Middle Eastern Turkey Burgers with Cucumber & Yoghurt sauce AND NY Street Vendor Salad from It's all Good.

Gobble Gobble!!

I have always prided myself on the fact that I was a good eater as a child. My first memories of turkey though tell a different story. One night when it was just me eating dinner at the kitchen bench, my mum tried to pass it up as chicken, now being the little cheeky know-it-all I was I knew it wasn't chicken. I refused to eat it and it's the one and only time I was made to sit there until I'd finished it all, normally my plate would be completely empty and I would ask for a piece of bread to mop up what was left.

This experience left me with a nasty taste for turkey for a fair few years. It has only been in the past couple that I now have learnt to love the funny looking bird that comes out mostly for celebrations or on a sandwich smothered with mayo and bursting with crunchy lettuce. I think Jamie Oliver and Nigella Lawson are to thank for bringing the idea of liking turkey back into my life with their Christmas TV shows. The idea of Christmas being celebrated during the cold months with everyone crowded around a full table of food with the turkey as the centre piece. Sounds like so much fun! oooo and there has to be an open fire and goblets of wine... ok the goblets may be a little over-kill.

In Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen's book It's all Good they cook with a lot of turkey and its simple recipes that don't require you to roast a whole bird. A whole roast turkey would be great for a special occasion or even the Sunday roast if you have a large family or love leftovers, saying that I have had one of the best turkey pies ever at a work team meeting in the past. I've heard some great reviews on the Turkey meatballs from this cookbook but never yet cooked anything from it. So what was I waiting for?

I chose to try the Middle Eastern Turkey Burgers with Cucumber & yoghurt sauce and when the little blurb at the top of the recipe says they are especially good alongside the NY Street Vendor salad how could I stop at only one recipe in this book?!

The burgers were super easy to make. Bung a whole load of ingredients in the food processor then mix them all together with the turkey mince. Shape into patties, let sit for a little bit while you prep the salad and sauce then get grilling! The cucumber and yoghurt sauce to go with it was pretty good too, very refreshing! I used greek yoghurt because it's what we had and a few less herbs... my mint is not doing so well. Mr Caterpillar has made it his new home.

The salad was pretty much like the normal green salad I make at home to go with dinner when the lettuce is on its last legs, but that the dressing was pretty kick-ass. I've never used tahini before and had no idea where to find it in the supermarket on Monday night. I'm walking up and down the supermarket isles looking for TAR-HEE-NEE... for what? TAR-HEE-NEE! Yes I have no idea how to say it and was pretty sure I was saying it very wrong walking up and down the isles talking loudly to Tristan who kept asking 'what are we looking for?' TAR-HEE-NEE I kept repeating back to him. Tahini is kept in the health food section. I should have know better after reading this cookbook that I would most probably find it there but I was too stubborn to ask for help.

I felt so healthy after dinner. Not over full or frumpy. It was such a fresh and scrumptious dinner for a cold night. And a great one handed dinner for my one armed patient at the moment. And it was great for lunch the next day! We ate it with a soft white bun but it would be great by itself with just the salad.

...terrible terrible photo's....

Middle Easter Turkey Burgers with Cucumber & Yoghurt sauce from It's all GoodBy Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen.

makes 4 burgers

For the burgers:
4 shallots, roughly chopped
2 garlic cloves, crushed
2 tsp dried oregano
8 large basil leaves
3 handfuls of baby spinach
zest of 1 lemon
1 tsp coarse salt
1/2 tsp freshly ground pepper
500g turkey mince
2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

4 Soft white bread rolls (optional)

For the Sauce:
(recipe adapted)
1 cup greek yoghurt
2 spring onions, finely sliced
1/2 english cucumber, peeled and diced
1 tbsp mint leaves, finely sliced
1 tbsp chives, finely chopped
1/2 tsp coarse salt

Burgers:
- Put shallots, garlic, oregano, basil, spinach, lemon zest, salt and pepper in the food processor and pulse until it becomes almost a paste. Pour into a bowl and add the turkey mince. Using a fork, mix everything together and form into 4 patties. Let sit in the fridge for about an hour (if possible).

- When ready to cook the patties, brush them with olive oil and grill on a medium heat until cooked through. Serve with the yoghurt sauce (on a soft white bun... optional).

Sauce:
-Mix everything together and keep in firdge until ready to serve.

NY Vendor Salad with Yoghurt-Tahini Dressing from It's all Good By Gwyneth Paltrow and Julia Turshen.
Serves 4
(recipe adapted)

1 baby cos lettuce, chopped
a cup of cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 english cucumber, peeled and chopped
1/3 red onion, finely sliced
1x Yoghurt Tahini dressing recipe (below)

Arrange lettuce, tomatoes, cucumber and onion on plate or in serving bowl and drizzle dressing over the top. It is quite rich so don't go too crazy with it. I'm a salad drowner through and through so I had to be careful with this dressing.

