post on Saturdays so you're getting the love and cheer a day early.

I'd love to hear if you've joined us for Detox January and how it's going for you.

Here's a roundup of some of the things we ate during Week 1:

• Chicken Larb -- I served this with naan rather than on lettuce leaves and used the leftovers to make a pizza
• Chicken and Blue Cheese Salad -- one of my old standbys, I make this frequently with leftover chicken or turkey. It's quick, easy and very satisfying (you could omit the meat and have a great vegetarian meal salad, too)
• Fresh Salmon and Lime Cakes -- I modified this recipe by not frying the cakes at all but instead baked them at 425 degrees for about 10 minutes (turned out perfectly!)

If you need a splurge, may I recommend The King's favorite?

Turkey tetrazzini: a recipe

UPDATE: Make my new, even better turkey tetrazzini without canned condensed soup!

I don't know about you, but I have a whole line-up of post-Thanksgiving recipes that call for leftover turkey. In fact, I purposely cook an extra-large bird every year to ensure I have enough.

I actually get excited thinking about these dishes that only make an annual appearance -- sort of like Santa.

When I start cooking the bird on Thanksgiving day, I want to shout out the names of all the recipes it will become, like the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie bemoans all the leftovers that will never be, thanks to the Bumpus hounds.

Turkey stock! Turkey tetrazzini! Turkey magiritsa! Turkey enchiladas!

Deep-fried turkey: a Thanksgiving adventure

Nothing says "Thanksgiving" quite like cooking the big bird in the driveway with a fire extinguisher nearby.

This is the fourth year that we've fried a turkey and I think we finally got it right. The first year we did it strictly for the novelty and found it a bit dry. After that, it became a challenge.

Year two was still too dry. Year three we went so far as to cook up a marinade and inject it directly into the breast meat -- still not very moist, believe it or not.

This year, we read the instruction manual a wee bit more closely and lowered the oil temperature just a tad. Success! An amazingly moist bird.

Not to mention the quality family time spent on the driveway.

I mean, while you're waiting for the turkey to achieve that crispy-yet-moist delectable goodness, why not launch some skeet into the woods and see how many trees you can hit?

Hope your turkey day was just as much as fun.