Pumpkin and Chilpotle Turkey Calzone

It has been five days since I last blogged but it feels like it has been forever.  I was sick most of last week with a nasty cold and just when I thought I was getting better, I got hit with a nasty flu bug.  I've spent most of the past five days sleeping and on a liquid diet of Gatorade and chicken broth.  But I'm slowly on the mend and I'm ready to get back into blogging.

Last week, I felt like I was in a cooking rut.  I rummaged through my freezer and I found a tin of Pumpkin Chilpotle Pesto that I purchased from Pestos with Panache at the Boston Food Truck Festival this past summer.  I also found a package of lean ground turkey in the freezer.  Using these two ingredients as a base, I decided to make a pumpkin and chilpotle turkey calzone.  I de-thawed the ground turkey and the tin of pesto in the fridge.  I then gathered up my ingredients - a jalapeno pepper, a log of goat cheese, one medium-sized onion and pizza dough.

I had a leftover jalapeno pepper from my beef and bean chili.  I de-seeded the pepper and chopped it up.

I warmed up a skillet on the stove at medium-high heat with a few tablespoons of vegetable oil.  The ground turkey was really lean so I kept a close eye on it to prevent it from over-cooking and becoming too dry. 

As the turkey began to brown, I added the chopped jalapeno to the pan.

While the turkey and jalapeno pepper was cooking, I quickly sliced up the onion thinly.

I added half the tin of the pumpkin and chilpotle pesto to the turkey and pepper mixture and gave it a stir.

I put the turkey mixture aside to cool.

I added some more vegetable oil to the pan and caramelized the onions.

When they were done, I also put the onions aside in a bowl to cool.

I then rolled out the pizza dough.  In hindsight I should have made two calzones but I was lazy and made one jumbo calzone.  I layered it with the caramelized onions and chunks of goat cheese, about 3/4 of the turkey mixture, and more onions and goat cheese.

I closed up the calzone, vented it and gave it a quick egg wash.

I baked the calzone on a parchment-lined baking sheet in the oven at 400 degrees for twenty minutes.  When the calzone was done it looked gorgeous  - crusty and golden brown.

The dough (although store-bought) was nice and chewy.  The turkey had a subtle pumpkin flavor and a nice mild level of heat.  The goat cheese was tangy and the caramelized onions added sweetness. 

I had a slice of the calzone with some simple Olivia's Organics 50/50 Blend tossed with a homemade olive oil and white champagne balsamic vinaigrette.

This was the last meal I had before the flu hit and Bret got to enjoy the rest of the leftovers while I lay sick in bed.  Since I've been out of touch, tell me - what's the best thing you cooked or ate this week?  Also, have you voted for Boston's Best Local Blogger yet?  I'm still in the running and would really appreciate your vote here!

Clean Out the Fridge: Fig & Gorgonzola Pesto Quinoa

Last Sunday night, I was eager to finally break open one of the tins of pesto that I purchased at the SOWA Food Truck Festival.  I first read about Pestos with Panache on Lara's blog - Good Cook Doris.  After meeting Lauren at the SOWA Food Truck Festival, the person behind all of these interesting pesto flavor combinations, I knew I had to buy some!  I've had these tins of pesto in my freezer for awhile and I finally opened up the Fabulous Fig & Gorgonzola pesto on Sunday night.

My original plan was to toss the pesto with some quinoa and black beans but with some fabulous leftover ingredients in my fridge, this pesto quinoa dish took a life of its own. 

I first got started on my quinoa.  I learned from my previous experience with quinoa and made only one cup in my rice cooker this time!

While the quinoa was cooking, I got to work on the rest of my ingredients.  I had chopped up an entire sweet potato on Friday night for my chicken tikka masala and I still had half of the chopped sweet potato in the fridge.

I also had half a large sweet onion leftover from the same dish and I sliced it up.

During the day, I made a panini with goat cheese, proscuitto and Stonewall Kitchen maple pumpkin butter.  I had a few slices of proscuitto leftover.

I roughly chopped the proscuitto up.

I warmed up a deep skillet pan on the stove top with some cooking spray and a small pat of butter.  I threw the chopped proscuitto in the pan.  While the proscuitto was crisping up, I drained and rinsed a can of black beans.

When the proscuitto was done, I removed it from the pan onto some paper towels to soak up some of the grease and then put it aside in a bowl. 

I put the onions in the pan with the proscuitto renderings.

After the onions browned a little, I added the sweet potatoes.

I seasoned the vegetables with salt and pepper.  I wanted to let the sweet potatoes cook through so I added some rose to deglaze the pan and a few sprigs of thyme.  I had some thyme left over from my cherry tomato and goat cheese tart.  I put a lid on the skillet and let the wine cook down.

When all of the rose cooked down, I removed the thyme and added the cooked quinoa.  I added about half of the pesto tin along with a drizzle of olive oil.  I took a photo of the pesto before I mixed all of the ingredients together but the photo came out a little dark.  I'm really hating how the end of summer means limited natural light for my photos.

The aroma was intoxicating and I was happy when I could finally dig in.

The quinoa had a nice sweetness from the fig pesto.  The onions and sweet potatoes definitely added to the sweetness. The gorgonzola flavor was definitely subtle but it went well with the crispy smoky proscuitto.  The use of quinoa and black beans made this a really hearty meal.

I added a simple side of Olivia's Organic's 50/50 Blend and this made for a really filling "clean out the fridge" dinner.