Yoghurt Tahini Dressing:
2 tbsp tahini
1/4 cup boiling water
1/2 small clove of garlic, minced
1/2 cup greek yoghurt
3 tbsp lemon juice
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 tsp coarse salt
1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper

- Whisk tahini and water together until completely combined. Add remaining ingredients, whisking everything together. Dress salad.. don't drown it!

Ragu alla Bolognese (Beef Ragu) from My Berlin Kitchen - A love story (with Recipes).

One of the best food memoirs I have read is My Berlin Kitchen - a love story (with Recipes) by Luisa Weiss from the blog The Wednesday Chef. It is heartfelt and honest and full of mouthwatering recipes that made you feel like you were on one of her secret Berlin weekends eating pizza on the balcony or rugged up in her Berlin kitchen through her first winter there.

My copy of her book is full of tabbed pages with recipes to try. I have even gone so far as looking up how to grow elderflower bushes in pots to make her elderflower cordial and where to buy them online. And the stories about fruit picking... I just love the idea of going fruit picking then making jams and compotes out of it to have for months after when the fruit is no longer in season but the memory of the times you had while picking are in that thick slather you put on toast or add to a pudding. Sounds so poetic. Oh and I adore the love story in it and the happy ending. I'm a sucker for a happy ending!

One of the worst things about the book is that it ended... I could have kept on reading more and more but thank goodness she has her blog, The Wednesday Chef. She started her blog to cook through her mountain of newspaper clippings she had collected.

I've been wanting to make a recipe from My Berlin Kitchen ever since I finished reading it to keep the story going and one of my favourite foods as a kid was Spaghetti bolognese. I have done my research and much more food educated now in that fact that in Italy, there is no such thing as spaghetti bolognese. The meat sauce needs a thicker pasta for the sauce to cling to as you twirl your fork full of pasta and fill your gob.  There was no way I could pass up the Ragu alla Bolognese (Beef Ragu) in the book on a cloudy Sunday afternoon. So few ingredients and so much trust needed not to add anything extra. And no I did not use spaghetti for those Italian's out there...I used fettuccini.

Now just a little about my childhood... The bolognese my mum cooked was always made in a microwave until I was about ten years old. Yes I said microwave. Microwave cooking was the height of technology in the 90's and my mum loved it! She could make bolognese, risotto, lamb chops, quiche, pasta, rice... you name it and my mum could cook it in a microwave. My sister and I never knew that the bolognese we were brought up on had a slight microwaved cooked meat smell and taste to it until we started having bolognese at other peoples houses and realised that mums tasted a little funny (at least she never put beans in hers!). One night we asked her, treading ever so carefully so we didn't hurt her feelings, if she could cook it on the stove tonight and she did. From that day on she never went back to the microwave (for bolognese) and I have never had a microwaved bolognese from that day onwards again.

Back to Luisa's Ragu... all I wanted to do was add some garlic or add a bay leaf or teaspoon of dried oregano but she specifically says - "don't follow the urge to add celery, a bay leaf or a dash of cinnamon. You'll be rewarded for your obedient focus with a meat sauce that truly tastes of Italy" - I trusted her. I did what she said and was I rewarded?... yes! An extra hour cooking and I'm sure I would be even more rewarded but time is of the essence and as much as I wish I was organised enough to start it 5 hours before we wanted to sit down and eat dinner, I'm just not that organised (yet). The sauce is as simple as beef mince, pork mince, carrot, onion, olive oil, butter, pureed tomatoes and some salt. Oh and some red wine but thats a given because you're already going to open a bottle, right?
Don't let these simple every day ingredients fool you. This combination will make you rethink your own bolognese ragu recipe.

So delicious served over steaming pasta with some freshly grated parmesan. Lip licking good!

Pretty excited that we have some leftovers in the freezer for a quick mid-week dinner.

Jamie Oliver's Pork Meatloaf and Spaghetti sauce from Save with Jamie.

A little too hungry for our own good...I wasn't too sure if I should write about this recipe purely for the fact that we'd eaten nearly the entire dinner before I realised I hadn't taken a single photo. Ooops! Is it even worth taking a photo of half eaten dinner?? I wasn't sure but did anyway.

I love meatloaf and I love spaghetti so there wasn't anything not to love about Jamie Oliver's Pork Meatloaf with Spaghetti sauce from Save with Jamie. It was super easy too with not too many dishes at the end to clean up and the chilli's in it were great. As Jamie puts it 'The chillies add great depth to this sauce...' and they do. It's a nice surprise of heat when you think you've got a carrot and its half a chilli. I used the larger red chilli's, not the small birds eye... they might be a little too hot for my liking.

This was a recipe that didn't require the entire kitchen cupboard contents plus the kitchen sink in the ingredient list like some of Jamie Oliver's recipes do. It was simple and easy, like his Naked Chef days. There was no funny ingredients, just good old weeknight cooking. Now I say 'good old' but lets be honest. This was not your average meatloaf and not your average spaghetti sauce. This was a kick ass recipe I would definitely do again and again. I added double the amount of feta, by accident because I'm starting to think I might need glasses but it worked and I would probably add double the amount again when I make it another time.

It would be a great meal to have everything ready to go if you have people over. It wont break the bank and it's a little different take on a couple of classics. If someone served me this up, I'd be well chuffed - as Mr Oliver would put it.

This recipe can be found on JamieOliver.com -
Jamie Oliver's Pork Meatloaf with Spaghetti Sauce from Save with Jamie.

Jamie Magazine - Issue 17: Spaghetti and Meatballs.

I found some mince! Whoooraaah!! So I've been craving spicy meatballs for a few days now and since our noodle date was cancelled it meant that my meal plan for this week was messed up so I scavenged and found!

Not having access to my normal expanding bookshelf at the moment (we're house and dog sitting) I feel lost.... I looked in all the books I had copies of here and then in a couple of others that weren't mine and all the meatball recipes had a combination of meats and or had a fancy ingredient I didn't have or weren't the right meatballs I wanted. I wanted Spaghetti and meatballs tonight. Plain and simple... but do you think I could find a recipe with what was in my fridge and store cupboard easily... I suppose I could have improvised but that defeats the purpose of this blog and trying new things.

I looked online knowing I had all the Jamie Magazines at home and found a recipe for Spaghetti and meatballs. Since Jamie is one of my biggest food inspirations, I love young Jamie in 'the naked chef'!! I'm doing another Jamie Oliver recipe. This recipe is in his Jamie Magazine but by a woman called Georgia Levy and not by Mr Oliver himself. I read through it and yes it was another recipe which called for two types of mince. I decided to settle that the best meatballs are probably made with two types of mince and I am just going to have to suck it up and make it with the beef mince I had. It also wasn't spicy but that was easy enough to fix with a teaspoon of crushed dried chilli's.

There was one thing... I had always had an aversion to making meatballs with soggy bread in them, why? I'm not really sure. Just didn't like the idea of soaking bread and letting it get all squidgy and mushy. Why not just put those dried breadcrumbs you buy in the supermarket in them like my mother does? Her spaghetti and meatballs taste delicious so why change it? But as I am venturing into new undiscovered recipe land I decided to give up my aversion of soaking stale bread and did as the recipe said. It wasn't bad at all! I had expected to hate making them because of the texture when rolling them and squeezing the liquid out of the bread but it proved for some really tasty, soft meatballs.

Hmm... these photo's... I definitely have room to improve with props, styling and photography. Anyone got any tips??

Spaghetti and Meatballs by Georgia Levy in Jamie Magazine, Issue 17.
Serves 4
(Recipe adapted)

2 Garlic cloves (one crushed and one thinly sliced)
Olive oil
2 x 400g tins of chopped tomatoes
500g Beef mince
1 egg
1 small handful of toasted pine nuts
2 tbs chopped flat leaf parsley
3 tbs grated parmesan
30g (approx.) of stale bread
400g spaghetti
1/2 tsp chilli flakes
1 tsp sugar
Salt and Pepper to taste

- First soak your stale bread in some warm water for a couple of minutes. (If you have an aversion to this like I did, come join me and be a convert!)

- In a medium pot add the sliced garlic, dried chilli and some oil oil and cook till garlic is tender but not coloured. Add the canned chopped tomatoes and simmer on low.

- Squeeze the excess water out from your soaking bread and combine it with the crushed garlic clove, beef mince, egg, pine nuts, parsley, some salt and pepper. Mix it all up with your hands well and start shaping them into the size of a pingpong balls.

- Set a frying pan on medium heat with some olive oil and once the pan is hot add your meatballs and fry them until browned all over (do this in batches if you need to so you don't squash them too much).

- Once the meatballs are browned add them to the simmering sauce along with the sugar and cook for 10min.

- Cook the spaghetti in boiling salted water till al dente.

- Taste the sauce and see if you need to salt and pepper it then serve piping hot meatballs and tomato sauce over your spaghetti and top with some extra parmesan cheese and freshly cracked pepper. mmmm yum!