Do you like pesto?  Tell me about your most creative pesto dish!

Turkey and Spinach Lasagna

I have a confession to make.  I've never made a lasagna before.  I've certainly helped my mother make lasagnas before but I've never made one on my own.  This is probably for several reasons.  While I love lasagna, it is not at the top of my list of pasta dishes that I crave.  Plus, I've lived on my own for so many years and even living with my boyfriend now, a lasagna is just way too much food.  But I'm learning to be better about freezing meals, especially since I've started using a slow cooker this past year.  So I decided to make a healthy turkey and spinach lasagna dish for dinner on Friday night.  Plus, my friend KK was coming over for dinner and I needed to make something soft for dinner since she had just gotten her wisdom teeth out earlier in the week and was still recovering.

After putting in a few unavoidable hours in the office, I headed over to Whole Foods to pick up some ingredients.  I had so many fresh and packaged ingredients that I had to split them into two photos!

To start, I did a little prep work with my fresh ingredients.  I chopped up one yellow onion, minced five cloves of garlic, a few handfuls of basil and a small handful of flat Italian parsley.

I heated up a sauce pan on the stovetop and added a few tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil on medium high heat.  When the pan was hot, I added the chopped onions and cooked them until they were translucent.  I then added the garlic and cooked them for a few minutes before I added about one pound of ground turkey.  I cooked the turkey for about eight minutes - not quite browning it but just cooking it through.

I then added a large can of peeled and crushed tomatoes and gave it a good mix.  When the ingredients were all wet with the tomato puree, I added a can of tomato paste to help thicken up the sauce.  I seasoned the sauce with salt, fresh cracked black pepper, crushed red pepper flakes, and dry oregano.  I lowered the heat and put a lid on the pan and let the sauce simmer.  When the sauce was nearly done, I stirred in the chopped basil and parsley to the sauce and again let it simmer some more.

While the sauce was simmering, I got to work on the other ingredients for my lasagna.  I bought a huge pound box of washed and trimmed spinach.  Although the spinach was pre-washed, I gave them a quick rinse to add some moisture to the leaves and let them air dry..  I put a wok on medium heat and added the spinach in batches of about a quarter pound each.  The water helped the spinach wilt beautifully and I was in love with the vibrant green color of the spinach. 

When the spinach was done cooking, I put them in strainer to help get out some of the excess water.

My final ingredient to the lasagna was probably the easiest.  I took a container of low-fat ricotta cheese and added some leftover grated Parmesan cheese (I'd guess it was a little under a half a cup), one white egg, and fresh cracked black pepper.  I mixed the ingredients together but didn't want to overwork the cheese.

Then came the fun part - putting together the lasagna.  While B was absent in the kitchen during the cooking, he wanted to participate in the actual construction of the lasagna.  First, B gave a 9 x 13 baking dish a nice coating of cooking spray.  On the bottom layer, I added about a third of my turkey red sauce and spread it out for a nice thin layer on the bottom of the dish.  Next, I added the lasagna noodles. Since this was my first attempt at lasagna, I decided to cheat and use the no-bake noodles.  After the noodles, B spread out a thin layer of the ricotta cheese mixture.  This was a bit difficult as the cheese was thick but I reminded him that it didn't need to be perfect!  I added a healthy layer of shredded mozzarella cheese along with a layer of the wilted spinach.  This was the first layer and we repeated this step two more times.  We topped the lasagna with a layer of lasagna noodles, sauce and then a healthy spread of mozzarella cheese along with a sprinkling of Parmesan cheese (although this was of the leftover pre-packaged variety since I used all of our fresh grated cheese earlier with the ricotta mixture). 

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Since KK wasn't coming over for dinner for a few hours, we put the lasagna in the fridge.  Meanwhile, I got to work on a simple salad to accompany our lasagna.  I planned on using half a package of Olivia's Organics 50/50 Blend, which is half baby spinach and half spring mix.  I washed a package of beautiful cherry tomatoes in a variety of colors - red, organge, yellow and even purple.  They were too gorgeous for me to pass up.

About an hour before dinner, I put it in the oven at 350 degrees for an hour. About forty-five minutes into cooking, I realized forgot to cover the lasagna with foil while it was baking. But this ended up being a great mistake because it resulted in a nice crispy top layer. For the last fifteen minutes, the lasagna baked with an aluminum foil that had a nice coat of cooking spray on the side facing the lasagna

When it was actually dinner time, I put the greens and the tomatoes together with half a package of Olivia's Croutons in the Parmesan Pepper seasoning.  B made a dressing for the salad on the side that consisted of white champagne balsamic vinegar, olive oil, garlic powder, oregano and rosemary. 

The dinner was simple, hearty and tasty.  We all had second helpings of both the lasagna and the salad, although about half of the lasagna ended up in the freezer for a lazy day where we don't feel like cooking.  The entire meal was fantastic with a bottle (or two...or three) of red wine. 

We ended the night with a tasty dessert that KK made that consisted of spice cake, shredded carrots, crushed pineapples and nuts - topped with a scoop of vanilla ice cream.  The cake was so moist and I loved it because it wasn't too sweet.  The best part is that she made this in her slow cooker and I've already bugged her to send me the recipe!

This was my first attempt at cooking a lasagna and I think it was a success.  But with a freezer full of lasagna, I think it will be awhile before I attempt to make it again!  What's your favorite recipe to make lasagna?